Google+ Hangouts on Air for ministry

Regardless of how you feel about Google+ and it’s impact (or lack thereof) on social media, there is one major feature that has captured the attention of Google+ fanatics and everyone else, that feature is Google Hangouts on Air. Google hangouts are an enhanced version of video chat with up to 10 people simultaneously participating in a video chat. The add on features such as integrating YouTube videos, Google docs or screen sharing have only made Google hangouts even more attractive to people. When thinking about Google+ hangouts the closest comparison is Skype and it’s easy to use video chat features. Unlike Skype, Google+ hangouts have the capability to be broadcast live via YouTube to an unlimited number of people, this feature alone makes Google+ an amazing tool for webinars and online broadcasts. Another great benefit is the seamless mobile device integration so that whether a participant is on a laptop, desktop or mobile device, they can participate in the Google+ Hangout.

The question is how can Google+ hangouts be used for churches, well i’m glad you asked. Here are 5 ways to use Google Hangouts on Air for Church:

Stream your sermons or bible study live and record it on YouTube. This feature is built into Google+ Hangouts on Air, it’s a great showcase of how Google is merging all of their properties to work together.

Have an interactive Bible Study or Ministry meetings that can also be recorded for record keeping purposes. Similar to the example above, you can have a pastor or church leader lead a meeting/bible study and broadcast it via Google+ Hangouts on Air and YouTube. If you like you can have up to 10 people who can actually interact with the pastor during this broadcast in addition to watching.

Have interactive Counseling sessions. This option may not need to broadcast or recorded but if the pastor or counselor is at the church and the person(s) needing counseling are somewhere else, they can conduct an online counseling session using Google+ hangouts.

Broadcast special events such as conference previews, webinars and online trainings. This is a great marketing option for people to participate in online. A good example is where a pastor can call on a few of his colleagues and they talk about a theological topic or an upcoming conference they are participating in. This online event can be broadcast live using Google+ hangouts and YouTube, then recorded as well. The MP4 file that YouTube creates can then be downloaded or shared on other social networks such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Podcasts done quickly and easily. Similar to the option above, with the MP4 file that is created from a Google+ hangout and YouTube, it can be uploaded to iTunes as a podcast and distributed in that manner. Even if you want to do a broadcast by yourself, you can record yourself using Google+ hangouts and take the MP4 file that will be created on YouTube and distribute it as a podcast.

Overall, Google+ Hangouts on Air along with YouTube have a great opportunity to become a great online tool. I cannot explain how much fun I think Google+ Hangouts on Air are and how much impact they could have in changing how online training, communication and videos are done.

Add a Google +1 Button to Your Website

If your church has a comprehensive website, you are no doubt by now familiar with a variety of ways of optimizing your site, letting visitors "like" the site for their friends on Facebook and Twitter and more. You may not yet, however, be familiar with the new Google +1 button. The Google +1 button is a button you can place on your site, similar to a Facebook Like button, whereby visitors can click on it to recommend your content on Google Search and share it on Google Plus. A number appears next to the +1 to denote the number of users who have clicked on it so far. When a user clicks the +1, a message goes out to all of their friends on Google Plus that he or she is recommending your site.

Google Search Page Rankings This new button could be a complete game changer when it comes to Google rankings, as well. Experts are still attempting to determine the effect that a high Google +1 number will have on a page's overall search ranking. One thing is certain; it will definitely increase the ranking of your page for the members' friends when they do a Google search.

In other words, when a visitor clicks on the +1 button on your site, it will raise your page's search ranking for any of that's visitor's friends whenever they conduct a search of a relevant topic.

Consider if you were to look for a movie review. A review written by a critic may or may not be helpful, but if you could read a review written by one of your friends, it would probably be of more interest. Google will naturally guide you to any of your friends' recommendations first whenever you conduct a search.

Google +1 buttons will also show up next to your search results on search pages, allowing viewers to see which of their friends is recommending your site. While this is fairly new technology and the jury is still out as to how much of an effect this will have, Google +1 is still another way to increase your visibility on the Web so that more people can find you.

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of "The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online." or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

The iChurch Method TV - Ep 11 - Churches and their Understanding of Technology

http://youtu.be/5dRvqGTyd00 The church as a whole, I’d say maybe there are about 5% of churches that really have a good grasp of technology. They have the resources to actually utilize a lot of the new things that are going on out there, but 95% of the churches I see out here just don’t have the resources. They know what they want to do but they don’t have the resources and the expertise to actually implement it so they might have a volunteer come in and do the website; someone that really has a good heart but just doesn’t have the knowhow to make it look as effective as it could be. Or they may hire somebody that doesn’t have the integrity that the people in the church have. If they don’t have that integrity then they might just take them for their money and not give them a high-quality website.

So, in seeing those types of situations I started to realize what they needed was someone they could trust and someone that also has the expertise to allow them to take advantage of the technology that we have out here because it changes rapidly.

Content Strategy They are somewhat aware. They understand that they want something that’s innovative; they want the neat, shiny, new thing on the block. They also understand that they want a content management system; something that they can still work with once the website is done and handed off to them from the developer. So, they understand that part of it.

What they don’t understand is just the expertise that it takes to actually develop that. They might not understand that the stuff they see that’s easy for them to use on the website might take weeks or months to develop; they don’t understand that part.

They’re starting to understand that the key buzzword is social media. So, when they see a new website they always want to know where’s the social media aspect of that, but then they may not think about the other aspects that you need in a website which would be the eCommerce aspect with online donations, online stores, the stuff that people look for when they come to the website. They want to know contact information, locations, service times, those basic things about the ministry. Those basic things need to be looked at before we even get to the new shiny, touchy-feely website. We need to look at a content strategy.

The hardest part that I’ve seen with ministries is not the website; they know they need a website because they see a whole bunch of churches with one, but they have a hard time figuring out how to get the content from the pastor or from the leadership and onto the website and onto the social media in an effective streamlined manner.

What was going through my mind was looking at these five aspects that I had, each chapter to me was something I actually would do in a typical week at work. In a typical week I work on the websites and multimedia, eCommerce, social media, and mobile, so when I’m putting this book together I’m thinking, “What is it that I do that people would need to know from the most basic level all the way up to the most technologically advanced level?” I want to make sure if we have a pastor who’s not as technically savvy, he can look at the book and understand, and have a conversation and hand it off to someone who is technologically savvy.

But, what if the technologically savvy person picks up the book? I want to make sure this book challenges them as well and gives them new ideas and strategies so that they can utilize them within their ministry.

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of “The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online.” or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

The iChurch Method TV - Ep. 9 - How to Become an International Ministry

Continuing The iChurch Method TV series, here is the transcript from the video above.

You become an international ministry as soon as we flick the switch on your website, as soon as you set up the Facebook fan page, as soon as you set up your Twitter account. What ministries don’t realize is they may have, we’ll say 100, a couple hundred, or a couple thousand people that will come into their sanctuary. But, if you get one person that tunes in to your ministry, your website, your online stream, from India, from Europe, from Africa, that makes you an international ministry. Had you not utilized those technological tools, that person would not have been receiving the ministry from your church.

That’s the thing that ministries have to understand; as soon as you give people a way to connect with your ministry that are not in your regional or national area then you become an international ministry. Just those simple steps of setting up your website or setting up your social media channels, that makes you become an international ministry.

[You] have to realize that initially we start off and we only think in the box that we’re in. We think about only having our services in English. We think everybody is watching the service at the same time we would watch it, or we think people are connecting with the ministry at the same time we’re connecting with the ministry. A typical example would be a ministry might have office hours from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. Well, international time that may be midnight to 8:00 a.m., so they’re not connecting with your ministry at that time. They’re connecting with the ministry at the hours that they would like to.

So, when you have social media then you have to look at the fact that people want to connect with you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So, you just have to basically evolve your strategy to accommodate ministry at hours outside of what you’re used to, at times outside of what you’re used to, and in languages outside of what you’re used to.

The iChurch Method TV - The method behind the iChurch

Continuing my insight into how The iChurch Method can help ministries, I spoke about how the actual method came into existence.

Looking at these five aspects that I had, each chapter to me was something I actually would do in a typical week at work. In a typical week I’d work on the websites, multimedia, eCommerce, social media, and mobile. So, when I’m putting this book together I’m thinking, “What is it that I do that people would need to know from the most basic level all the way up to the most technologically advanced level?”

I want to make sure that if we have a pastor who’s not as technically savvy, he can look at the book and kind of understand and have a conversation and hand it off to someone who is technically savvy. But, what if the technology savvy person picks up the book? I want to make sure that this book challenges them as well and gives them new ideas and strategies so that they can utilize them within their ministry.

Five Aspects Website — First we need a website that’s interactive and innovative. You definitely need that because that’s the door to your ministry. Most churches don’t understand that the website is one of the most effective resources that the ministry has. A lot of people will go to your website before they’ll step foot inside your sanctuary.

Multimedia — That’s online streaming, online videos, and podcasting. When we look at the popularity of YouTube we see that video is the fastest growing form of content on the internet. We look as mobile as well; people are just consuming video via mobile just at alarming rates. So, you have to have a multimedia strategy.

eCommerce — eCommerce is your online donations and your online stores. Well, of course online donations make it easy for people to support the ministry financially from wherever they’re at. They don’t have to come into the sanctuary and do the typical old traditional way of putting tithes in the bucket or something like that. They can donate online and from their mobile device.

Social media — We know social media just transformed the way we use the internet. Everything is social now. Facebook has over a billion users that are signed up for it, and Twitter is continuously growing. So, social media has just transformed the way we use the internet and it gives ministries a way to reach people that may not ever step foot inside their building.

Mobile — There are over a billion mobile devices around the world. People carry around mobile devices everywhere they go, so that gives you an actual way to take ministry to the people. When your ministry is accessible via mobile device you now are accessible to this person wherever they’re at; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The iChurch Method at The Biola Digital Ministry Conference

Last year I attended a great gathering called the Biola Digital Ministry conference, this year I was invited to speak. I am looking forward to this engagement because not only is The iChurch Method a sponsor, but I have always had aspirations to attend Biola and/or be a professor there (online of course). I will be speaking from my two most recent releases, The iChurch Method vol. 2 (as well as The iChurch Method vol. 1) and How to Get One Million Social Media Fans. I look forward to enlightening and educating the attendees and leaving them inspired and motivated to go do great things for the kingdom.

Here are synopsis of my two sessions:

Session 1 The iChurch Method is a five part method that can help any church advance their ministry online and give them a global presence. Using Websites (Interactive and Responsive), Multimedia (Online Video and Streaming), Ecommerce (Online stores and donations), Social Media and Mobile (Apps and Websites), each and every church can develop an online strategy that can reach people all around the world and give them the capability to hear the gospel. This session will provide the strategies and explain the iChurch Method's approach to helping ministries advance online.

Session 2 Social Media has fundamentally changed the way we use the internet and this has opened up an amazing opportunity for the church. People are already looking for the solutions that the church has, the church just needs to meet them where they are, which is on social media. By focusing on a strategy of high quality visual content, a variety of sharing features, external social media advertising and establishing a presence on the top social networks, a ministry can build up an online audience that exceeds the number of seats in its sanctuary. This session will provide ways to take your social media to the next level and connect with millions of fans/followers/subscribers online.

Things Churches Should Post on Social Media Sites

The great thing about social media is that it's timely. Unlike websites, which may be updated once a week, social media sites are all about the here and now. Posts are made several times a day, as a minimum, and in many cases, social media sites provide literally up-to-the-minute updated information. While your older parishioners probably aren't all that interested in what's trending in social media, your younger members certainly are. Bring them into the fold with regular posts, tweets and updates about your church. Here are some examples of ministry content you should definitely post on your social media sites:

• Products - post hot products, sales and promotions going on at your online store;

• Pastoral/leadership updates - have your pastor and other leaders of your congregation post occasional status updates, which will serve to humanize them and make your church members feel more connected;

• Photographs - people love pictures! Appoint somebody in your staff to be an official photographer and give them a decent camera, so you're not posting low resolution cell phone pix. Get pictures at all your church activities, snapshots of new babies, new church members, staff acting crazy, graduations, weddings, christenings and any other opportunities you can find to share, share, share;

• Daily inspiration - send out a daily prayer, quotation, or other words of inspiration to give your members hope and encouragement;

• Video clips from church services, sermons, and other church activities - make sure you sit down and edit them so that you have a short, 1 - 3 minute clip to post. They can follow the link back to your website to view the whole video;

• Interactive polls - get people talking by asking provocative questions about their views on topical issues of a spiritual nature. This is a great way to get a dialogue started, and poll results can be calculated and also posted online;

• Weekly reminders - take advantage of social media to remind your congregation about time changes for services, church events, community outreach events and more.

Social media is a powerful tool for reaching out to your congregation, and staying in touch much the way a country pastor would make his way from house to house in the days of horses and wagons. Congregations are much larger now, schedules are hectic, and face to face communication is pretty well a thing of the past. Your congregation's needs have not changed, however. They still need encouragement, comforting, guidance and prayer. Social media offers a way for you to provide it to them.

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of "The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online." or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

The iChurch Method in Dubai

About two years ago, June 2011, I came to my wife and told her I had an idea about a book I wanted to write. It was a book on how churches could better understand and utilize technology. Fast forward to May 2013 and next week I am headed to Dubai, U.A.E. to speak at a conference on The iChurch Method and how it can help ministries advance online. I am very excited and look forward to helping this international audience learn the benefits of The iChurch Method. The conference is May 15 - 19, 2013. http://gain.adventist.org

Why is Social Media Important for Churches?

Never before has the world been so interconnected. Events that happen in the world can ricochet around the globe almost instantaneously. News, videos, quotes and photos go viral and are shared via social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all around the planet. Governments have literally been toppled by people communicating through social networking sites. Why not take advantage of this new technology to spread your message?

Consider how it works. Your church has a Facebook page, and you encourage your followers to visit regularly to catch up on what's new at your ministry. Facebook is extremely interactive, so visitors can comment on your posts, which is a great opportunity to receive feedback. They can also choose to "share" your posts, effectively reposting them to their own pages, which are then viewed by all of their "friends". If one of their friends likes your post, he or she can also choose to share it, and now it will be viewed by a whole other group of people.

Reach Thousands of People - or More It is not uncommon for avid Facebook participants to have hundreds of friends; all who view posts and shared items, and can repost or share them on their own sites, to be viewed by their hundreds of friends. You can see how quickly something can spread. Post a meaningful quote, photograph or bit of news and it will likely be shared.

Twitter works in a similar manner, but whereas people generally check in with Facebook once or twice a day, Twitter users are constantly reading and sending "tweets." Tweets are short messages, limited to 140 characters, and quite short-lived. You only need to post on Facebook once or twice a day, but to get your message out on Twitter, you should send your tweet out at least five or six times a day.

It's All About the Access When it's so difficult to call up a commercial organization these days and actually get to speak with a human being, people appreciate the direct access they get through social media. They can comment on your posts, and you can read their comments and respond. This give and take is perhaps one of the strongest reasons that people visit social media pages run by large commercial or not for profit organizations.

And even though you're only responding to one individual, hundreds or even thousands of people may be reading your response. What an opportunity!

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of "The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online." or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

The iChurch Method TV – Ep. 4 – A Recap of early usage of The iChurch Method

Continuing The iChurch Method TV series, here is the transcript from the video above, in this episode I am discussing a recap of the first time I applied The iChurch Method to a church. I was asked to revamp a church's entire online presence and I started to put together the basics of what would become The iChurch Method.

Day one, my objective was to figure out what was going on within the ministry in terms of where they were technically. When I started looking at some of the things that were going on, I saw just some of the basic things. They had a website but there were some things that just weren’t working. They were having issues with their online store and they were having issues with donations. They were generating a lot of money via online donations but the process was no as seamless as it could be. Basically I just looked at everything they were doing and I started dissecting it and figuring out how we could make this easier, better, and faster.

I put together a plan and I said, “Here’s where you guys are at,” and I made a real simple streamlined map of what was going on currently and where people were getting lost in the process. Then I said, “Here’s where it could be,” and I started showing them new things that we could do to make this process much simpler. In addition I also had to show them here’s the software that can actually make it happen. “We need a new website and here’s the software we can do that with. We need a new online store; here’s the software. We need an easier process to do online donations and here’s the software to do that.” Basically, that made it so easy for them to understand and see that eventually they allowed me to continue on with the other things I talk about, social media and mobile, just because I showed them that I actually knew how I could make this process easy for them.

The iChurch Method Vol. 2 is now available

http://youtu.be/Stpi_4aXcPI

In this book we’re just basically building upon The iChurch Method Volume One. We’re taking every chapter to another level.

This book talks about how to take your website to another level, how to develop a good content strategy, how to utilize more up-to-date and current technological tools to build your website.

With multimedia we're looking at taking that to the next level, the whole entire internet church campus. Let's bring all the online video and the streaming into one coherent campus so that people can come interact with your ministry online.

With eCommerce we're looking at how you make more effective, more secure, and more streamlined online donation modules. How do you have a better and more effective online store.

With social media we're looking at the advancements and the rise of visual social media and how to utilize that with Facebook timeline, Pinterest, and Instagram. Social media is going entirely visual so we want to make sure that we address that.

Then we're looking mobile. In the last book we talked about mobile websites, it's time to talk about mobile apps and how to utilize those and tablets and all these new mobile devices that are coming down the line.

So, in this book we just want to help ministries take their ministry to another level online and continue to stay ahead of the technology trend.

Click Here to Get Your Copy today

The iChurch Method TV - Ep. 2 - Social Media usage by Pastors

Continuing The iChurch Method TV series, here is the transcript from the video above.

A lot of churches are basically personality driven. A lot of the churches that I’ve dealt with are personality driven; the pastor is the face of the ministry. So, I let them know that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, if you decide you want to be accessible via Twitter then also understand that your life is going to be one continual show for people that want access and availability for you. Once they get that, they understand that there are things that they want to let people in on in their lives and there are times when they just have to disconnect from social media.

So, I want them to be social and understand that it’s not just a one-way street where they’re constantly broadcasting to people and talking at people not responding, but they also have to understand there are limitations to social media and how much access they give people to their lives.

Let’s say the pastor decided they didn’t want to be accessible via social media because they don’t want stuff like that. The conversation is going to happen whether they participate or not. So, as you stated earlier where people are outside with their phones recording and taking snapshots, they’re going to have the conversation about you. Some pastors have PR people and some pastors can be genuinely truthful and speak about the situation and kind of guide that conversation, some pastors will just try and disconnect and hope the conversation will go away, but it won’t. So, it’s better that they can help address that and give some truth to the situation, otherwise the internet will create its own truth, and you don’t want that.

2013 Pastors and Leadership Conference

This Year, I will be teaching at the 2013 Pastors and Leadership Conference. The topics that I will be teaching are Social Media for Ministry (Beginners and Intermediate) and How to Advance Your Ministry Online. At this conference I will be releasing quite a few new products and services. First and foremost, The iChurch Method Vol 2: Changing the World When You Login will be released and on sale. Additionally, I will talk about my new online training course based on The iChurch Method and finally, I will release a surprise product that I have been working on for the last 6 - 9 months. http://youtu.be/GV9iu-5Uawk

Join me in Dallas at the 2013 Pastors and Leadership Conference at the Dallas Convention Center, April 25 - 27, 2013. Me and my amazing web team from TD Jakes Ministries will be teaching on Thursday at 3pm and Friday at 10am and 1:30pm. Register TODAY

The iChurch Method TV - Ep 1 - Where did The iChurch Method Come From?

Continuing The iChurch Method TV series, here is the transcript from the video above.

This idea came from when I was out working at [unnamed church] and they decided to let me know that they needed me to revamp the entire online presence. So, I looked at five key areas that I thought could really help them out; those were websites, multimedia, eCommerce, social media, and mobile. I started to notice that these five areas were not only key to them but were key to any type of ministry.

When I transitioned from that ministry out to Dallas, I implemented this method and I saw enormous results and then I realized that I might actually have something here. So, with those five key areas I put it all together in a book and that’s what we’re talking about here today. I would advise that initially once you purchase the book and start reading through it and get familiar with it, then you start looking for probably two to three people. First I would look for somebody like a volunteer or somebody you trust to do social media. If not, then get versed in social media yourself.

Secondly, you need to look at somebody who is a web developer. Again, the iChurch Method gives you the strategies that a web developer should use so that you can have a coherent conversation with the technically savvy person and not let them take advantage of you.

The third person I would look for would be some type of financial person or something like that because you’re going to have to look at online donations and possibly setting up an online store and you want to make sure that your finances are well taken care of. This may be the pastor himself or maybe an accountant or something. But, when you start generating finances for nonprofits then we get into a whole other arena that needs to be addressed legally as well as technically. So, those are the people I would start off with.

[After reading the book] you should be able to understand how to effectively advance your ministry online. You should be able to know how to set up a digital ministry. If you desire, you can go and do it yourself. But, if you do not then you’ll be able to have a good conversation and identify the people who can go and do this for you.

Using Digital Ministry to form Communities

Here's a good question to consider...does Digital Ministry help form Community? My answer from the video above is below

I think technology helped form community. I think it just gave people more tools to help form the community. What I’ve noticed if you look at it from a business perspective, when a business is trying to build a groundswell around a brand, sometimes they focus on these campaigns and they’re trying to get people to have buy-in. The church doesn’t have to do that. People are already bought into the gospel; the people are already supporting the church, we’re just giving them better tools to form that community around the church. That’s one of the main aspects of internet church is building communities that can connect online and feel like they’re a part of the local church, whichever church has this internet church campus.

I believe that technology is giving people the tools to connect much more often. The question is are those connections deeper? They can be, but technology is giving you the tools to do it but not necessarily making you do it or not do it. It’s just giving you the conduit to make those connections happen.

So, again, I think technology is providing us with tools that are helping us form greater communities, reach out to people, and commune with people that we probably would not have met. I can commune with people that are all across the country that I may never see, or all around the world that I may never see, but I can connect with them via digital media or social media channels and stuff like that. I think that helps me relate to them and talk about their life experiences and my life experiences and relate that to our spiritual experiences.

Now, on the flipside of that coin is how can technology be used to breakdown communities? The same tools that can be used for good can also be used for bad. If I have a sincere desire to break down the community, break down the unity and take my dislike of a ministry or the gospel and use it in a manipulative manner, I now have the tools to manipulate people. I think that’s one of the drawbacks of the digital tools that we have. People have to be much more cognizant of how thorough is the message and how thorough is the messenger. That type of stuff just makes people much more aware.

The benefit of that is technology gives us access to so much more; so much information. That’s the premise of the internet, access to information. It’s much more effective than the TV and the radio and the printing press and so on and so forth so it gives us access to information so much faster and helps us to make sure that the authenticity and the validity of the information and the message that people are bringing to us is actually valid and real. In my experiences, church was where I went to look for healing, where I went to look for salvation, where I went to look for community, interaction, encouragement and all the things I looked for at the time in my life when I opened myself up to church.

The question is can those things be given to me online? If somebody tells me that I need to read Romans 10:9 to be saved, if they tell me that in person, can they tell me that online? If they can tell me that online then how does that not make it church? I was able to receive my salvation through the guidance of somebody. Just because we weren’t face-to-face does that mean that I’m not saved? So, those are the types of things we have to look at; can you receive the same things online that you can receive in church? Now, if we get down to being baptized online or can I lay hands online, then that’s a different conversation and probably not the things that can happen online. But, for all intensive purposes, when we look at can church happen online and can we impact lives and save people and proclaim the gospel online, I genuinely believe we can.

I just think that where church happens from a theological perspective is going to continue to be debated as more ways come available that church can occur. I’m thinking back in the bible when they were talking about church happened in the upper room and stuff like that, once you left out of a room does that mean you cannot have church unless you’re in a room, an upper room? Can church happen in a mega church? Churches were smaller before, so when mega churches came on the scene could church happen in a mega church even though the building was so much larger and people were getting lost in there.

So it’s just that where church happens, I think, is the question that’s going to continue to be debated. And because we have internet church and methods and technology to use to reach people online with the gospel, I think wherever we can reach them with the gospel, however we can reach them with the gospel, that becomes church - basically church without walls.

What exactly is The iChurch Method?

The iChurch Method is simple: a method to help ministries have a global presence online. To provide digital solutions that help ministries connect to people everyday around 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, online video and online streaming Part 3: Ecommerce – Online Stores/Online Donations. Part 4: Social Media – Engage and Connect with Facebook and Twitter Part 5: Mobile – The Future of Technology and Ministry with mobile websites and mobile apps.

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!!

Contact Us for a No Obligation Quote Today

The iChurch Method TV - What Makes a Church Website a Good Website?

In this interview I was asked about good website practices for ministries, here is my answer (video is above and transcript is below).

There are five good church websites that I can think of: One would be Willow Creek Church. That’s out of South Barrington, Illinois. Their website is www.WillowCreek.org. That’s a good church. That church website has some good things going on with it and I’ll tell you why in a second. Another example is Fellowship Church out of Dallas, Texas. Their website is www.FellowshipChurch.com. The Potter’s House Church; their website is www.ThePottersHouse.org. That’s another site that’s good. Cotton Wood Church out of Los Alamitos, Orange County, California. Their website is www.CottonWood.org. Lastly is Saddle Back Church out of Orange County, California. Their website is www.SaddleBack.com

The reason those sites are good is because they hit on some good aspects of design and functionality, usability, and just information. First and foremost they touch on the top things people are looking for when they come to a church website which is location, service times and contact information. Those are the things that people are looking for outside of the amazing design, the banners, where they’re at and stuff like that. People just want to have quick access to that information; when’s the next service, how soon can I get there, how far are you from me, is there an online service incase I’m not in your area, stuff like that. So, they have a good usability in terms of that.

They also have good imagery going on there. Again, large banners and pictures are good to hold people’s attention. They load quickly; people are usually looking for something to load in one to three seconds, and three seconds might be pushing it in our “right here - right now” culture. They also have good site design in terms of being able to get anywhere on the site in two to three clicks. I believe a couple of them have site maps right at the bottom of their page similar to Apple.com where they have a site map right at the bottom of the page. That helps to get all around the entire site fairly easily and quickly.

The way those websites are laid out just seems like it’s made for the user to be able to navigate easily, and that helps. When people come to a website they get frustrated if they can’t find what they’re looking for. I’ve seen this as well where certain churches try to put everything on the homepage where the website looks like a bad episode of hoarders. You don’t want your website to look like a bad episode of hoarders.

Studies have shown, and I believe it’s up to 70% to 75% of people will look at your website before stepping foot in your sanctuary. I think that’s what a lot of churches miss sometimes. That, in turn, makes the website one of the most important parts of your ministry. It’s the welcome ministry, it’s the greeting ministry, and whatever information they’re looking for, it’s that ministry to them. So now since the website has become that important in your ministry, you should invest in it as such and make sure it represents your church and your ministry in that manner.

People put a lot of effort into their sanctuary and pay a lot of attention to how it looks, how the building looks and the experience of the person when they get to the actual church building, but they don’t pay as much attention to the experience before they get to the building, which is the website. So, when the website becomes the most important outreach ministry of your church and people understand that then you’ll pay attention to it as such.

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of "The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online." or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

The iChurch Method TV - How Technology is impacting the Authority of Pastors and Leaders

I was interviewed about how authority in technology is viewed, here is my answer. (the video is above and the transcript is below).

I think what technology is doing with authority is amplifying it. If the church leader, the pastor, is a good leader—is transparent and has good intentions—then digital media and social media will amplify that.

They’re a good leader when they’re preaching their sermons, they’re a good leader when they’re leading conferences and they’re a good leader on the grand stage, but they’ll also be a good leader on the small stage when it’s just a random Tweet on a Tuesday. Those skills will permeate from them and people will see that. Now, if they’re a bad leader then that will be amplified as well.

Technology, I believe, just amplifies what you really are. Basically people can only hide who they really are for so long. If a leader is on Twitter or Facebook and they’re continuingly putting out messages from themselves, not calculated marketing department-driven messages or messages that are scripted for them, but these are their genuine messages then they will genuinely come out. I think the delivery methods we have with digital media and social media just amplifies who people really are.

Prior to social media and digital media taking off, we saw these mega church ministries and ministers having large followings based on the TV audience and even the radio audience. So, what digital media and social media did was give them another delivery method to showcase the message that they were proclaiming, their sermons and so on, but social media took it to another level where we got to see a glimpse of their actual lives; what they think and who they really are as people.

We can see that on the grand stage they’re great leaders and they preach great messages but on the small stage are these men good fathers, are they good husbands, what do they believe on a Wednesday at 8:55 when the lights aren’t on; how are they? That access and transparency lets good leaders shine on a whole new level and lets bad leaders get exposed on a whole new level.

Virtual Tour with Nils Smith

I was given the great opportunity to be asked to take part in a virtual book tour with my buddy Nils Smith of Community Bible Church. I am the featured guest on March 5th, where we discuss Facebook Foundations. The dates of the Virtual Book Tour are March 4-8th. Each day 3 identical sessions will be held at 9am, noon, and 3pm CST on the following topics:

March 4th | Social Media Basics Interview with DJ Chuang, founder of the Social Media Church podcast

March 5th | Facebook Foundations Interview with Jason Caston, Internet Church Developer for TD Jakes Ministries

March 6th | Twitter and YouTube Interviews with Matthew Barnett of the LA Dream Center and Sean Cannell founder of YouTube for Churches

March 7th | Pinterest, Instagram, Faith Village and more Interview with Kenny Jahng, Innovation Pastor at Liquid Church

March 8th | Online Church Interview with Alan George, Church Online Pastor at LifeChurch.tv

The sessions will also be followed with live chat Q & A with Nils. To register for this event please go to http://SocialMediaBookTour.com/.

Social Media in the Church

On January 27, 2013, I have the great opportunity to teach my course Next Level Social Media for Ministry at the NY13 Communication Workshop in Bronx, NY. I have been invited by the NAD SDA Communicators and I appreciate this opportunity. I look forward to presenting great concepts from the Social Media section of my upcoming book, The iChurch Method Vol. 2: Changing the World When You Login. The Topics I will speak on are:

• How Visual Content can enhance your Social Media
• Many platforms, many conversations, how do you manage it
• Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+
• Are Google Hangouts a game changer?
• Inspiration, Information and Communication.

I believe that this will be a great workshop, and as long as the internet connection is high speed, I will broadcast and record this presentation via Google Hangouts on Air and The iChurch Method Live website. Join me in person or online!