LifeChurch.tv does it again! Facebook style!

LifeChurch.tv is now reaching into the world of Facebook with Facebook Church. It’s a great idea and even has a Facebook Church application. For those not familiar with Facebook, an application is an add-on you can put on your personal page. This should be very good and I’m interested to see how far it will go. Here’s where you can find more info.

Time to get Flashy!

For anyone who wants to have a superstar church website but isn’t real sure about how to even start with it, I have found a site. It’s great for teaching you the basics and what basic stuff you need. So HERE you go. Did you catch it? That was the website for Flash tutorials. Good stuff, since I’m just learning the basics myself. Anyway, hope that helps.

Until next time.

Adam Forney, Founder/CEO
ChurchForward

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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It’s just a Parody…right?

I ran across this video from Chris Thomas’ PourOut blog. It’s great.

CLICK HERE to link directly to the video.

I think sometimes we, as the church, look at technology in the church the same way. New technology isn’t going to give us eternal life, like in the video, but it isn’t witchcraft either. As I’ve been saying all along, we need to embrace new ways to reach our world. New technology can be a huge part of that…if we embrace it. It’s just like you probably tell your congregations. You have to participate in it, to figure out what works for your church, not be just an audience member. Try something new today.

Until next time.

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LifeChurch has Joined the Blogosphere

Craig Groeschel and Bobby Gruenewald from LifeChurch.tv are blogging now on their new blog Swerve. I’ve already enjoyed the tech articles that are on the blog. It should be great reading from the looks of the start of it. Check out this blog for several great links from Swerve’s view on CES and MacWorld. Good good stuff.

I want to encourage you to not be afraid of the unknown. Alot of the items that are coming out this year are going to be great tools for ministry. If…..If we decide to use them. Check out the link on swerve’s blog for MediaFLO. How’s your church’s cell phone ministry going? Ever thought about it. I have. I’ve been talking about cell phone ministry for a while now. My church uses cell phone technology to reach people. We’ve only hit the tip of the iceberg though. We are only at the beginnings of what can and will be done. You can check out church info and we have links to Roman’s Road and the 4 Spiritual Laws for someone witnessing and can’t remember all 4 laws. You can get a mobile map of the church so visitors who can’t find the church just need to go to their cell phone. It’s great but only the beginning. Check it out by pointing your phone’s web browser to www.centralbiblechurch.org.

And of course bookmark and SUBSCRIBE to this blog so you can get daily e-mails and stay up to date on what’s going on with the church and technology.

Until next time.

Everything With Excellence

So I learned something pretty early on in my ministry. If you’re going to do something, do it right and with excellence…the first time. I, of course, had that reinforced many times since in different pastoral positions I’ve been in. Back to when I learned to do everything I did in ministry with excellence. The church I was at was a growing church plant with a great senior pastor. I was at the church on a Saturday, helping with the weekly bulletin and in the middle of folding a pile of bulletins. The secretary came out and saw my “less than average” job of folding and explained that the senior pastor “wasn’t going to like it.” So we had to reprint, recut, and refold the bulletins. The pastor came out later and saw the “better” job and gave his praise. Bottom line (that isn’t on the bottom), that wasn’t a one time occurance. Everything was done with excellence. And I have since been “trained”, everything I do in ministry is my best pursuit of excellence.

1. Because It’s for Jesus.
2. Because the world is watching.

And believe me, the world is watching. What makes a seeker want to pursue Christianity? It’s what he/she sees in a Christian. That’s why it is paramount that we always do our best. In EVERYTHING. So it disturbs me when I see Christians with a “sub-par” performance. Which brings me to reason why this post came to fruition. My wife and I were watching some of the tube last night and I was fulfilling my role of channel flipper. Going through the channels I came across a music video with a song I thought I recognized. But the quality was so terrible and the screen kept going to pixelation world, that I had to change it. But my interest had been peaked, as it always is when I see something Christian on television. Especially on local television. (Editor’s note: I thought long and hard about releasing the name of the show and website, but decided not to. Just know that is wasn’t TBN…this time.) So about ten minutes later I gave the show another go around. Same deal, but with teasing this time. It stayed great for about a minute and a half and then went back to pixelation. AAHHH!

My point being, if you’re going to do a ministry, of any sort, do it with excellence. Who got anything out of that show? No one. Especially the audience that I hope it was trying to reach, the seeker. There are many other sub-par things that go on in Christendom. This is just the one that made me write. Why spend all the time and money involved, for no one to get anything out of it. And the website? Not much better. I was stunned though to find out that it was a nationwide show and had stations across the US playing the show. Maybe I just caught a bad night. Now the second and final bottom line.

Whether we want to believe it or not, the world is watching us. What do they see? Everything that we do needs to be in the pursuit of excellence. So hopefully, they see excellence. Join me today in striving for better than average. There’s a whole world out there that needs to see Jesus in us.

Until next time.

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.

Who’s Your Techie?

So I commented on a comment last night. My first. Thank-you. Whether you read the comment or not, it of course, got me thinking. Where is the ‘know-how’ generation in the church today? Of course we have the mega churches and many other churches today that have it down. The vast majority of churches though, are still in Flanograf mode. You know what I mean. The church that introduced the overhead projector 10 years ago (even then behind the time) and still have the same overhead projector, just a different bulb. And let me tell you, those bulbs can be hard to find at 6pm on a Saturday night. Take it from one who knows. FedEx just can’t deliver the bulb that fast!

Back to the know-hows. I believe there are many people sitting in pews today that have the ability to make their church more effective, but for some reason aren’t making a difference. I’ve seen many reasons for that. For some I think they just don’t understand how important their role in the Kingdom and bringing people to Christ is. For others, the leadership in their church is the issue. Not wanting to make the change, or not seeing the importance of the change is crucial in making today’s church more effective. Our changing and being able to adapt to our environment, just like so many other areas of life, is what makes the church effective. How effective is your church? I don’t know about you, but my denominations statistics on salvation experiences are lacking, and it’s supposedly on the higher side of the chart. It all begins with the local church. You leaders can say all they want and initiate all the programs, and do everything in their power, but if it doesn’t make a difference at the local church level, it doesn’t matter.

You see, the church has an issue it needs to deal with. How do we “recruit” (can I say that?) the ‘techies’ in the church and make them a valuable part of our ministry. I don’t think we need to go beyond the church walls(although I’m not opposed to it) to get who we need. I think we just need to focus our vision a little more and see who God has already planted in our congregations to help with this ‘issue’. Look at your congregation today. Who there has some kind of gift that can be used? Let’s not forget about one of the greatest gifts. The gift of “Willing to Learn.” Who is able to be taught and take up the ministry?

The Bottom Line is the same. Let’s face it, we as ministers have a hard enough time as it is. We need to use all available gifts and talents we have in the church, not only to lighten our load(although that’s nice!), but to reach the unsaved. God has given us the gift of technology, we need to use it. However we can, and with whomever we can. I was explaining to my church about how great the new website was and everything we can do with it, as a ministry. I don’t think they got it until I said that we now have the ability to reach everyone in the world through our church. A man in China and a girl in Europe can now all be touched by our church’s ministry at the same time! That’s God’s gift of technology in action! We need to be excited about it!

Who’s in your church, sitting in the pews, untapped? Let’s find a way to be more effective today.

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.

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.