The iChurch Method 2: Changing The World When You Login

Here it is, the Highly Anticipated next edition in The iChurch Method series. The iChurch Method 2: Changing the World When You Login. Pre-Order Yours Today

Volume 2 in the amazing iChurch Method series, the purpose of this book is to continue to help ministries and businesses advance online. Continuing with the five part approach to taking your ministry/business online and reaching the world:

Part 1: Website – Interactive websites Part 2: Multimedia – Internet Church Campus Part 3: Ecommerce – Online Stores/Online Donations - Part II Part 4: Social Media – The Rise of Visual Social Media Part 5: Mobile – Mobile Websites and Apps

With these five parts, a ministry can reach and change the world. The iChurch Method is a MUST READ for every ministry leader who desires to have a global presence online.

Your Pre-Ordered Book will arrive by May 1, 2013 and your Ebook will be available via download by May 1, 2013. Pre-Order Yours Today

The iChurch Method Podcasts

Stay updated on all The iChurch Method Podcasts via iTunes or the great iPhone/iPad Podcasts app. The iChurch Method has numerous audio and video podcasts that you can take with you and listen to topics from The iChurch Method anywhere, anyplace, anytime. To Subscribe to The iChurch Method Podcast CLICK HERE

The iChurch Method Book is now on Apple iBooks

The iChurch Method is now available for your iPhones and iPads. In addition to being on the Kindle, Nook and PDF format, we have made this book available to the millions of iBooks readers that were requesting the book in this format.

How Entrepreneurs can better use Technology [Audio Interview]

In this audio podcast interview, I discussed how entrepreneurs can better utilize technology in order to help expand and enhance their business. [ylwm_vimeo height="400" width="600"]47572965[/ylwm_vimeo]

Church Social Media and Technology Presentation Excerpt

In July I was in LA for the FICWFM conference and presented a session on Church Social Media and Technology. Here is a short excerpt from the session and as soon as the final version is edited and released I will have it here on The iChurch Method. [ylwm_vimeo height="400" width="600"]46858607[/ylwm_vimeo]

Church Technology, bring the people in or take ministry to the people?

I was having a conversation with a childhood friend (who is now a pastor) about Church and Technology and we came to a crossroads about how we thought churches should utilize technology. We both agree that churches should use technology to reach people and expand the outreach of the ministry, but he asked me how often does technology result in additional people in the sanctuary. My approach to technology and the entire premise of The iChurch Method was to use technology to take the ministry to the people. I developed a strategy that would inform your local congregation and give them a way to connect with the ministry online, increase your online audience that is not local by providing them online tools to connect and providing information for future church supporters by positioning the ministry to be accessible in numerous ways via technology. To help churches make sure they were taking ministry to the people, a supplement to their base premise of creating a location for people to come, get healed, change their lives and participate in ministry.

It never occurred to me that there was a focus by pastors to utilize technology to get people into the sanctuary OVER building an online audience and increasing the supporters that may never set foot inside the church. It appears easy for pastors to understand tv ministries and using TBN or The Church Channel to broadcast their churches to millions around the world and look for donations from their tv supporters, whom may never step foot into the sanctuary. But there seems to be a disconnect by these same pastors when it comes to building an online ministry using video, social media, mobile devices and streaming to build an online audience that they may never see but will still support the ministry via online donations.

Therefore, I believe that churches, ministries, pastors and Christianity in general will need to embrace technology, invest in online ministries, websites, mobile solutions and social media. Churches will need to continue to take the ministry to the people and make sure whatever device a person picks up, their ministry is accessible from it and accept the fact that online audiences will continue to grow and the church will have supporters that they see every weekend for services and supporters that they don’t see but still embrace the church as well. What are your thoughts on Churches embracing technology?

FICWFM conference event (Updated with Presentation)

On Thursday, July 26, 2012 I taught at the FICWFM conference in Los Angeles, CA. It was a session on How Churches can best use Social Media and other aspects of the iChurch Method. The session was a great success and many churches were able to get a better grasp of how to use technology and social media to advance their ministry online.

Here is the PPT presentation from my session - FICWFM social media conference presenation (PDF file).

Evolution of Digital Ministry

I was reading an article on the evolution of digital ministry and it gave a good explanation of where the church had been and where it was today. I spoke about this just last week at the Pastors and Leadership Conference in Orlando Florida. I explained to people that my job within the ministry was to make sure the ministry was able to utilize the most current technology that is available today as well as forecast where technology was going and make sure the ministry would be able to utilize that as well. As I read about where digital ministry had been, I started to see a more clear picture of how it got to where it is today and where it is going. Here is a recap: In 2000…Websites An increasing number of churches recognized the value of a church website. It was a digital land rush where most sites served as a digital billboard or brochures highlighting the church’s ministries. Unfortunately, this approach offered little value past the first visit. The website was a one way communication where churches broadcasted information to online users such as service time, location and church information.

In 2003…Multimedia As bandwidth access grew in homes, more churches saw the potential to distribute sermons and other media to a much broader audience than their brick and mortar congregations. Thus they started having archived multimedia on their website (audio and video) and using flash on their websites.

In 2006…Ecommerce Content management systems rose to popularity as churches took control of maintaining their own content through blogs, event calendars, and other features. Church websites transitioned from being a static brochure to a dynamic magazine. The arrival of e-commerce came with online donations and online stores.

In 2009…Social Media Many churches start implementing streaming sermons, social media (Twitter and Facebook), and some offer a church online experience (internet campus v1) complete with worship, sermons, instant chat, and online prayer.

In 2012…Mobile (and more social media) Due to smart phones, mobile web browsing is surging, but most church sites are clunky to navigate in a mobile browser. Church apps and mobile sites are becoming more interactive and facilitating a way to interact and communicate with the ministry. Social media integration is growing with a focus on social streams and social sharing of church content.

In 2015…Internet Campus/Internet TV/The Cloud With 4G and eventually 5G internet access the cloud will become a larger player in bringing technical costs down in online ministry. Online software such as Google Apps and Dropbox will be integrated into ministry technical solutions and work will not be limited to onsite at an office but be anywhere via a tablet or other mobile device. Sharing everything via social media will become more common with options such as seamless sharing via the social graph and facebook. Online Interactive Internet Campuses will become more common and triple in numbers. Church attendance will increase 50% but not in actual pew numbers, but due to online members who support churches from their computers and mobile devices. Internet TV will become more common with internet enabled televisions and internet tv devices becoming more powerful and common.

This evolution of digital ministry is the basis for The iChurch Method, as you can see each year highlighted above has a topic that was prevalent at the time next to it and these correspond to the chapters in the iChurch Method book, Websites, Multimedia, Ecommerce, Social Media and Mobile. This is the order we believe that your church online strategy should take. And of course the 2015 hot topics are what the next edition of the iChurch Method will focus on...stay tuned.

What role should social media play in the church's web strategy

I was doing an interview for a conference I was speaking at and a great question was posed to me. The question was "What role should social media play in the church's web strategy?" As I took a second to think about the question, I came to this conclusion. I believe that social media is a great outreach tool for ministry and should be treated as such. The church should use Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Youtube as additional ways to reach people and expand the online congregation, but not as a main focus of the online outreach as the website is utilized. Social Media is a great free tool but it is controlled by outside companies and should be considered as such, an outside tool for ministry. On the other hand, the church's website is owned by the ministry and should be the focus of all online ministry efforts, very similar to how outreach ministries are extensions of the local church. Online ministry efforts should mimic offline ministry efforts and here are great examples. The church's website (online) should be likened to the church's local building. This is the main place where people gather and get the majority of their ministry and information from the church. The online store is similar to the church's bookstore, a source for products that the church creates as well as other products the church considers important. Social Media is similar to the numerous outreach ministries that the church supports and utilizes to reach the people outside the walls of the buliding. When outreach ministries go out and does ministry for members and non-members of the congregation, they are representing the church and attempting to bring people back to the church to join and support the ministry. Likewise, when content from the church is pushed out via social media, it should have links that go back to the church's website so that people that are on facebook, twitter, youtube or google+ can receive the updates and then click a link back to the church's website for more information.

Just as a church would not focus all it's efforts on a single outreach ministry, the church should not focus it's entire online ministry efforts on social networks, they are just extensions of the website and a way to get people back to the website. A good online strategy should be a website, social media, blog, online store, online donations, email blasts, online video, mobile and online learning. These areas are a good start and even though you may not be able to do them all, add in as many as you can and go from there. If you want a great book on how to take advantage of these online tool then check out The iChurch Method: How to Advance Your Ministry Online.

What is The iChurch Method?

The iChurch Method is simple: a method to help ministries advance the Kingdom online and take the gospel to the world. It’s a five part approach to taking your ministry online and reaching the world: Part 1: Website – A Great Website that is Easy-to-Use. Part 2: Multimedia – Interactive Multimedia. Part 3: Ecommerce – Online Stores/Online Donations. Part 4: Social Media – Engage and Connect. Part 5: Mobile – The Future of Technology and Ministry.

With these five parts, a ministry can reach and change the world. The iChurch Method book is a MUST READ for every ministry leader who desires to have a global presence online. Caston Digital and CEO Jason Caston, created this method to help all ministries establish a global presence and utilize technology to the fullest, without having to worry about huge financial investments and hiring numerous technical specialists. As explained in the book, this method is as advanced enough for a technical expert to understand, but simple enough for a non-technical church leader to understand.

Order The iChurch Method Book today!!

Mobile - Take the ministry to the people

As I was reading Social Media Today’s article on “How Brands are using M-Commerce”, I started to wonder how ministries and churches could use M-Commerce.  M-Commerce, short for Mobile Commerce, is the process of doing business (financial or otherwise) via mobile devices.  Mobile devices are the future of technology and ministry...in my humble opinion.  Since mobile devices are so important to technology and ministry, they play an important role in the iChurch Method.

The Ichurch Method’s task can be broken down into one simple statement, “take the ministry to the people”.  That statement can be fulfilled with the numerous technological solutions that are available today whether it be via traditional computer or mobile device (smart phone or tablet).  If ministries are to effectively take ministry to the people, then they need to embrace mobile devices and develop mobile strategies.  

According to the article at Social Media Today, the top three ways companies use M-commerce are (1) Ensuring a mobile-friendly website, (2) Engaging and building loyalty via mobile and (3) Online shopping. These three ways are a great strategy that ministries can utilize as well, let’s look at this a little more in depth.

Ensuring a mobile-friendly website - When the church creates a website, normally the purpose is to put information about the church up so that people can access it online.  Service times, location and a bio on the pastor are the usual parts of a small church website.  There’s no consideration whether the website is mobile friendly because most church leadership only surfs the web from their computer so they assume that all their online users will do the same.  That single minded perspective greatly inhibits how the ministry can advance online.  With over 4 billion (and growing) mobile devices worldwide and numerous people ranging from teenager to senior citizen carrying smart phones, it would only benefit the ministry to have a mobile enabled website that anyone can access from anywhere on any device, mobile or computer.  

Engaging and building loyalty - With the abundance of mobile devices, and so many people using them, they are a great way to stay engaged with your online users.  Whether it’s mobile social media websites such as facebook, twitter and foursquare, you can engage and interact with your online users via mobile devices.  In addition to mobile social media, text messages are a great way to engage mobile users.  When you develop your social media strategy or text messaging strategy, setup people within your ministry that are able to respond quickly from their mobile devices since people will be able to interact with you quickly via mobile devices.

Online shopping and donations - Quite a few churches offer online stores and products for their members.  Again, this is normally created based on someone accessing the online store from their laptop or desktop computer.  Additionally, online donations are an offering of churches and the process is also usually created for a laptop or desktop experience.  While this a good initial approach, if there is no mobile shopping and mobile donation strategy in place, the ministry is inhibiting how people can support the ministry financially.  Yes, there will be numerous people that will donate from their laptop or desktop, but there will also be people, usually techies, younger people, or supporters from countries that use mobile more that are comfortable using their mobile devices for commerce.  This audience should not be excluded because it will go from the exception to the norm.

Overall, any strategy for a ministry that wants to continue to reach the masses into the future will need to consider mobile because it is the future of technology.

How to maintain church finances in the summer... online giving.

I was reading one of my favorite church technology blogs, Church Tech Today, and I came across this great article title, “Online Giving Skyrockets”. After reading this article, I was very pleased to hear how technology could help the church financially, but that got me to thinking about an issue that I have come across with churches and finances over the last few years. I have worked with numerous churches over the last 5 years and one thing that I kept hearing was that church finances and attendance decrease in the summertime. Initially I didn’t understand how church revenue and attendance consistently went down in the summertime but according to what I was told, since numerous people take vacations and travel during the summer, attendance is down, which means offerings are down, which means finances are down.
Taking this into account, I started to figure out ways that people could travel and still remain connected to the church. And then it hit me, iChurch! The iChurch Method book that I have written and the entire iChurch concept is based on making the ministry accessible and taking church to the people. By that I mean take the church to the people, if they go on vacation then the church can go with them. When you integrate the iChurch Method into your ministry, you can do two things that will help your ministry keep revenues up. One, you can broadcast your worship services online and let people donate while they are watching from their computers and two, you can broadcast your worship services to mobile devices and let people donate and watch as well.
Online church and online donations are the key to keeping people connected to the ministry and thus giving them easy ways to continue to give their tithes and offerings no matter where they are located. As we learn that the people are the church and not the building, we realize that wherever we are we can have church. One of the best parts of having church is receiving the message and giving our tithe or offering. Once the church streams it’s services online, weekly television show and archived videos, anyone with a computer or mobile device can remain connected to the church. Likewise, with online and mobile donations, church members can worship God with their tithes and offerings from their computer or mobile device, anywhere in the world. Of course, this is based on having Internet coverage, but there are very few places that the Internet hasn’t penetrated and connected the world.
Finally, if your church is not taking advantage of online streaming (which can be done for free), online donations, mobile videos and mobile donations, then they are limiting how people can connect with the church and that is no longer an effective way to advance your ministry.....online.

Can a ministry or church sell products on Facebook?

I was reading a great article on Facebook shopping/commerce at socialmediatoday.com.  The article ( http://socialtimes.com/fcommerce-now_b65147 ) had some great points about how Facebook could be utilized as an online shopping destination.  There are already some companies using Facebook as part of their ecommerce strategy and they do have an online store via facebook.  Most often the Facebook online store simply are product images with links back to their own online store, but that’s due to customers feeling more secure making purchases on a company’s secure online store and not facebook....yet.

There were some great points in the article about why Facbeook could become a great online shopping destination.  They were as follows:

1. Facebook is a mall — Millions visit Facebook daily for an increasing number of their digital-life activities — catching up with friends, playing games, sending messages, etc. The Facebook mall has the amenities; now it’s ready for the shops. Creating an on-Facebook storefront has a rather low barrier to entry. Facebook is likely to keep it that way until shopping starts to scale and, perhaps, beyond. As it has done with advertising, we can look forward to Facebook encouraging the creation of F-shops buy providing information to brands on how to best create Facebook commerce sites and featuring success stories.

2. Users will spend more time on Pages — Studies show that, currently, the overwhelming number of users rarely return to pages they Like and are mostly exposed to brands on their News Feed, the Facebook destination of choice. That’s going to change.

The number of monetization and data collection opportunities on the News Feed is too limited for Facebook and, consequently, for brands. In addition, all other benefits of social media engagement aside, corporations are best motivated when they are provided with the clearest link between their advertising and marketing expenses to their sales. Over time, Facebook’s feature structure will evolve to encourage more discovery across a greater number of platform destinations.

3. Be where your customers are — Brekke argues that retailers already have customers buying on their website and, as they are not present on their Facebook Pages, ads to drive traffic to an F-store may be misguided. Let’s set aside the possibility that, as a result of forces that include, but go beyond, Facebook, web commerce declines. In the bricks-and-mortar world, would a retailer be happy to cede business across town when he can stock a rent-free store just down the street from his competitor? No way. How is that logical on Facebook?

4. Today’s retailers are not tomorrow’s F-stores — In the nascent days of web commerce, few would have predicted that so many big winners would be dedicated companies (e.g., Amazon) and not the established stores everyone knew and frequented.

If retailers just modify their web pages to Facebook without a social strategy, they are going to fail. Successful F-shops are likely to offer fewer, more targeted products based on information culled from users’ social graph. Potentially, the experience of shopping on Facebook could be like going to a mall only with stores with stuff the individual shopper Likes. Yes, with a capital “L.”

5. Credit where credit is due — It makes sense for Facebook to work to maximize the number of ways Facebook Credits can be earned and spent on its platform. Brands that use Facebook Credits for Facebook Deals may move to accepting the virtual currency in their F-shops. Shops on Facebook are likely to be incentivized to accept Facebook Credits in their F-stores and websites, offer them as rebates, etc.

Now, with these great points, the question is, how can ministries use Facebook as an extension of their ecommerce strategy? Once a ministry establishes a viable ecommerce strategy with a dependable online store software, a facebook ecommerce presence should be the 2nd or 3rd steps.  As I stated in the iChurch Method book, once a ministry has setup an online store, they have established a place on their website for people to purchase their products.  The next step is to either make the online store mobile device compatible and/or Facebook compatible.   With 750 million (and counting) registered members of Facebook, there are numerous people that could benefit from the products of the ministry.  

Online shopping software such as payvment.com, aspdotnetstorefront.com, magento.com and other online shopping software, have mobile and Facebook plugins that make their stores Facebook friendly.  Therefore, it’s not difficult to take an online store, fill it with ministry products, and then add a few plugins and take that store to the 750 million people that enjoy Facebook around the world.

Welcome to iChurch

Welcome to the iChurch blog. Here we will provide ministries with the tools and information to advance their ministries online. This blog is based on the book "iChurch: The New Internet Church" by Jason Caston. Oh, and for the record, I am Jason Caston.

Now let's answer the main question that everyone is asking, what is iChurch. Well if you Google "ichurch" you get a variety of results that range from a social network for Christian singles, an interactive viewing module for people to watch live services, to a few blogs talking about how the church is integrating technology into it's overall outreach. Most often, when a church says that they have an ichurch, it's the interactive viewer where you can watch live (and archived) services, donate, chat, take notes and read the online bible, all from one page. Now this is a great feature but it's limiting if that's all they consider an "iChurch experience".

I decided to write this book and start learning about the integration of technology and ministry because I had the great opportunity to work with some amazing mega churches and I started to see how they were lacking in terms of technology. But it wasn't just the implementation of technology (websites, ecommerce, computers) into the business of ministry, it was a general misunderstanding of how technology could be used to advance the kingdom and take the gospel worldwide.

Therefore, I decided to not only learn and stay updated on ALL new technologies that ministries can use to advance the gospel online, but I started to develop a methodology that ministries could follow to create a full online presence. This approach, which breaks down the iChurch method into 7 areas or building blocks, gives ministries a road-map to developing a full internet church presence. These seven areas, websites, multimedia, ecommerce, social media, mobile, elearning and virtual office, are the foundation of "iChurch: The New Internet Church" and this blog.

Welcome