Continuing on with this series of the biggest tech advancements (see personal) I thought it would be interesting to capture the community’s thoughts on the biggest tech advancement for your ministry.
What changed in your ministry this past year for 2009? Where did you guys “jump in”? What didn’t you guys accomplish that you had wanted to accomplish?
What challenged your ministry the most from a web technology perspective?
Love to hear ‘em!
In the ministry that I serve, North Point, we jumped into the Online Campus world with North Point Online. We started using live web broadcasting technology and leveraged a number of newer web technologies as well, including more PHP and mySQL-based software, jQuery, and WordPress.
What a great year!
[Image from Ralph]
I created a digital signage solution using off-the-shelf technologies that features remote management of content from a web based back end. If any of you are interested in seeing a demo or installing it for your own church, get in touch.
that would be sweet! show me.
Eric, I'd love to see it too. Maybe a blog post about it
Sorry it took so long. I've posted a brief video of the signage in action and some info on how it works here: http://churchtechdump.com/post/334835206/roll-you…
Wow, this is great! love that graphic.
Relaunch of the church website, digging into churchwide social networks on Facebook & Twitter, and launching our Internet Campus, and expanding that to iPhone and American Sign Language.
It's been a great year for church technology, and I'm very grateful for people who are blazing a trail in these areas.
John, thanks for your fantastic blog and the way that you're bringing people together to see greater things happen online. We probably wouldn't have been so bold this year without the encouragement here. Really appreciate you and this blog.
well thanks for participating! this comign year is going to be even better…!
Good stuff…be on the lookout for a great post over at MemberHub regarding the topic of the rate at which the church adopts technology. I'm waiting until after Christmas when people can focus on a great conversation on this issue.
wh00t.
I switched Gateway onto Wufoo and it has taken all of departments to a new level of communication bliss!
the incoming communication from the website has increased from a few emails a month to dozens of form entries per day…which is a good thing.
word. love wufoo.
Greatest step for my ministry marketing site was implementing some basic strategies that increased my traffic by over 50 percent. And this web 2.o feature from my (Sitebuild it) web host that lets me allow others to promote their ministry, Christian music, video ministry, or promote their book on our site…while creating their own page and building our main site all at once.
Even former Petra singer John Schlitt got in on the action.
As a former Christian DJ for over 15 years in the big ATL, that was rather cool to help him with some online promotion after years of being blessed by his music.
One other awesome tech feature…using a basic web blaster software to blast videos out and gaining high organic searchs for top keywords in Google. Gotta love to see your video in a thumbnail image on page one of Google!
I could go on…
I love to see so many now harnessing the power of the internet for ministry marketing, promotion, and financial freedom!
Thanks for a great site too!
Theresa Croft
http://MarketPlanMinistry.com
[youtube B1SnXGmUlpM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1SnXGmUlpM youtube]
Did you say Tech advancement? I know I've eluded to this in the past, but… did I ever tell you about my proposal to use youtube at my church
Hahahahah!
John
can I suggest a "Tech backwards Step"?
nahh, actually our church's website being run on wordpress this year was a big leap forward, now we are able to interact online in a better way that before – instread of emails back in forth, now there is a blog and forms.
well, it would be great if the whole congregation subscribed for email updates (why is that so hard?)
email updates… what's that?
I introduced the staff to Evernote http://www.evernote.com yesterday. I think the file sharing will take us to a whole new level.
wow. that's serious…!