Introducing The iChurch Academy

Truly understand and absorb The iChurch Method messages and concepts through our
Online School!

Enroll Today at www.ichurchacademy.com

Participants in The iChurch Method online school will enjoy a unique and informative set of courses that delve deep into the concepts presented in both volumes of The iChurch Method books (available for purchase online here – Vol. 1 – Vol. 2).

Although the books will give you the insights and information you need to help take your ministry online and global, many people prefer a more in-depth discussion to answer questions that may come up throughout the course of reading the book.

Each chapter of both Volume 1 and Volume 2 is broken down into a week-long course incorporating videos and additional concepts that will be examined in detail. The courses include not only a chapter by chapter review from an interactive book module, a PDF version of the book for viewing as well and instructional videos that walk participants through a more in-depth, detailed discussion of each concept that will really drive the message home! Of course, a quality course wouldn’t be complete without some Q & A, interactive webinars, group discussions and brief quizzes to be certain that everyone understands the concepts to assure there is no stone unturned.

Courses are at YOUR OWN PACE, there is no set time that they begin or end, it’s entirely up to you. We suggest that each course take a week but if you want to move faster or slower, it’s entirely up to you.

Get more from The iChurch Method volumes 1 and 2 by signing up for our Online Training Courses today! Dive into the concepts and prepare yourself to head down the path of building your ministry online with a global mindset and get your message out there today!

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

Why Does My Ministry Need a YouTube Account?

People love videos, and if a picture can paint a thousand words, just think about what kind of message you can get across with even a short video. YouTube is the most popular site on the whole Internet for people to share videos of all kinds, and many of these videos are viewed by hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers. In fact, YouTube has some 490 million registered users, and many more who simply view videos without registering.

YouTube makes posting videos on your website quick and easy, without taking up a lot of space or needing extra time to load. You simply post the actual video on YouTube, and then put the HTML code that YouTube provides you to embed the video right into your website. The video shows up on your site just as if it were actually there, but when the viewer plays it, they’re actually accessing it through YouTube.

When you create a YouTube account, you not only get the privilege of posting videos, but you can actually establish a presence for your church on YouTube by creating your own channel, where parishioners can find all of your videos in one place. It’s a great way to set up an archive without having to use up space on your own site.

Create Your Own “Sound Bytes”
Consider videotaping whole sermons and then editing them to three to five minute clips, highlighting the most powerful parts. Then you can post the “sound bytes” on YouTube, embedding them in your site, and post a link to where the viewer can either download the whole sermon, or purchase it from your Web store. What great advertising!

Not only will you get business from the viewers who come to your site, but from potentially thousands more who stumble across your videos on YouTube. And every video you post increases your Web presence, much as the size of your website can improve your listings on Google searches. You Tube is actually the second largest search engine behind Google.com, and is owned by Google, Inc.

You don’t have to only post sermons, either. Consider editing together videos from various events, like picnics and bazaars and church outings. Make sure to highlight the most exciting parts, and perhaps even put them to music. You can use these kinds of videos to attract young people to your church who are looking for fun things to do on weekends. Video is your way of presenting the best parts of your church to the world, and YouTube is the conduit.

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-does-my-ministry-need-a-youtube-account/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-does-my-ministry-need-a-youtube-account

The iChurch Method TV – Ep 14 – The Blurring Lines of Offline and Online and Going Mobile

Continuing The iChurch Method TV series, here’s the transcript from the video above.

The lines are being blurred between offline and online. If you look at something like Facebook or FourSquare, they have features where when your online friends are near you in the offline world, they’ll alert you. So, if I’m downtown and one of my Facebook friends is near me, my phone alerts me. That’s blurring the line because you’re basically saying this online friend is near you offline, and that’s where social media is going to go. It’s going to continually just become where it’s a part of your life and a utility of your life where no matter what you’re doing offline, it somehow has an impact online, and what you do offline is going to impact your life offline.

I have a mobile strategy that I explain to them and I basically lay it out to them. I say, “Now we’re going to talk about mobile here and we’re going to look at what we need to do next with mobile.” Of course the initial question is, “Should I do a mobile site or a mobile app?” I let them know first let’s do a mobile website because it’s accessible from a variety of mobile devices. That way you’re reaching all the mobile devices and then let’s talk about doing a mobile app because that’s for specific devices; if you have an app for your Apple iPhone, or your Google Android phone, or your Window’s phone. Apps are more specific but websites are more encompassing.

That type of stuff is what is going to become more common where churches are going to need apps because people just seem to connect more with a mobile app as opposed to a mobile website. Now, they’ll use a mobile website, but they’ll look forward to a more in-depth connection with that mobile app

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/blurring-lines-of-offline-and-online-and-going-mobile/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=blurring-lines-of-offline-and-online-and-going-mobile

Creating Podcasts of Your Sermons

Getting your sermons onto iTunes as a podcast is fairly easy and affordable, using a popular service called Podbean. Like YouTube for videos, Podbean requires that you create a free account for your organization.

Setting up an account with Podbean allows you to select a public channel in the Religion category, include your church logo or photograph of your pastor, describe your ministry and select keywords that will help anyone searching for your content to find you, and even provide contact information.

In this way you can make your podcast accessible on iTunes and also on Podbean, to reach a whole other population of people who may not have ever even been to your church – yet. Like YouTube, this gives you a whole new channel whereby to establish a presence on the Internet, to reach many more people all over the world.

You can provide links to your podcasts on your site; make them available for download at your Web store and more. Podcasts are popular for listening to while driving or doing other activities that are conducive to listening to music or inspirational messages.

Use Sound Bytes to Peak Interest

Consider placing short clips of your latest podcast on the front page of your site, to entice visitors to want to hear more. As audio files, podcasts are much easier to download, upload, and play, whereas a video might take much more time.

Podcasts are a powerful way of getting your message out there. You can even stream podcasts live during the actual sermon, so that those who are unable to make it to your church due to illness or travel can still listen to the sermon, and feel as if they were physically there on site with the rest of the congregation.

Podcasts can be archived, by subject, by date or by speaker, and even sold as collections for those who are looking for uplifting subject matter, or who like to listen to a particular speaker, or who missed a month of sermons and want to catch up. Be sure to take advantage of this valuable technology to get your message out to many more potential parishioners than old-time country preachers ever dreamed possible!

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/creating-podcasts-of-your-sermons/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=creating-podcasts-of-your-sermons

The iChurch Method TV – Ep. 13 – Ministries Need to Work Together

(Transcript from the Video above)

What I’ve come across is that sometimes ministries are in a bubble at times where they’re use to doing things on their own and they feel like the ministry is an island, so I try and educate them and inform them on how utilizing social media can help them not just reach other members for their ministry but also interact and connect with other ministries.

So, it seems to be a wall that’s coming down, but originally it just seemed that a lot of ministries were operating on an island and just didn’t understand how well technology could help them to reach other ministries. They did get how to reach people and how to bring members into their church and stuff like that, but interacting with other ministries, that just wasn’t something that was readily known.

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/ministries-need-to-work-together/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ministries-need-to-work-together

Google+ Hangouts on Air for ministry

Regardless of how you feel about Google+ and it’s impact (or lack thereof) on social media, there is one major feature that has captured the attention of Google+ fanatics and everyone else, that feature is Google Hangouts on Air. Google hangouts are an enhanced version of video chat with up to 10 people simultaneously participating in a video chat. The add on features such as integrating YouTube videos, Google docs or screen sharing have only made Google hangouts even more attractive to people.

When thinking about Google+ hangouts the closest comparison is Skype and it’s easy to use video chat features. Unlike Skype, Google+ hangouts have the capability to be broadcast live via YouTube to an unlimited number of people, this feature alone makes Google+ an amazing tool for webinars and online broadcasts. Another great benefit is the seamless mobile device integration so that whether a participant is on a laptop, desktop or mobile device, they can participate in the Google+ Hangout.

The question is how can Google+ hangouts be used for churches, well i’m glad you asked. Here are 5 ways to use Google Hangouts on Air for Church:

Stream your sermons or bible study live and record it on YouTube. This feature is built into Google+ Hangouts on Air, it’s a great showcase of how Google is merging all of their properties to work together.

Have an interactive Bible Study or Ministry meetings that can also be recorded for record keeping purposes. Similar to the example above, you can have a pastor or church leader lead a meeting/bible study and broadcast it via Google+ Hangouts on Air and YouTube. If you like you can have up to 10 people who can actually interact with the pastor during this broadcast in addition to watching.

Have interactive Counseling sessions. This option may not need to broadcast or recorded but if the pastor or counselor is at the church and the person(s) needing counseling are somewhere else, they can conduct an online counseling session using Google+ hangouts.

Broadcast special events such as conference previews, webinars and online trainings. This is a great marketing option for people to participate in online. A good example is where a pastor can call on a few of his colleagues and they talk about a theological topic or an upcoming conference they are participating in. This online event can be broadcast live using Google+ hangouts and YouTube, then recorded as well. The MP4 file that YouTube creates can then be downloaded or shared on other social networks such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Podcasts done quickly and easily. Similar to the option above, with the MP4 file that is created from a Google+ hangout and YouTube, it can be uploaded to iTunes as a podcast and distributed in that manner. Even if you want to do a broadcast by yourself, you can record yourself using Google+ hangouts and take the MP4 file that will be created on YouTube and distribute it as a podcast.

Overall, Google+ Hangouts on Air along with YouTube have a great opportunity to become a great online tool. I cannot explain how much fun I think Google+ Hangouts on Air are and how much impact they could have in changing how online training, communication and videos are done.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/google-hangouts-on-air-for-ministry/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-hangouts-on-air-for-ministry

The iChurch Method TV – Ep. 12 – Developing Online Content Strategies

Here are the questions I ask when we help a church develop online content strategies.

First I would ask them what you consider an ideal membership for you right now. If you’re trying to get a million members for your church then we can look at that. If you just want 1000 people and that’s as many as you feel you can handle then we can look at that as well.

Once we establish that then we start looking at the content that the ministry is putting out; how often are you preaching, what other content do you have such as announcements, what other leadership in your ministry is pushing out content. We start gathering all that content together. Once we look at all the content that the ministry is putting out, then we start figuring out how we can distribute it—whether it be social media—we look at the website and what information is on there, and we just start looking at how many different ways we can distribute that information.
Continuing with that, we look at multimedia because we want to look at the online video aspect. Do you want to have live online streaming services or would you rather just record your services and archive it and let people watch it later? We ask those questions.

Then we look at online donations; is that something that you want to do. With the content that we were looking at before, do you have enough to start creating digital products? You may not have the resources to create DVDs and CDs but you can create digital products if we’re recording the sermons.
Then we look at, again, social media; is your church ready for that and do you have the resources. I’m not trying to put everything on the pastor. The pastor is gifted at ministering to the people and preaching to the people, so I’m not trying to make the pastor “Mr. Everything” for the church. So, do you have the resources and possibly volunteers to utilize social media? Maybe some young people that are very enthusiastic about it and that are also very enthusiastic about your ministry.

Finally with mobile, I want to help them understand that aspect. When I tell them about just anything with digital ministry they immediately think computer ministry, but I’m trying to help them understand it’s internet ministry, online ministry, so you have to include mobile devices, tablets, and anything that’s going to be internet enabled well into the future.
We’re getting into the era of the Jetsons now, so people have to understand, and churches have to understand, that everything is going to be internet enabled.

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/developing-online-content-strategies/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=developing-online-content-strategies

Add a Google +1 Button to Your Website

If your church has a comprehensive website, you are no doubt by now familiar with a variety of ways of optimizing your site, letting visitors “like” the site for their friends on Facebook and Twitter and more. You may not yet, however, be familiar with the new Google +1 button.

The Google +1 button is a button you can place on your site, similar to a Facebook Like button, whereby visitors can click on it to recommend your content on Google Search and share it on Google Plus. A number appears next to the +1 to denote the number of users who have clicked on it so far. When a user clicks the +1, a message goes out to all of their friends on Google Plus that he or she is recommending your site.

Google Search Page Rankings
This new button could be a complete game changer when it comes to Google rankings, as well. Experts are still attempting to determine the effect that a high Google +1 number will have on a page’s overall search ranking. One thing is certain; it will definitely increase the ranking of your page for the members’ friends when they do a Google search.

In other words, when a visitor clicks on the +1 button on your site, it will raise your page’s search ranking for any of that’s visitor’s friends whenever they conduct a search of a relevant topic.

Consider if you were to look for a movie review. A review written by a critic may or may not be helpful, but if you could read a review written by one of your friends, it would probably be of more interest. Google will naturally guide you to any of your friends’ recommendations first whenever you conduct a search.

Google +1 buttons will also show up next to your search results on search pages, allowing viewers to see which of their friends is recommending your site. While this is fairly new technology and the jury is still out as to how much of an effect this will have, Google +1 is still another way to increase your visibility on the Web so that more people can find you.

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/add-a-google-1-button-to-your-website/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=add-a-google-1-button-to-your-website

The iChurch Method July Update

I’ve decided that I will try to do monthly updates where I keep readers informed on what’s going on at The iChurch Method and new things to look out for. In this update we highlight:

• Google Glass
• The iChurch Method Author at MegaFest
• The iChurch Method at Abilene Christian University Summitt
• Future webseries projects

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