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.

Basic Components of Your Church Website

When designing your church website, there are many options. What should you include? Consider some or all of these components: • An eye-catching color scheme • Optimized images • Rotating Banners • Multimedia • User interaction • Newsletter registration • Content Management System • Site map • Social media icons • High quality content

The color scheme is a critical. Color is a mood enhancer, and can trigger a host of different emotions. Consider your congregation, their preferences, age, liberalism or conservatism, culture, popular local sports teams, etc. You may want to simply reflect the interior or exterior colors of your building, for a sense of identity. Before selecting a color scheme, take a look at various sites and see what you find pleasing.

Along with the color scheme, images are key to creating a visually pleasing website. Images not only break up the text, but they can help to illustrate it, as well as giving visitors a visual representation of your congregation. Choose images that are warm and inviting, evocative of a caring community and paint a favorable picture of your ministry. Make sure your photos are professional in quality and not taken from someone's cell phone camera.

Rotating banners are an effective way of displaying a greater number of images on your website without cluttering it up. They can also be used to advertise upcoming events, and effectively expand the usable space of your page. For maximum effectiveness, add other forms of multimedia to your site, such as digital podcasts of sermons, or short digital videos taken from recent services or church events.

User interaction can be accomplished through the use of online events calendars, prayer requests, donation modules, and registration forms for various church events, as well as to sign up to receive an electronic church newsletter via email.

A content management system allows different users to update different portions of the website, so that the minister can post a blog, for instance, without having to go through the webmaster.

A site map is your visitor's "you are here" sign, allowing them to navigate directly to the page they're looking for. Social media icons allow users to "like" your page on Facebook, Twitter or a variety of other social media sites, share content from your church's website, or even to go directly to your church's social media pages, if you have them.

Lastly, high quality content is crucial. This is the meat and potatoes of your site. Make sure all of your blogs, descriptions, captions and other content are spelled correctly, use easily understood language with proper grammar, and are interesting and informative. This is the most difficult part of all, and will likely require a large number of participants and one very good editor.

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.

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!!

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iChurchMethod.com is now FASTER!!

Over the last few months I noticed that my website was running slower, load times went from 3 seconds to 60 seconds and I could not figure out why. I tried to put on my server admin hat as well as my developer hat and went into wordpress and optimized the website, removed some plugins, setup a CDN (Content Distribution Network) with maxcdn.com and finally found the issue. The issue wasn’t anything I had done, it was my hosting company, Godaddy has failed me. Godaddy is a great hosting company to start off with but as your website grows the shared hosting plans have so many websites on each server that your site starts to slow down considerably. This is an issue for anyone whose site needs to load quickly, which should be all websites. Personally, I give websites 2 - 3 seconds to load before my A.D.D. kicks in and i’m onto something else. So how can I expect people to wait “10 internet years” for my website to load due to my hosting company overloading the servers with thousands of websites.

Well all is well now because I have migrated to Hostgator.com and my website is running very very fast, with a loading time of 1.08 seconds!!

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.

Give Your Church Website Photos that Pop and a Pleasing Color Scheme

When it comes to your church website, it pays to remember that this may be the first impression a visitor gets of your church. You want it to be warm, inviting, and above all, professional. Pictures should not look like someone took them with a cell phone camera. If a picture really does paint a thousand words then you can use them to tell your story, and save having to come up with quite so much content. Consider hiring a professional photographer or finding a budding amateur among your members. A good camera and photo editing software are a must.

A common mistake amateurs make is to place low-resolution photographs on their site as is, without even bothering to crop them appropriately. Photographs should be high resolution, corrected for lighting, contrast and color, and cropped to frame the subjects you wish to highlight.

Photo editing is less about fixing bad photographs, but rather taking great photographs and altering their mood, lighting and tone to set the stage for your story. Photographs can be modified to reflect the color scheme of your site, the mood of the occasion and more.

If you've ever watched the television show CSI Miami, you may have noticed that the coloring is very intense, in order to achieve a certain mood for the program. That look can be achieved by simply bumping up the saturation levels during the editing process to make the colors really pop. Colors can be removed, as well, to give photos an old timey, sepia-toned look.

Lighting levels can be adjusted in your photographs to create a somber mood, or brightened up to make them appear more festive. Any number of modifications can be made to your photographs to help them tell the story, so be sure to take advantage of the technology to best effect.

Your color scheme is equally important, as it will set the tone for your website and may have a strong influence on the type of parishioners you attract. If you're hoping to attract young people, you'll want bright, vibrant colors, whereas if your congregation is mostly older and conservative, then you'll want to select more traditional, muted colors.

You should browse a number of different sites before deciding on the color scheme of your church website. Do you want your site to be joyous, vibrant, reverent, pious, respectful, humble, glorious, or serene? Pick the word that most describes your congregation, and find the colors to match.

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.

Mobile Churches are Global Churches

With more smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices being produced and sold than ever before, people are staying connected, from the office, the dentist, the chiropractor, the grocery store, and everywhere else that their busy day takes them. If not already the case, there will soon be more mobile internet users logged on at any given time than those using stationary personal computers and laptops combined. When one of these mobile users, perhaps in a moment of extreme duress, conducts a search for Hope, Help or God, you want to make sure you are ready to answer the call.

Formatting Your Website for Mobile

Optimize your website for mobile phones. If you visit a site on your mobile phone that is not optimized for mobile, it will appear much like it does on your PC or laptop - only much smaller. You'll have to blow up each section just to read it. Mobile optimized sites, on the other hand, are formatted differently, so that you can read each section clearly, and browse much as you would a regular site.

To do this, you will have hire someone to reformat your site for a variety of devices. You can then employ a "sniffer" program that will immediately detect what kind of device is accessing your site, and it will present the most readable site format for that particular device, whether it is a PC, laptop, cell phone or tablet.

Mobile Check In Keeps You Connected

Certain applications allow a user to check in, via the GPS feature in a smart phone, virtually broadcasting where that user is. This allows nearby businesses to send them coupons and discount offers, along with letting their friends know where they are, in case they happen to be nearby and want to connect. When people check in to announce that they're attending your church services or special event, this brings a great deal of positive exposure for your organization.

You can also take advantage of the mobile coupon application to send notices of church services, discounted tickets to church sponsored events, church store discount coupons and more to people who check in within a certain radius of your ministry.

In summary, in order to reach out to your busy congregation today, sometimes you have to reach a little farther in order to keep up with them as they rush from place to place. Mobile technology puts your message right at their fingertips, any place, any time.

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.

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/.

How to Stream Your Sermons Online for FREE!

We have created an ebook titled, How to Stream Your Sermon Online for FREE. We are giving away this ebook for FREE. How to Stream Your Sermon Online for FREE is an excerpt from The iChurch Method Book by Jason Caston, this section has been extracted from the book and turned into an ebook just for you.

Whether your church wants to stream its service live every weekend or record its services and let its online members watch at their leisure, this book will help your ministry/church reach millions online.

Don't let your church miss out on this opportunity to learn how to reach millions online by broadcasting your church services for FREE.

Here are some screen shots from the Free ebook - How to Stream Your Sermon Online for FREE.

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Get Your Copy of How to Stream Your Sermon Online for FREE TODAY!!

Mobile apps and Mobile websites for Churches are now, Right Now

Last year I wrote a blog that said Mobile was coming and it was based on me speaking about the benefits of having a mobile website and/or mobile app for your ministry. Well, about a week ago my blog sent out a post from my archives (via Tweet old Post) and the software chose the “Mobile is Coming” post. On Twitter, my friend Antoine Wright (@mobileminmag) responded “Mobile is not coming...Mobile is Now”, and I totally agree. I have had the opportunity to build quite a few mobile ministry websites and apps and I find myself continually looking at the google analytics to determine how many people are visiting these mobile properties vs. the traditional properties. Here are some great stats for you on some properties I have helped build:

TD Jakes Ministries Mobile Website - 1 in 4 users that visit TDJakes.org is on a mobile device. Overall, that’s hundreds of thousands of users that interact with the ministry via their mobile device. If the ministry did not have a mobile website, the experience of interactive with the ministry would be greatly hindered. And here’s another tidbit, the #1 thing that people are doing when they are on the TDJ mobile website, watching live or archived video.

TD Jakes Ministries Mobile App (Apple - Android) - Most recently, TDJ launched an iPhone and Android app, within the first few weeks we had tens of thousands of downloads with very good reviews. Thus this tells me two things, 1. People were waiting on this app, and 2. People prefer an app over a mobile website.

Ever Increasing Faith Ministries Mobile Website - 1 in 5 users that visit Faithdome.org are on a mobile device. These users are looking for 1 of 2 things, either they want to watch videos (live or archived) or they are looking for the daily devotionals. This shows that these mobile users are very interested in receiving ministry no matter where they are via their mobile device. This is a great thing.

Ever Increasing Faith Mobile donations has increased 400% from the month the mobile website first launched compared to the most recent month. This mobile commerce figure was a bit of a surprise to me. I knew that we could make the online donation process mobile friendly but what I didn’t expect was how quickly people would use it.

Overall, I see that churches should have a mobile delivery plan for their web properties in order to reach more online users. Also, to answer an age old questions, which mobile property should a church do first, website or app, I always say website then app. The mobile website will reach more devices than an iOS specific or Android specific app.

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!

The iChurch Method - 2013 - Here We Go!!

As we gear up for 2013, we here at The iChurch Method look forward to some great advancements, new book releases and some innovative ways to help you advance your churches online. We just wanted to give you a preview of some of the things coming in 2013.

• The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When you Login, with book trailers and interviews. This book will be released in March/April 2013
• Guest blogging on Churchm.ag, I have been presented with an opportunity to guest blog on Churchm.ag so look for some great church and technology posts on there courtesy of yours truly, Jason Caston.
• Launching The iChurch Method Web and Social Media online course with Azusa Pacific University and Christian Leadership Alliance. Coming this April 2013, the Web and Social Media online course will be launched with content from The iChurch Method. We will provide specifics later.
• Prof. John Weaver is using The iChurch Method in his course at Abilene Christian University with special video content we recorded while on campus at the AT&T studios. This video content will be released later this year.

Developing and launching an internet church campus at T.D. Jakes Ministries. We are currently working on a full internet church campus for The Potter’s House of Dallas and T.D. Jakes Ministries, this will be a major feat and we are looking at having at least 10,000 people to start.

• Releasing interactive book apps for The iChurch Method volumes 1 and 2. We embrace the interactive experience on the iPad and will develop interactive apps that take The iChurch Method book experience to another level.
• Teaching at as well as attending numerous conferences this year such as
• T.D. Jakes Pastors and Leadership Conference
• FICWFM Annual Convention
• Biola Digital Ministry Conference
• Christian Leadership Alliance Annual Conference
• ACU Summit
• Various “Leadership Network” events in Dallas, TX
• iMinistry 2013 Conference
• SDA Conference
• NRB conference
• NACC conference

This looks like it will be a great year, can’t wait!

Facebook Timeline, Pinterest, Instagram and the rise of the visual social network

Over the last month I have been updating some of the social media pages for the ministries I work with. The main updates I have been making are to facebook timeline, setting up instagram accounts and Pinterest accounts. These three networks have a common theme going on that I have noticed over the last year, they are becoming much more visual. The Visual Social Network era is here. Facebook Timeline is a great example of a visual representation of our facebook experience. Prior to the launch of timeline, the facebook profile page was considered the most under utilized part of the social network. Profile pages and Fan pages were simply plain representations of the user but not very interactive or visual. Now Facebook didn’t want to go to the extreme of letting the entire page become customizable and load slow like myspace, but they knew they had to turn the profile page into more of a visual representation of the person and a destination that people will spend time at, mainly for advertising purposes. And as we can all see, Facebook timeline has taken social media by storm.

But let’s not overlook the other two great visual social media platforms, Facebook bought Instagram for 1 Billion dollars for one reason, it’s a mobile visual social network. 30 million users are on instagram and as of the announcement of their purchase by Facebook, they had added 10 million downloads of the mobile app on iOS and Android devices. Instagram is based on photo and video editing filters that people can add to their photos/videos they take with their mobile devices and post to their instagram account. Instagram accounts can be followed and commented on within the mobile social network as well as posted on other networks such as facebook and twitter. But the main draw of Instagram is that it is fully mobile, there is no desktop version of the platform, it operates fully within the mobile space and is just pictures and videos.

Next up is Pinterest, pinterest has rapidly risen to become the 3rd largest social network in the world. Having a large user base with women, Pinterest is a visual social network that has a mobile and desktop presence. It’s based on pictures and videos and allows you to comment, pin, create boards and repin photos and videos. This visual multimedia social network shows the evolution of the visual aspects of social networking and the focus they have.

The benefit to ministries is that these visual social networks give ministries the ability to tell their story using great multimedia. Using amazing photos and videos, ministries can visually capture moments of their ministry and share them with the world. Many ministries are able to tell their stories in print but how many can visually explain to the world how amazing their ministry is and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Photography quote

"To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event."

- Henri Cartier-Bresson

The iChurch Method 2012 Year in Review

As 2012 comes to an end, we here at The iChurch Method would like to thank you for all your support. It’s been a banner inaugural year. It’s awe inspiring to think that at this time last year, The iChurch Method was just a small blog that was waiting to be launched into the public with the release of the flagship book, The iChurch Method Vol 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online. With that being stated, let’s look at some of the key accomplishments in 2012.

• Launched The iChurch Method Vol. 1 at the Pastors and Leaders conference in Orlando where I taught and had a book signing. It was an awesome experience
• Spoke at SDA national convention in ABQ as well as the Social Media bootcamp in Costa Mesa CA on taking your Social Media to the next level.
• Taught at FICWFM convention in Los Angeles at Crenshaw Christian Center on Social Media and Ministry. This was great because I have worked with CCC since 2007 and I was finally able to participate in their major convention.
• Wrote for Gospel Today Magazine (2 times) and The iChurch Method was reviewed in the magazine as well.
• Taught The iChurch Method class at The Potter’s Institute and introduced The iChurch Method Live, where I streamed the classes live online for anyone to participate in using Google Hangouts.
• The iChurch Method is now being sold in The Potters House, Crenshaw Christian Center and SDA Adventsource bookstores.
• Prof. David Bourgeois of Biola University in La Mirada CA, used The iChurch Method for his digital ministry summer course.
• Filmed by local news, CW33 for a segment on church and technology
• Participated in Conclave with Monkdevelopment.com for church communicators and met some great friends. This event hand selected church communicators from across the country and we all met in Dallas for a collaborative meeting.
• Reached 1 million Facebook fans and created a new online church streaming module for T.D. Jakes Ministries. When I arrived at T.D. Jakes ministries in Jan. 2010, they were not using social media at all. I was able to implement an initial strategy of devotionals and links to online video content to start generating interaction via social media, and two years later the audience grew to 1 million.

The iChurch Method at Universities

The focus of The iChurch Method was to educate and inform churches how to better use technology and advance their ministry online. What I didn’t foresee was the academic environments that The iChurch Method could be utilized in. I didn’t foresee Christian Universities using The iChurch Method in their curriculums to help educate their students on how technology can be (and is being) used in ministry. Here are two great universities that have utilized The iChurch in their curriculums.

Biola University - Digital Ministry Seminar Summer Course - Prof. David T Bourgeois
Abilene Christian University - Christian Ministry in Digital Culture - Dr. John Weaver

The benefits of introducing students to The iChurch Method in college as well as how real life churches are using technology is that we are able prepare students to help advance ministries technologically as soon as they come out of school, instead of them going to corporate america and then eventually coming to work for the church. This would give churches access to more individuals with technical skills that are ready to help advance the kingdom online.

Social Media in Ministry Presentation Package

Mobile Media is on the RISE

A major ministry I work with has been on tv for years and has millions of viewers. As we were coming up with our web strategy, we knew it was important to allow people to watch the television broadcasts on the ministry website. We figured since millions people were watching it on tv, there would thousands watching from our website. Well we were right and we were wrong. We were right in that there are thousands of people watching the website broadcast, we were wrong in thinking that it would be from our “traditional” website. The largest viewers of our broadcasts online are from the mobile website. After we setup our traditional website, we started working on a mobile website just because that was something that we thought the people might want. We had no idea how much they wanted it, and how much they would use it. And the main thing they do on the mobile website is watch live services and archived tv broadcasts.

Now I am not saying to build your entire mobile website around multimedia (people still want location, service times, contact information), but do keep in mind that with 4G internet speeds and millions of smart phones out there, multimedia is being consumed at a high rate, so provide the people with what they want and they will support the ministry.

For more information on how to best implement solutions like this preorder The iChurch Method 2: Changing the World When You Login.

Mobile Giving is on the RISE

I was at a meeting this week with a ministry I work with and we were talking about the online progress of the websites. While we were discussing this a very interesting fact was revealed, I informed them that their first ever mobile online donation came in February 2012, since then, they have received tens of thousands of dollars via their mobile website. This of course made them very happy but also confirmed how important mobile was to their online strategy. Now let’s think about this for a second, prior to January 2012 there was no mobile website. Likewise, prior to February 2012, they had never received a mobile online donation, thus this was a new revenue stream for the ministry. Stats did confirm that 30% of people that were giving via the website did migrate to the mobile website giving but 70% were an entirely new group of people. Based on this information, I genuinely believe that people were waiting for a mobile way to give from the church because that is convenient for them. They wanted to access and support the ministry via their mobile device, so when the ministry provided that, they in turned gave.

Now, let’s look at how to take this further, the church that we are talking about has a mobile website but they do not have a mobile app or SMS giving options. This is where they can improve upon their current mobile offerings and provide more ways for people to support the ministry. Does your ministry provide mobile donations?

For more information on how to best implement solutions like this preorder The iChurch Method 2: Changing the World When You Login.