Marketing and Management Thoughts

Another followup to the Building Community series we did several weeks ago because I stumbled across Chris Forbes’ free e-Book “Facebook for Pastors” that does a pretty good job at explaining Facebook and its ministry possibilities.

It is a great supplement to what we wrote about in much greater details than I chose to in our blog and in a short 33 pages (several of which are the intro) lay out it quite well.

The bottom line on Facebook is there are people connected to it. It is not a web site or an Internet product; it is a network of people. Each person in the network is someone for whom Christ gave
himself. That is an important perspective for a pastor, wherever people gather, there are opportunities to minister.

Page 12

Download the ebook for free

This article, “For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It”, by John Tierney was published two days ago in the New York Times that slipped under my radar until today.

“We simply asked if there was good evidence that people who are more religious have more self-control,” Dr. McCullough. “For a long time it wasn’t cool for social scientists to study religion, but some researchers were quietly chugging along for decades. When you add it all up, it turns out there are remarkably consistent findings that religiosity correlates with higher self-control.”

And another nice quote

Religious people, he said, are self-controlled not simply because they fear God’s wrath, but because they’ve absorbed the ideals of their religion into their own system of values, and have thereby given their personal goals an aura of sacredness. He suggested that nonbelievers try a secular version of that strategy.

The article continues and is chalk full of great quotes and while not explicitly for the Christian faith it shows there is a high correlation between those who are religiously devoted and their self-control. Really interesting.

It’s important in any line of work (professional or hobby) to keep tabs on what others are doing. I follow all these blogs (and then some) to keep my eyes sharp and my mind inspired in the realm of design. If you aren’t currently using a feed aggregator like Google Reader you should really start (lets you keep up with news/blog updates all in one place). Subscribe to our blog, and the blogs listed below.

6 Blogs You’ve Gotta Read

1. Swiss Miss - General Design (http://swissmiss.typepad.com/weblog/)
   Tina Roth Eisenberg keeps this blog packed full of great design work on a daily basis.
2. notcot - General Design (http://www.notcot.com/)
   Kept up by a teamof bloggers who post about all things design. Worth checking out (and they are doing christmas product give aways right now, and it’s free to enter!).
3. Brand New - Brand/Identity (http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/)
   A beautiful blog when it comes to brand identities. They focus mainly on re-branding of large brands (like Pepsi, Delta, banks, ect). The insights shared on the new brands are really helpful to start/continue forming an eye for identify/brand development.
4. Fubiz - Video/Motion Design (http://www.fubiz.net/blog/)
   Most of what they post at Fubiz involves motion art. These videos are really well done and an inspiration to the multi-media designer inside me. I do realize this site is in french, but they post such visually stunning work (much of which is actually in English).
5. TypeNEU - Type Design (http://www.typeneu.com/)
   Type faces are gorgeous. The right type face changes everything. The days of papyrus and comic sans are long gone. This blog will help you realize the current trends in fonts, and gain an appreciation for this, all to often, overlooked art of typeface design.
6. I Love Typography - Type Design (http://ilovetypography.com/)
   Similar to TypeNEU, focuses on typography and has a lot of stunning content for inspiration.

Still not enough designy goodness?

Below are even more blogs to check out.

• http://www.productdose.com/
• http://www.oberholtzer-creative.com/visualculture/
• http://www.designspotter.com/
• http://designnotes.info/
• http://mocoloco.com/

In terms of building community this is probably the least effective method of those listed in the original post for the series. I make this statement because the main purpose of these sites is entertainment. For this purpose I’m going to break this down into three sections; Promotional Videos, Follow-up Videos, and Documentaries.

I would first post all of these video on your churches website for your members before heading over to a site like You Tube. If you’re interested in posting to multiple video sharing sites at once check out our post on tube mogul. (more…)

Photo Sharing sites abound on the Internet. The majority of them interweave a combination of user uploaded photos with a community aspect (mainly through groups and comments on photos). These sites allow you to create an account, most for free, and then allocate all of your shared photographs into one location.

There is little people love more than photos (and photos of themselves). These sites allow for great access of your members to full galleries. After retreats, mission trips, confirmation services, and any other event you can think of. With so many people loving photography this provides a way for them to serve as a ‘Church Photographer’ and you create a valuable new role in your church.

Within your churches account you can upload all your photos and place them into sets/groups for specific events. This allows way more pictures to be posted and archived than makes sense to do on your churches public website.

Below is a list of sites you can use to host these photos (more…)

Author, Pastor, and Teacher Eric Bryant

Looking for a way to answer the question ‘What are you doing?’ Enter twitter. It is a blog, but it only allows entries of up to 140 characters.

Its a network that allows you to post short messages and when you are signed in you can see all the messages of those people following you. It’s a very easy and covenant way to keep up to date with friends/organizations/businesses you are interested in.

While it doesn’t make a lot of sense to use for a church as a whole, for individuals or small groups it can be great.

It’s hard to explain exactly how people use it, but it is used by many people in ministry. One example is a man I recently was able to hear speak, Eric Bryant, who gave a fairly impromptu talk to students at Bethel Seminary about the approach Mosaic Church has taken to church.

Checking out his personal website has revealed not only a blog that he up keeps, but also his twitter feed. (more…)

It seems like everyone and there mom is on Facebook these days. What started as a school project has become a global phenomena in a matter of years. While there still isn’t a clear picture as to how these social networks can help organizations meet their goal, it is clear that a presence can have a positive effect.

Having worked developing social networking sites beginning in 1999 I hope to shed some light on the subject by explaining the differences, and suggesting how to effectively use the services for your church or organization.   Please give feedback at the end as well. (more…)

Welcome to a new series that will be rolled out over the next few weeks where we’ll highlight the community building power of technology.

Everyone hopes that the ministry they lead will have an effect on influencing the lives of those they are ministering to. It is at this point that the church holds up the importance of community to bring about these changes. More and more we are learning empirically that intimate friends improve ones health and well being. This then becomes our goal; building communities of intimate friends. (more…)

Mecklenburg Community Church (website) was founded by a single family in their house and eight years later they had 5,000 members attending, 80% of whom weren’t attending a church. Their senior pastor offers some insights as to how they went about focusing on building a church of people from outside the church.

He believes there are 4 myths that churches buy into when trying to reach out and presents his reasons why they moved away from them. Also lists four ways they are drawing the unchurched in, like “Let them ask questions.”

Check out the very interesting reading. Gateway Country

It was surprising to me how relevant the article still is over seven years later. What are your thoughts?

Hat Nod to ChurchMarketingSucks.com (link).

Dreams into Reality

Sometime over the next couple days we will no doubt hear about this man, Yves Rossi, in an aside to the news as he flies across the English Channel with a jet-pack. It will be a first and the Swiss born former fighter pilot is ready to give it a try.

Personally there are tinges of jealously and excitement as I hear about him setting out to do this. I don’t remember the number of tee-ball games I spent daydreaming in the outfield of doing amazing things like this. But what has come of nearly all of those childhood dreams? almost nothing.

While it is unlikely that anyone you or I know could pull off what Yves Rossi likely will, there are many things that those close to us, and those in our churches have dreamed of doing. Of the people in the pews next to us and those we meet up with for lunches and coffees there are two different types. (more…)