Digital Ministry

Recently, a friend of mine began to plant a church in a city 700 miles away from his current church where he knew no one. He is either really brave or incredibly oblivious. He has read most of the books, investigated many planting models, and planted a successful church before.

Facebook is still one of the primary social networks that churches should utilize to reach people for Christ. Whether connecting with current attenders, sharing events, or reaching out to the community, Facebook offers some unique advantages:

Slack is a great platform for messaging and communicating real time. It is described as a “messaging app for teams.” Better yet, it’s free for up to 10 apps and up to ten thousand searchable messages. If you are looking for ways for your ministry teams to collaborate more efficiently – Slack may be the tool for you.

Most of the Nothern Hemisphere is settled into the warmer weather and longer days that the summer will bring and a constant companion during these days will be one's mobile devices. From smartphones to tablets, we will find a way to be entertained, informed, and connected to what matters. This month, we take a look at a few mobile communication tools which should help you stay connected to who and what matters.

I have a love-hate relationship with systems. I love when systems are in place to save time and help things run efficiently. I hate when systems get in the way and cause unnecessary complexity. When I began my role as communications director at West Ridge Church, one of the biggest mistakes I made during the first year was not investing the necessary time to bring clarity to essential systems that would help me, my team, and my church communicate effectively. It took months of living in survival mode for me to finally hit a breaking point and put systems in place. What I discovered is that creating margin for myself to create and implement sustainable systems was never going to be the most urgent thing on my to-do list; but it was the most important.

When researching technology partners for your ministry there are many different variables. What I'm going to talk about today are the five most important things you should consider when evaluating potential technology partners. If the technology partner you are considering values these five things, you can rest assured that everything else will fall into place. It's also important that the design looks nice and the user experience isn’t clunky. But if these five things are executed well, you can be confident the design and user experience will be of quality too. What I want to stress is that it's more important to understand why the company does what it does and how it does it, rather than whether or not they have a nice website with good sales.

In the past several years, the church technology industry has undergone many changes that have encouraged some, while discouraging others. As technology advancements continue, new companies start up and newcomers to the church tech industry enter and acquire firms to consolidate and rebuild. More recently, private equity firms have entered the space getting involved in acquisitions and shifting resources to various technology firms in order to position for growth and financial gain. All these moves cause disruption - to tech companies as well as the churches they serve; change is never easy.

I remember watching a friend lead a church planting team that was made up of some unlikely friends. He had a diverse team. He had 19-year-old college students, married couples in their 30’s with young kids, professionals, and older adults in their early 70’s who just retired. It seemed to be a lot of fun. They ate together, they prayed together, and worked hard to reach their community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I learned a few things about communication from watching this diverse group. I learned that a good leader must communicate well in order to lead well.