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The Scripps New Service published a thought-provoking article by Terry Mattingly entitled Ministers Find Online World Time Consuming.

The good news is that ambitious religious leaders can do 24/7, online, multi-media, interactive ministry at the local, national and even global levels. And the bad news? Users will expect them to build and maintain these 24/7, online, multi-media, interactive ministries at the local, national and even global levels.

How are you doing managing the opportunities for online ministry?  Are you overwhelmed by reading and writing email, blogs, newsletters, forums, and participating in social networks?  Or have you found effective ways to manage the digital world?  If the latter, what insight do you have to share with others who may feel overwhelmed?

If you are one of those people whose head is spinning with all the new Internet terms like blog, podcast, folksonomy, or netiquette, here’s one more: webinar.  In this article, I’ll explain in plain English what a webinar is, how it works, why you should consider participating in one or even hosting one.  Plus I’ll include examples from a previous webinar and provide details on how you can participate in an informative webinar tomorrow on the NE1 Web Page Editor at no cost.

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If you’ve ever been in a church service, chances are you’ve experienced the annoyance of someone’s cell phone going off in the middle of the service.  For people in the congregation it’s a nuisance, but for pastors it ranks up there at the top of their pet peeves list.  So, you can imagine how shocked members of Cypress Meadows Community Church in Clearwater, FL must have been when they received this email from their senior pastor, Rev. Douglas Poole:

“Please bring your cell phone with you to the service this Sunday. Yes, you read that right.  I, the President of the ‘I hate cell phones going off in church club,’ am inviting you to bring that blasted thing to church this Sunday.�

The reason?
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It’s been more than a year since I first suggested the idea of a sermon blog.  The concept is to take a pastor’s sermon messages beyond the Sunday service, beyond mere online sermon notes, and even beyond the conventional podcast, and create a real tool for ongoing spiritual development.  I’ve had the opportunity to help my church do that for the last several weeks, and I’m excited to be able to share that with you.
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Blogs4God and GospelShout both recently launched interactive Christian news websites where the articles and placement of those articles are determined by their users, like they are on the popular news site Digg.

Digg is one of the hottest and fastest growing news websites online.  Unlike traditional news websites like cnn.com or msnbc.com, on Digg stories are submitted by users and their placement on the page is determined by the voting of the Digg community of users.  It’s a truly democratic, Web 2.0 approach to news.

Digg originally launched as a tech-only news site.  While it has added categories for world, business, sports, and entertainment, it is still dominated by technology stories because its user-base is primarily young men with a strong interst in technology.  So, as Digg has grown so have calls for similar less tech-centric news websites and similar sites that focus on other niches of news.

Last year Pligg was released.  Pligg is open-source (free) software that allows people to quickly and easily create their own Digg-like site.  Since its release there has been an explosion of Digg clones, including at least these two that focus on Christian articles.
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Last week OurChurch.Com launched the AIDS Clickathon.  The Clickathon is like an online walkathon.  You click… our sponsors donate to a ministry providing food, shelter, clothing, education, and love to children in Africa who have lost their parents to the AIDS epidemic.

I’m very excited about doing something that will make a huge difference in the lives of many children who are destitute and living on the streets in Kenya.  I’m also very excited about providing a way for lots of other people to join us in helping these children.  As a techie, however, there are also some things about the Clickathon that get me excited because of the way Internet technology is being used to take this ministry to a whole new level.

So, in this article I’m going to look at how the inherent benefits of the Internet are having a huge impact on the effectiveness of Clickathon and its ability to help children in Africa impacted by the HIV/AIDS crisis.
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In our last blog article I posted some 2007 predictions, focusing on trends in communication technology and their impact on Christian ministry.  The prediction that sparked the most comments and the one I’ve been thinking most about recently is, “Organizations will have to inform people on their terms.�

What are “their terms?â€�  How does an organization, whether it’s a church, a ministry, a school, a business, or some other type of organization, determine the best way to communicate with its audience (congregation, clients, parents, students, etc)?  What do you do if your audience is so diverse that includes some people who don’t even use computers and others for whom their computer is practically an appendage? (more…)

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with family, friends, and most importantly, Jesus.  I love this time of year because it’s a time of optimism and fresh starts.  More than any other time of year, in January we believe in the possibility of what could be.

Now I’m sure you’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks there has been no shortage of articles, blogs, and TV shows containing 2007 predictions.  They range from the dire like Pat Robertson’s prediction of a terrorist attack to the wacky (the Spice Girls will reunite.)  I promise not to scare you with doomsday forecasts, and while it’s tempting I’ll resist the urge to humor you with outrageous possibilities.

In fact, I’m kind of cool to the whole prediction thing, but I believe that success often comes from anticipating a trend and putting yourself in a position to ride the wave.  My hope is that by talking about some of the current trends related to Christianity and the Internet that you can position yourself to ride one or more of these waves in 2007.  So, here are 5 predictions for 2007 and their implications for Christian ministry. (more…)

You may have noticed a growing trend in churches to use video as a tool, to not only help their audiences receive their message, but to also put video on other mediums such as DVDs and the web. In this blog I am going to go through the steps on using your video system to its full potential. (more…)

You’ve seen it everywhere on the Internet.  No, I don’t mean ads for another credit card or pictures of what we can all look like if we were on the latest diet, I mean e-commerce.  But if you have been unsure of what exactly e-commerce is, who should be using it, and why you should have it on your website, we hope to answer some of your questions, and put your mind at ease. (more…)