Social Media Leadership

One question today.

How are you using social media to lead?

Don’t think it’s important? Watch the short video below.

Again. How are you using social media to lead?

10 Ways

Joshua from churchredone.com gives a great post on 10 ways to not get someone to visit their church. Find the post here. What do you think agree or disagree. Also, thanks to Eric O from FeedBurner for getting the RSS feed problem fixed a few weeks ago.

Until next time.

3 Potent Questions

Craig Groeschel just posted a great article today on LifeChurch.tv’s blog Swerve. He poses 3 important questions that were asked of him, I also will ask the same 3 questions. Find the whole article HERE.

1. If you weren’t on staff at your church, would you worship there?

2. If you didn’t know ANYTHING about Jesus, what would you know about him after a normal weekend at your church?

3. If you had a loved one who didn’t know Christ, and they had one week left to live, would you take them to your church or another?

I like to pick up things (usually sayings) from effetive leaders. Some of my favorites are Blaine Bartel’s “Sweat in Preparation so you don’t Bleed in Battle.” And of course, there’s John Maxwell’s “Everything Rises and Falls on Leadership.” I’m not positve, but I think these questions are going to rank up there with these other quotes. Because these are questions effective churches need to be asking themselves.

These are pivotal questions about the effectiveness of your church. I won’t tell you my answers because I don’t like them. Most of you know I just became Director of Ministries at my church Central Bible Church A/G. I know alot of what needs to be changed and how I’m going to do it. I didn’t completely know how to justify some of the needed changes. These 3 questions are a good start. I challenge you to ask them to yourself and find out what your honest answers are.

It’s not about being BIG, it’s about being EFFECTIVE. Big is just the by-product.

Until next time.

Importance of “The Blog”

Want to know the importance of the blog? Check out this article from the Des Moines Business Record. Bloggers can be great sources information, but also a great source of knowing your customer service to the community. Good or bad. Have you ever felt like Tom? I have. Did you notice his change after some great customer service. Oh how a song can change.

Two important points here. One, blog. It’s a great way to get some attention, but also some needed traffic to your website. Two, have GREAT customer service. Great customer service brings referrals, but can also bring a firestorm of negative advertising.

Bottom line. In today’s market, no matter what the business type, the internet and blog are vital. Find a way to use it to your advantage.

Until next time.

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Vend-A-Bible

Have you seen them? Have you thought about it? Allow me to tell you what I am talking about. I was in Atlanta with my in-laws for the holidays. We, of course, made a trip to the mall, because it was, after all, Christmas time. While walking through the Mall of Georgia I saw it. A vending machine. But it wasn’t selling candy bars, or pop (soda, in the south). It was selling Ipods. That’s right. Ipods and Ipod accessories. Talk about getting rid of annoying salespeople. Talk about hassle-free, or getting that last minute gift. What a great idea. There’s the “have you seen them” part.

Here comes the “have you thought about it” part. This is ChurchFuse so we’re gonna deal with how this could fit in the church. Ever wanted to put a bookstore in your church? Just can’t afford to staff it or other financial issues? Why not a book vending machine in your church. You could sell books and CD’s, why not update it a little and sell your sermon podcasts(if you’re the “charge for your podcast” type). There’s always the coffee shop idea but that’s kinda old, plus unoriginal. There are plenty of ways this could be a bridge to get your where you’re wanting to go. By bridge, I mean an affordable way to get your church going in the direction you’re wanting it to go, i.e. bookstore(or coffee shop). Think about it, it could work.

Until next time.

How’s Your Church’s Cell Phone Ministry?

Whoo Hoo! This is not only a dream of mine, but it appears, that of others too! You know what I’m talking about if you know me at all. Cell phone ministry. The church having the same access to media forums as the secular world. Have you seen the commercials for Amp’d Mobile? They have streaming videos that look good. You can now rent and stream an entire movie on your cell phone with Sprint. And that’s no choppiness, just a good clean stream, for under $5! Movies that were in the theaters as soon as 3-4 months ago. Some churches have seen the future and understand that everything, let me say it again, EVERYTHING is going to cell phones. You can already check movie tickets with Fandango on your phone, not to mention take credit card payments with some Nextel phones. E-mail, on your phone? No problem, it’s standard now. What about being able to track the lost child, or closer to me, the person with Alzheimer’s? No problem. One more time, for dramatic emphasis, in the future… EVERYTHING is going to be done on your cell phone! Why can’t the church do it too?

The question is, will the church jump, or take the usual ‘wait until it’s been tested and the technology is 15 years old’ route. I’ve said it before, the church can no longer afford to try to reach the same generation that grew up on Nintendo and cable television with Flanograf boards. Technology is constantly getting cheaper, will the church adapt? I’m not talking about a projector and you watch video clips for sermon illustrations. I’m talking about website, wireless, podcast, fusing everything together to effectively reach this generation. Let’s not look at history, we might not like what we find. I get saddened everytime I hear of a pastor that wants to get moving in the right direction, only to have the board ask if it’s really necessary. The importance of technology? Take away their television, radio, cell phone and internet and they’ll begin to understand the necessity of technology. What does it take for the church, as a whole, to understand the importance of technology? Leave me a comment, let me know.

One thing I explained to my pastor. You may not have camera phone right now, but by the next time you go to upgrade your cell phone, you will have a phone with the option of a camera, internet access, text messeging, and the ability to watch live television or movies. All from your cell phone. Maybe even take credit card payments, PayPal payments and have a projector on it. Where is your church at in the technology game? Think about it.

Until next time.

Church Google

Seems like everybody is using Google nowadays. When the CIA wouldn’t give up Iranian sanctions targets to the state dept, the state dept started a search of it’s own, on Google. The three lucky Iranians with the most Google hits became the target of “international rebuke.” Seems like there’s a reason for everything to use Google.

Of course, this got me thinking. Everybody’s using Google to find something. What about the Church? What does the Church use Google for? Or, more importantly, when a seeker is looking for a church home, what do they find? When they go to Google and type in ‘mytown, local churches’, what do they find? What they should find is your church. Do they?

Is your church ready when the unbeliever comes looking? Try it. Search your town and local churches. What comes up? If your church didn’t come up, there may be some issues that need exploring. It is no longer good enough to just advertise in the local paper or have your church listed in the local business/church directory. When the seeker is searching, they want answers now, not after they look in the phone book. Are we truly doing everything that we can to reach the lost seeker?

When seekers start googling your church, what do they find?

Until next time.

Oh yeah, need a quality website that won’t leave you dipping into the sunday school fund for extra money? Check here.

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!

Top Ten Blogging Mistakes

According to Jakob Nielsen, these are the the 10 biggest mistakes by bloggers. Find them in greater detail here.

No Author Biographies
No Author Photo
Nondescript Posting Titles
Links Don’t Say Where They Go
Classic Hits are Buried
The Calendar is the Only Navigation
Irregular Publishing Frequency
Mixing Topics
Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

What do you think, right or wrong? Are you a gulity of one of the above? Let me know, hopefully this will help improve your blog. Need to buy a quality blog, instead of just getting a free limited blog. Check out this site!

Until next time.