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.
Google+ for Ministries...Can it Help?
I just read an article on Google+ over at Church Juice ( http://churchjuice.com/blog/google/ ) and it was very similar to my initial thoughts on Google+ and how it could benefit churches and ministries. I have been using Google+ since it came on the scene and I wanted to really get an idea of how it worked. Here is one of the best things I have noticed about Google+, the potential integration with other apps and services that Google offers, and Google+ was thinking mobile on day one. This long term vision will help Google+ last far into the future. Churches already have had to develop strategies to embrace twitter, Facebook, linkedin, youtube, vimeo and a variety of other social media websites. Google+ is yet another social media tool that churches will need to embrace. The question is, what are the benefits of Google+ and how can it be integrated into the church's social media strategy without adding to much work.
First and foremost, I have come across some great "How to get started with Google+" guides and tutorials. Here are a few:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-get-started-with-google-plus-your-complete-guide/
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/startgoogleplus/
Here is a summary of my thoughts on Google+, the benefits of Google are listed below:
Business Profiles: business profiles are coming within the next few months and depending on the number of features they have for marketing and interacting, they could be just as beneficial as Facebook Pages. The benefit that Google+ has is that they can use Facebook Profiles as a model and build upon that a better project. Google+ is currently deleting profiles that appear to be used for business purposes therefore they either will have a PR nightmare or their business pages will be so great that they make people forget this profile deleting fiasco.
Circles. Basically this lets you organize the people you know into groups so you can communicate specifically with them. Friends, parents, co-workers and/or acquaintances can all go in different circles (Google official video: http://youtu.be/BeMZP-oyOII). Circles could be used by churches to organize different groups of people to minister to. If a ministry is setting up online small groups they can use circles to setup which people will be in which group. This niche marketing tool could help the church focus on who they want to market or minister to, whether it be all of their online members or a select few.
Hangouts. Group video chat anyone? If multiple friends are online, you can all get together face-to-face. You can even watch YouTube videos together (Google official video: http://youtu.be/Tku1vJeuzH4). This would take online ministry to another level by making ministry much more intimate and personal. Small groups can meet online via video chat and minister and fellowship with each other. If they decide not to use video chat then it would be considered a Huddle. This is group chat without the video. (Google official video: http://youtu.be/iA22daAstNg)
Sparks. We all have things we’re geeked out about. This lets you share your interests with friends (Google official video: http://youtu.be/MRkAdTflltc). The topics that can utilize sparks within a small church group can be numerous. This topic starter could be used to facilitate ministry discussions based upon a church topic.
Instant Upload. An easier way to automatically upload pictures from your cell phone to the web (Google official video: http://youtu.be/6y_xKVSRAy8). This is an easy way to share ministry events quickly right from your phone.
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