Get Your Ministry on TV…Internet TV

Over the last few years there has been a variety of stories on cutting the cable cord, rising costs of cable and the unnecessary bundles that cable offers. With streaming options such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and Hulu Plus, streaming video options are becoming more popular, especially among young people who don’t feel the need to own cable. Thus the question is how can your church take advantage of this viewing transformation, well, i’m glad you asked.

Internet TV is a great solution for ministries because it removes the cost barrier that currently exists for traditional TV and the average church budget. The average church doesn’t have the budget to get on a national TV station or even the budget to produce a nationally televised broadcast, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a word that needs to be heard nationally. Instead of paying TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) $15,000 a week to broadcast a 30 minute show, a ministry can pay $250 a month to build a channel on Roku and broadcast 24/7/365.

In addition to Roku, Google TV has allowed ministries to build channels (apps) that can be installed and watched on television. Additionally, Google TV has a built in web browser (Google Chrome) that can be utilized to watch streaming services online. Later this year Apple TV is reportedly opening up it’s Apple TV software for apps, this would give churches yet another opportunity to establish a presence on people’s TVs and in our living rooms. Now the real opportunity lies in Microsoft’s Xbox. Xbox currently is leading the charge into the living room and ever since they started offering Internet TV options such as Netflix, Hulu TV, Amazon Video and ESPN Watch Now, there has been anticipation building as to when they would allow the masses to build channels for their hardware.

Overall, churches have a great opportunity to establish themselves in people’s living rooms for a fraction of the cost that are associated with traditional methods. As churches move from streaming videos on traditional websites to tablets to mobile devices to internet televisions, the impact and reach will continue to grow and reach the masses.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/internet-tv/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=internet-tv

The iChurch Method TV – Ep. 7 – How to Identify and Distribute the Content of Your Church

Continuing my series on The iChurch Method and how it works, in this segment I speak on How to Identify and Distribute the Content of Your Church. Here is the transcript:

The first thing I talk to you about is content. I keep stressing content because I’ve dealt with some small ministries, whether it’s a bible study in a living room with ten people or a mega church with 20,000 people and the issue is always content. Where is your content coming from and how can we gather it all together and get ready to distribute it online?

Once we identify all that content and we’re looking at how often are you preaching; are we talking about bible study during the week, are we talking about a sermon on the weekend, do you have any other type of content that you want to get out that the church distributes regularly, which most often people think announcements or maybe some other events going on at the church. I need all that content and whatever else the pastor has done, books, devotionals, anything, and let’s talk about how we can distribute that online. Once we get that done then we start looking at the ways we distribute it online; social media, websites, mobile, multimedia. We start looking at stuff like that.

Then we start talking about the financial aspect and if you want to create an online store. We’re not talking about CDs and DVDs, let’s talk about digital products; that’s no overhead and it’s all profit. Let’s talk about online donations. If you don’t have that already, let’s set up a free PayPal account and start getting online donations. Let people support you and support the ministry from wherever they’re at and stop limiting them to supporting it only when they step inside the sanctuary.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/church-content-distribution/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=church-content-distribution

Harness the Power of Audio in Your Church

With all of the wonderful technology available to us today, it’s easy to get so caught up in videos and visual effects that we forget about the power of audio. While videotaping sermons and making them available as streaming video, on demand video downloads or even selling them through your Web store is a wonderful idea, don’t forget about the potential for podcasts and CDs.

Whether in conjunction with video and DVDs or on their own, podcasts of your sermons should be a regular part of your Web offerings. Even if you decide not to go with video and DVDs, recording your sermons requires the simplest technology, and audio files are small and much more easily uploaded and downloaded than video files.

There are times and places that audio files are much more appropriate, as well. Busy people who don’t have time to sit down and watch a videotape of a whole sermon will listen to it instead while driving, especially during a long commute, while on a train or bus, while jogging or walking, at the gym, while doing laundry and many other times during their day. Audio sermons are great for multi-taskers!

Community Outreach for House Bound Members

You can also feature live streaming audio during your actual sermons, for parishioners who are ill at home or in the hospital. They can sit and listen to your sermon much as people once sat by their radios for live broadcasts. You don’t need to limit your audio recordings to sermons, either. Since they are so easily made and virtually cost-free, consider having volunteers read bible passages, or portions of books, record church meetings, telephone interviews with missionaries and more.

These are all items that will not only let people catch up on what’s going on in your church, but can provide a measure of solace for home-bound parishioners, so that they can feel as though they are actually there at the church. Consider using them as outreach, for retirement communities and convalescent homes, where your flock might be possessed of willing hearts but failing bodies.

Never underestimate the power of the spoken word. With today’s technology, it can be used to reach out to the whole world, easily and inexpensively!

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of “The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online.” or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/audio-in-your-church/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=audio-in-your-church

Social Media Strategy Tips for Churches

The most difficult part about using social media is maintaining consistency. Too often an organization sets out to harness the power of social media but ultimately loses interest over time, often because they discover that it’s more work than they had anticipated, or other pressing needs come up and the social media project falls through the cracks.

Consistency is vital if you want to maintain a social media presence. Just as with your website, if you don’t update your sites regularly with fresh content, people will lose interest. Set a strategy for your social media project and stick to it.

How Much Time Can You Spare?
Start by analyzing your staff and how much time each can devote to your social media sites. Different staff members will be suited to different sorts of social media. Some may prefer to sit down once or twice a day and post to your Facebook page, while others will enjoy posting frequent tweets through your Twitter account. Decide exactly which sites you will use, and who will handle them.

What About Content?
Social media is an excellent forum to repurpose content from your web page. Think about how news media use sound bytes, and do the same. You can use short video clips from sermons, quotations, announcements, photos – anything from your website is fair game. This is a great way to entice people back to your church’s website to read the whole story or watch the whole sermon.

The good news is, your staff can spend maybe an hour or less each day preparing the content they intend to post. Then they can take just a few minutes several times a day to actually post the pre-prepared material. By posting at different times during the day you reach a great many more people, as people tend to check their social media sites at different times during the day and evening.

24 Hour Posting
You can also use free software from Hootsuite.com to schedule posts any time of the day or night. Hootsuite works with Facebook and Twitter, and will allow you to set up dates and times for your posts to those two social networks. You can even schedule a whole week – or month’s – worth of posts ahead of time, which will save you a lot of time and energy and make sure that your message gets out, no matter what. This is a great way to reach night owls, shift workers, people in other time zones, and especially people who may be awake at odd hours due to stress or depression.

When managed properly, social media is an excellent communication tool. Take advantage of it to get your message out to the whole global community!

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of “The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online.” or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/social-media-strategy-tips-for-churches/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=social-media-strategy-tips-for-churches

The iChurch Method TV – The method behind the iChurch

Continuing my insight into how The iChurch Method can help ministries, I spoke about how the actual method came into existence.

Looking at these five aspects that I had, each chapter to me was something I actually would do in a typical week at work. In a typical week I’d work on the websites, multimedia, eCommerce, social media, and mobile. So, when I’m putting this book together I’m thinking, “What is it that I do that people would need to know from the most basic level all the way up to the most technologically advanced level?”

I want to make sure that if we have a pastor who’s not as technically savvy, he can look at the book and kind of understand and have a conversation and hand it off to someone who is technically savvy. But, what if the technology savvy person picks up the book? I want to make sure that this book challenges them as well and gives them new ideas and strategies so that they can utilize them within their ministry.

Five Aspects
Website — First we need a website that’s interactive and innovative. You definitely need that because that’s the door to your ministry. Most churches don’t understand that the website is one of the most effective resources that the ministry has. A lot of people will go to your website before they’ll step foot inside your sanctuary.

Multimedia — That’s online streaming, online videos, and podcasting. When we look at the popularity of YouTube we see that video is the fastest growing form of content on the internet. We look as mobile as well; people are just consuming video via mobile just at alarming rates. So, you have to have a multimedia strategy.

eCommerce — eCommerce is your online donations and your online stores. Well, of course online donations make it easy for people to support the ministry financially from wherever they’re at. They don’t have to come into the sanctuary and do the typical old traditional way of putting tithes in the bucket or something like that. They can donate online and from their mobile device.

Social media — We know social media just transformed the way we use the internet. Everything is social now. Facebook has over a billion users that are signed up for it, and Twitter is continuously growing. So, social media has just transformed the way we use the internet and it gives ministries a way to reach people that may not ever step foot inside their building.

Mobile — There are over a billion mobile devices around the world. People carry around mobile devices everywhere they go, so that gives you an actual way to take ministry to the people. When your ministry is accessible via mobile device you now are accessible to this person wherever they’re at; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/method-behind-the-ichurch/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=method-behind-the-ichurch

The iChurch Method at The Biola Digital Ministry Conference

Last year I attended a great gathering called the Biola Digital Ministry conference, this year I was invited to speak. I am looking forward to this engagement because not only is The iChurch Method a sponsor, but I have always had aspirations to attend Biola and/or be a professor there (online of course). I will be speaking from my two most recent releases, The iChurch Method vol. 2 (as well as The iChurch Method vol. 1) and How to Get One Million Social Media Fans. I look forward to enlightening and educating the attendees and leaving them inspired and motivated to go do great things for the kingdom.

Here are synopsis of my two sessions:

Session 1
The iChurch Method is a five part method that can help any church advance their ministry online and give them a global presence. Using Websites (Interactive and Responsive), Multimedia (Online Video and Streaming), Ecommerce (Online stores and donations), Social Media and Mobile (Apps and Websites), each and every church can develop an online strategy that can reach people all around the world and give them the capability to hear the gospel. This session will provide the strategies and explain the iChurch Method’s approach to helping ministries advance online.

Session 2
Social Media has fundamentally changed the way we use the internet and this has opened up an amazing opportunity for the church. People are already looking for the solutions that the church has, the church just needs to meet them where they are, which is on social media. By focusing on a strategy of high quality visual content, a variety of sharing features, external social media advertising and establishing a presence on the top social networks, a ministry can build up an online audience that exceeds the number of seats in its sanctuary. This session will provide ways to take your social media to the next level and connect with millions of fans/followers/subscribers online.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/2013-biola-digital-ministry-conference/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2013-biola-digital-ministry-conference

Things Churches Should Post on Social Media Sites

The great thing about social media is that it’s timely. Unlike websites, which may be updated once a week, social media sites are all about the here and now. Posts are made several times a day, as a minimum, and in many cases, social media sites provide literally up-to-the-minute updated information.

While your older parishioners probably aren’t all that interested in what’s trending in social media, your younger members certainly are. Bring them into the fold with regular posts, tweets and updates about your church. Here are some examples of ministry content you should definitely post on your social media sites:

• Products – post hot products, sales and promotions going on at your online store;

• Pastoral/leadership updates – have your pastor and other leaders of your congregation post occasional status updates, which will serve to humanize them and make your church members feel more connected;

• Photographs – people love pictures! Appoint somebody in your staff to be an official photographer and give them a decent camera, so you’re not posting low resolution cell phone pix. Get pictures at all your church activities, snapshots of new babies, new church members, staff acting crazy, graduations, weddings, christenings and any other opportunities you can find to share, share, share;

• Daily inspiration – send out a daily prayer, quotation, or other words of inspiration to give your members hope and encouragement;

• Video clips from church services, sermons, and other church activities – make sure you sit down and edit them so that you have a short, 1 – 3 minute clip to post. They can follow the link back to your website to view the whole video;

• Interactive polls – get people talking by asking provocative questions about their views on topical issues of a spiritual nature. This is a great way to get a dialogue started, and poll results can be calculated and also posted online;

• Weekly reminders – take advantage of social media to remind your congregation about time changes for services, church events, community outreach events and more.

Social media is a powerful tool for reaching out to your congregation, and staying in touch much the way a country pastor would make his way from house to house in the days of horses and wagons. Congregations are much larger now, schedules are hectic, and face to face communication is pretty well a thing of the past. Your congregation’s needs have not changed, however. They still need encouragement, comforting, guidance and prayer. Social media offers a way for you to provide it to them.

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of “The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online.” or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/things-churches-should-post-on-social-media-sites/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=things-churches-should-post-on-social-media-sites

The iChurch Method in Dubai

About two years ago, June 2011, I came to my wife and told her I had an idea about a book I wanted to write. It was a book on how churches could better understand and utilize technology. Fast forward to May 2013 and next week I am headed to Dubai, U.A.E. to speak at a conference on The iChurch Method and how it can help ministries advance online. I am very excited and look forward to helping this international audience learn the benefits of The iChurch Method. The conference is May 15 – 19, 2013. http://gain.adventists.org

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/the-ichurch-method-in-dubai/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-ichurch-method-in-dubai

The iChurch Method TV – Ep. 5 – Do Churches Fear Technology?

Continuing my interview on the state of the church and technology, I gave the following insight on my thoughts on the church and technology.

The church as a whole, I’d say maybe there are about 5% of churches that really have a good grasp of technology. They have the resources to actually utilize a lot of the new things that are going on out there, but 95% of the churches I see out here just don’t have the resources. They know what they want to do but they don’t have the resources and expertise to actually implement it. They might have a volunteer come in and do the website; someone that really has a good heart but just doesn’t have the knowhow to make it look as effective as it could be. Or they may hire somebody that doesn’t have the integrity that the people in the church have. If they don’t have that integrity then they might just basically take them for their money and not give them a high-quality website.

So, in seeing those types of situations, I started to realize what they needed was someone they could trust and someone that also has the expertise to allow them to take advantage of the technology that we have out here because it changes rapidly.

[Question: How are people receiving the ichurch method strategy] It’s being received with resounding success. I think that once the light bulb goes on and people understand and realize that the method that I’m producing and the way that I’m presenting it to them is bringing down the technological barrier and helping them actually be able to utilize technology on a level that they understand, then they realize that they can use this to actually help advance their ministry online and not be intimidated by technology.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/do-churches-fear-technology/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=do-churches-fear-technology

Why is Social Media Important for Churches?

Never before has the world been so interconnected. Events that happen in the world can ricochet around the globe almost instantaneously. News, videos, quotes and photos go viral and are shared via social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all around the planet. Governments have literally been toppled by people communicating through social networking sites. Why not take advantage of this new technology to spread your message?

Consider how it works. Your church has a Facebook page, and you encourage your followers to visit regularly to catch up on what’s new at your ministry. Facebook is extremely interactive, so visitors can comment on your posts, which is a great opportunity to receive feedback. They can also choose to “share” your posts, effectively reposting them to their own pages, which are then viewed by all of their “friends”. If one of their friends likes your post, he or she can also choose to share it, and now it will be viewed by a whole other group of people.

Reach Thousands of People – or More
It is not uncommon for avid Facebook participants to have hundreds of friends; all who view posts and shared items, and can repost or share them on their own sites, to be viewed by their hundreds of friends. You can see how quickly something can spread. Post a meaningful quote, photograph or bit of news and it will likely be shared.

Twitter works in a similar manner, but whereas people generally check in with Facebook once or twice a day, Twitter users are constantly reading and sending “tweets.” Tweets are short messages, limited to 140 characters, and quite short-lived. You only need to post on Facebook once or twice a day, but to get your message out on Twitter, you should send your tweet out at least five or six times a day.

It’s All About the Access
When it’s so difficult to call up a commercial organization these days and actually get to speak with a human being, people appreciate the direct access they get through social media. They can comment on your posts, and you can read their comments and respond. This give and take is perhaps one of the strongest reasons that people visit social media pages run by large commercial or not for profit organizations.

And even though you’re only responding to one individual, hundreds or even thousands of people may be reading your response. What an opportunity!

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of “The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online.” or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/why-is-social-media-important-for-churches/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-is-social-media-important-for-churches