Digital Ministry

Mobile technology has revolutionized how we do everything these days, even ministry. Administrative tasks and the management of personnel that were once arduous and labor-intensive are now quick, easy and accessible from anywhere at any time.

Often, pastors are asked to speak and officiate events such as weddings and funerals. Musicians and worship leaders are also asked to perform and lead congregations at such events. Often, people are afraid to officially 'charge' for their services even though no one would ever expect someone to perform these events for free.

Social media is a tool. It is a neutral device that can be used for good or ill depending on the person wielding it. Unfortunately, we are more often interested in the negative stories about social media: how Facebook leads to divorce, how teens use Snapchat to send inappropriate pictures, and how trolls harass people on Twitter.

Speak to any parent and they will tell you how it seems their teens are so distant. They see them but interaction is a different story. In some of these cases, those teens are just individuating and going through natural adolescent changes. This is a normal process, or so I hear. I'm not a parent myself but I do like paying attention to the all-consuming trends around me some teens create. These trends are created by their use of various technologies, music styles, and language shifts. Because of this, it's always quite interesting to me to ask them, "what are your top three apps?" The answers often lead me to insights into their world and what they are discovering. 

Having a great 'about us' page is one of the best ways churches can do a great job of sharing who they are, their mission, their beliefs, and giving people a glimpse into your church culture. This website page is also sometimes called "Who We Are" or just plain "About." Whatever you call it, there are some fundamental topics to cover in this section to help first-time guests, visitors, your community and your members have all the information they need about what fuels your organization.

You might have found yourself in this kind of a situation that I found myself in: You're running your church website which is built on WordPress. You have swapped out the events for the week, you've added the pastor's blog post and scheduled it, then you check the front end by going to your church's site. Something has gone wrong.

If you want to extend your church’s reach, you need to go where people are. In this day and age, that means getting comfortable with the world of social media. Adults spend an average of five-and-a-half hours per week engaging on social media. That number has jumped by 36% since 2015.

It used to be that you only saw SSL certificates used with online banking and ecommerce. Today, more and more web site owners are choosing to use SSL certificates on their websites for added security, increased trust with their web visitors, and hopes of getting a boost in their search rankings. SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and are cryptographic protocols that provide communications security over a computer network (Wikipedia). Let’s look at what an SSL certificate actually is, the different kinds of SSL certificates that you can get, and a few things to look out for when installing an SSL certificate on your website.