Communicating your mission to a younger audience

A few people asked  for my slides from the Stewardship conference. My slides tend to be a little too minimalist to make sense in isolation, so a blog post is a better format.   Communications Tools My top three as most effective are: Your congregation or ministry’s website A personal invitation – phone or  in-person Email […]

It’s Nice to be Validated

Since I first started here, I have talked to hundreds of people representing numerous churches.  Invariably, one of their questions is “how do we attract new people?”  There is obviously no magic bullet that will make it happen, but I tell them to keep their website current, be real and authentic about who you are, […]

Holy Week Debrief – A Rant and a Rave

Holy Week, one of the busiest and most emotionally draining times of the church year has just completed and we have entered into the Easter season.  Before it gets too far out of our thoughts, I would like to offer a critique of how this week was offered online. If you have been reading any […]

Can You “Like” God?

For people who are “digital immigrants” ( basically those over 40), the idea of social media is somewhat confusing.  When you add religion into the social media mix,  it can get even more convoluted.  What is spirituality, what is community?  How do you have a religious encounter through technology?  The program New Tech City on […]

What Is Your 15 Second Elevator Speech?

I have found that since I started my position here at the Diocese of Olympia, my focus has changed on talking about church websites.  Initially it was all about tools, how to do it, how to maintain the site, etc., real nuts and bolts stuff.   When I talk with church groups who are working on […]

Hands Across the Border

A few weeks ago I was asked by my counterpart, Randy Murray of the Anglican Church of Canada’s Diocese of New Westminster to give a TED style talk on church communication.  If you have ever done one of these, or seen any of them, they are very interesting.  There is a set format and guidelines […]

Churches and Technology

Back in August I wrote a posting called “How Wired Do You Want to Be“, which talked about using mobile devices in churches.  A friend forwarded on the following story to me.  Some may say I’m a prophet.  Others may say I got lucky.  You make the call.  

Communication is Mission

A wonderful update from Melodie Woerman: Yesterday’s “Brother, Give Us a Word” offered this definition of “mission,” a sometimes ephemeral concept for me: “Mission is primarily about making the presence of God incarnate, that is, visible and tangible, in a particular place and a particular time, where ever “the Body is lacking”and therefore most needed.” […]

Facebook Settings…again

Well it appears that Facebook has changed some of its components once again which leads us to go back an re-evaluate how we want things seen and shared.  I am still trying to wade my way through all of this, but I have found 2 postings that I would like to share on this.  One […]

Annoyance and a Friendly Warning

Just because I’m the IT guy doesn’t necessarily mean that I am immune from the mayhem of the outside world (aka the Internet). I went to my blog late yesterday only to find out it had been hacked earlier in the day.  Not only that, but the same hacker did in two of our church […]