Mobile Churches are Global Churches

With more smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices being produced and sold than ever before, people are staying connected, from the office, the dentist, the chiropractor, the grocery store, and everywhere else that their busy day takes them. If not already the case, there will soon be more mobile internet users logged on at any given time than those using stationary personal computers and laptops combined.

When one of these mobile users, perhaps in a moment of extreme duress, conducts a search for Hope, Help or God, you want to make sure you are ready to answer the call.

Formatting Your Website for Mobile

Optimize your website for mobile phones. If you visit a site on your mobile phone that is not optimized for mobile, it will appear much like it does on your PC or laptop – only much smaller. You’ll have to blow up each section just to read it. Mobile optimized sites, on the other hand, are formatted differently, so that you can read each section clearly, and browse much as you would a regular site.

To do this, you will have hire someone to reformat your site for a variety of devices. You can then employ a “sniffer” program that will immediately detect what kind of device is accessing your site, and it will present the most readable site format for that particular device, whether it is a PC, laptop, cell phone or tablet.

Mobile Check In Keeps You Connected

Certain applications allow a user to check in, via the GPS feature in a smart phone, virtually broadcasting where that user is. This allows nearby businesses to send them coupons and discount offers, along with letting their friends know where they are, in case they happen to be nearby and want to connect. When people check in to announce that they’re attending your church services or special event, this brings a great deal of positive exposure for your organization.

You can also take advantage of the mobile coupon application to send notices of church services, discounted tickets to church sponsored events, church store discount coupons and more to people who check in within a certain radius of your ministry.

In summary, in order to reach out to your busy congregation today, sometimes you have to reach a little farther in order to keep up with them as they rush from place to place. Mobile technology puts your message right at their fingertips, any place, any time.

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/mobile-churches-are-global-churches/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mobile-churches-are-global-churches

The iChurch Method TV – The Future of Technology and Online Ministry

I was asked about the future of Internet and Technology, here was my response (the video is above while the transcript is below):

If I had to prophesy then I would say the lines between offline and online are blurring. When you want to look five or ten years down the line, look at projects that are young in their infancy that make you think, “Wow, that’s pretty interesting.”

First aspect would be something like Google Glass where you have the glasses that are connected to the internet that you wear on your face that you can actually kind of change your perception; it’s like everything you’re looking at offline has an online component to it. That way you’re never disconnected. If you’re wearing those glasses and you’re always connected to the internet, let’s say you look at a church and automatically right there in those glasses that church website comes up or pertinent information about that church comes up as you’re looking at it or looking in that direction because it’s a virtual reality type of deal. That’s what I think we’re moving towards; virtual reality, an always connected life and pretty much existence.
Secondly we’re seeing that our appliances and everything in our households—SmartHomes—are coming along. All the appliances and everything that we use in our household will be connected to the internet somehow. Wirelessly actually, because we’re seeing 4G and by then it will be 6G and whatever the years down the line, so the internet will be much faster.

Think about when you get up. While you’re brushing your teeth in the mirror, the mirror has a computer screen on it and it’s going through your tasks for the day or something like that. But, before you even look at the task you see a Daily Devotional or you see a nice message from your pastor. The church has the ability to integrate media and stay connected in people’s lives all the time. That’s the type of stuff I’m seeing. Before you reach in the refrigerator there’s a Daily Devotional on the refrigerator. You’re constantly being encouraged because you’re constantly connected to the information that’s coming from your church or your ministry. That’s the type of stuff I think will happen. When we step in the car I think the cars will drive themselves. Google already has that. So, while your car is driving you to wherever you’re going, you’re listening to a sermon. I think that’s something that will be going on.

Let’s say there’s a live service going on, a bible study or something, you’ll be able to interact with the pastor during that bible study no matter where you’re at. So, even if you’re in the car you might Tweet something or Facebook something—whatever the new social media method is—and the pastor responds to you and you’re five states away, but you’re connected to that service. There will be no difference between offline and online. There will be pretty much a virtual reality type of world.

Our kids, that will just be normal to them. They’ll be able to consume, digest, and distribute enormous amounts of information via the internet and that will just be the reality to them. I’m not sure, Google or Apple, who wins out here in this iRobot type of battle but one of them is going to win out. I love Google backwards and forwards and I think Google has a lot of great things going on.

My kids have had iPods and iPads since they were three and five, so the ease of use of those devices, they’re going to be able to connect to their churches with those devices because they’re used to them and they were so easy to pick up. They’re not going to go away from that. Kind of like when kids are three and they see McDonalds. They don’t go away from McDonalds until they learn later on how the pounds don’t come off as easily, but it pulls them in at such a young age.

Our kids and the youth of the future are going to be so technologically savvy and always connected that as long as the church is online and providing information and connectivity and a way for them to get ministry 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and not shunning technology and telling them to disconnect but to integrate that into ministry, then the church will always be accessible and it will evolve with technology.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/future-of-technology-and-online-ministry/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=future-of-technology-and-online-ministry

Basic Components of Your Church Website

When designing your church website, there are many options. What should you include? Consider some or all of these components:

• An eye-catching color scheme
• Optimized images
• Rotating Banners
• Multimedia
• User interaction
• Newsletter registration
• Content Management System
• Site map
• Social media icons
• High quality content

The color scheme is a critical. Color is a mood enhancer, and can trigger a host of different emotions. Consider your congregation, their preferences, age, liberalism or conservatism, culture, popular local sports teams, etc. You may want to simply reflect the interior or exterior colors of your building, for a sense of identity. Before selecting a color scheme, take a look at various sites and see what you find pleasing.

Along with the color scheme, images are key to creating a visually pleasing website. Images not only break up the text, but they can help to illustrate it, as well as giving visitors a visual representation of your congregation. Choose images that are warm and inviting, evocative of a caring community and paint a favorable picture of your ministry. Make sure your photos are professional in quality and not taken from someone’s cell phone camera.

Rotating banners are an effective way of displaying a greater number of images on your website without cluttering it up. They can also be used to advertise upcoming events, and effectively expand the usable space of your page. For maximum effectiveness, add other forms of multimedia to your site, such as digital podcasts of sermons, or short digital videos taken from recent services or church events.

User interaction can be accomplished through the use of online events calendars, prayer requests, donation modules, and registration forms for various church events, as well as to sign up to receive an electronic church newsletter via email.

A content management system allows different users to update different portions of the website, so that the minister can post a blog, for instance, without having to go through the webmaster.

A site map is your visitor’s “you are here” sign, allowing them to navigate directly to the page they’re looking for. Social media icons allow users to “like” your page on Facebook, Twitter or a variety of other social media sites, share content from your church’s website, or even to go directly to your church’s social media pages, if you have them.

Lastly, high quality content is crucial. This is the meat and potatoes of your site. Make sure all of your blogs, descriptions, captions and other content are spelled correctly, use easily understood language with proper grammar, and are interesting and informative. This is the most difficult part of all, and will likely require a large number of participants and one very good editor.

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/basic-components-of-your-church-website/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=basic-components-of-your-church-website