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 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?
Biola University Digital Ministry Conference
Last week I attended the Biola University Digital Ministry Conference (http://events.biola.edu/bioladigital/), and it was a very informative, innovative conference. There were amazing speakers there and even though I didn’t get a chance to attend every session, I did attend some good ones and learned some very interesting things. Ranging from mobile ministry strategies, web content strategies and where digital ministry will be in 20 years, I think that overall the conference consisted of educated digital ministry specialists teaching other digital ministry specialists. With that being stated, here are my notes from the conference.
- FaithVillage.com did a session on their christian social media platform. This social media platform is the next step in the evolution of social media and a great place for christians and non-christians to network, interact, learn, shop and operate in a great online environment. I am sure there is more to FaithVillage.com and I look forward to visiting their offices which are located near our offices.
- MobileMinistryMagazine.com founder Antoine Wright did a session on mobile ministry strategies and it was a great session indeed. First and foremost, he taught the session from a mobile phone, the slides and entire presentation was from his Nokia phone. Not my phone of choice (iPhone fan here) but the “practice what you preach” was in full effect for this session.
- Coca Cola’s mobile strategy is 70/20/10 - 70% sms, 20% website, 10% apps. Most people think that apps and mobile websites are the first steps in a mobile strategy but SMS was surprisingly the most effective approach.
- 52% of new phone purchases in the US are smart phones
- 70% of mobile web use is searching
- Before you get started develop a strategy that answers “what are my mobile goals” and “what are my mobile issues”.
- opera mini is the most used mobile website
- main questions of mobile users initially (and even non mobile users) is “where is the church located” and “what time is the service”
- mobify.me (web service that takes a website and makes it mobile) works with wordpress
- Develop a strategy for users that have less that smartphones, which is quite a few users of developing nations where bandwidth is at a premium.
- Going from a mobile website to a mobile app is whole bunch easier then going from app to website. Build the website and from there take the best parts of it and add that to an app.
- Dont add high res photos and anything that add unnecessary downloading
- Dont add complex features
- Dont limit your website to just high end mobile devices
- VisualStoryNetwork.org Clyde Taber gave a great explanation of Visual Ministry and the continuing transition of the entire online audience moving to a majority visual exprience online. Also, there was a strong emphasis on telling a compelling story online. Your ministry’s online properties should tell your story and not just try to push information.
- People are talking and reading less, viewing and social networking more
- A good book example is by Nicholas Carr - The Shallows - our brains are being reconfigured to consume information and push it out in small bursts
- The internet has gone visual
- Youtube is the second largest search engine
- People are becoming visual
- People love a story
- Know your audience
- Know your goals
- Know your technology
- Digital Ministry Trends session was about what trends are apparent in digital ministry today and what will be relevant in the next 20 years. There was one consensus about anything digital, forecasting one year out is good, three years out is possible and five years out is just guessing, anything further than that really is pointless because technology will move faster than you think and the intangibles come into play.
- Social networks are integrated with everything online
- Everything will begin online, including ministry (85% of young people check out a website online before coming in and choose church based on website)
- The majority of churches ministry starts on the website.
- 17% of searches now include a map or geographic feature
- Still many low-tech areas and people, billions are entering from the developing world and rural america
- For global reach you need low bandwidth sites and high bandwidth sites
- Your internet reputation is everything, you are being evaluated and researched online before people even come in the door.
- People are initially looking for location, service time, and children's ministry.
- Content needs to go from device to device
- Format wars (Apple, Android, Windows) will continue into near future but finally a universal format will win out
- Keep it simple
- Most people hate technology but use it because they have to. They don’t want to feel confused, helpless or stupid.
- Live chat boxes will be helpful, people want instant interaction
- Customer service will be a winning factor
- Mobile devices have changed the entire landscape of the internet and they have been the fastest adopted technology in the history of mankind.
- Social Media will lead to a more customized internet experience and that is what people will come to expect.
- Web Content Strategy session with Drew Goodmanson from MonkDev.com. This was easily one of the best sessions of the conference. Drew and his company Monk Development has been one that I have been following for quite a long time and I have went out to San Diego and met with them and talked about opportunities to further work with them. Therefore, I was very much looking forward to Drew’s session and learning quite a bit from him.
- There are 6 web strategy problems that most ministries have
- Skymall syndrome - whatever the church sees it wants to do without thinking about strategy
- Ministry schizophrenia - people more dedicated to their ministry within the church than the entire church vision
- ministry narcissism - ministry web strategy is designed for internal people and not the normal world. They don’t know who is visiting their website, what they want and they expect people to figure out what the ministry is trying to say.
- Blind men and the elephant - no one has experience building a website to reach the people. they believe that their previous experience is what makes them qualified to do this project.
- Death by committees - technology moves fast, the decision process is extremely slow
- Volunteer hostage situation - volunteer holds website hostage
- Discovery phase in developing website strategy consists of:
- How are people using your ministry and website?
- Survey members, do interviews. Use them for validation of what you are doing or want to do, not discover a whole bunch of new ways because you will lose focus of what you are trying to complete.
- Use your previous website analytics
- Plan your social media content calendar
- Realize that your website is the first connection for people
- The church is a corporation, cause and a community
Overall, this was a great conference and I look forward to participating again next year.
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.
2012 Pastors and Leadership Conference
[ylwm_vimeo height="375" width="500"]39897315[/ylwm_vimeo] Today I leave for Orlando and the 2012 Pastors and Leadership Conference. I have the pleasure of presenting two workshop sessions, a beginner and intermediate, on Social Media and Ministry. I am presenting again with Marc Jeffrey, whom I presented this session with at the 2011 Pastors and Leadership Conference. But this year is a bit different...
For the first time I am teaching from The iChurch Method book as well as selling the book onsite. Last year when I taught at the conference I wanted to provide a resource for attendees so I made sure to give everyone my email information and asked them to reach out to me for questions. A few of them did but i’m sure many more didn’t and that was unfortunate because I enjoy answering questions. This year I am bringing books for purchase as well as registration information about The iChurch Method online membership network that provides online webinars, tutorials and other training resources to help churches with their online ministry presence.
This conference has a wide variety of trainings sessions and some of the greatest preachers and speakers headlining the event. Bishop T.D. Jakes, Pastor Joel Osteen, Pastor Sheryl Brady, Pastor Charles Jenkins, Pastor Cory Brooks, Bishop Tudor Bismark and Dr. Cynthia James just to name a few. I remember I went to a conference in 2004 where Bishop Tudor Bismark spoke and gave a great word and at that time I never thought I would be teaching something just as important at a conference with him. But The iChurch Method is just as inspirational, timely and important as anything that any preacher can speak on at this conference. These pastors and leaders need technology and it is transforming ministries all over the world, and T.D Jakes ministry is a great example of that.
I look forward to teaching a great session, distributing The iChurch Method book, registering members for The iChurch Method Network and helping ministries advance online.
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.
Ministries should utilize Internet TV
One of the best ways ministries reach large audiences is via television. Many of the largest megachurches have a complimentary Television Ministry that usually puts their pastor in front of millions every week via television channels like TBN, BET, The Church Channel, ABC Family and The Word Network. These channels as well as others had high entry fees and the production costs to create professional television show were also barriers to numerous churches establishing a television presence.
Fast forward to today and there are numerous online video options for ministries such as youtube.com, facebook.com, vimeo.com, ustream.tv and even creating your own online campus for archived video viewing. While these options are great and can create a great online viewing experience for users via their laptops, desktops and mobile devices, they still don’t tap the builtin television audience that traditional channels reach.
Well the future is coming! I was reading an article at Zdnet on Apple TV, Google TV, Roku boxes and the entire Internet TV emerging market. These new devices are setting up the framework for people to integrate the living room TV, which is prime real estate, with the internet. The majority of people haven’t integrated the internet into their main viewing televisions but these devices are helping make the process a seamless transition. Now, the question is, how can ministries take advantage of these emerging opportunities? I’m glad you asked...
Internet TV is mainly ran by apps and the open web, thus instead of ministries having to spend thousands of dollars weekly to keep their television show on the air in your local area, they can create apps for these Internet TV devices one time and update them with new shows for a fraction of the costs. Google TV uses apps that are similar to the apps you can create for their android phones and tablets. Likewise, Apple TV will open their device up to apps that are similar to what’s created for their iPhone, iPod and iPad devices. Lastly, Roku devices uses apps that are able to be created in a timely manner and not complex or overwhelming for a programmer. Overall, the costs of making a ministry app for these devices that people can view from their televisions is vastly less than the cost of running a nationwide television campaign. Of course, the technology has not reached maturity yet and the majority of people do not have Internet TV devices, but their audiences are growing and the future generations that churches are trying to reach are already familiar with this technology.
If your ministry or church is interested in learning more about Internet TV solutions and how they can take advantage of this upcoming opportunity, please contact us.
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