Times Are Changing. Are You Behind The Power Curve?
April 22nd, 2008 Categories: Technology for Pastors
This is Microsoft Surface . My first, and most overwhelming though is: “How do we use this thing to advance the cause of Christ?”
Picture sharing video clips from The Passion of the Christ with loved ones huddled over your coffee table as you share with them the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior.
Picture yourself showing photos of your congregation to an unchurched believer who is looking for a place to worship as you sit at your local coffee shop on a Friday night. We need to embrace this technology. Change is coming. Are you ready?
We Build Blogs
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3 Cool Tech Gadgets to Grow Your Church
April 21st, 2008 Categories: Technology for Pastors
Oh, you know you like tech gadgets, don’t you? Come on. Just a little? That’s what I thought.
If you’re the kind of Pastor who might find yourself strolling down the street listening to Mp3s on your Iphone, I have some cool stuff that just might help you build your church:
1) Meebo: A wicked cool tech gadget that allows you to install a chat application right in the sidebar of your Christian blog. Here’s the description from meebo.com:
Meebo is a website for instant messaging from absolutely anywhere. Whether you’re at home, on campus, at work, or traveling foreign lands, hop over to www.meebo.com on any computer to access all of your buddies (on AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, and Jabber) and chat with them, no downloads or installs required, for free!
Here’s the church building power: You don’t have to wait for people to message you. Meebo actually gives you a real time readout of how many visitors are on your site, and allows you to ping them through the wicked cool sidebar widget. So, write a hot article to lure the lost, and then engage them with the Gospel all from the comfort of our favorite arm chair.
2) Social Bookmarking: It’s not a tech gadget, per se, but it will increase your readership so that you can utilize cool gadgets like meebo to increase your church. Sites like del.icio.us and reddit provide unlimited opportunities to put your awesome headlines in front of readers who just might be looking for a relationship with the Lord. If you are overwhelmed by the idea of social bookmarking, of if you haven’t advanced much beyond checking your email, never fear. We can help.
3) Podcasting: None of this is really cutting-edge technology, but a podcast allows you to build an online audience of subscribers. Then, you simply record your next message from the pulpit, upload it to your server, and push it out to the internet. Since your preaching is so anointed, it’s only a matter of time before these word nerds start flowing through your church doors. Here’s a good example of a cool podcast.
Ahhh….now you’ve got your tech fix for the day. This blogging stuff tends to grow on you, doesn’t it?
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3 Cool Gmail Gadgets to Organize Your Church
April 19th, 2008 Categories: Technology for Pastors
Many of you still fumble around with email addresses that aren’t properly branding your church, or don’t function very well. Most of the email programs that are built in to your hosting account simply can’t deliver, often taking hours to send new mail to your inbox or worse, never delivering it at all. Well, I’ve got great news. Gmail now offers the opportunity for you utilize the world-class Gmail features on your own domain. Click here for more info, and in the mean time try to wrap your mind around these cool features of Gmail that will help your church get organized:
1) Automatic Organization of Your Inbox: You’ll never have to spend a moment searching through your old messages ever again. Now, with the power of Gmail, you’ll be able to instantly find what you’re looking for. Gmail organizes your emails in a super-intuitive way that’s sort of like a filing cabinet, so you always know where your email is.
2) Chat with your Lay Leaders: You can assign new Gmail accounts to everybody in your church if you like. For instance, my address is Jon@mychurch.com, and your address could be you@yourchurch.com. Once you have email addresses for everybody on your staff and key church leaders, Gmail will allow you to chat with them whenever they are online without downloading anything. Convenience is a beautiful thing.
3) Google Docs: It’s like Microsoft Word, except way, way better. Create a document and share it immediately with key church leaders without having to email anything. It takes a little getting used to, but you’ll be sharing documents in no time. The kiddies will love it.
Best of all, the entire glob of Gmail goodness can be yours for the low, low price of absolutely nothing. That’s right. It’s free for nonprofit organizations. God bless Gmail.
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Luckily for Your Website, Jesus Can Raise The Dead
April 18th, 2008 Categories: Technology for Pastors
I want to present you with the honest, pure, perhaps painful truth. Your website is dead.
It lived a good life. It served a purpose, at least for a time. It kept people informed, and it looked pretty slick in it’s day. But now it’s dead.
Why is it dead? Because people no longer visit it. People no longer rely on it. It is incapable of reaching the web 2.0 generation. It’s lost it’s evangelistic power, if it ever had any. It has no voice. What a tragedy.
Good news for you. Luckily for your website, Jesus can raise the dead. The Lord has the power to make old things become new, and I have the technology to do it. It’s called a blog, and it’s a sure-fire way to bring life back into your online endeavors.
Here are three simple truths that you’ll realize once you slam a wordpress template into your ftp and start blogging:
- You don’t need no stinking content management software. Your content management will be your brain cells. What a noble concept. Uploading new content and managing your stuff is easier than ever. It’ll also save you some money.
- Comments are not the devil. You’ll begin to love the way that a blog will engage your congregation and spur them on to the next level. You might even be surprised at the depth of the spiritual revelation that your people have to share.
- You’re more creative than you thought. You’ll be surprised at all of the cool articles that you come up with. So will your flock. You just might go from being the Pastor to being that cool guy with a blog and something to say….and with Jesus….and with a great hair style…..and a trendy shirt? Perhaps that’s too much. But still, you’re going to like the way you look in a blog, I guarantee it.
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