Digital Ministry

Recently I took thirteen Christian undergraduate students on a field trip to Southern California. One morning, after our buffet breakfast at the Best Western, we got together in the hotel foyer and chatted about faith and technology. It provoked at least three observations for me. 1. Technology makes information more accessible and learning less common.

A megachurch is a church that consistently draws more than 2000 people. While not exclusive to the United States, there are about 1600 churches nationwide that fit the profile. While each church is diverse and different, several similarities appear between them. The following infographic looks at some of these commonalities; attendees, campus type and leader.

It’s Valentine’s Week, and that means a couple of things. First off, it means it’s cold--at least where I am. It means your social media feeds are likely cluttered with declarations of love, and/or diatribes about how V-Day is entirely arbitrary and unnecessary. And it means every blog post or “how to” article posted this week is required (by federal law) to include motifs of “love,” “affection,” and “romance.” Furthermore, since I’m the one doing the writing, you know we’ve got to talk about giving, generosity, and stewardship as well.

One of the funnest articles I’ve read on the now famous pound symbol was called “Ode to the #Hashtag: A tribute to the most ubiquitous symbol of our digital times.” It was written back in 2013 by Andrew Miller on Medium, but is every bit as relevant today as it was back then. Especially this line: “People don’t know how to use you, But dump you everywhere just in case, Brands all rush to be your friend, To justify their journeys into cyberspace.” That is so true.

I am writing this during the weekend where much of the Northeast (and some of the Southeast) of the United States is reeling from a series of blizzards that dumped 18-30 inches of snow. I just received a message from one church regarding how they are cancelling service in order to maintain some of the wisdom of keeping folks off the road. And while I do agree with keeping folks from driving in dangerous conditions, many of our weather-cancellation messages just stop at "don't come out this week, we'll pick up next week."

One of the most frequently cited and widely used reasons for the rapid growth of digital giving over the past decade is the proportionate decline in check writing during that time. And the trend continues. In fact, according to one report, we are on pace to write our final check sometime in the year 2021--a mere six years away. Nowhere is this “check-less” trend more prevalent than with millennials, 20% of whom have never written a check in their life.

Determining the best times to post to social media can be a challenge. Every expert has their own opinions so when we found this research based infographic on the subject it seemed like a good fit.

Open source software is software that is basically free to use, change and share by anyone. Made by many people, it has the potential to become more than any one person or company could plan for. When it comes to church software, a number of open source solutions exist.