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.

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.

Social Media Strategy

Our good friends over at Vocus have provided a great social media development strategy worksheet that ministries can utilize to help create an effective social media strategy. This interactive module asks specific questions to help formulate a social media strategy that would be beneficial to the ministry. If you are in a hurry you can click on the PDF option at the bottom of the module and download the social media strategy worksheet and complete it at your leisure.

http://www.vocus.com/social-media-strategy/index.asp

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.

A Brilliant Facebook Content Strategy

I came across an amazing blog post from Genae Girard - http://optimizationsummits.com/new-media/hiccup-your-way-past-competitors-on-facebook/. This blog post was about what content should be used to engage and interact with Facebook fans (and twitter). The blog post is located below.

The key points of the blog and how it can help ministries reach people online are as follows:

• Make sure to use a rich mix of information, education, humor and fun.
• Humor allows your audience to come away with a warm fuzzy feeling and friendly attachment to your message.
• Interactive Questions/Polls - The purpose here is to begin the conversation and let people create a community buzz.
• Content - If you don't provide a myriad of interesting topics that are relevant and current, then customers just simply go away. Clicking "unlike" on Facebook is just as easy as clicking "like".
• Current Events - If your content isn't relevant to the current times then you won't reach the current generation. Make sure your content helps reach the old and the young, we have a message that is timeless so apply it to today's issues and let them know that the solution is Jesus no matter what!!
• Promos and Specials - Mentions specials, promotions, new products, events, ministries and services. Make sure you run creative promotions and contests that will keep the attention of your online audience.

Overall, with the right amount of relevant and enriching content, a Facebook page can be a great tool for ministry and helping reach people across the globe.

Social Media and Ministry Leadership

The entire focus of iChurch is to help advance ministries online.  This is done by utilizing a five-step approach of websites, multimedia, ecommerce, social media and mobile.  The reason for a five-step approach is to make iChurch as easy as possible and to help ministries understand how to integrate technology into their ministerial approach.  The problem most often is getting the leadership to buy into the benefits of social media as well as get involved in the actual implementation of social media.

I was over at one of my favorite blogs, @StickyJesus and I saw this post that gave a great summary of a 10 Things We Wish Pastors Would “Get” About Social Media

http://stickyjesus.com/2011/05/10-things-we-wish-pastors-would-get-about-social-media/

1. Technology + influence = power. The church needs a voice at the online table locally, nationally and globally. Political systems are being influenced (and overthrown) via social networks. The church needs to be in the conversation influencing the culture with God’s word—not the other way around. This influence needs to start with our pastors, our leaders.

2. Your city is online. The unchurched you seek to reach—within 20 miles of your sanctuary—live on social networks. Do a city search here and follow them on Twitter. Share your values, listen to theirs, and genuinely connect. If you connect with your church family on Facebook, you also potentially connect with their neighbors and friends who may not know Christ. Your reach as a pastor becomes wider, your influence, deeper.

3. Get to know your flock—online. We joyfully know everything about you. We know your wife’s hobbies, your kids’ favorite sports, when you go fishing, and when Pastor appreciation day is. Social media is a great way for you to get to know us. We don’t expect long conversations, just an acknowledgment now and then, a show of support for our families, or nod or prayer toward our ups and downs. We also have blogs, ministries, and Facebook pages—just like you, so drop by and interact with us the way we are quick to interact with you.

4. Social media is social. If you are online, pastor, understand “social” is a two-way street. Your social network is not your second pulpit. If you think it’s cool to have 10,000 followers and only follow 10 people, think again. Social platforms provide a place for you to engage, grow, respond, give, and comment. We do not ache to see a stream of your blog links, sermon links, or 24/7 scriptures. If you present a one-way conversation, you risk looking arrogant and only confirm in a public forum that you don’t understand the genuine nature and power of social networks.

5. Yes, it really is this easy. The enemy doesn’t want Christians—especially pastors—online. The communication channel is too powerful. If we do get online, he hopes we will misuse our time there. So keep it simple, pastor. Choose a few tools and roll—but please, roll. Choosing a few tools like Tweetdeck, Twuffer.com, Twitter lists, and social mobile apps, can keep you in touch with thousands of people a day! The last thing we want is for you to have another “thing” taking up your time. We just want you to connect briefly. It will cost you about an hour or two a week.

6. You can encourage thousands weekly. We need you and you need us. We need you to pray for us and come up beside us in life, and we are eager to do the same for you. We struggle and often we post those struggles on our Facebook walls or in our blogs. Please, meet us where we are.

7. Do what you can do—but do something. We will not hold you to a digital standard or get our feelings hurt if you don’t respond or regularly connect with us online. We get it. We don’t want our pastor living online (in fact, please don’t).

8. We’re sharing our lives in a 140 characters. Despite the rumors, we aren’t having affairs and wasting all our time online (at least not everyone is). There’s great conversation, prayer, edification, ideas, news, and wisdom exchanged every day online. There’s also grieving, praying, and spiritual dilemmas raised. We’d love for you to add your insight and fellowship to the mix from time to time.

9. A higher standard is needed. The conduct bar is all over the place for non-Christians as well as Christians online. The value line moves on a whim and the accountability is slim. Your presence would help keep the conversation bar high. Your words and the way you handle situations online provide critical discipleship. So, please show up and we can work on this together—as the body of Christ.

10. Jesus is tweeting, so why not you? The Holy Spirit is everywhere you click. Miracles are happening and lives are being transformed. It makes sense for Pastors to be where the action is—and where your influence is critical.

Why Ministries Should Utilize Social Media...

I was teaching at the North American Division of the Seventh Day Adventists Church Media Summit. After my session, I was pulled to the side and asked to give a quick statement about why ministries should utilize social media, this was my answer.

Facebook and Spirituality

I was reading Allfacebook.com and found this great article at http://www.allfacebook.com/8-reasons-why-facebook-brings-out-spirituality-2011-04, this is a great article by Ruth Manuel-Logan on Facebook and Spirituality.  The reason is that I have heard Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, Catholics and a variety of other groups refer to Facebook as a negative or positive aspect of their spirituality.  Now in my opinion, Facebook is exactly what you make it to be, if you want it to be the best evangelizing tool ever created, then it is that.  If you feel Facebook is the devil, then that is exactly what it is.  Facebook is simply whatever you want it to be.

I use Facebook to express my spirituality as well as help ministries further their mission to proclaim the gospel.  They attract people that want to support this mission and thus Facebook is a way to reach millions all over the world.  If I wanted Facebook to be something else and I started to use it as such, then it would become that.  So overall, in my opinion, Facebook is nothing more then a website that has the capability to become something great, a great way to accomplish great things, or a great way to engage in bad things, but either way, Facebook is something great. Here is the article.

8 Reasons Why Facebook Brings Out Spirituality

There are an increasing number of ministries, religious nonprofits, houses of worship, clergy and small-group ministries that now routinely maintain accounts on Facebook.

Some even claim that their interpersonal relationship with their deity of choice has even deepened via this social network and are touting it, not only as a way to gain new followers but to maintain an open line of constant communication with a higher power.

Below are eight reasons why Facebook can bring out spirituality.

1. Get Well Postings - When loved ones are stricken with an illness, it’s comforting to receive transmitted prayer concerns rapidly via Facebook.

2. Heralding The Good Word - It’s been said that nothing can replace the joy and lasting value of sharing your spiritual journey with the open ears and hearts of other users.

3. Discussions Of Scriptures - Many people have found that participating in an online community provides them with a safe place to freely express themselves religiously.

4. Open Exchange Of Doctrines - Social networks also possess the ability to affirm your belief system by commingling with like minds in a non-judgemental zone.

5. Goal Setting - Your online persona can be an inspirational reflection and Facebook can act as a kind of stepping stone towards becoming the person you’d like to be.

6. Food For The Soul - Although social networking is a kind of mediated experience, you can feed your spiritual soul amid the floods of biblical passages, spiritual quotes or evites to upcoming religious events.

7. Accept Other Belief Systems - Facebook allows you to also migrate into other forms of spiritual consciousness that is ideologically different than yours.

8. Start Self Reflecting - Researchers have stated that social media can lead you to become more more inward looking which enhances spiritual progression.

Facebook Profile, Business or Fan Page - Part 1

Today I was having a conversation with a colleague of mine who was trying to explain to me the difference between a Facebook fan page and a Facebook business page. I proceeded to explain to her that a business page was simply a category for a fan page, just as it could be a nonprofit page, product page and so on but she was adamant in her explanation that there was a difference.

So it dawned on me right then that there may be other people that have this misconception about Facebook fan pages, business pages, profiles and other things that people find confusing about Facebook. Therefore, I felt the need to explain the difference between them as well as how to create a Facebook fan page.

First things first, what's the difference between a Facebook profile page and a fan page. The bottom line is profiles are now only for individuals and pages are for business. Profiles and pages have different features.

• Profile pages have a limitation of 5000 friends
• Profile pages have distinct privacy features and are only accessed if the profile owner "adds you as a friend".
• Profile pages have all the features of Facebook such as updating statuses, photos, links, videos, applications, groups, wall posts and other interactive elements.
• Profile pages do not have customizable tabs similar to fan pages.
• Profile pages are much more common on Facebook and are easily created from the Facebook.com homepage by filling out a few boxes to get started.

On the other hand fan pages (which are also known as business pages)

• Businesses are only allowed to open pages NOT profiles. A business which opens a profile page is in direct violation of TOS.
• Business pages allow other users to become fans, but access to the individual profile pages are limited.
• Business pages do not allow the ability to invite friends – in fact business pages cannot maintain a friends list – they can only maintain a fan list.
• Business pages do allow updating your status (which gets shared with your fans)
• Business pages allow: pictures, videos, discussion board, application, wall posts, groups and other interactive elements.
• Business pages allow customization of tabs to promote interactivity

Here is a quote from Facebook on their official policy (on difference between profile and pages):

Facebook profiles are meant to represent a single individual. Organizations of any type are not permitted to maintain an account under the name of their organization. We have created Facebook Pages to allow organizations to have a presence on Facebook. These Pages are distinct presences, separate from user profiles, and optimized for an organization's needs to communicate, distribute information/content, engage their fans, and capture new audiences virally through their fan's recommendations to their friends. Facebook Pages are designed to be a media rich, valuable presence for any artist, business or brand.

If you create a profile for your business, your account may be disabled for violating our Terms of Use. If you have questions about how to best leverage your Facebook Page, please check out our Insider's Guide or FAQ.

But of course there is always a way out. If you have previously created a Facebook profile page for your business or organization, you can convert it to a fan page with these easy steps.

1. Login to the profile page that you want to convert to a fan page.
2. Once you have logged in, go to this page https://www.facebook.com/help/?page=18918.
   
3. Once you get to that page click on the second option which says "How do I convert my profile to a Page?"
4. The dropdown information will reveal this option, "If you would like to convert your profile to a Page, click here"
5. Once you click on that you will get the Facebook Fan Page create page where you can choose which type of fan page you want to convert your profile page to. From here you follow the steps to create a fan page, which we will discuss in part 2 of this post.

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.

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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:

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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