Thanks Steve Jobs, Apple will help advance ministries online

As I sit here with my iPhone, iPad, iMac, Macbook, Apple TV, my wife’s iPhone, iPad and my children’s iPods, I marvel at the impact that the Apple hardware and software has made on my family.  Our numerous purchases and loyalty to Apple products makes us an above average family technologically as well as a collector of Apple products since they release new ones every year.  The reason I am reflecting is that one of the top news stories last week was the passing of Steve Jobs.

Now I didn’t know Steve personally but based on the stories I have heard and read, he was  innovative, brilliant, entrepreneurial, egomanic, maniacal, a family man, non-philanthropic and quite a few things in between.  I found myself drawn to Steve for his innovation, products and business acumen, but not pleased with the sweat shops in China that produced the products and the ways he berated people in order to get them to produce beyond their limits.  Overall, he was quite the unique guy.

Nonetheless, I named my first book The iChurch Method, based on my appreciation for the numerous iOS products that I feel have enhanced my life and business.  I had the choice between iChurch, internet church, eChurch and online church.  Each of these names encompassed what I was trying to explain in the iChurch Method book and how ministries can advance and utilize the internet.  I desire that this book not only be innovative in it’s approach but also “just work” as Steve Jobs would say.  There is somehow a misconception that the ways megachurches use technology is based on their large revenue streams and I want to dispel that myth.  With the numeourous megachurches that I have had the opportunity to work with, each and every one of them has used similar technologies and software that can be used by a small storefront for a fraction of the cost. They all had the same approach which is:

• A great website that is easy to use
• Interactive multimedia
• Ecommerce - online store and online donations
• Social Media - engage and connect
• Mobile - The future of technology and ministry

These five steps were so consistent amongst these ministries that it inspired me to write the book and let the masses know that this technology and methodology was readily available.  Finally, the premise of Apple products and the vision of Steve Jobs, was that every product “just work”. By bringing down the “difficulty wall” on cellphones, mp3 devices, tablets, computers and every other Apple product, they have redefined the user experience for their products.  This “ease of use” is what The iChurch Method is based on, to take technology for ministries, make it easy and help churches to make sure it “just works”.  Thanks Steve, Apple will help advance ministries online.

Google Docs can help ministries

I was reading an article on TNW (TheNextWeb.com) and they had a great piece on the 15 tips to get the most out of Google Docs. The best part about Google Docs is that it's one of the premiere software packages that I endorse when I explain to ministries about cloud applications. "The cloud" has provided a great opportunity for ministries to access and utilize administrative and collaborative software at affordable rates and sometimes free. http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/09/02/15-tips-to-get-the-most-out-of-google-docs/

Here are the keypoints of the article but click on the link above to access the article.

• Google Docs is much less expensive than Microsoft Office
• Automatic Backups and full downloading feature
• Revision history
• Drag and drop uploading
• Drag and drop image insertion into many document types
• Google Docs Templates
• Google Docs Search
• Google Docs has enough space to store ALL of your documents
• Collaboration of numerous people on documents
• Add Youtube videos to Presentations

http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/09/02/15-tips-to-get-the-most-out-of-google-docs/

What is Your Ministry's Web Strategy?

The 2011 Echo conference in Dallas was a great one based on the articles and notes that I have seen come from there. I have no excuse for not being there since I am located in Dallas, but I will be there next year and the following years.

A great article I found from the Echo Conference came from Drew Goodmanson (CEO of Monk Development and the co-founder/pastor of Kaleo Church) and it was about an overall Web Strategy (http://churchjuice.com/blog/develop-a-powerful-web-strategy-echo-2011-notes/). Here are a few key points from the article:

• Skymall Syndrome. Someone in leadership sees something they think is cool and says we need to do that.
• Ministry schizophrenia. Every ministry within a church is trying to run the website and get prime placement.
• Enough about you let's talk about me. A website totally designed for the organization. Users look at it and say it's a waste of time because it's not for them. It wasn't designed with the user in mind.
• The blind leading the blind. No one has a clear vision.
• You have 43 seconds of someone's initial attention when they come to your website.
• 85% of people say their church website is important place for them to learn more about connecting with the church.
• What is the big idea of why your church exists? It doesn't have to be big, fancy language.
• What is your vision? In the next 18 months, what is that going to look like? Don't plan more than two years in advance because things are always changing.
• Who are your current people and who do you want to reach? Take a survey to see what they want. If you don't know your people, your tools won't be effective.
• How do you manage internet presence? How are you represented across different platforms? If you have a great website and no one visits, does it exist?
• How are you being found? Are you listed on MapQuest, Google local listing and Yelp?
• How do you choose content management solutions for web development? How do you control what people can put on the website? Are you helping people know the church's voice and style you use to communicate?
• Do you have a mobile site or apps? It can be expensive to build your own app. Mobile websites with all the information isn't as good as scaling it down to what people are probably looking for (directions, latest message, visitor info, etc.). Keep a click though where folks can go to the full site from their mobile device.

There is much more to this article, check it out - http://churchjuice.com/blog/develop-a-powerful-web-strategy-echo-2011-notes/

Online Church...Social Media...The Great Comission

The 2011 Echo conference in Dallas was a great one based on the articles and notes that I have seen come from there. I have no excuse for not being there since I am located in Dallas, but I will be there next year and the following years.

A great article I found from the Echo Conference came from Justin Wise and it was about Social Media Effectiveness (http://joshburns.net/2011/07/28/echo-11-justin-wise-social-media-effectiveness/). Here are a few key points from the article:

• Internet now leads television as 'most essential' medium
• This is culture in which we are doing ministry
• 61% of respondents said that the church website was very important as to whether they would attend the church
• 88% of 18-27 year olds said that the church should use social media
• The stats go down as the age goes up.
• Regardless of age, we're all social networking.
• Top three social sites people are using – Facebook, Video site, Twitter. The rest are blog, private community, photo site
• How are you using social media to create awareness? To get people connected in community? To foster engagement with your online community?
• What is most effective in creating awareness?
• Engaging your online community – 2 different types
• What is least effective? Engaging a broad, public audience (everything to everyone)
• Google analytics just pulled in social analytics
• How often should you update your status on Facebook or twitter, and when should you post?
• Craft your content not just for your community, but for your platform, Facebook, twitter, etc.

These key points emphasize the fact that the internet and social media will play a key role in the future of ministry. Yes, we will continue to do traditional ministry as we have before with the church and the four walls and the pulpit, but there is another facet of ministry that is emerging where an online audience is the recipient of the ministerial tools of the church. Young adults that are online will start to identify themselves with ministries and churches that they have never set foot in, they will start to create an online community that will be an online extension of the church. The church should embrace this transition and embrace online ministry, it's one of the best ways to take the gospel to the four corners of the earth and fulfill the Great Commission.

Church Websites 101: Know Your Audience

As I continue to follow one of the greatest church blog series at http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/, I invite you all to follow them, you can subscribe to their feed by clicking here.

---

Church Websites 101: Know Your Audience - by Kevin D. Hendricks

So you think your church needs a website. Or a new site. Or a better site. Rock on. Welcome to Church Websites 101, a quick and dirty series about how to start or restart your church's website.

A key to any successful marketing is to know your audience. You don’t advertise heart disease medicine during Hannah Montana. And 60 Minutes is likely not the place to plug your Transformers toys. Marketers are experts at knowing their audience. Churches could learn a thing or two about this as well.

It’s called targeted marketing, and in general churches don’t like it. After all, Jesus told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel. He didn’t tell us to segment the market and only reach specific cultural groups. Churches want to cast a wide net and reach everybody. That’s a commendable goal, but reaching everybody is a good way to reach nobody.

If you’re like most churches, you probably bristle at that statement. That’s fine, we don’t need to argue about missionology. But knowing your audience has important implications as you sit down to build your website. You can ignore the advice about targeted marketing, but there are still realities about your audience that will change what you do on the web.

I can imagine no greater failure than a website designed for Internet Explorer 6 that’s loaded with animated GIFs and targeted to an audience of iPhone using Twitter-heads. Except maybe a site loaded with streaming video and fancy coding that requires the latest browser upgrade targeted to an audience of Luddite baby boomers who never bothered to open their company-issued Blackberrys.

Who Is Your Audience?
First of all, you need to look back at your overall strategy and your plan for your site. Are you building a site for your church members or for potential visitors in your community? (Or some other group? Some churches build their website with a worldwide audience in mind.) You need to clearly define that audience.

What Do They Do Online?
Next, you need to figure out some specifics about the behaviors of that audience. How widespread is broadband usage in your area? How technically savvy is your audience? Are they using Internet Explorer 6 or the beta version of Chrome? Do they know what RSS is? Do they use e-mail? Are people constantly texting or is that behavior frowned upon? The answers to these questions will have major implications for your website. If the majority of your audience is technically inept, you need to scale it back and keep things simple. If your audience is full of techno-hipsters, ramp it up.

How Can You Reach Them?
As you ask these questions a clear picture will develop of who your audience is and how you can reach them.

• You might discover that Facebook is the place to be for your audience and you need to have a major presence on Facebook that’s integrated with your site.
• Or maybe you learn that your audience loves e-mail and while you can provide an RSS feed, you better make sure there’s an option to subscribe via e-mail.
• Maybe your audience wants to create their own content and if you don’t give them an outlet on your site it will never gain traction.

The important thing is to learn about your audience and apply those lessons to how you build your site.

Reaching Multiple Audiences
As you learn about your audience you’ll find more and more segmented groups. You’re not likely to have an audience entirely of hardcore techies. That’s OK. The beauty of the web is that it’s easy to serve multiple audiences. While you need to know and cater to your audience, you can still give options that appeal to minority groups within that audience. Having a mobile version of your site will please the texting masses but it won’t confuse or distract the IE 6 users.

Keep It In Perspective
Just remember to keep things in perspective. If only 10% of your audience is technically savvy, limit your time on the techie toys to something proportionate. If the majority of your audience is still loving the snail mail, printed-on-paper newsletter, your website might need to be a tiny percentage of your time and effort. There’s no sense building something nobody will use.

Know your audience. It’ll change your website.

Church Websites 101: Don't Start With the Web

Today I came across an amazing post over at one of my favorite websites, http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/, and in this post the editor Kevin D. Hendricks is starting a great series called Church Websites 101. This series is off to a great start and addresses how church websites are increasingly behind. We look forward to following this series here at iChurch: The New Internet Church. Read below:

---

Church Websites 101: Don’t Start with the Web
by Kevin D. Hendricks

Church websites are woeful. We’re continually asked how churches can make their websites better. And I’m not talking about the cool churches with Twitter and video and a pastor’s blog. I’m talking about the churches with a “current” calendar from December 2008. The churches where a volunteer created the site and it shows. The sites that still have animated GIFs.

Assuming the church even has a website. Recent research shows that 22% of churches still don’t even have a website. It’s hard to tell what’s worse, a horribly out-dated online presence or none whatsoever.

So you think your church needs a website. Or a new site. Or a better site. Rock on. Welcome to Church Websites 101, a quick and dirty series about how to start or restart your church’s website. And we’re going for solid, realistic improvements here. We’re not breaking the bank and importing the latest and greatest technology. We’ll go from no site to something better or something cringe-worthy to something somewhat respectable. The goal here is not to compete with the big boys, but simply to get in the game and not make your web visitors laugh.

Don’t Start with the Web
But before you start assembling volunteer geeks and webheads, checking our WordPress and setting up your Twitter feed, stop. Before you dream of flash intros (don’t!), streaming video and RSS feeds, stop. Before you start clicking around the web to see how other churches are doing it, stop.

Just stop.

The first rule of websites is don’t start with the web.

Before you even think about the web you need to have a solid plan. Not just for the web, but for your church’s entire communication strategy.

Do you have a plan? Do you have a strategy for how your church communicates? Have you thought through how your fancy new website will fit into that plan? If not, stop. Just stop.

You can’t start constructing a building without a plan. Well, you can, but it doesn’t get very far. The results are ugly, expensive and dangerous. Same thing with communication. You can start communicating without a plan. You can spit out postcards and flood the web with tweets and the prettiest website you ever saw. But if you have no plan, it’s not going to get very far. You’re going to waste money, effort and time.

Start with a Plan
So before you start building that new website, start with a communications plan. Don’t even worry about your website yet. Worry about your overall communications plan. We’ll get to the web. But you need to take a step back and look at the big picture first. Otherwise in three years you’ll be shaking your head at your lame website and starting over again. Just like you did three years ago.

How does your church communicate? What do you communicate? Why do you communicate it? Who’s your audience? What’s the best way to reach that audience? What are your goals? How are you going to reach those goals? What’s your style? Who’s responsible for the communication? Who makes the final decisions? Is communication a priority?

These are big questions and they’ll take a lot of time, but if you don’t answer them then any work you do on a website is just a waste of time.

So before you dive into a redesign or commit to leaving the 22% club, step back and make a plan.

Here’s a great resource to help churches create a marketing plan. It might not be the fun, geeky web work you were hoping to do, but you need to start somewhere. And you need a solid foundation for that somewhere. Creating a communications plan will give you that foundation.

So don’t start with the web. Start with a plan.

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