The Four Websites Your Church Will Ever Need

At least until the next 4 websites come along and replace these. But these will do for now!

Facebook
Today there are 800 million people on Facebook and of those, 350 million people connect to Facebook on mobile devices. Facebook is not just for college students any more as the fastest growing segment happens to the Baby Boomers.

Some churches are using Facebook as their primary website. You don't have to belong to Facebook to view material on the site. This keeps the site updated and current. Better to have no website than to have one that's not current!

One of the best resources on how a church can embrace and use Facebook was written by Danielle Hartland's which you can read by clicking here.

Wordpress or Blogger
You not only need to create a church website, you need to MAINTAIN one too. And there's the problem for most churches. Most church websites are poorly maintained. Many start out looking great and end up abandoned.

Why not use a blogging platform like Wordpress or Blogger? These tools are all online. You sign up for a site, go to your site, sign in, and access the site's dashboard control panel to post new announcements, photos, and make design changes. This means you you can manage your site from ANY computer in the world as long as you have the password to your account. No software to download or install.

You can have a pastor's blog, an "about the church," directions to get to your location, and tons of other stuff! Here's an imaginary church example to inspire you!

Podomatic
The church where I serve, Sylvania UCC, had audio recordings up on the website since 2010. But no one knew this. So we decided to use Podomatic, because in one click, they can have our sermons sent directly to their iTunes account... and it's all FREE. You can pay around $100 for extra storage and bandwidth, but if you're only putting up 4 or 5 at a time and not using the site to archive a whole year of preaching, you should be fine. Check out Sylvania's Podomatic site here.

The cool thing about podcasts is that your peeps can download the MP3 of your sermon and take it with them on their iPods, iPhones, iPads, whatever. Unlike Youtube, they can take the sermon in their car or out for a run. Plus most churches don't have the capacity to do a good video presentation of the sermons and most people I know don't want to look at a talking head for 20 minutes. So audio is the way to go here, IMHO.

Plus I also started my own podcast, the PLP to discuss whatever I want... like my trip to Chautauqua or whether or not you can believe in ghosts and still be a Christian.

MailChimp
Use MailChimp if you ever dream of doing online newsletter. You can do full color, interactive, professional looking PAPERLESS newsletters that are sent directly to your congregant's email. It's like NWOA's The Vine. It is also free. There's a pay option as well, but there's not much bang for your buck and most things you can do for free.

The Case for Social Media

Okay.

We've covered the ethics, the landscape, and a bit of the history of social media.

We checked out some of the problems it has caused and how it has affected our society and how it's even rewiring our brains.

Now I hope to argue for why you and your congregation should jump straight into the strange and ever-changing landscape of social media.

I will outline the three big reasons to do so. Please feel free to question, disagree, and add your own perspective here.

1. Old Media is Expensive. New Media is Free. 
A Florida pastor decides to host "Burn a Koran Day." Not one of the traditional media channels cover his offensive event. Not print. Not TV. Not even radio (and there's lots of crazy stuff on the AM channels!). Yet this pastor of a church of under 100 sets off riots in the Middle East.

How?

Youtube.

This is a negative example. But it holds power.

Through the use of social media, your church is not just local (like the diner place-mat ads we take out). Your church is not just national (like we can't afford). It's GLOBAL. 

Through the use of social media, we can by-pass the traditional channels of evangelisim/marketing/advertising. And we do this at no financial cost. The only cost is learning how to use the tools. Even that is free and easy as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and many others, all have super helpful tutorial sections on their sites.

2. Increased Visitor Traffic
1 in every 9 people on the planet is on Facebook.
Traditional Websites and Social Media Sites reach 80% of those who are already on the internet.*

Odds are extremely good that a first visit to your church will be via the internet. When visitors show up, they already have a sense of what your church is about. What we have on our hands are free tools to help us be "Fishers of People" (Matt 4:9). The mission of the church is to go and make disciples (Matt 28:19) and the web is an invaluable tool to help you attract visitors.

3. If You're Not Online, Who is?
I'm sure your congregation is the nicest bunch of people on the planet. I'm sure your liturgy and theology are rock solid and rooting in Scripture, your tradition, and history of your community. But how will visitors know this if you're not on the web?

And who is on the web? That Florida pastor is. And that's not good for all Christians in general.
The church down the block is.
The mega-church in your area is.
You don't have to have the massive, expensive production that they do. You just have to communicate clearly what your about and that will attract people.

So go out and be a blessing that bends the internet towards the good (like Paul Rausenbush stated).

Get your community online and start fishing for people (like Jesus stated).

*From Toni Birdsong's Social Media presentation

Social Media Outreach Resource

Hey Group! I hope this series has been informative thus far.

I was recently at a conference given by Toni Birdsong. Toni is a media consultant and co-author of the book Sticky Jesus. I thought that what she had to say would be incredibly helpful to you. And guess what?

Through the miracle that is the interwebz, you can check out her slides from her presentation! Just click here!

This presentation will help you

• Understand the social media frontier
• Shift your thinking
• Formulate a game plan for your church

Please let me know what you found helpful or whatever questions that popped up while you were reading.

Otis Moss III: Digital Faith and Analogue Religion

The Rev. Otis Moss III (OM3) is the pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Trinity is the largest church in our denomination. 

While Trinity has been known for its social programs on behalf of the disadvantaged, the church is starting to be known for taking the lead in digital outreach as well.

The church has a membership of 7,500. On an average Sunday, 5,000 to 5,500 people attend service in person while at the same time 3,000 attend virtually. Recently, the church updated its technology to become even more interactive. The church has an active Facebook page, Twitter handle and an e-newsletter, which is delivered to 8,500 people. It even has electronic giving, which now supports 18% of the church’s budget.

All of this is done at minimal cost to the church. Most of the digital tools that Trinity employs are free to use. Facebook, Twitter, MailChimp (an e-newsletter site) and Youtube are all free to use. All it takes is time. And odds are you already have someone in your congregation that knows how to use these sites. But more on that in the next post.

To hear OM3 (that's his Twitter handle by the way) talk more about how digital culture can work for your church, please check out his lecture from Chautauqua from this past summer.