To review, Sinek says, “All the great and inspiring leaders and organizations in the world all think act and communicate in the exact same way and it’s the complete opposite of everyone else.” Almost every organization starts by telling you what they do – the feature of their product or service. Some then explain how they do it – their differentiating value proposition. Very few communicate (or even know) why they do what they do – their purpose or cause. But the inspired leaders and organizations do just the opposite. They start with why. They are looking for people who will join them in their cause.

Churches That Start With “What”

Now you might think that most churches start with why. After all, the local church has the most important cause in the universe – reconciling disconnected people to God through the love and grace of Jesus. But that’s not usually how people introduce you to their church.

More often than not an invitation to church (whether it’s a personal invitation, a radio commercial, a billboard, or the church’s website) sounds like this:

Our pastor’s teaching is biblical and practical, the music is inspiring, the children’s ministry is top-notch. We’re friendly and open to everyone. We invite you to check out a service on Sunday.

Good preaching, music, children’s ministry, and welcoming new people are all important, but they are what the church does.

Invitations like this do not inspire anyone to join your cause. This “starting with what” appeals to consumerism, to a “what’s in it for me” mindset.

People who join your church because if what it does will leave when they get tired of it or find what some other church is doing more appealing.

Churches That Start With Why

Churches that start with “why” invite people by saying things like this:

We believe God loves everyone and loves the whole person. So our purpose is help those disconnected from God to get connected, to bring healing to those who are hurting emotionally, and to help those with physical and financial needs. We do that by teaching from God’s word principles that apply to all aspects of life, by worshiping in ways that will help you connect with God, and by serving and caring for each other and for people in our community. We invite you to come on Sunday and see for yourself what God is doing through us and to see how you might join us.

Do you see the difference?

Churches that start with why invite people to join their cause.

Do you see how much more inspiring and God-honoring this is?

Which are you?

Pastors, church leaders and church communicators, I challenge you to do two things.

1) Examine at the way you are describing your church to people. Look at your invitation cards, your billboards, your website, your evangelism training curriculum and anything else which describes your church or invites others to your church. Don’t just think about them; actually look at them with your eyes. Do they start with what you do or why you do it?

2) Think back to the last time you invited someone to your church. (You do invite your friends to your church, don’t you?) Did you start with what or why?

Now, which church do you want to be – the church that sells people on services or invites people to join your mission? Do you need to change the way you describe your church?

What kind of Advent do you want to have this year?

What kind of Advent do you want your friends, family and the people in your congregation to have?

If we don’t prepare, what do you think will happen? If we’re not intentional, which side do you think will win out?

As Christian leaders and influencers online, we are on the front lines of this epic battle. Preparing for Advent was the topic of this past Tuesday’s #ChSocM twitter chat (transcript). Here are 10 ideas that came out of that chat – ways we can use social media to help people prepare for Jesus this Advent.

1. Prepare your own heart each day before you go online.
2. Think before you Tweet. Before you Tweet/Facebook about your shopping, parties, and busyness, ask yourself, “Is this post going to direct people to peace and reflection or distract them from it?” Not that everything you post has to be deeply spiritual, but just consider your motives & give it some thought.
3. Post a daily reflection to your blog, Facebook, Twitter.
4. Post an open-ended question each day instead of posting your thoughts.  In that way you invite your friends, followers, parishioners to post their own Advent reflections.
5. Post links to other great resources – devotionals & reflections posted online.
6. Share “digital gifts” on Facebook and Twitter, images and videos that promote a reflective, Jesus-centered Advent and friends/followers can share with their friends/followers.
7. Give instead of get.  Challenge people to ask their friends/family to make a donation or give a gift to someone in need instead of giving them a Christmas gift.
8. Add an Advent twibbon or Advent candle to your Twitter/Facebook profile pic so people are reminded of the Advent season every time they see one of your tweets/updates.
9. Pastors – instead of stressing out and overworking your your staff & volunteers during Advent, work with them to find ways to reduce workloads and make the season more peaceful.
10. Ask.  Instead of putting creating your Advent social media plan yourself, ask your friends, followers and congregation now, “What could we do to help you to overcome busyness and consumerism during Advent and better prepare for and reflect on Jesus?”

If we wait until Advent begins to put together plans and write content, it’s only going to create more work and stress for us, which is going to come through in the way we engage with people during Advent. The time to start preparing is now.

There is a lot we can do together such as sharing ideas and content so we’re all not recreating the wheel. I’m working on some ways to facilitate that and will blog more about that very soon – perhaps as early as tomorrow.

(Added Nov 11) Check out this new related posts What is Occupy Advent?

Tweet this: We need to prepare for advent so in advent we can prepare for Jesus. @thecatholiccoup

Hey, this isn’t a speech! Discuss this with me.

1. Which of the ideas above resonate most with you?
2. Is your church going to do any of these things?
3. What other ways can we use social media help people reflect on Jesus instead of getting caught up in the busyness and consumerism of the season?

My husband and I have been blessed by God with two daughters. One of our goals as parents was to make sure that our girls were raised in a church that spoke and taught from the Bible. God has answered our prayers for that. Sunday school has always been an important part in that upbringing. Our girls aren’t babies anymore, but I still want to see them engaged in learning to study and follow the scriptures. I hold firmly to the promise made in Proverbs 22:6.

By trade I am a trainer. In that capacity, I am always learning new ways to deliver content to learners. It is a challenge to provide materials that engage and impact. I rely on visuals and simple, straight-forward messages. My daughter’s Flip camcorder has become one of my best tools. Social media has received a lot of hype lately in corporate circles, primarily for marketing, but I have witnessed how Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have changed the way I learn and teach. I’m developing a course for employees to learn how to use social media tools and theories to create their own personal learning networks. It’s not as easy as it sounds because the freedoms that exist in our personal lives are not so readily available behind the corporate firewalls.

Using social media to discuss my personal faith has become a daily occurrence for me thanks to @StickyJesus. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and now Google+ have blessed me so many times, I have lost track of how God has used these tools to lift me up and direct my path.

All Scripture is God-breathed
and is useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness.
~ 2 Timothy 3:16 (NIV)

This summer when our church was nominating officers for the year, God placed a real burden on my heart to teach the young adult Sunday school class. Last year, I ran away from this class because I felt unequipped to speak to them. I have always loved teaching Bible studies, but this was different. Now I know a little more about their language, using Facebook and texting, but I could show them how to change the way they learn and share scripture. We are still using the standard Sunday school lessons used in the church so that at the end of the day families can still discuss what they learned, but I have included social media resources to supplement their learning.

This is outside the box for our traditional Free Methodist denomination. I have been at this for a little over a month now and I wanted to share this vision of Sunday school. I gathered email addresses for all of the young adults in the church and invited students to add names to the list. We started out with 14 and it has grown to 27 in four weeks. At the beginning of the week, I send a group email, providing the scripture to be studied with a hyperlink. I add a question for discussion purposes. I do some searching on YouTube, Twitter and my blog resources to find relevant links and add them as well. I remind them to pray for one another and invite friends. If I find anything that really pops up during my studies during the week, I shoot out a quick email link to share with them.

This past week, I created two new accounts, one on Facebook and one on Twitter. House Ignition is the name that we are using. All of the class members are administrators for the Facebook page and they have the account information for the accounts so they can manage as they see fit. I developed a proposal last week, challenging them to build and share their class pages by posting content and inviting friends. They all agreed that their friends probably wouldn’t visit our sites initially, so they needed to live their faith on their own pages! In addition to their pledge to develop the social media sites, they have also decided to take on a project within the church so that they can minister to the congregation, especially the youth group and young children. As a class, they are going to be the driving force behind the Operation Christmas Child program in our church. I am so excited to see them take ownership of these projects!

Now, I have to ask you for a favor. This is all new. We are stepping out in faith that God will use this class to do great things in us, our church and community. Pray for us. We have only had a few weeks, but we are confident that this is where God is leading us. Last week I listened to speakers at Catalyst online. Francis Chan said two things that I will share with my group on Sunday. First, we need to spend time with God. That means reading scripture and praying, being present. Second, we need to be willing to work hard. We are doing this. Our goal is 40 young adults. Currently we have ten who are dedicated to pushing this to their families and friends. Pray for them not to get discouraged if there are not immediate results. Jesus started out with twelve, and the world has never been the same! I promise to provide updates as we journey this path through the coming year.

Kurt, posted an excellent article to Church Marketing Online, about using Facebook to engage with your church’s members which is too good and too relevant to our conversation here on Christian Web Trends to pass up.

Some of the ideas cited include:

• Listen to what people are talking about to learn what concerns and interests people
• Conduct online discussions
• Help build relationships by encouraging members to connect with each other
• Spotlight members

For the other 6 suggested ways your church can engage with its member on Facebook, check out the full article 10 Facebook Ideas For Your Church – Inward Outreach.

What do you think of these ideas? Any you’re already doing? Any you really want to start doing? Got any other ideas not in the blog post?

KXtext increases participation in all church events and saves countless staff hours. In addition, Churches only pay 1/2 the regular price! To make sure the message gets out, we are giving away a year of service to a randomly selected church or church group who:

1) Shares this post on Facebook/Twitter.

And…

2) Posts a comment on this blog post answering this question: on a typical day how many texts do you send and receive? Be sure to include the Facebook/Twitter account that you posted it to.

At 4 PM Eastern time Tuesday October 11th, we’ll randomly select one winner whose church or church group will receive one year of free KXtext service.

Until then you can share/tweet & comment once each day, giving you up to 8 chances to win!

For more information on how KXtext can help your church visit KXchurch.com or call 888-778-6544.

If you don’t, I understand. Why should you pay for things you virtually can get for free? Here are a few things to think about before you submit your budget for 2012.

1. Validity. This has a lot to do with perception. Even though audiences know ads are bought, they still give them more credibility. Paid channels make products and service look valid. They look for real. They come across more professional. They become the real deal. You can argue all you want on this point, but those that advertise generally do better, especially those with multiple locations. Still don’t believe people actually click them? I can show you daily campaign limits maxed out for weeks that have reached millions of people.
2. Growth. It will grow your social audience. Don’t believe someone knows about your page and just decided not to like it. Most likely, they’ve never come across your page and thus never had the opportunity to like it. And yes, this includes your regular church attenders. Ads give you a great way to tell them and immediately get their like. You can even wind-up paying less than $1 per like. Compare that to direct mail.
3. Excitement. Those that are already a part of your organization will love seeing its name all over the web. And when people are excited, they talk about it. When people talk about it, others learn about it and come.

Remember, you don’t have to do everything. You only need to do those things that will reach your target. OK, if your target is everyone then you might need to do everything. But I’m sure when you really look at what you’re promoting, you can find a core audience that will only show up in a few of your channels. Internet channels allow you to be very discriminating, unlike mass media. It’s also cheaper, and you can see results on a daily basis or hourly if you’re as OCD as me.

Have you bought internet ads? From whom? What were the results? Why haven’t you?

[image by ewanr]

1. Learn as much as you can about the most recent changes
2. Understand how they affect your organization and then
3. Adjust your Facebook strategy to make the most of them

The New Newsfeed

The changes individual users notice immediately are the changes to the newsfeed.

Gone is the “Top News” with the option to switch to “Most Recent.” Now there are Top Stories and Recent Stories. The Top Stories are things Facebook thinks you might be interested in based on your interaction in the past. The Recent Stories are in chronological order, but they don’t include everything from all your friends. Facebook filters Recent Stories and only gives you what it thinks you’ll want to see.

Introducing the Ticker

For those who want to see all their “friends’” status updates, Facebook has introduced the Ticker, which is a real-time list of everything your friends are doing. It includes everything in Recent Stories plus notices of when your friends add friends, like pages, comment on stories, play Farmville, and more.

In other words, the Ticker is what old Facebook used to be.

It also looks suspiciously like Twitter.

New Lists = Google+ Circles

The other big change individual users will notice is that Facebook has improved their lists functionality. It functions a lot like circles in Google+. Once a user creates a list, they can not only click to view just the updates from the people on that list, but they can now also publish content that only people on that list can see.

So, you can now create a “family” list and share pictures so only people on that list can see them. Or you can create a “work” list and post links to industry-related news that only your co-workers would be interested instead of bothering everyone with it. You can share content with multiple lists, make it public, or even hide from specific individuals.

Other Changes

There are a bunch of other new things that are available now like watching TV & movies with your friends, listening to music and seeing what your friends are listening too, and others big changes that are coming soon like the Timeline and Facebook Gestures. But those won’t have much have much impact on churches and non-profits now, and that’s where I want to go next.

Likes Less Important, Engagement Critical

With the changes to individual users newsfeeds, Facebook takes another step towards playing god in what content Facebook users see.

All content is not created equal. No longer can you expect everyone who “likes” your organization’s Facebook page to see everything you post to Facebook. Status updates, photos, videos and links that get “likes” and “comments” have become even more prominent and thus more likely to be seen, while those that do not have become even less prominent and less likely to be seen.

This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for churches, non-profits and businesses. It’s more important than ever that organizations engage people with their content. Those that do will find their content being seen by more people.

Furthermore, every time someone likes or comments on your content, that action shows up in all their friends Tickers. So, engaging content gets double prominence.

If you manage your organization’s Facebook page, every time you post to Facebook you have to ask yourself more than, “What do I want people to know?” You have to ask yourself, “What do I want people to do?” And “How can post this in a way that will invoke a response?”

Relationship Building More Important

If you use Facebook personally, you understand that you engage more with the people you have the best relationships with – your immediate family and close friends. The same is true with organizations. The better your organization builds relationships with its “fans” the more they will “like” and comment on your content. That means doing things like

• listening and responding to wall posts and comments
• posting polls and asking for feedback
• featuring members or customers
• posting photos and video of your “fans” interacting with your organization offline

Discussion

1. Which recent changes to Facebook do you think will have the biggest impact on churches and non-profits? Why?
2. Do you think engagement and relationships on Facebook are more important than ever now?
3. What are you doing to strengthen relationships and engage more in Facebook?

For the second pick, I select Mobile App. (My first pick was a redesigned website from the ground-up. Your first pick should always be a functioning, attractive website, as well.) Sorry, Mobile Website, you’ll have to wait until later.

With the popularity of mobile apps growing and Android being the number one used platform, I was finally able to reach the masses with a trending tool. Yes, iOS is great and pretty, but I work for a church and work to reach the masses, not just the pop culture. I knew the majority of my church was using Android, not iOS. Now, I had a solution that worked with both platforms and the back end was one system. (Keep that in mind when you’re searching for mobile app solutions.)

In addition, the new website was mobile friendly even though it wasn’t a true mobile website. For example, I made sure Flash wasn’t used and menus weren’t drop down. I tried to make sure the interactive features were easy to use without sacrificing the full desktop experience. I also made the choice to program for newer technology knowing phones without a full browser were becoming obsolete quickly. That meant full websites were becoming an accepted practice for mobile devices.

Furthermore, I chose the mobile app to be a separate tool in my web arsenal. I had and still have no intention on using the app to replace a website. I designed the app to be used in church services and on the go. Instead of filling out paper sermon notes, people would fill them out on their device (phone and tablet). Instead of reading the paper weekly bulletin, people would access it quickly from the app. Instead of subscribing to our podcast, they can easily access the audio, video and sermon notes from the app.

Now for the pick I passed up. As more people use their phone for web browsing, they want to easily access and read information. I even find myself surfing on my phone at home 6 feet away from a 19″ monitor. Our lives are becoming more mobile. Notebooks are becoming the primary inventory of brick and mortars (Browse through the computer section of Best Buy) and tablets are picking up speed. We want the answers now, period. Mobile website offer the solution. They display information simply and when designed correctly, make navigation friendly.

Both, mobile apps and mobile websites are needed. Which one does your organization need first? If you’ve already made your pick, which one was it? Why did you select it over the other?

This article is my contribution to the new book Outspoken: Conversations on Church Communication.

It’s estimated that as many as 80% of people looking for a church start their search online.

Typically it looks like this: A person starts by searching Google for churches in their community. They click through to the websites of those churches at the top of the search results. Based on the information and impressions given by those websites, they select which churches to visit in person.

What this means is:

1. If your church’s website doesn’t show up on the first page or two of the search results, people looking for a church will never see your website and thus never visit your church.

2. If people do visit your church’s website but it gives a poor impression of your church, people will also never visit your church.

Don’t misunderstand. This is not about competing with the other churches in your community. It’s not about having the best search rankings or the coolest website.

I’m talking about loving the people in your community enough to make an effort to meet them where they are—searching Google. I’m talking about loving them enough to make them feel welcome once they get to your website. I’m talking about authentically communicating who you are as a church and what God is doing through you.

Here are seven ways your church can do that:

1. Optimize your website for search engines or hire a professional to do it.
2. Give your website a nice design. It doesn’t have to be the coolest site in town, but it should be uncluttered, have a consistent color scheme and be easy to navigate.
3. Prominently feature a “New Visitor” section on your website.
4. Include a welcome message from your senior pastor—either a video or a picture and text welcome message.
5. Include pictures or video of your worship services and children’s activities.
6. Answer all the questions you would want answered before you visit a church: How does one get there? What are the service times? What are services like? How do people dress? What do kids do?
7. Publish video, pictures and stories of what God is doing in your church: Stories from people in your church about how God has changed their lives, stories of how your church is impacting your community, and stories of how your church is changing the world through missions and giving.

When you love the people in your community enough to make them the priority on your website and authentically communicate the stories of what God is doing through you, people will be drawn to God and to your church through your website.

We’re giving away 3 copies for Outspoken today.  Find out how you can win!  Or buy a copy online right on Amazon.

Are you motivated by love for the people in your community to have an well designed website that is well optimized for search engines?

That’s why our team partners with churches to design church website and optimize church website for search engines. It’s all about love – loving God and loving people!

Outspoken is a brand new book about church communications that’s being released today. What makes Outspoken remarkable is that it’s a compilation of insight from more than 60 church communications professionals including Jon Acuff, Phil Cooke, DJ Chuang, Steve Fogg, Charles Lee, Kem Meyer, Tony Morgan, John Saddington, Tony Steward, and Leonard Sweet. I’m excited to be a contributor as well.

The book is published by The Center for Church Communications (known for its popular blog Church Marketing Sucks) and was edited and organized by its co-director Tim Schraeder. It covers all facets of church communications such as leadership, branding, design, words and stories, technology, creativity, and personal growth.

This is a book every person that does church communications, web design, or marketing should read and keep within arm’s reach at their desk. It’s a great book for pastors too because they do and oversee a lot of church communications as well.

Get a Free Book

Because all of us at OurChurch.Com and Christian Web Trends want to see churches communicate better, we’re not only helping to spread the word about Outspoken, we’re also going to give away 3 copies. All you have to do to win one is:

1. Retweet this post or share it on Facebook, AND…
2. Post a comment with one bit of advice for church communicators or a question about church communications. (Include your Facebook or Twitter username in your comment so I can connect your comment to your share/tweet).

Three people will be selected Friday, September 16, at 4 PM to receive a free copy of the book.

If you’d like to double your chances of winning, share/comment once each day.

In the mean time, you can download a free preview  or purchase Outspoken on Amazon.