Vision, Vision, and oh yeah, Vision

Here’s a good post from Todd Rhoades on some important factors in the church. He quotes Craig Groeschel from LifeChurch.tv saying Vision, Vision, Vision. He also asks some thought provoking questions that would be good to ask of your ministry.

What do you think?

Happy Valentine’s Virus!

It’s that time of year again. Ahhhh…Valentine’s Day. The time of love, happy feelings, happy thoughts and of course….e-mail viruses. Yes, Yahoo! News is reporting that once again, hackers have been planning on preying on the heartstrings of the unassuming and lonely hearts out there. Here’s the story.

As a general rule, never open e-mail that looks suspicious or from a sender that you don’t recognize. Or a subject that seems a little too off. What happens when you open the e-mail is it unlocks the virus that’s in it, and basically gives your permission to the computer to download the virus or program contained in it. If you’re not familiar with the term malware, get familiar with it. Malware can be bad news for your computer. Take it from one who knows.

Bottom line, when you open up your email program and get a weird looking email from a Debbie at Dallas.com and you don’t know a Debbie from Dallas.com, DON’T OPEN IT. Simply delete and go about your business. It will cost you less in the long run.

Until next time.

Church Law

Congressmen are up to it again. Seen the news lately. A New York state senator is about to introduce legislation to ban you from using cell phones, blackberries, and anything digital while you are crossing the street. Not a bad idea from the safety point of view. He’s citing the death of a 23 year old last month. Read the full article here.

Here’s my slant. When do the laws, state or federal go too far? How long before legislation is introduced to tell you how many songs you can sing in church? What about who you can or can’t support for a political office? Any church in America that is tax exempt knows about that, or they should. Think it’s crazy? Maybe, but I’ve seen worse.

Until next time.

SECURITY ALERT! SECURITY ALERT!

Vista’s out and the hackers are thrilled! Hackers are off to the races to be the first to find holes in Microsoft’s most secure system yet, Vista. Vista was launched after five years of development and many delays to improve security. I’m sure it won’t be too long before some gets in. It’s almost inevitable. I think the question isn’t ‘if’ someone gets in, it’s ‘when’ they get in. Good luck, Bill. Find the article here.

Speaking of security, how’s your church’s system doing? When’s the last time you updated your Norton or Spybot or whatever your use to try to stay ahead of the game? Now might be a good time to. Obviously, church hacking probably isn’t a real big business, but better to be safe than sorry in this day and age. Your computer’s security can be just as important as your building’s security. I’m usally amazed when I see ADT or whatever security sticker on the church door, but they church has nothing to protect it’s hardware (which sometimes includes bank account information, website passwords, etc.). I know it would be a pretty big inconvenience if someone stole my church’s PayPal account username and password.

Bottom line: Why risk it? Some pastor’s have told me that they are trying to be fiscally responsible and don’t think the board or congregation would approve. Take a vote, I bet you find a different amswer. If not to scare you enough right now, did you read the entire article that I linked to in the first paragraph? There’s a world convention called Defcon that is entirely for computer hackers. They have their own convention! I’m telling you today, better safe than sorry. Update your security systems, before you’re forced to later on.

Until next time.

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The Geek Shall Inherit the Church

Okay, so I wanted to give this to you in sections and expound on each a little, but I can’t wait. Here’s the article from Ministry Today Magazine showing about just some of the ways to embrace technology to reach the world and your community. I don’t know how long this page stays up, I actually read the article originally from the print version. So read it before it goes away.

It talks about e-mail, new ministry positions available, and even examines the ‘dark’ side of it all. Great job of covering alot of different aspects of technology ministry. Good news: alot of this you can incorporate into a smaller church too! You just have to scale it down a little. I’m already examining different ways to assimilate it into my church. Have fun with this one, let your imagination go wild.

Until next time.

CES-Mania

Well for all you wannabe tech geeks out there, if you missed it, the CES will wrap things up tomorrow in Las Vegas. Because of course, if you are a tech geek, you’ve been planning the 4 day event now for 8 months. CES presented by the Consumer Electronics Association is a 4 day gadget-extravaganza. Big names like Apple and Microsoft always unveil something great there or somethings great. The huge buzz yesterday was Apple’s IPhone. Which is not turning out to be as good as most thought, even Apple-lovers. Paul Kedrosky names a few and Robert Scoble pointed out what should be the other five. As an ex-Cingular employee, I could not agree more.

Anyway, this is the time of year when you get to see the future of technology. So I am always happy around the time the CES is going on because I get to start figuring out how the church is going to start using the newest technology. Alot of times I’m right, sometimes I’m not though. Either way, it’s fun fun fun:)

So I thought of a challenge for you, the readers (all 5 of you, including my wife and I). Check out the CES and tell me what you think will make the biggest impact in the church world. Incase you are trying to find some good insight to cut through all the newest stuff, Scoble does about as good a job as anyone and covering the CES and giving good feedback. So have fun with this, lets get a good discussion going.

Until next time.

How Cyber is Your Church?

Okay. So I know technology changes faster than we realize. I understand the church sometimes lags behind in the technology race. I understand that sometimes it’s okay to. But when I ran into this article, I couldn’t believe how far behind we are, as the church. The article was from June of 2006, yes, six months ago. For those of you who will not read the article, it speaks of how good PowerPoint can be to enhance a service, how cell phones can be distracting in a service. PowerPoint. Was the article talking about how helpful PowerPoint can be? Powerpoint 2 came out in 1987. Stop….let it sink in. Yep, that’s almost 20 years ago. Granted, you can do alot more with PowerPoint today with adding sound, tables, and much more complex variables. Cell phones being intrusive to a service? Of course, but who doesn’t know how to put the phone on vibrate or leave it off completely. That’s not the technology’s fault. It’s the old “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument. Phones going off during service don’t irritate me, the person who doesn’t turn it on vibrate or off, irritates me.

I liked that the article brought out the point of PDA’s. I enjoy having SmartBible on my Treo, in 2 different versions(NASB & KJV(for the ‘I hate anything new’ crowd)). I have a copy of God’s Word anywhere I am. Anywhere. I don’t enjoy the stares I get while in church, following scripture with the pastor, on my cell phone. I guess people don’t get it sometimes. Technology can be good! Christians can use all different types of technology to not only enchance their personal walks, but also to spread the gospel.

When reading the Rev. Goodier’s remarks about accessing the Bible on a PDA, did you catch the almost dare I say, arrogance? “It can be a convenience.” Of course he still carries around his pocket sized copy of the Bible. So what’s the problem? Is it because it’s not on paper, or because it’s on a cell phone? Am I reading it wrong? Then he’s back to the PowerPoint. Geez, give me a break. He’s acting like he’s using a technology no one’s ever heard of. Point of Interest: my eight year old nephew can put together a PowerPoint presentation. I’m scared to imagine what the good Rev. might say if he came into one of my church services, powered with MediaShout and it’s use of moving backgrounds and animated words. I would guess it might be a while before he explores the amazing world of DigitalJuice.com.

It’s my same old complaint. The church will stumble on to some form of technology that helps their spreading of the gospel, only to find out that the business world has been using it successfully for years, sometimes decades. It’s like thirdfloorthoughts commented on 12/14/06, we need to be operating ahead of the curve, not behind it. It’s time to put away our petty preconceived notions about different technologies and use what we can to reach this world. Believe me, someone is going to reach every person in this world. The question remains, will it be us or the world? The world’s got a pretty good head start on us. It’s time to stop arguing about issues that we are scared of and start using technology to get things done. Sounds pretty simple to me.

Until next time.

E-Mail (my domain vs. MSN or Yahoo!)

I’ve had a pastor or two or three or four ask me about the whole e-mail thing. Why’s it so important to have an e-mail address with their church’s domain name ending in the address. The first answer is name(brand) recognition. Everytime you send someone an e-mail or they send you one, they put your web address in the ‘To’ line. That helps them remember it. Then when they try to tell their friends to visit your website, they remember it.

Besides the obvious evangelism reason, there’s also the credibility reason. Most people give more credibility to a website with it’s e-mail address ending in the church’s domain name. Think about the last time you went to a business website. When you went to the contact page it probably had an e-mail address that ended in the business’ domain name, Info@churchforward.com, etc.

Way back in the day, when I was a manager at FedExKinos, I remember people coming in to get their business cards made. Some looked very good. Then you got a little closer look and OOPS, there it was. myname@gmail.com or myname@yahoo.com. Very unprofessional. Then I started wondering about their “business”. Credibility, it goes a long way in business and in the unbeliever’s world. Let’s face it, the church today needs all the credibility it can get. With 63% of seekers checking their next church out online first, every little bit helps.

I realize that this is a small point, but every little bit helps!

Until next time.

Oh yeah, one more thing. ThrivingDomains.com does give you free e-mail with whatever domain name you purchase. You don’t need a website to get a good .com e-mail address. You can also get a free blog account too. All for under $10! Seems like a good idea to me!

Cyber Monday Lived up to it’s Expectations

According to eMarketer.com Cyber Monday(November 27) surpassed expectations with it’s retail online tallies. Sales totaled $608 million, up 26% from Cyber Monday 2005. The first 27 days of November were also up 24% from 2005. All trends are pointing towards a record year for online shopping. Nothing is expected to change going into 2007, or the rest of the year for that matter.

With all this online shopping, it makes one think. Trends are pointing more and more to online activities increasing with no plateau. What is the church doing to keep up? Is it enough to have an e-mail address so that the young hipsters in the congregation can contact the youth pastor if needed? Or does the church need more? Does it need a website, maybe even a web ministry? Something online that is interactive and engages people who happen to pull up a church’s web address. Why are we still trying to reach teenagers that have grown up on X-Box, or even twenty-somthings that grew up on the original Nintendo, with Flanograf boards? I think the even bigger question is, why do we think that it’s alright?

It would seem like more and more people are using the internet for their financial purchases. Why not tithing and online giving? With reports that online users are going to buy 39% of their holiday gifts online (up 8% percent from last year), it seems like people are more and more comfortable with doing financial transactions online. Why shouldn’t the church be able to offer the same conveniences to their congregation?

Seems like a winner to me.

Until next time.

Why Blog?

Why Blog?

That seems to be the question now a days. As the world becomes more and more technological, and as the church strives to be more technological, one wonders how to keep up with everything. The need for some things becomes easier to understand, a website for instance. As you read some reports saying that as many as 45 to upwards of 65% of people will find the church they attend by looking on the internet. The need for some form of internet marketing to world becomes more viable. The idea though of a church having a website needs to be more than an bus-stop on the information superhighway. The website needs to transform itself into a vital part of the unsaved seekers web experience, a minisry of sorts. Thus the idea of a blog comes into play.

Blogging should not be some mystical thing to the church. It should be, and will become a vital part of ministry by the local church. Blogging in it’s simplest definition, is a journal, a web journal. Simply one’s thoughts about a subject, any subject. If the church, in it’s never-ending attempt to stay current, wants to keep on the cutting edge, it needs to find better ways to connect with people, primarily through the internet. Blogging is probably the simplest way to do that. I have seen many different blogs from the church, mainly pastors. Some good, some not so good. Some are simply an informative blog, while others go deep into theology. What do you think is the best? Let me know, I’ll talk to you later.