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Archives for January 2009

Survey: State of the Church – Social Community


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church-social-community-networks-surveyThis passed my desk just after I decided to split town and take a break from the insanity that is “online.”

If you’ve got a second, feel free to fill out this survey.  Here’s the official 411:

Are churches using the Internet to gather, disciple and build community? In the last couple years a number of new private church community networks have been launched in addition to numerous social networking sites. We are still very early on in understanding what churches are doing effectively online.

We invite you to participate in this first survey of several that examine the State of the Church Online. This survey in particular begins by examining what churches are doing with social and community networks. How pervasive are the use of these web applications?

Future surveys will expand to examine what Christians are doing with social networks, how churches are using their websites and other online strategies. Our prayer is that these studies help bring clarity and guidance for churches to pursue excellence online to the glory of God.

This survey is being led by Kevin Ring. Kevin brings years of experience from Bainbridge Consulting leading qualitative research projects – designing and executing customer/competitive research and analysis across multiple industries, focused on Fortune 500 companies including Google, Yahoo!, Citibank, Hewitt Associates, Gallup, Bank of America and others.

Let me know if you took it. Thanks guy! I’ll let you know what the findings are when they finish it up.

Have a great Sunday!

Don’t Be Stupid: You Need to be Online


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099612Apologies.

The title of this post was not meant to be threatening or to be derogatory toward you in any way.

It was honestly the first thing that came to my mind when creating the title and my gut feeling in regards to “titles” has never lead me astray.

But seriously, if your ministry, church, or organization does not have a presence online, you’ve been drinking some strange cool-aid my friend.

And I know for some it requires some hard and fast “data.” Well, here you go. Check these graphs about where the online world is headed (and the number of people engaged) and you do the math.

100395The fact is that more and more people are spending more and more time online. You need a voice in that godless stream of thought.

Be a part of it, get noticed, steal some traffic that might be headed to otherwise “questionable” locales… Jump on it!

In addition, can see that more and more internet users are consuming “user-generated” content. What that means is that more and more people are reading things like blogs and are hanging out on Facebook.

Perhaps you too should get a blog or start a page or group on Facebook?

Either choose to engage or lose an unbelievable opportunity to share the most amazing news the world has ever heard. It’s up to you.

Don’t fool yourself; the internet ain’t going nowhere.

But maybe you are.

5 WordPress Plugins I’m Excited About Today


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thermometerThere is so much great stuff out there in regards to plugins for WordPress. As I’ve already mentioned before, “if you can dream it WP can build it.”

I really mean that. I’ve seen WordPress do things that would make your heart stop. And then on top of that, it’s free…! God is good.

Here are 5 Plugins that have crossed my virtual desk in the last week or so that are just dope:

  1. Fundraising Thermometer – A simple plugin to gauge giving for fundraising. Just think of how you could use this for your ministry or organization. Helping your congregation or visitors visualize the experience of participatory giving is awesome.
  2. Brand your WordPress Login Screen – It does just what it says it does. That’s cool. Simple and effective, it can give your users (or a Multi-Author WP environ) a nice touch.
  3. Search Unleashed – I personally have tried about 30 different “advanced search” plugins for WordPress. This is the best one I’ve ever used. I use it here on ChurchCrunch. I’d want to say it’s a “must have” but if you’re down with providing a less-than-effective search experience for your users, then don’t download it. The simple fact is that you want your visitors to find what they are looking for. Period. Don’t lose someone because they got frustrated with your site!
  4. Glossary – It’s a glossary. Cool. But just think creatively how you could use this for your ministry or organizational website. It could be an easy way to catalogue content, people, etc…
  5. Connections – This one’s awesome. Need to create an Address Book or a Directory for your church or organization? Take a look at this thing. It’s got more features than it probably needs, and that’s a good thing.

Any plugins for WordPress that have you “fired up” lately? Share ’em!

Sponsored – MemberHub.com Aims High with Member Collaboration and Management App


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logoThis is a Sponsored Post. We never take sponsorship from anyone that we can’t endorse or that conflicts with the interest of this community.

I’ll be honest: I’m extremely skeptical when it comes to seeing “new” platforms that function a) extremely similarly to applications and software that are either already out there, b) that “cost” something, and c) that suggest “innovation” but really don’t do much of that at all.

memberhub_main_homeMemberHub, from the front-side, could easily fall into all three categories quickly. But that’s if you didn’t know any better and didn’t look beyond the orange-peel’d color logo and some of your typical industry buzzwords.

When asked to review it and provide some valuable feedback I was “hungry” to jump right in. I was looking to quickly take note of deficiences and possible “letdowns” but honestly, after walking through their online demo, I came away refreshed and very pleased with their product.

From their website:memberhub_home

MemberHub was designed specifically to help churches provide and manage private, online homes for each of their sub-groups.

Members can easily communicate privately with other members from the group in which they are involved such as small groups, Sunday school class or leadership council.

MemberHub provides a single, centralized solution conveniently available online. Your church can enjoy an interactive online community to:

  • Help groups stay organized and build community
  • Instantly communicate changes and cancelations with text messaging
  • Share important files such as sermons, pictures, documents, etc.
  • Organize member information, status, interests, skills and involvement
  • Manage community and group events and schedules such as pastoral care
  • Enhance member relations with contact information and member photos

memberhub_other_profileSo what did I see from my perspective?

MemberHub essentially offers a simple and easy to use web-based social application to help your community, church, or organization manage, communicate, and collaborate with each other. The goal is to provide a tool that will make you more effective at what you’re already doing.

What’s nice is that they’ve canned any “half-baked” attempts to provide a so-called innovative solution “just because” and they’ve instead decided to provide a robust solution that just does a good job of doing what they’ve claimed it’s supposed to do.

You see, many businesses and software development shops add “cool” gizmos and gadgets just so they can carry a title of innovation while others just do a good job of providing effective services and functionality without any bloatware. I think MemberHub does the latter.

memberhub_announcementsI think this is, perhaps, it’s strongest suit (and perhaps what makes it truly innovative…!), not to mention that it’s got an extremely good looking GUI and user interface and design. I like it when it’s apparent they’ve spent a few dollars on usability studies and analysis.

Subtle and light-toned colors were easy on the eyes and tons of strategic white space made the app feel big yet manageable and small.

The result was a refreshing experience of managing members, adding events, communicating announcements, and generally managment of the organization.

memberhub_calendar_instanceYou know what’s also pretty funny? I did my initial review before browsing their provided fact sheets and marketing material and found that Matt, one of the founders, had actually mentioned in one of the provided documents this quote:

“One of the major reasons we’re doing this is that we’re passionate about making great software: software that’s easy to use, that looks good and serves a purpose,” says Matt. “We want people to feel that when they use MemberHub. We also want them to feel like part of the team.”

memberhub_settingsHe wasn’t kidding. Easy to use, looks good, and serves it’s purpose. Right on.

Some other nice advantages is that it’s not built on Flash or any other platforms that may slow down performance of the users end experience or require additional downloads to work.

If you’re in the market to leverage some web technology to provide better communication, management, and documents/files, etc… this would be a good place to start.

Their free trial will more than give you a taste of what you’d experience and they’ve personally guaranteed this community a price point of $.10/person/month. Yes, 10 cents:

For ChurchCrunch readers, on the MemberHub signup page you may enter the coupon code: churchcrunch0129. This coupon code will work through March 31, 2009 and will lock you in on the introductory rate of 10 cents per member per month for 12 months.

MemberHub says their pricing will soon change to 12 cents per member per month.

Tell them ChurchCrunch sent you!

Interested in doing a Sponsored Post like this? Read more here.