Then after learning that iTBN is basically Trinity Broadcaasting Network’s answer to Hulu I wondered…  does anyone who uses the Internet actually watch Christian television?

Rather than wondering, I thought I’d ask.  Are you interested in watching Christian television shows via iTBN?  Do you think anyone will watch?

As reported by The Christian Post:

“What has changed everything?” asked the apologist from Campus Crusade for Christ International as he spoke on “Unshakable Truth, Relevant Faith” at the Billy Graham Center in Asheville, N.C.. His answer was, the Internet.

“The Internet has given atheists, agnostics, skeptics, the people who like to destroy everything that you and I believe, the almost equal access to your kids as your youth pastor and you have… whether you like it or not,”

First of all, I don’t believe the Internet has given anyone equal access to my kids because they spend way more time with me, my wife, church, and others who live out their Christian faith than they spend online.

Second, McDowell seems to be implying that in order to successfully pass on your faith to your kids you have to indoctrinate them with Christianity and never let them know anything about other worldviews. I have a major problem with that. I want my kids to know about atheism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and every other –ism. I want them to compare the truth of the Bible with the lies other worldviews perpetuate.  The way to pass on our faith to our kids is not to put our hands over their eyes and ears every time they encounter a non-Christian worldview

I do think we absolutely need to protect our children from pornography and sites promoting hate and violence.

And I do think there is a real risk that if parents do not teach their kids the fundamentals of the Christian faith, if they don’t live out their faith, and if they don’t explain the fallacies of other worldviews that children free to roam the Internet on their own, that they will drift to the dominant, post-modern, relativistic worldview.

But let’s not blame or fear the Internet. Let’s prepare our children for the inevitable exposure they will have to other worldviews both offline and online.

What do you think? Is the Internet the “greatest threat to Christians?”

Google, Facebook, Amazon, NetFlix and countless other companies are personalizing their sites for us. They’re showing us things based on our location, demographic info, likes and dislikes. It’s all about “relevance.” The concept sounds good, but the end result could leave each of us in our own little bubble surrounded by news, content, media and people that agree with us… or at least agree with our past preferences.

This has some very significant spiritual implications which Kurt Steinrueck wrote about in an excellent post on Christian SEO Guys. It’s well worth the read and includes video of a fascinating TED Talk given by Eli Periser on this topic.

Check out: What Aren’t You Seeing On the Internet

Does it concern you that Google, Facebook, and other sites are personalizing information for us in ways we have little control over and may not even be aware of?

A recent survey by the Barna Group found that 42% of parents would like to hear from their churches when it comes to media and technology issues. However, few churches are talking about how to protect yourself and your family from harmful Internet sites. So, we want to get more of those conversations going.

Would you take this quick 2 minute survey on Internet filtering software?

Then post a comment and let us know:

• How important do you think protecting children from harmful Internet sites is?
• What if any Internet filtering software are you using? Are you happy with it?
• If not, what’s the biggest thing preventing you from using Internet filtering software?

[image by tm22]

So, what are the biggest media/tech issues churches should be teaching/training on?

Here are 8 that come to mind for me:

1. Internet filtering/monitoring – How to set up software to block porn, violence, and hate sites from being displayed on computers in one’s home. Plus logging/reviewing websites being visited.
2. Protecting teens on social media – Discussing issues and providing training about the dangers of social media – stalkers, sharing inappropriate content, etc.
3. Phones & texting – Training for parents & teens, Internet filtering for phones
4. Protecting your marriage from online dangers – Internet filtering, accountability, appropriate use of social media for adults.
5. Media usage – How much TV/Internet is too much? Time management tools. Addressing Internet/gaming addictions.
6. Being fully present – Family relationships are important, but often families eat dinner in front of the TV, conversations are interrupted by phone calls and texting. Eliminating distractions and being fully engaged in family moments is a big deal.
7. Being salt and light online – The Internet isn’t all bad. It’s also a great opportunity to share your faith and show God’s love with people you connect with online.
8. People and churches working online together – Your church probably has a website and may be using Facebook, Twitter, and blogs as well. Talk about what the church is doing online and how individuals can connect with the church and amplify what the church is doing.

What do you think? Do you think churches ought to address these 8 issues? What did I miss? What other issues do you think churches should address?

[image by tm22]

The summary of the study reports,

Most parents and tweens/teens have not heard any kind of teaching in a church, religious setting, or public forum (like a school) about how families can best use media, entertainment or technology.

Yet the report goes on to say,

When asked if they would be open to one version of such training—“a Christian or faith-based perspective about how to be a good user of entertainment and technology without letting things negatively impact your family relationships”—about two-fifths of parents (42%) and one-third of tweens and teens (33%) expressed interest.

You can read the full report here.

This looks like a clear opportunity that churches are currently missing. It also looks like like an area where churches could use some encouragement, guidance and resources.  This could very well turn into a series of posts based on your feedback and ideas. So, let’s talk about how churches are or could be addressing issues related to technology…

1. Do you think churches have a responsibility to provide biblical guidance about technology to parents and teens?
2. How is your church doing when it comes to providing that guidance?
3. What suggestions would you give church leaders who want to provide guidance on technology issues?

I spent some time analyzing the results and came away with a number of key insights about church mobile apps, which I want to share.

1) I want it all

We asked people how important they thought 15 potential church app features were. The first thing that jumped out at me is that for 14 of the 15 features we asked about, extremely important (a 5/5 importance rating) was the most popular response. Even the least popular feature had 43% of people indicate its importance is a 4 or 5 out of 5. People also suggested 20 additional features we didn’t include in the survey.

Clearly people would like a lot of functionality from their church app. They want it to be able to do everything the church website can do and more.

2) Most popular features

To determine which features are considered most important, I combined the percentage of people who rated each as a 4 or 5 out of 5 in importance. The features are listed below from most popular to least popular. The top feature is different from the others, so I’ll reveal and discuss that next.

1. —
2. News/announcements (89% important or very important, 60% very)
3. Info about church (76% important or very important, 64% very)
4. Alerts (75% important or very important, 52% very)
5. Map to church (73% important or very important, 63% very)
6. Evangelism tools (62% important or very important, 41% very)
7. Facebook page (62% important or very important, 37% very)
8. Sunday bulletin (60% important or very important, 36% very)
9. Sermon notes (59% important or very important, 38% very)
10. Social feature (57% important or very important, 38% very)
11. Church blog (52% important or very important, 29% very)
12. Twitter (52% important or very important, 26% very)
13. Connection to YouVersion Live (48% important or very important, 27% very)
14. Secure donation (43% important or very important, 30% very)
15. YouTube (43% important or very important, 20% very)

Not surprising, giving people the ability to read news and announcements as well as being able to deliver alert notifications were two of the top 5.

What is surprising to me, though, is how important people seem to think general church info and a map is. I think for the most part church apps are used by members of churches to stay informed and communicate with their church. General info and a map are not needed by church members, so I don’t see much use for those things in a app. If you do, I’d love to hear your reasoning.

Beyond that, the popularity of other features seems in line with popularity in general. More churches have a Facebook page than a blog, and more have a blog than a YouTube channel, which explains their relative popularity.

3) The #1 Most Popular Feature is…

The church mobile app feature that ranked the highest in our server is the ability to pull info from church website rather than updated separately.

A whopping 65% of respondants rated that 5/5 in importance and another 17% gave it 4/5. Clearly church communication staff and volunteers are very busy and more than anything they don’t want to have to spend time ever week putting the same info into an app that they already put into the bulletin and the website and possibly email, Facebook, Twitter and more.

4) Apps Beat Mobile Web

Another thing we were curious to learn about is whether people consider mobile apps to be more or less important than a mobile version of their website. We asked “How important do you think a mobile app is for a church in comparison to having a mobile version of its website?”

58% said both are very important and useful. But of those who thought one was more important than the other apps beat the mobile web by 2 to 1 (20% to 10%). The preference for apps was even stronger – more than 4 to 1 – among respondants from larger churches. Which leads me to my next learning point…

5) The Great App Divide

With so many people rating so many church app features as very important or extremely important, we were curious to see how serious churches were about getting a mobile app and if they thought it was important enough to actually pay for.

At first glance, I was disappointed with the results.

• Only 31% said their church is motivated or highly motivated to get an app
• Only 18% would pay more than $500 for an app
• Only 21% would pay more than $25/mo for an app

But when I looked below the surface and compared smaller churches (< 500 weekly attendance) with larger churches (> 500 weekly attendance) a noticed a big contrast.

While only 2% of respondants from smaller churches described their church as motivated or very motivated to get an app, 51% of respondants from larger churches described their church that way.

There are big gaps between what smaller and larger churches are willing to pay for an app as well. While only 5% of respondants from smaller churches said their church would pay over $500 for the development of an app, 48% from larger churches said their church would.  While only 8% of respondants from smaller churches said their church would pay over $25/mo for an app, 42% of respondants from larger churches said their church would.

Obviously, there are economies of scale here. Larger churches have more money to spend than smaller churches, and larger churches will be able to communicate with more people via their app than smaller churches. It was the biggest of the mega churches that were first to get their own app. And while more churches are getting mobile apps, it’s still primarily very large churches.

6) The Great App Divide Part II

The survey revealed one other reason why larger churches are more serious about getting a mobile app.  We asked, “What percentage of people in your church do you guess would use your church’s app if it had one?” 84% of respondants from larger churches thought at least 10% of their congregation would use an app. But only 49% of respondants from smaller churches thought an app would be used by 10% of their people.

Clearly, larger churches have higher percentage of smartphone users.

The survey was conducted between March 1, 2011 and March 30, 2011.  Results are based on 92 responses.  It was conducted online and not in a scientific manner, therefore results represent only those who participated.

What are your reactions to the survey’s findings?

1) In the Sunday bulletin/program, put a QR code next to each item for which there’s more info on the website.

2) Some people may want to skip the print bulletin entirely. Put the bulletin on the church website and place a QR code for the bulletin in the lobby so people can bypass the print version entirely.

3) Put it in a “sermon notes” part of the Sunday bulletin and link it to the audio (podcast), video, or notes for the message.

4) Put a QR code on your sign that links to your church’s homepage or a welcome page, so those driving or walking by your church can get more information about your church.

5) If your church sends out direct mail pieces to reach people in your community, include QR codes on them.

6) If your church building has rooms for specific ministries, put a QR code on the sign outside the door that links to more info about that ministry.

7) If your church creates invitation cards for your people to use to invite their friends to church, include a QR code that links to the service or event you’re inviting people to.

8 ) If you church staff have business cards, put a QR code on back that links to the church homepage or to a profile page for that staff person.

9) For evangelism purposes, your church could create a sign that says something intriguing like “Good News!” “Want a better life?” “Sick of being let down?” and below it put a QR code to a text or video gospel presentation on the church website. This could be put on yard signs, posters, stickers, or other things that could be posted and distributed in your community.

10) Create a coffee mug for your church with a QR code on it. Give it free to first-time visitors or sell it to regular attenders. In fact, you can put a QR code on any customizable items – a T-shirts, key chains, Frisbees, mouse pads, calendars, hats, tote bags, umbrellas, post-it notes, golf balls, thumb drives, and more.

Is your church using QR codes in any of these ways? If so, how have they been received?  What other ways could churches use QR codes?

Oh, and if you’re interested in helping churches make the most of mobile apps, Take the Ultimate Church Mobile App Survey

Mobile apps provide a great opportunity for churches to communicate and engage with their members more effectively. But at the moment, very little is known about how people would like to engage with their churches through mobile apps and what features they would find most valuable. Similarly, while a lot of church leaders express an interest in having a mobile app for their church, it’s hard to gauage how serious churches really are about launching their own app.

Ourchurch.Com would like to change that and help churches develop apps their people want to use. Would you take 5 minutes to complete this 25 question survey?

Take the Ultimate Church Mobile App Survey!

The survey will run until the end of March. At that time we’ll publish the aggregated results so everyone involved in church communications, web development and app develpment can benefit from its findings. (The raw data, each individual’s survey response, will not be released for privacy reasons).

After you complete the survey, please share a link to it. The more responses we get, the better the data will be.

Questions? Comments? Post a comment and discuss the survey and your church’s use of mobile apps.

Has your church ever surveyed your people about a mobile app? If so, would you be share the results of that survey here?