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Resource Center

Discover how to leverage technology in your church

Technology should not transform ministry, but rather do the things that people don’t have to do so they can do what they do best.

Designing Church Social Media Graphics 101

By Hannah Hansen | Oct 29, 2024 12:00:00 PM

If you’re tackling your church’s graphic design, you’ve likely had to design church social media graphics. Whether you’re posting on Instagram or Facebook, creating eye-catching posts that clearly convey the necessary information can be difficult. 

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Topics: Social Media

Best Ways to Display Sermons on Your Church Website

By Hannah Hansen | Oct 15, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Sermons are a must-have on any church website—but what’s the best way to display sermons on my church website? The good news is you have a few options to choose from. The best choice will depend on your goals and how you’re recording your messages each week. 

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How to Create Sermon Series Graphics

By Hannah Hansen | Sep 30, 2024 6:00:00 AM

If your church uses a projector on Sunday mornings, you’ve likely had to buy or create sermon series graphics. These slides create a cohesive experience week to week and visually indicate when you’ve started a new series. 

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Topics: Graphics

Social Media for Churches: Best Practices and Strategies

By Hannah Hansen | Sep 17, 2024 12:00:00 PM

I recently started running my church’s social media accounts, and I’ve been having a blast diving into the world of social media strategy for churches! Whether or not you’ve worked in the social media world before, planning social media posts for churches is a whole different ball game. 

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Topics: Social Media

How to Make Church Graphics without a Designer

By Hannah Hansen | Sep 3, 2024 1:00:00 PM

If you work at a church and are responsible for designing graphics but aren’t a graphic designer, you’ve likely pulled your hair out a time or two. If you don’t have experience in graphic design, it can be hard to come up with fresh ideas that look the way you want them to. 

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How Churches Can Reach More People with Local SEO

By Hannah Hansen | Aug 7, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Churches often look to rank themselves on Google with SEO, so that they can reach more people for the sake of the Gospel. Local SEO is a subset of SEO, or search engine optimization, that allows your business to appear specifically in search results for your area—because you wouldn’t want your church to appear to someone located five hundred miles away. 

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Church Website Home Page Essentials

By Hannah Hansen | Jul 23, 2024 6:00:00 AM

 

Your church website home page is the first page visitors will see when they come to your site. To that end, it’s important for this page to include all the information they’d need to understand what your church believes, how they can attend services, and how they can reach you.

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How to Use Facebook to Share Church Events

By Hannah Hansen | Jul 9, 2024 6:00:00 AM

 

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Topics: Social Media

Best Practices for Church Presentation Slides

By Hannah Hansen | Jun 25, 2024 6:00:00 AM

Church presentation slides are an important part of your worship. While, of course, they’re not as important as truthfully preaching the Word of God, slides help transmit the message you’re preaching to those in the pews—hopefully in an easy-to-read way.

However, many churches struggle to put together slides that are clear, consistent, and well-designed. You don’t have to be a graphic designer to make effective slides—we’re here to show you how!

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How to Modernize Your Church Directory

By Hannah Hansen | Jun 11, 2024 6:00:00 AM

Church directories have been an important part of churches’ communication strategies for many years. While they’ve evolved over time, their purpose is still the same: to collect your members’ information and organize it in a way that’s easy to use.

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How to Practice Good Stewardship through Increased Productivity in the Church Office

By Concordia Technology Solutions | May 28, 2024 12:00:00 PM

When you think of stewardship, what comes to mind? In the church setting, we typically think of stewardship in terms of financial contributions and tithing. But stewardship can tie into a number of things, including how we steward our time in the church office. Without assessing church office practices, it’s possible to practice poor stewardship without even knowing it!

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Topics: Productivity

How to Design an Eye-Catching Banner for Your Church Website

By Hannah Hansen | May 14, 2024 12:00:00 PM

What’s the first thing you see when you go to your church website? It’s likely some sort of image with text or your logo over it. This graphic is called a website banner, and it’s a crucial part of any successful church website design. 

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How to Add Voice Messages to Your Church Communication Strategy

By Hannah Hansen | Apr 30, 2024 12:00:00 PM

When it comes to your church communication plan, there are many formats to utilize. Most often, people think of email, bulletin announcements, and social media. But Programmable Voice Messages can be an absolutely crucial and necessary addition to your overall communication strategy!

This communication format has many benefits and uses, particularly within the church. Let’s dive into the definition, benefits, and uses of Programmable Voice Messages in your church communication plan!

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Topics: Strategy

How Does Church Management Software Help Small Churches?

By Hannah Hansen | Apr 2, 2024 1:00:00 PM

Does church management software really help small churches? In short, the answer is yes, of course! However, the answer is much more complex than that.

Church management software isn’t automatically going to transform your church—your attendance won’t double overnight! However, it can relieve your staff members of tedious, time-consuming tasks, which allows them to put time into more people-oriented missions.

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How to Rank Your Church on Google with SEO

By Hannah Hansen | Mar 18, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Have you ever wondered how Google knows what websites to suggest when you look something up? It’s called SEO—search engine optimization—and it helps users find a website by improving its visibility on search engines. It’s also a valuable tactic for churches and their websites!

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Topics: SEO

How Mass Texting Can Lead to Better Engagement in Your Church

By Hannah Hansen | Mar 4, 2024 7:00:00 AM

Every day, most of us receive text messages—from our family members, coworkers, and friends. But have you ever received a text from your church? The concept might seem foreign to some, but many churches use a mass texting service to quickly communicate with their members.

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Spring into Giving with Vanco’s Fee-Free Promotion

By Vanco | Feb 27, 2024 6:00:00 AM

While your church is busy making plans for a successful Lent and Easter season, summer will be here before we know it. With the joys of summer come warmer weather and summer vacations, meaning fewer members and visitors physically join you for worship. But that doesn’t have to mean a decrease in donations.

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Topics: Online Giving

How To Streamline Your Church’s Giving Practices

By Katy Crawford | Feb 20, 2024 12:00:00 PM

Offerings, or financial giving, can be a tricky thing to talk about in the church. Yet it’s a vital part of ministry and people’s life of faith.

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Topics: Giving

How to Know If Your Church’s Office Tech Is Working against You

By Hannah Hansen | Jan 30, 2024 10:00:00 AM

Everyone who works in your church office likely uses some sort of technology for their job, whether it’s your Church Management System, an online scheduler, your website platform, or even your email provider. But are these technologies working for your church?

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Church Management Software Features Your Small Church Actually Needs

By Hannah Hansen | Jan 23, 2024 5:00:00 AM

When a church is looking for a church management software solution, it can be overwhelming to determine what features your church needs and which are unnecessary.

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3 Things Every Church Should Do to Keep Its Data More Secure

By Concordia Technology Solutions | Jan 8, 2024 12:00:00 PM

In the digital age, it can be overwhelming to hear about data breaches, compromised credit card information, and scams that seemingly run rampant. Unfortunately, churches are not immune to these threats. The good news, though, is that there are simple ways you can keep your church’s data more secure! The following tips are a great starting point for keeping your information secure. 

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Topics: Security

What Is Church Management Software?

By Hannah Hansen | Nov 17, 2023 12:00:00 PM

One of the biggest challenges churches often face is organizing their members’ information, communications, and giving. While there are many free solutions out there, utilizing a church management software is the best way to keep information organized and secure.

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Topics: Management

4 Church Website Must-Haves

By Hannah Hansen | Aug 22, 2023 2:00:00 PM

Having a website is a non-negotiable for churches today—but having a good website is even better! If you don’t have a marketing or communications team, it can be overwhelming to figure out what information should be on your website.

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7 Easy Steps to Build Your Church Website

By Katy Crawford | Jul 17, 2023 12:00:00 PM

Building a church website is no small feat. When you consider all the elements that go into such a project, it can quickly become overwhelming. Yet when you break it all down step by step, things are far more manageable.

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23 Finance Terms Every Pastor Should Know

By Concordia Technology Solutions | Jun 27, 2023 6:00:00 AM

The financial situation of congregations and nonprofit ministries is very important, though it is a topic that does not garner enough attention in leadership. Pastors need to be involved in financial leadership so they can help their churches be good stewards of God’s gifts. This blog is adapted from Dr. Jamison Hardy’s book Pastoral Leadership: Shepherding and Caring for God’s People.

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Topics: Finances

Organizing and Updating Your Church Office

By Katy Crawford | May 16, 2023 6:00:00 AM

It’s no secret that certain seasons in the Church Year fall into the category of “busy.” But what about when the pace is a little less rushed and your week isn’t filled with multiple deadlines? Here are some ideas on how to make the most out of a slower or more flexible season in the church office by organizing and updating your records, task lists, and files.

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Fostering Community through Church Management Software

By Katy Crawford | Apr 18, 2023 8:15:00 AM

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Topics: Productivity

How To Best Coordinate Your Church Volunteers

By Katy Crawford | Mar 31, 2023 12:00:00 PM

With identifying roles, recruiting, training, supporting, encouraging, and appreciating, volunteer management can quickly seem like an overwhelming task. Add to all of this that the ways in which members can be involved are many and varied. Some things are ongoing over a number of months or years (serving on a board or committee, teaching a class, running the livestream), while others are shorter-term or one-time events (Vacation Bible School, spring clean-up day, coordinating a church-wide picnic).

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Topics: Volunteers

Helpful Tips for Planning Your Church's Lent Communications

By Katy Crawford | Feb 13, 2023 2:00:00 PM

As the season of Lent approaches, your preparations are likely well underway, but it often seems a mountain of to-dos remains as Ash Wednesday comes closer. Here are a few reminders and thoughts as we get ready for this time of repentance and reflection on the life and work of Jesus.

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Topics: Lent

Repurposing Your Church Newsletter for Facebook

By Luke Symmank | Jan 24, 2023 2:00:00 PM

As you work on your church’s social media plan, making the most out of the content you already have should be on the top of your mind in order to get the most out of your limited time in the church office. Facebook is a wonderful social media platform to transition your print or emailed newsletter to a new digital format without much additional effort from yourself or your office staff. Additionally, much of your congregation is already on Facebook, and developing ways for them to engage with the congregation and stay informed is crucial. 

You can reach more people through your online content by utilizing the features Facebook gives users to see the latest information as it comes out. Read below to see some of the ways you can transform your church’s newsletter to easy and efficient social media posts. 

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Topics: Social Media

Mental Health and Technology as Christians: An Interview with Heidi Goehmann

By Katy Crawford | Jan 6, 2023 6:00:00 AM

Mystery, tension, data, connection, and creativity. These were recurring threads throughout my discussion with licensed clinical social worker, author, and hope-driven mental health advocate Heidi Goehmann. We talked about weariness, God’s Word, belief schemata, and setting flexible boundaries along with the fun we find through technology. Fill your favorite mug with something to sip and join us.

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7 Steps to Learning Social Media

By Luke Symmank | Dec 9, 2022 12:00:00 PM

In the process of creating new and fresh content for your church on different social media platforms, knowing where to start can feel overwhelming. Although the process may take a while to learn, there are seven easy steps to help you become more comfortable on your page. By following these steps, you will learn what works for you and find ways to engage with a broader group of people who may not hear the Word of God in other places.

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Topics: Social Media

The Internet and the Church: In It, Not of It

By Samuel Boehlke | Nov 11, 2022 6:30:00 AM

“I think [social media] is evil,” a friend told me this morning. I don’t think this is an uncommon view, especially with the people I typically spend time around. Pastors and parishioners alike tend to have one of two views: modern mass media was brought straight from hell, or the internet is the only way to save dying churches. There are surely other viewpoints in the mix, but generally, these two dominate the discussion.

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Digital Citizenship in Church Work: An Interview with Trevor Sutton

By Katy Crawford | Oct 28, 2022 12:00:00 PM

Digital technology is a part of daily life and our collective life together. I sat down via Zoom with Rev. Trevor Sutton, a pastor, speaker, and coauthor of Redeeming Technology: A Christian Approach to Healthy Digital Habits, to talk about thoughtfully engaging with technology, its place in ministry, and the intersection of our digital and heavenly citizenships.

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How to Pick the Right Church Management Software

By Rob Davidson | Oct 11, 2022 7:00:00 AM

There’s a good chance that “How to Pick the Right Church Management Software” wasn’t a class you or your pastor took in college or seminary. Every church has its own unique needs, so every church needs to make its own decisions on what tools will make a difference in its ministry.

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5 TikTok Content Ideas for Your Church to Reach People the Right Way

By Luke Symmank | Sep 23, 2022 12:00:00 PM

At the end of Matthew, as Jesus was preparing to ascend to heaven, He gave His followers one last command: “Go therefore and make disciples.” Although these words were spoken almost 2,000 years ago, Jesus was commanding everyone, across all time, to go. In the modern era, we now have avenues to spread the Word of God through technology that were never before thought possible—avenues like social media’s most recent favorite app, TikTok. 

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Topics: Social Media

Free Fall Resources for Online Church Giving

By Vanco | Aug 17, 2022 12:00:00 PM

If you’re not aware, Vanco is an online giving tool that integrates with Church360° and Shepherd’s Staff. With Concordia Technology Solutions and Vanco, you can spend less time on the computer and more time on what you do best: people-focused ministry.

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Topics: Online Giving

Eight Tips to Boost Recurring Giving for Your Church

By Vanco | May 11, 2022 11:30:00 AM

Vanco is an online giving tool that integrates with Church360° and Shepherd’s Staff.  We know some churches are hesitant to get started with online giving.

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Topics: Online Giving

8 Reasons Members Aren’t Ready to Give to Your Church

By Vanco | Mar 9, 2022 8:00:00 AM

Every church, regardless of size, relies heavily on donations. But the offering is more than just a donation to support various projects or meet certain fundraising goals. And it is certainly more than just a tax-deductible contribution. A sense of gratitude for God's gracious gifts is usually where most churches start, but keeping donors engaged depends significantly on your specific situation. You’re working hard to make God’s amazing grace clear to your church, so what’s holding people back from giving?

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Showing Appreciation for Volunteers in Your Church

By Katy Crawford | Jan 14, 2022 6:00:00 AM

When our twin boys were first beginning to eat solid food, we introduced three simple signs to help them communicate with us: more please, all done, and thank you. While I could probably extrapolate on each of these as it relates to those who serve in our congregations, today we’ll focus on saying “thank you.” Communicating appreciation not only acknowledges the work put into a particular project or effort and the sacrifices made to do so but also is an opportunity to share how an individual or group’s input contributes to the work of the Body of Christ in your particular context.

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The Giving Trends You Need for 2022 and Beyond are Here!

By Vanco | Dec 31, 2021 12:00:00 PM


Do you know how your members prefer to give? In 2021, Vanco conducted the fourth biennial study of 1,000 churchgoers around the country and across Christian denominations to find out. Now, we’re ready to share what we discovered. 

Here’s an overview of what Vanco found. 

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Finding Rest during and after Busy Seasons

By Katy Crawford | Dec 17, 2021 12:00:00 PM

Through certain seasons in the Church Year, church workers often find themselves burning the (Advent) candle at both ends. Coming in early, working through meals, staying late — they’re all too common. And what happens once we find ourselves on the other side? Often there’s a crash, maybe some burnout, and a general lingering weariness.

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4 Online Giving Perks You Might Not Have Thought About

By Vanco | Dec 3, 2021 12:00:00 PM

Churches often fall short of their stewardship goals. In many cases, it’s because churches don’t have an online giving platform, leaving church members unsure of how to give.

If you want to know more about the benefits of online giving for churches, keep reading.

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Technology in Ministry with Rev. Jason Christ

By Katy Crawford | Nov 5, 2021 12:00:00 PM

With training and background as a Director of Christian Education (DCE), now ordained and associate pastor at First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York, Rev. Jason Christ has long been fascinated by and experimented with technology. We recently sat down with him over Zoom and chatted about the blessings and challenges of integrating technology in ministry, giving new things a try, and engaging others in ministry through their technological gifts and skills.

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Planning Ahead for Advent and Lent

By Katy Crawford | Oct 22, 2021 12:00:00 PM

It’s the time of year when we’ve generally settled into the fall rhythm of life and begin anticipating the next big things coming down the line, namely the Advent and Christmas seasons. Some have decided on a theme/focus for midweek services and at-home devotions. For others, this is the first blip on the radar.

Whether you’re already well on your way to Advent planning success, just starting to think about it, or somewhere in between, Rev. Daniel Ross suggests combining your efforts with Lent planning as well. Not only is the gap between Christmas and Ash Wednesday sometimes small, but planning for these seasons simultaneously helps keep the Gospel story and the anticipation of the resurrection tied together in our minds rather than in isolated events.

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Topics: Strategy

Maximize Your Office Space to Increase Productivity

By Katy Crawford | Oct 8, 2021 12:00:00 PM

It feels so good to get things done and mark items off your to-do list. Sometimes, you’re in a groove, and everything is clicking. Other times, you can barely think, and you can’t seem to find the one book or piece of paper needed to move forward on a project.

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7 Steps to Build an Effective Fall Communications Plan at Your Church

By Katy Crawford | Sep 24, 2021 12:00:00 PM

I love heading into a new season (or month or week or even day) with a plan, knowing what needs to be tackled and when I'm going to do it. When that doesn’t happen (a fair amount of the time), it can feel defeating and I often find myself floundering, buying the lie that it’s too late to do anything, and constantly playing catch up.

Although school has already begun in most places, and many church activities are back on the calendar, it’s not too late to take time to plan for fall communications in your congregation! Here are a few ideas to get you started.

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How to Maximize eGiving Tools at Your Church

By Vanco | Aug 30, 2021 12:00:00 PM

In many places, churches are returning to what feels normal: in-person services with members coming together in the building. But as churches face the future, there are many things they must confront. These topics include virtual services, changing attendance habits, and shifts in how members want to give.

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Outfitting and Uploading Your Ministry’s Podcast

By Matthew Young | Aug 13, 2021 12:00:00 PM

At this point, I hope you have familiarized yourself with podcasting and are interested in starting your own podcast. If you have not read the previous blog post on creating a podcast for your ministry, I encourage you to do so.

This post will break down the fundamentals of podcasting, including the equipment you will need, how to record your podcast, and how to upload your podcast to a streaming platform.

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Topics: Podcasts

Creating a Podcast for Your Ministry

By Matthew Young | Jul 9, 2021 6:00:00 AM

The pandemic caused church attendance to hit an unprecedented low for a couple of months last year. My father, who is an LCMS pastor, and I were sitting around one afternoon in March 2020 wondering what we could do to combat the lack of God’s people in the pews, and how to bring comfort to those who needed church the most. We decided to start a podcast to bring the Good News to people in the safety of their own homes.

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Topics: Podcasts

Meet Nebraska District Communications Director Kimberly Myers

By Katy Crawford | May 28, 2021 12:00:00 PM

Meet Kimberly Myers, Communications Director for the Nebraska District of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and a communications volunteer in her congregation. With a focus on serving a broad range of congregations throughout her district and a background in teaching overseas, Kimberly offers insight and encouragement as she shares a picture of her work in church communications. 

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Six Tips for Summer Communication at Church

By Katy Crawford | May 7, 2021 12:00:00 PM

Communicating as a church throughout the summer has its challenges. With nice weather and time off from school, many families take vacations. In some areas, it’s common to head to the lake for the weekend when work wraps up on Friday and not return home until Sunday evening. Those in “destination” locations may see an uptick in visitors. For these and other reasons, summer church attendance can be sporadic, throwing a wrench in more traditional church communication methods.

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Topics: Events

Cultivate Virtual Connections Among Church Members

By Katy Crawford | Apr 23, 2021 1:00:00 PM

Videoconferencing is a great tool for connecting with far-away friends and family. Initially prompted by a desire for connection and social interaction in the midst of a pandemic, many now have established a regular (weekly, monthly) virtual-gathering time with friends who are scattered across the country, or even the world.

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Best Practices to Engage Church Workers in Zoom Meetings

By Katy Crawford | Apr 6, 2021 12:00:00 PM

For those who work on remote teams, virtual meetings were commonplace prior to the spring of 2020. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, they, and more specifically the platform Zoom, have now become a conduit for connection across nearly every sector of life. As those who serve in congregations, many of us have leveraged this technology in more than one ministry area: Bible study, board and staff meetings, visits with homebound and hospitalized members, even worship for some.

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Topics: Video

Engaging and Leading Tech Volunteers at Your Congregation

By Katy Crawford | Mar 19, 2021 8:00:00 AM

Though not new, the opportunities for people to serve in technology-related roles have greatly expanded in many congregations. Joining the ranks of service mainstays in the church, technology teams are now just about as prevalent in the regular functioning of a congregation as the altar guild, trustees, and board of education.

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Topics: Volunteers

Post-Pandemic Church: Now What?

By Katy Crawford | Mar 8, 2021 7:00:00 AM

About a year ago, we were experiencing one of the biggest disruptions to collective life in decades. Although the calendars of some were wiped clean, others’ lives ramped up to an exhausting pace. Church workers and communicators fell into the latter category. Leading in unfamiliar territory quickly became the norm and tools that were once supplemental shifted to our primary conduit for connection.

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Ingredients of a Detailed Church Communications Strategy

By Peter Frank | Jun 9, 2020 2:00:00 PM

When I was a sophomore in college, I moved into a dormitory that had previously been used as a fraternity house. There were a lot of things that made it different than a typical dorm, but the thing I was most excited about was the large kitchen. 

Over the previous year, I started to become interested in cooking, especially food that was healthy. The prospect of having a full kitchen available made me decide to skip the cafeteria meal plan, plan to go grocery shopping on a regular basis, and cook healthy recipes for most of my meals.

Like many plans, I certainly had good intentions, but I didn't implement it very well. By the end of the school year, I was so busy with homework and finals that the majority of my meals ended up being off-brand mac and cheese bowls heated up in the microwave. It was not really healthy, but it was inexpensive, quick, and easy, and I was at least able to eat.

Church communications can often be like my "cooking" experience: detailed plans created by enthusiastic people with good intentions and an overly-optimistic idea about the available time. There is nothing wrong with any of those things, but that situation can easily lead to incomplete implementation of those plans.
 
Now that I am an adult and a bit more self-aware, I have learned the trick to cooking healthy on a regular basis. I still have good intentions and a detailed plan, but I've learned that it's a lot more likely that I will implement those plans when I have all the ingredients readily available. I make sure to keep a cabinet full of spices and a freezer full of meat. When I go out on my weekly grocery shopping trip, I load up on fruits and vegetables, so I now I have everything I need to make healthy meals.
 
Having all of those ingredients on hand makes it easy to cook healthy on a regular basis, and the same is true for church communications. There are a variety of communications tools (ingredients) that you can prepare in advance so that when the time comes to implement your church's communication plans, you're all ready to go.

 

As you build out your church's communication strategy, consider using any or all of the following tools to help you gain a better understanding of your situation, your audiences, and what you are communicating. A detailed communication strategy should include all of these ingredients in some form, but you don't need to wait to get started until you have all of them in place.

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Five Skills Needed to Manage a Great Church Website

By Peter Frank | Jun 2, 2020 2:00:00 PM

In 1997, back in the dark ages of the internet, I wrote my first website. I wrote it, but I didn’t publish it because, honestly, I didn’t know how. It wasn’t a great website, but I was proud of it.

I wasn’t even a teenager yet, but I was fascinated by computers and especially the internet. Creating a website seemed like a fun challenge, so I did what is almost unheard of now: I went to the library and borrowed a book about how to write Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the language of the internet.

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Evaluating Social Media Opportunities for Church Communications

By Peter Frank | May 26, 2020 2:00:00 PM

It’s so tempting, isn’t it? It’s new, it’s exciting, and it seems to be quite effective at doing the job. Plus, the price is right.

Sure the old one was working just fine for you, but this new one looks like it might be even better! Why wouldn’t you jump in feet first and give it a try?

The “it” that I am referring to could be almost anything. It can be the newest iPhone from Apple or the latest streaming service like Disney+. It could even be the most recent gadget that achieved the “As Seen on TV” label. However, in the realm of church communications, it’s usually the latest social media platform or the newest feature on an existing platform.

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Topics: Social Media

Personalizing Communications through Content Mapping

By Peter Frank | May 19, 2020 2:00:00 PM

“What’s your favorite color?”

As adults, we typically do not ask each other this, but for kids, it is an especially important question.

My four-year-old daughter has a knack for both picking up on details about people and mentioning them in a positive way. She will notice if one of her fellow students is wearing a new shirt and say how much she likes it. She will compliment a teacher on her new haircut, telling her it looks nice. And when she colors a picture for someone, you’d better believe that it will have a lot of that person’s favorite color in it because that is one of the first questions she would have asked them.

Everyone appreciates it when someone else does a nice thing for them, but when that nice thing has been personalized, it makes it even more special.

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Using Journey Maps to Identify Next Step Communications

By Peter Frank | May 12, 2020 2:00:00 PM

Admit it; you’ve done this before too. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

I’m at a restaurant having a meal with my family. The server brings the food out, distributes the dishes to each person, and checks to see if everything is in good shape. We confirm, and she replies, “Great, enjoy your meal!” I respond, “Thanks. You too!”

How embarrassing! If I had stopped to think about what I was going to say, I would quickly realize that she was going to continue working, not sit down and enjoy a meal, but I did what came naturally and returned the pleasantry in kind.

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The Proper Use of Personas and Lists in Church Communications

By Peter Frank | May 5, 2020 2:00:00 PM

This past Sunday, my church, along with many other congregations, observed Good Shepherd Sunday. While not an official holiday in the Church Year, it has been historically called that because the Fourth Sunday of Easter focuses on Jesus as the Good Shepherd. 

The Gospel reading this Sunday was from John 10:1–10, but I want to draw your attention to what Jesus says just a short time later in verse 14.

“I know My own and My own know Me.” (John 10:14 ESV)

What a wonderful thing to have a Savior who cares about us so much that He left the glory of heaven and became a human being so that He could live and die for us and our salvation. Jesus is a Savior who really, truly knows us.

We as leaders in the Church are called to follow Christ’s example as a shepherd and care for His flock. In fact, the word pastor is a Latin word that means “shepherd.” As every good pastor will tell you, you can’t care for your flock until you get to know them.

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Setting Ministry Priorities in the Age of Technology

By Peter Frank | Apr 28, 2020 2:00:00 PM

At Concordia Technology Solutions, we hold weekly product meetings with members of our marketing, support, and development teams. We discuss what happened during the week and what tasks will be accomplished in the coming week. This is also a time for us to share feedback we’ve heard from the users of our software.

We get a lot of great ideas on a daily basis, but I’ve learned I have to be careful in how I bring them up. If I say, “What do you think, can we add this new feature?” it’s likely that I will get a tongue-in-cheek response from a developer such as, “Yes, we can do anything ... with time and money.”

I’ll admit I’ve used that phrase in other meetings as well. While there is a certain level of sarcasm to it, the reality is that technology has improved so much over the years that (almost) anything is possible, as long as you have sufficient resources.

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The Importance of a Strategy over Tactics in Church Communications

By Peter Frank | Apr 22, 2020 1:00:00 PM

One of my favorite board games to play when I was a kid was a two-person game called Stratego. The goal of Stratego is to capture the flag of the opposing player while protecting one’s own. Each player starts with a large number of pieces, and each piece has a ranking. The players battle those pieces against each other until one can capture the other’s flag.

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Bullet Journaling: An Analog System to Aid Digital Creativity

By Katy Crawford | Apr 8, 2020 9:00:00 AM

Throw out the phrase “bullet journal” in conversation, and you’ll likely get a variety of responses: everything from “Oh, I’m not ‘arsty’ enough for that,” to “This is the single greatest tool I’ve found for organizing my life,” and a lot of reactions in between. While some take a more elaborate approach to bullet journaling, others use their notebook or journal to simplify.

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How to Livestream at Your Church for the First Time

By Concordia Publishing House | Mar 20, 2020 5:00:00 PM

The COVID-19 has quickly changed almost every aspect of our lives, including our worship lives. Many churches are choosing not to hold worship services in person, but are moving online through recorded videos or livestreaming.

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Topics: Video

Evaluating Your Church Office for Improvements

By Glenda Keenleyside | Jan 10, 2020 2:30:00 PM

When I started as a church office administrator, one of my first projects was to update member records in a spreadsheet. As I sat typing, I remember thinking, “There must be a software program that can make this process easier… and keep it that way!”

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Topics: Church Office

Creating a Can-Do Culture in Your Church

By Andrew Osborne | Dec 6, 2019 9:00:00 AM

We’ve all heard about those congregations that just seem to have a toxic culture. Perhaps it’s a tight-knit community that has a hard time welcoming in strangers. Maybe it’s a church whose members try to run the church behind the pastor’s back. I think one of the most common examples of toxicity in a church, however, is one in which too many people become apathetic to the church’s mission of growing disciples and feeding Jesus’ sheep.

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Topics: Management

Investing in People Skills over Marketing

By Katy Crawford | Nov 21, 2019 9:00:00 AM

I recently reread Kem Meyer’s book, Less Chaos. Less Noise. As I did, Meyer’s words hit me right between the eyes, as they often do. This time, however, it wasn’t about written communication. What got me was her writing on people skills.

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Digital Well-Being: Sabbath as a Circuit Breaker

By Katy Crawford | Oct 29, 2019 10:00:00 AM

About six weeks into my DCE internship, I was planning to leave town on my day off for the first time. There was an event taking place at the church while I would be gone, and though I had carried out my responsibilities and left the day’s tasks in more-than-capable hands, I felt anxious, almost guilty, about leaving.

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Writing Job Descriptions That Foster a Teamwork Mentality

By Andrew Osborne | Oct 16, 2019 10:00:00 AM

Working for a church can be one of the most fulfilling career paths out there! Not only do you get paid to pursue your passion and serve God using the gifts and abilities He’s given you, but you also get to grow extremely close to the people you’re serving with, in ways that aren’t typical for non-church-work jobs. Your faith not only plays a role in your work life, but is the center of it. Many times, you become family with the people you are serving with.

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Church Management Software 301: Fundraising

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Sep 3, 2019 9:00:00 AM

Fundraising is a hard topic, and I’ll admit at the outset that it’s one I struggle with. The problem is, of course, that it’s so easy to get the perspectives wrong. We can become so intent on our financial goals, particularly if we’re dealing with a large capital project like a new building, that we forget our main purpose of sharing the Gospel with the people we’re working with. Technology can be used to make fundraising more effective, but like any other tool, it has its pros and cons. It can be used in ways that are helpful in building up the Body of Christ; or it can be used in ways that, even if successful in meeting your fundraising goals, can be manipulative and destructive.

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Topics: Software

Church Management Software 201: Assimilation

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Aug 27, 2019 9:00:00 AM

So you’ve made good use of your Church Management Software (CMS), and you have some new prospective members who are beginning to interact with your congregation, perhaps even showing up in worship for a few Sundays. What’s next? How do we begin, particularly in larger congregations, to move people from attending to belonging?

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Topics: Software

Building Landing Pages That Help You Achieve Your Goals

By Stacy Yates | Jul 25, 2019 2:00:00 PM

In my last post, I laid out what landing pages are and why they are important in communicating to your target audience. I wrote about how the retail industry uses landing pages, and hopefully you did your homework to see how effectively the industry uses them to communicate targeted information to its customers.

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Introduction to Landing Pages

By Stacy Yates | Jul 9, 2019 9:00:00 AM

Landing pages. Maybe you have heard of them before, maybe you haven’t. Maybe you know all about them, maybe you don’t. Landing pages are not new, and we have all been sent to one, whether we knew it or not.

Maybe you’re just now considering creating a landing page for your church, or maybe you’re a website designer who’s looking to take your site to a new level. In this first of a series of posts, I’ll help you navigate the basics of landing pages and learn how they can be used for specific opportunities and events for your church.

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Embedding Videos into Your Church Website

By Andrew Osborne | Jul 3, 2019 9:00:00 AM

I love how diverse our churches are. Of course, we all have the Gospel in common, and we also share many similar rites and ceremonies, but the way we dress, the type of music we use, and the way our churches operate varies greatly depending on our context.

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Church Management Software 101: Prospects

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Jun 26, 2019 9:00:00 AM

Anytime we set out to talk about ways to manage church members’ information, targeted advertising, or other efforts to use technology in outreach, we need to start from the right perspective. None of our cleverness, targeting, or planning can make the Gospel more effective—that’s the Holy Spirit’s job, not ours. What we’re seeking to do with communication, advertising, and technology is to remove barriers to people hearing the Gospel and to ensure that God’s Word is able to speak as clearly as possible to those who need to hear it. This month and for the next several months, we will be looking not at efficacy, but at clarity and removing noise from our communications.

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Topics: Software

Sharing the Gospel and the Lutheran Faith on Your Website

By Lora Horn | Jun 18, 2019 8:30:00 AM

Sociologists maintain that you can learn a lot about looking in people’s medicine cabinets. In the same vein, I believe a narthex tells a lot about a congregation. When I visit a congregation, I notice so many things:

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Creating a Communication Plan for a Large Project

By Rev. Daniel Ross | Jun 13, 2019 7:30:00 AM

Nothing will stop a project faster than a lack of communication. To fill the gap, misinformation will quickly spread. This will lead to ever increasing amounts of frustration from leaders to stakeholders until overall apathy envelops the project. In turn, the project will stall out or people will come to resent it.

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Basic CSS for Your Church Website

By Rev. Bill Johnson | May 23, 2019 4:00:00 PM

Once upon a time, when the web was young and HTML was new, each web page was its own self-contained piece of content. All of the content and formatting that was required for that page was contained on the page itself in the HTML code, and interactive ideas such as JavaScript were mere ideas and not practice. This worked well at first, but then the day came when someone needed to redesign the look of their website. Perhaps colors needed to be changed or a new logo used. Regardless, the whole site had to change, and that meant changing every single page on the site. And no one—literally no one—wants to do that twice.

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Video File Types: Recommendations for Church Websites

By Andrew Osborne | May 17, 2019 4:00:00 PM

One of the greatest blessings we have as a church is that we have such amazing ways to share our faith. In the past, information and stories had to be passed down orally. Later on, with the invention of the printing press, books of information could be produced quickly and shared. At the beginning of my lifetime, we still received information primarily from our televisions and in the mail.

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Building Websites for Different Church and School Relationships

By Rev. Daniel Ross | May 10, 2019 3:00:00 PM

Lutheran schools and churches have always gone hand in hand. Martin Luther, all the way back in 1530, wrote “A Sermon on Keeping Children in School,” and he was quite the revolutionary as he called for the education of not only boys but girls as well.

This desire to educate our children was kept by the Saxon (and other) immigrants who would form the Missouri Synod. In Germany, religious instruction was a part of the public school curriculum. In America, however, the public schools were much more secular, or the Christianity that was taught in them was generic and watered down. So in many places, Lutherans established their schools first and then, a few years later, built their church.

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Personalize Your Church Communication

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Apr 30, 2019 11:30:00 AM

We’ve all gotten them . . . the well-meaning envelope trying to notify us about an important upcoming event or to make sure we’re aware of the can’t-miss deal of the century. And you open the envelope (maybe) and pull out the letter and begin reading the message meant uniquely for you. “Dear Sir or Madam . . .”

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Developing a Post-Easter Strategy for Your Church’s Website

By Stacy Yates | Apr 16, 2019 9:00:00 AM

Spring is in the air, and the church calendar is telling us Easter is almost here. But you’re not worried because you have done all that can possibly be done. The bulletin covers are ready. The Easter egg hunt went off without a hitch. Information about Holy Week has been shared. This year you even coordinated a Lenten video devotional blog for social media followers. You have a strategy for greeters when visitors arrive. Little cards are out to collect visitors’ information. Postcards are ready to be sent out as follow-up. The elders are lined up to make those follow-up calls. And let’s face it—the website was off the charts with all the awesome graphics. YOU KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK! Now it’s time to sit back, pat the team on the back, and watch the strategy unfold. Or is it?

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15 Things Every Church Must Have in Its Technology Stack

By Peter Frank | Apr 9, 2019 9:00:00 AM

When I was young, I used to collect and trade baseball cards with the other kids in the neighborhood. The cards we collected were not really worth much money, so whenever I tried to trade for a card, I was always pursuing one of two objectives: collecting cards from my favorite player or team, or completing a series.

As an adult, I still find myself collecting things, although I have moved on from baseball cards. Now I collect technology, and if I had to guess, you probably do too.

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Protecting Your Church Members’ Privacy

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Mar 19, 2019 9:00:00 AM

If you’ve purchased anything in the last twenty or so years, you’ve almost certainly experienced it: that moment when you get to the register to purchase an inconsequential item, perhaps with exact change at the ready, and your dreams of a quick in-and-out transaction are dashed on the rocks of a series of questions:

“Can I get your phone number please? Hmm . . . you’re not in our system. Let me add you. What’s your name? Address? Email address? Phone number? Mother’s cousin’s oldest stepchild’s phone number?”

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Guidelines for Whether to Share Trending Social Media Posts

By Stacy Yates | Mar 12, 2019 9:00:35 AM

In my last blog post, I walked through how to decide what to post on your church’s Facebook page. This time, we’re going to dig deeper and talk about when an event or crisis is going on nationwide or in your community. The question always comes up: to share or not to share?

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Topics: Social Media

Balancing Academic and Faith Content on Your Christian School’s Website

By Rev. Daniel Ross | Mar 5, 2019 9:00:00 AM

In February 2016, my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world. Two weeks later, we were sent into a panic. My wife had recently started a job with a local hospital on an as-needed status. She had basically gone through training and then been put on maternity leave. Two weeks after the birth of our son, she was asked to come back full time at the end of her leave. This meant we needed to suddenly find day care for our child. To complicate matters, the day care associated with our church had eight children already on its waiting list.

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Coordinating a Short Video Shoot inside Your Church

By Andrew Osborne | Feb 28, 2019 3:00:00 PM

As many churches continue to see the value in social media for reaching out to their communities, it’s important that we use best practices for helping our content reach more people. As many studies show, when it comes to Facebook, videos tend to be the best content to get more engagement. Because of that, it’s a good idea to produce high-quality video content to share on our social media platforms.

For many church workers, this can seem daunting. You might be thinking, “I didn’t go to film school. How am I supposed to create this kind of content?” It doesn’t have to be as hard as many people make it sound. There are some easy steps you can take to regularly make short, high-quality videos to share on social media.

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Advice on Managing Your Church’s Facebook Strategy

By Stacy Yates | Feb 19, 2019 9:00:00 AM

Whether you love it or hate it, social media is here to stay. Facebook started back in 2003 as more of a college/dating-type site and has turned into something much bigger that influences everyday life around the world.

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Pros and Cons of Slack for Churches

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Dec 18, 2018 9:00:00 AM

With the rapid-fire pace of web applications today, it seems there’s a new must-have product about every other week. Generally, these come and go and aren’t actually all that new or innovative, so I hope I might be forgiven for largely ignoring Slack when it first launched. It was, after all, little more than a glorified chat tool, and not something our team at CTSFW really needed.

At this point, though, I think I’m willing to concede that I might have been mistaken in my first look at Slack. Over the last few years it’s actually become an indispensable part of our team’s toolkit, finding a niche alongside apps like Wunderlist, Google Docs, and Gmail in the selection of apps that do one thing, do it really well, and don’t try to do anything else.

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5 Ways to Implement Agile Methodology in Churches

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Dec 4, 2018 9:00:00 AM

Have you ever worked on a project for a church committee where you’ve spent weeks meeting, planning, studying, and preparing to make a decision, then a few more weeks double-checking some things, and then a handful more weeks waiting for the right people to come back from vacation, and finally after months of delays, preparation, and hard work, discovered that the opportunity had passed or the problem had solved itself?

Nobody likes to waste their time, and sometimes churches move at the speed of committees. (Which is, incidentally, only slightly slower than frozen molasses on a January morning in northern Canada . . . during an ice age.) Speed is not the only virtue, of course, and we want to make wise decisions with limited resources. But in many cases, it would be very helpful if churches were a little more agile.

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Topics: Strategy

Prioritizing Content on Your Church Website for Visitors

By Andrew Osborne | Nov 27, 2018 9:00:00 AM

In the past, the front door of your church was probably, well, the front door. These days, however, the first exposure visitors get to your church is probably via your church website. Our church websites give visitors a small taste of what our churches are up to and what they can expect when they actually set foot in the building. They also can allow visitors to find the information they’re seeking without having to call the church secretary.

It’s important that we have the right information in the right location on our websites so visitors can find that information without having to dig. There are no hard-and-fast rules that demand every church website look the same, but there are some considerations you may want to keep in mind to help your website best serve visitors.

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Creating a Welcome Email Series to Follow Up with Church Visitors

By Lora Horn | Nov 6, 2018 9:00:00 AM

What happens after someone visits your congregation?

At my church, the visitors sign a guest book and a day or two later, they receive a letter in the mail from the pastor—which is an excellent practice. It’s personal, especially in this detached, electronic world. In fact, it has repeatedly led to visitors wanting to meet with him and eventually join the congregation. Several people have mentioned how important that letter has been. People like to be acknowledged and the personal touch makes a huge difference.

But more can be done to help someone get to know the congregation.

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Communications for Last-Minute Church Events

By Stacy Yates | Oct 30, 2018 9:00:00 AM

Whether they’re potlucks, special voters’ meetings, or trunk-or-treats, last-minute events are bound to happen (sometimes more often than we would like!). The idea of driving attendance or gaining support for a last-minute event makes most of us cringe. While it is sometimes easy to explain to a volunteer that they should consider moving the date to ensure the event is successful, it isn’t as easy to tell the church president or pastor.

So, what do we do with these last-minute requests? How do we pull off a successful communication effort in a short time frame? We must dig into our toolbox of available resources and communication knowledge. We must become creative and not panic in the moment of slight (or maybe big) frustration.

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Adjusting Your Schedule to Get More Productive and Creative

By Katy Crawford | Oct 16, 2018 2:00:00 PM

One of my greatest struggles working in a communications role for a church is finding the balance between executing existing plans or ideas and finding space for creativity and exploring new possibilities. Church communicators function within a certain tension of straightforward (relatively speaking) administrative tasks and an ever-changing communications landscape that requires awareness, innovation, and a certain amount of “let’s try this and see how it goes!” (See this post on agile failing for a little encouragement.) There are things that simply need to be done, but we can find ourselves so stuck in the maintenance of things that we forget to explore new possibilities.

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Topics: Productivity

Evernote for Pastors, Church Offices, and Ministry Teams

By Lora Horn | Oct 9, 2018 11:03:04 AM

Before computers became integrated with our lives, the big office complaint was about paper. A good deal of our communication and information storage involved paper. How to store that information, share that information, and avoid being buried in that information was a daily challenge.

I know—it still is.

While we might deal with less paper than previous generations, we’re bombarded with more information and communication than ever before. We have a completely different kind of clutter and the same need. How do we keep it all straight?

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Resources for Continuing Education in the Church

By Andrew Osborne | Sep 25, 2018 12:30:00 PM

In a perfect world, our churches would have all the financial means to employ ginormous staffs who can serve both the people in our congregations and the communities around us. We’d have people hired to teach Bible studies geared specifically to certain age groups. We’d have communications experts who could craft social media posts to reach all the people in our communities to draw them to our churches. We’d have it all. But as we all know, the world isn’t perfect, and our churches can’t always afford to hire people to fill each role we need to do the ministry God has called us to do. That doesn’t mean, however, that God doesn’t provide exactly what we need to accomplish what He wants with what we’ve got.

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The Value of a Church Logo and Why You Should Protect Yours

By Stacy Yates | Sep 18, 2018 9:00:00 AM

When it comes to logos, branding, and name recognition, it seems the world understands why it’s so important for their favorite pair of shoes or beverage to have these things, but not why their church home should.

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Remembering 149 Years of Technology at CPH

By Katy Crawford | Sep 11, 2018 9:00:00 AM

Happy 149th birthday, Concordia Publishing House! Of course, there’s a bunch of excitement about the big one-five-zero happening a year from now (and rightfully so!), but you only turn 149 once. Whatever the number, birthdays are a great time to remember, reflect, and celebrate—so here we go!

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Following Up with Visitors without Seeming Creepy

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Aug 21, 2018 9:00:00 AM

Read any number of books on church organization and evangelism, and you’ll hear some common goals. Visitors should feel at home. They should be comfortable finding their way around. They should feel like they’re welcome and that their presence is valued in the community. They should feel safe.

Those are all good things, at least objectively, but it’s hardly a list that your elders couldn’t have written themselves. More interesting are the competing ways we’re advised to achieve these same goals. Visitors should be singled out and welcomed the moment they walk in the door or they should be allowed to worship in anonymity and peace. We should follow up at their house later in the day, or send them a letter next week, or maybe just leave them alone and hope our distance conveys enough respect for their privacy that they come back. It’s a mess.

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The Passionate Volunteer & the Communicator: Seeing Eye to Eye

By Stacy Yates | Aug 14, 2018 9:00:00 AM

In my last post I touched on how I ditched a well-thought-out communication request form for more personal interactions with our ministry leaders. I think this idea of relationship building goes even deeper than with the leaders; it applies to each volunteer too.

Our goal as church staff members, called or not, is always to be personal and to connect. But sometimes a volunteer not seeing the bigger mission of the church can drive a wedge between what the volunteer wants to do with a specific ministry and what should be done. As a communicator, I know for me anyway that this wedge can create unnecessary friction. We want to help the congregation and pastors achieve our church goals, to do our job, and to make everyone happy. We all know that is easier said than done! Am I right?

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Ideas for Saying Thank You to Church Donors and Volunteers

By Jenn Eickman | Aug 7, 2018 9:00:00 AM

My eyes have been opened over the last two years about showing appreciation. Not that I wasn’t appreciative before, but now that I’m in development, appreciation has become a large part of my role in ministry and I’m much more conscious of showing it.

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Establishing Planning Rhythms in Your Church Office

By Katy Crawford | Jul 31, 2018 9:00:00 AM

Ben Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”

Although I’m one who loves a well thought out plan, I have a lot of growing to do when it comes to having a solid grasp on this. So, I’ve been reading, listening to podcasts, and trying to soak up any wisdom I can from those who do this sort of thing well. One recurring theme I’ve encountered is that of planning rhythms.

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Staying Connected with Your Church’s College Students

By Audrey Morschen | Jul 24, 2018 9:00:00 AM

As college students are packing their bags to go back to school at the end of the summer, there are a few steps that churches can take to make sure their college students are feeling cared for. As a college student myself, I find that it is always a big transition when you start attending church at a new place at the beginning of the semester. It is hard to feel connected to your church when you are hundreds of miles away, so here are a few easy tips for churches to keep college students engaged when they head back to school.

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My Handy-Dandy Communication Form (and Why it Didn’t Work)

By Stacy Yates | Jul 10, 2018 9:30:56 AM

On my job description, it says, “Develop templates for media, agendas, and the like to assist busy ministry teams and lay volunteers in creating better message-driven content in a more effective amount of time.”

Great. I can do that, not too hard.

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A Basic Lesson in How Churches Can Write for the Web

By Lora Horn | Jul 3, 2018 9:00:00 AM

Creating a church webpage should be easy, shouldn’t it?

Whether we’re talking about a home page, an about page, or a simple blog post—type it up and hit “publish,” right? But if you want your page to actually get read, it’s not that simple.

Don’t worry, it’s not that hard, either, but it is important to know how to structure your page so that readers want to read it.

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Why Connection Beats Technology in Ministry

By Jenn Eickman | Jun 26, 2018 4:30:00 PM

Have you sat in a restaurant or in a line at the DMV and just observed? Like really watched people? Are people connecting with those around them? Or are they immersed in the five-inch screens in their hands? How are they interacting with their surroundings?

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Do We Become Less Human as We Interact with Androids?

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Jun 12, 2018 9:00:00 AM

On May 25, 2018, Quantic Dream released their much anticipated seventh game, Detroit: Become Human. (Warning: Link launches trailer, which contains swearing.) After spending a week or so with the game, I’ve found it has much worth recommending to even your casual video game player. But, more importantly, Detroit continues a cultural conversation that’s only going to grow in coming years, and it’s one the Church would do well to get involved in. What makes us human, and what moral value do non-humans have? Is life found in the essence of a thing or in its behavior and appearance? Does it matter how we treat objects if they’re not alive? Detroit seeks to answer the question of whether androids are human, but I think the bigger question isn’t whether the android is human (it isn’t). It’s whether the android’s owner will remain human if he or she learns to behave in inhuman ways.

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Storytelling to Share the Gospel & Engage Your Church’s Community

By Katy Crawford | Jun 6, 2018 2:00:00 PM

Stories are some of the most powerful tools in a church communicator’s belt. They have the power to engage us in something beyond ourselves and pass life-giving faith from one generation to another.

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Protecting Your Family Online

By Joe Willmann | May 29, 2018 1:00:00 PM

Because of their leadership with various communication channels, church communicators are sometimes asked by parents how to keep kids safe online. This article was originally posted on the CPH Education blog to help parents and teachers learn how to do just that. We hope this post is helpful to you as you serve the families God has put in your life.

As a parent, God has entrusted you with the care and upbringing of your children. This task has not changed throughout all time. We are called to bring them to the life-giving water of Holy Baptism, to teach them the faith, and to protect them from all harm and evil. No pressure, Mom and Dad.

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Should Your Church Use the Messaging App GroupMe?

By Jenn Eickman | May 15, 2018 9:00:00 AM

I often wonder if one of the biggest challenges facing Church Communicators is deciphering the who, what, where, why, and how of church news and events. Our efforts often are spread among multiple mediums, our time is spread thin to format and reformat content, and still we often receive feedback about people not “hearing” our message. (Here’s a great article to help set up your communication framework.)

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Building Meaningful Connections in a World of Tech and Isolation

By Rev. Bill Johnson | May 8, 2018 9:00:00 AM

We live in one of the most connected ages in history. We can stay connected with friends around the globe and have unlimited potential to make new friends. News travels around the globe in moments, and we’re routinely treated to a front-row view of history as live-streaming technology becomes more commonplace. At no other point in human history have we been so quickly and easily connected with other people.

So why are we so isolated?

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Enhancing Your Church’s Video Streams with Multiple Cameras

By Andrew Osborne | May 1, 2018 11:00:00 AM

There’s nothing quite like being in worship with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, receiving God’s gifts and giving Him our praise. The beauty of Christian worship goes far beyond our human comprehension. Unfortunately, there can be times we miss out on that time together for reasons beyond our control.

Occasionally, we have in our congregations members who are home-bound and unable to attend weekly worship. Thankfully, with the use of the internet and technology, these members may still be able to receive God’s Word (they’ll have to wait to receive His body and blood until their pastor can come visit them) by watching either a livestream or recording of the service. Needless to say, participating in worship in this way is by no means as wonderful or edifying as being present with our fellow believers, but for those with no other option, this can be an incredible blessing.

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Topics: Video

Creating and Using a Social Media Content Calendar

By Rev. Daniel Ross | Apr 24, 2018 9:00:00 AM

My sixth-grade homeroom teacher stood over my desk.

“Daniel, you didn’t get your agenda signed again.” Sigh. “Minus five points. You know this is worth five percent of your grade, right?” The question of incredulity quickly following the sigh of disappointment.

Of course, what she did not seem to understand was my view. It was worth only five percent of a grade that did not matter. Harvard was not going to be checking my sixth-grade report card to see how I did. So what was the point of filling out the agenda every single day and getting it signed by my parents over the weekend? It was not like there was never enough time to finish assignments in class.

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Choosing Communication Channels Based on Your Audience

By Stacy Yates | Apr 17, 2018 9:00:00 AM

It seems there is a new communication channel introduced weekly, if not daily! Some have been long lived, like Facebook, and some were one-hit wonders only to fizzle out, like Vine.

Many times, a quick scroll through my social media feed and reading through communication blogs leave me feeling defeated in this mass world of instant communication.

Am I doing enough? Am I choosing the best way to reach the world with the greatest message in the world? Am I making sure our members feel connected with our various ministries?

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Should My Church Use Screens during Worship?

By Andrew Osborne | Apr 3, 2018 9:00:00 AM

Maybe you’re at a church plant that is outgrowing its space, moving to a new location, and deciding to bring in new technology in the form of worship screens. Maybe your church building is decades old and your congregation is ready for some updates. A while back, we wrote a blog post on how to use a screen in worship without worshiping a screen—but it’s worth taking the time to consider whether adopting screens during worship is the best choice for your congregation.

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Peace in the Chaos: Managing Stress During Holy Week

By Rev. Daniel Ross | Mar 27, 2018 9:00:00 AM

This is not a usual Concordia Technology Solutions blog post. In fact, there will be very little discussion about technology at all. No trends, no flashing doodads, no talk about social media or websites. Nope, this is more of a devotion for church workers and those heavily involved in a congregation’s ministry during Holy Week.

Grace, peace, and mercy to you from God the Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Harnessing Technology So It Doesn’t Harness Us

By Katy Crawford | Mar 13, 2018 9:00:00 AM

“Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms.” These words were deemed the unofficial motto for the 1933–34 World’s Fair in Chicago. More than eighty years have passed since that grand event, which celebrated great strides in technological innovation. For our culture, the same motto seems to ring a little too true.

In his book Digitized: Spiritual Implications of Technology, Dr. Bernard Bull discusses this pattern of our conforming to, or being shaped by, technology, at times without realizing what is happening. It’s vital we recognize that the solving of one problem generally leads to a slew of new challenges to address. Many of these challenges have significant connection to our spiritual lives and the faith formation of our families.

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6 Questions to Ask Before Adopting New Technology

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Feb 20, 2018 9:00:00 AM

Technology touches all aspects of our lives. From the ways we work, play, create, and learn all the way to how we spend our final days, technology plays a significant role in what’s possible, and, of course, what isn’t . . . at least for now. Ministry is no exception to this, and the Church has historically been one of the bastions on the cutting edge of technology. We were among the first to adopt the codex, and some of the earliest written words in history are found in the Old Testament. Even Martin Luther benefited from his unique timing in technological history by seeing his writings widely distributed through Gutenberg’s printing press. The Church and technology are old friends.

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Why Canva Is a Church Communicator’s Best Friend

By Katy Crawford | Feb 13, 2018 9:00:00 AM

Oh Canva, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. . . .

Okay, so Elizabeth Barrett Browning I am not. I do, however, have a long list of reasons why Canva is a church communicator’s best friend. Like many, my first introduction to Canva’s superpowers was learning how to create those really beautiful, crisp, professional-looking social media graphics. But there are so many other ways Canva can be used in your congregation’s communication efforts!

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Topics: Design

6 Steps to a Comprehensive Easter Communications Plan

By Peter Frank | Feb 6, 2018 2:00:00 PM

Ash Wednesday is just about a week away, which means there are less than two months until Easter. Have you started planning your Easter communications yet? I realize for some churches, this started happening before Christmas, but for many of our readers, Ash Wednesday is the day the clock starts ticking.

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5 Google Tools You Should Be Using on Your Church Website

By Peter Frank | Jan 23, 2018 10:00:00 AM

Websites have a rather interesting history. At first, they were difficult to create and required a certain understanding of HTML. Then tools were introduced that made it easy to create websites. Then everyone had a website, which made it hard to get traffic. Then social media came along and made it seem like no one needed a website anymore.

That’s a rather over-simplified history of the internet, but the reality is that it’s never been easy to build a website and gain traffic, and today is no different. One interesting thing about today’s internet is that Google is its king. Over 63% of internet searches start with Google, an overwhelming majority in a previously competitive market. That means that while your church website is competing to gain traffic, it’s really only competing in one arena.

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Making the Most of a Quiet Week in the Church Office

By Peter Frank | Dec 26, 2017 9:00:00 AM

Welcome to one of my favorite weeks of the year: the week between Christmas and New Year’s. At Concordia Publishing House, this is a short work-week bookended by two holidays and an extra day off. That means someone can take three days of PTO and turn that into ten days off in a row. What a deal!

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Easy Social Media for Christmas Week

By Peter Frank | Dec 19, 2017 9:00:00 AM

We’re less than one week away from Christmas—is your social media ready?

While Christmas provides some great opportunities for your church to share the Gospel with your community, it can be a challenge to get everything done on time and still be creative. Here are three quick ways to leverage social media during the busiest time of the year.

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Catechesis, Memorization, and Technology

By Katy Crawford | Dec 5, 2017 9:00:00 AM

The way we use our memory has changed in recent years, and daily tasks that once required us to recall information are now done by accessing digital directories or using voice activation. When I was in grade school, memory tools were of the index-card variety, each holding a different historical fact, spelling word, or basic math equation. Now memory cards hold countless digital images and files, at times doing our remembering for us.

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Using Custom Snapchat Filters for Your Ministry

By Hannah Hansen | Nov 28, 2017 9:00:00 AM

If your ministry is on Snapchat, I applaud you! Snapchat is, in my opinion, one of the hardest social media platforms to manage and create content for, especially for churches. So the fact that you even have a Snapchat means you’re going in the right direction.

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Topics: Social Media

How Church Management Software Can Help Pastors

By Rev. Daniel Ross | Nov 14, 2017 9:00:00 AM

I had only been a pastor for a short while at my first congregation. I remember trying to look up families and guessing the ages of their children. I cannot remember if it was for confirmation or something else. The church wanted to send a letter because of an upcoming class. The secretary was walking by and asked me what I was doing. I explained and said that it was hard work. I had been doing it for a couple of days at that point. She started laughing and telling me that all I had to do was ask her. All that information was kept in Shepherd’s Staff, which was our church management software (CMS).

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Topics: Software Pastors

The Reformation and Technological Change in the Church

By Jeremy Roegner | Oct 31, 2017 10:30:00 AM


“Immortal God, what a world I see dawning. Why can I not be young again?”

The Dutch scholar Erasmus wrote these words in 1517, enraptured by the possibilities created by the Renaissance. The zeitgeist of the Renaissance was closely entwined with that of the Reformation, also dawning in 1517, as Europeans awakened to new ways of seeing the world and understanding their individual roles in it.

It was technology that enabled the ideas of the Renaissance and Reformation to spread like wildfire around Europe: Gutenberg’s moveable type printing press drastically increased the speed and accessibility of information. This technological innovation not only transformed the way ideas were spread, but also played a significant part in developing the ideas themselves, as more and more people were able to consider themselves readers, writers, and independent thinkers.

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Coordinating Marketing for a Church Event

By Erica Tape | Oct 24, 2017 9:00:00 AM

So there’s a big event coming up at church, and you’re the one doing the communications. You’ve got to get the word out to members and the community. You’ve got to get other people on board for the marketing and make sure they can do what you need them to do. It’s a lot to do, and it might just be a big swirly ball of chaos inside your mind. Or maybe you don’t know where to start and feel like you’re staring at a blank canvas. So how do you get started?

Here’s an outline for coordinating the marketing for an event. It’s the same process I used when running the marketing for a huge event that happened at my church a few weeks ago. This road map will guide you through the planning, execution, and analysis process, helping you manage a campaign that is comprehensive and well organized.

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Using IFTTT for Social Media Automation

By Seth Hinz | Oct 17, 2017 9:00:00 AM

IFTTT is a dream come true and can save an entire weekend of your time in a single click. I use this tool to automate portions of the social media marketing efforts in Michigan, and I’m always seeking out new ways to expand our reach and reduce the time we have to spend on busywork.

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Topics: Social Media

7 Hidden Excel Tricks You’ll Wish You Had Been Using Sooner

By Peter Frank | Oct 5, 2017 1:00:00 PM

It’s been quite a while since I wrote about my favorite application, Microsoft Excel. When I’m not using different combinations of formulas and applying beautiful styles to my spreadsheets, I find that there are many fantastic tools within Excel that many people have never used. These tools aren’t actually hidden, but if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you can easily miss them. Here are my seven favorite Excel tools that you can start using today.

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How to Manage Your Church’s Email Lists

By Peter Frank | Oct 3, 2017 12:00:00 PM

Even in the age of social media, email still proves to be more effective than social media when reaching people. In the last five to ten years, email providers, email clients, and government regulations have combined to provide better management, more personalization, and less spam for an overall better email experience. Unfortunately, many organizations (even churches) don’t use email to its fullest and can end up abusing it.

The best way to leverage email is to properly manage your lists so you can provide the most relevant content to the right audiences. Here are some principles of list management to help you make the most of email communications.

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Topics: Email

Maintaining Positive Attitudes among Ministry Staff

By Concordia Technology Solutions | Sep 28, 2017 9:00:00 AM

When I lived in the Pacific Northwest, one of my routines was to venture to Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle on Saturday mornings. Not only was it fun to pick out fresh fish for Saturday dinners, but the fish market employees also brought such joy and fun to the experience. They would literally toss trout and salmon through the air to each other, to customers, to anyone who would frolic in their game.

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Topics: Management

Simple Steps for Planning for Next Year’s Offering Envelopes

By Peter Frank | Sep 21, 2017 1:00:21 PM

The fourth quarter is just around the corner, and in addition to Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas, this time includes one of the most stressful tasks in the church office: preparing for next year’s offering envelopes.

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Maintaining Facebook Privacy as a Church Worker

By Peter Frank | Sep 19, 2017 2:10:25 PM

Last week, I explained several reasons why your church Facebook page should not replace your church website. The last reason I mentioned was that despite Facebook having a huge number of users (more than 2 billion!), not everyone is on Facebook. One group that can be very hesitant to join Facebook is church workers.

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Saving Time in Your Online Communications

By Peter Frank | Aug 24, 2017 11:00:00 AM

When the Church Online Communications Comprehensive started thirteen weeks ago, the discussion of online communications started with a focus on strategy. Since then, the topics have become more specific with information about individual channels and tactics.

Now that all of that has been discussed, it’s time to take a step back and see how to pull everything together. Figuring out how to get started is difficult, but not nearly as difficult as determining how to find the time to do it. Here are some ways to make communications take less time and some of my favorite tools for maximizing efficiency.

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Congregational and Corporate Cultures

By Ann Ciaccio | Aug 22, 2017 9:00:00 AM

There has been a lot written about corporate culture. But, more recently, it is being addressed at congregational levels.

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Top 100 Social Media Post Ideas for Churches

By Concordia Technology Solutions | Aug 10, 2017 12:00:00 AM

Do you ever feel like your church's social media accounts are stuck in a rut? Looking for new ways to inspire and engage your members online? Here are 100 of our top social media post ideas to help inform, encourage, and inspire your congregation.

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Topics: Social Media

Top 10 Writing Tips for Church Workers

By Billy Schultz | Aug 8, 2017 9:30:00 AM

Writing is a skill that comes naturally for some, and is a struggle for others. Whether or not you’re confident in your abilities, or if you have a job that doesn’t require it, it can still sometimes be necessary to write something that will be read by someone else.

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Establishing a Communication Hub for Your Church

By Peter Frank | Aug 3, 2017 9:00:00 AM

A couple weeks ago, we talked about how a content framework consists of a home base (your website), a media empire (blogs and emails), and outposts (social media). This week, our focus will be on the media empire, which is the source of all your church’s long-form communication.

Though your media empire may reside on your church’s website, it serves a very different purpose. The purpose of your website should be to encourage people to visit and get involved at your church; the media empire should direct people further into your website. In this blog post, we’ll delve into blogs and emails and learn how they can develop your church’s content framework.

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Building a Great Website for Church Communications

By Peter Frank | Jul 27, 2017 9:00:00 AM

In this week's session of the Church Online Communications Comprehensive, we're going to switch our attention from the theoretical to the practical. We've spent enough time talking strategy; now it's time to get into the practical implementation. Let's start off by discussing church websites.

When the topic of church websites comes up in the discussion of online communications, it's hard to do it justice in only a couple weeks. While I'm going to focus on the highlights, it's important to remember that this will only be a sample of the many different best practices that can be applied to your church's website.

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Questions Every Church Website Should Answer

By Concordia Technology Solutions | Jul 25, 2017 9:30:00 AM

A good church website answers questions for visitors and members alike. This is instrumental in easily locating important information about your church. Below is a list of common questions every church website should answer. When creating a “What To Expect” page, here are some questions to keep in mind.

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Making the Most of Each Communication Channel

By Peter Frank | Jul 20, 2017 9:00:00 AM

This session will start to get into the hands-on aspects of communication. We’ll dig more into the nitty-gritty of what church communication consists of and how to successfully communicate with your audience. We’ll do this by talking about a content framework.

I've discussed the concept of having a content framework in a previous blog post, as well as in a live presentation just a few weeks ago. This is such an important concept in online communications that it's worth exploring in a bit more detail.

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Basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Churches

By Erica Tape | Jul 18, 2017 10:45:00 AM

With everything having a website these days, how do you make your church’s website stand out in a Google search?

An essential thing to implement on your church’s website is SEO (search engine optimization). SEO is how we make things show up in search results. Without SEO, no one knows your site exists unless they already have its URL.

One could easily write an entire book on how to optimize a site for SEO, but here are some basic tips to get you started. Because your site will have a mix of long-term pages that aren’t frequently updated and timely pages you need to draw traffic to, you may not use all of these tactics on every single page. But implementing them when appropriate will make a big difference in helping new people find your site and get connected to your church.

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Communicating in the Right Context

By Peter Frank | Jul 13, 2017 9:00:00 AM

If you're just starting to follow along, this is the seventh session in our fourteen-week series about online communications in the church. Every week, a different communication strategy has been defined and shown how to apply in a strategic manner.

Recently, the topics have focused on audience personas, journey maps, and message maps. This week, we will explore how to combine these three concepts and apply them in a very practical action plan called a content map.

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How to Automate Your Church Social Media

By Seth Hinz | Jul 11, 2017 2:00:00 PM

This post is an excerpt from Seth Hinz's ebook Social Media Automation for Churches.


Social media automation tools will help you scale your social media marketing efforts. You’ll discover how to schedule out and recycle content indefinitely, find and engage in conversations you’ve been missing, expand your follower base, and reduce the time you spend on repetitive tasks. All of this will turn you into a lean and mean marketing machine. One stop short of full-on robot.

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Giving Your Communications Focus

By Peter Frank | Jul 6, 2017 9:00:00 AM

The last four sessions of our Online Church Communications Comprehensive focused primarily on high-level strategy. Now we'll start to transition to some lessons that are a bit more detailed and have practical implications on your day-to-day communications.

The first step in this direction is to focus your communication on a few key messages. A long-standing practice within public relations and communications is to develop a message map.

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4 Steps to Create a Job Description for Churches

By Ann Ciaccio | Jul 3, 2017 9:00:00 AM

When it comes time to call or hire a church worker, a good job description is the essential tool to enable you to determine the right person for the position.

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Topics: Church Office

Creating Movement in Your Church Communications

By Peter Frank | Jun 29, 2017 9:00:00 AM

We spent the last two weeks identifying your church audiences and gaining a better understanding of who they are and how to communicate with them. Today, we're going to shift gears a bit and start planning ways to move these audiences closer to your church goals.

The way we'll do this is by creating a journey map for your audiences. This map, which could also be described as a timeline, should be based on your church goals. The starting point is right before your first point of contact with your audience, and the subsequent points, or destinations, are the desired outcomes based on your church goals.

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Defining and Measuring Success In Your Church

By Billy Schultz | Jun 27, 2017 9:00:00 AM

Success is one of those words that people seem to use without giving much thought to what they’re saying. Whether we talk about success in a personal or collective sense, we often times use the word without knowing what we mean by it. Or worse, we know what we mean by it, but when we try to measure it, we fail to look at the right indicators. 

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Understanding Your Church Audience (Part 2)

By Peter Frank | Jun 22, 2017 9:00:00 AM

Last week, I talked about determining the personas your church communications will be developed for. This week, we’re going to work on developing profiles for those personas.

First, we’re going to look at what types of information your personas should include. Then we’ll look at how you can compile that information. At the end of the post, you can download a free worksheet that will help you assemble that information into easy-to-understand profiles. Keep these profiles on hand so you can check your communication efforts against them and so you can easily train new volunteers on your church’s communication strategy.

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What I’ve Learned in Six Months of Planning

By Kimberly Myers | Jun 20, 2017 9:45:00 AM

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Determining Your Church Audience (Part 1)

By Peter Frank | Jun 15, 2017 9:00:00 AM

In my office, on the top shelf of my bookcase, I have a orange and purple acrylic picture frame. Aside from the material and the transparency of the frame, there is one thing unusual about it: it doesn’t contain a picture.

This picture frame is a reminder for me of the first mistake I made in my professional career.

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Setting Church Communication Goals

By Peter Frank | Jun 8, 2017 9:00:00 AM

Every good plan starts with goals, and a church communication plan is no different. Stating ministry goals and building communication goals off of them is the first step in making an effective online communication strategy happen.

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Creating an Environment for Learning in the Church

By Dave Farnham | Jun 7, 2017 9:00:00 AM

How many of us remember the candlelight services we have once a year?

When we engage more than one sense in a learning environment, the chance of us learning what is being taught exponentially increases. In candlelight services, we are using the senses of sight, touch, and smell. Remembering these sensory experiences later can also help us recall the message we heard about God’s grace.

From early in church history to the present day, believers have wanted to use their skills and gifts to help others learn about God’s grace. In the past, artists used paintings, sculptures, mosaics, or architecture to tell stories and share messages. Today, in a world full of technology, what are high-tech and low-tech ways we can engage the senses and create an environment for learning?

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Silos: In Your Congregation and School

By Ann Ciaccio | May 18, 2017 12:15:00 PM

In an earlier blog, I spoke about personal silos. Since church workers feed into a congregation’s culture, it is the attitude of the church workers that dictate what the culture of a congregation will be. So, that being said, when addressing congregational silos and how to break out, the congregation church workers’ cannot be operating out of a silo mentality, if the congregation is to move out of silos and the assumption is that the church workers are outside. 

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Is Your Church's Technology Safe and Secure?

By Rev. Bill Johnson | May 16, 2017 9:00:00 AM

This expert was taken from the ebook Computer Security for Your Church.

When we think about the many ways our churches serve their members, we don’t often think about things like technology or data security.  In today’s growing digital world, though, a robust awareness of data security can be one of the most important ways to safeguard the privacy of your users and their families.  Just as we wouldn’t broadcast information given to us in confidence in day to day conversation, so too in the digital world we need to ensure that the information our members and visitors entrust us with is kept safe and secure from those who would use it to cause harm.

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Free and Discount Online Resources for Churches

By Dave Farnham | May 11, 2017 10:45:00 AM

In churches we are used to operating on a shoestring budget.  We have to make the most of every dollar and sometimes, every penny. What I want to provide are a few things that are either discounted or FREE that you may not have been aware of previously.

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Topics: Software

Taking On Church Communications: What to Ask Before You Start

By Kimberly Myers | May 9, 2017 11:15:00 AM

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7 Ways Your Church Could Use Pinterest

By Dave Farnham | May 4, 2017 10:51:52 AM

Pinterest is like a virtual bulletin board or pinboard where you can share things that you are passionate about and love. Members of Pinterest will pin things that they like and things of interest to their account so they can return to them easily. It’s a great place to pick up ideas and learn from others. Pictures, quotes, recipe ideas, activities, crafts, do-it-yourself projects, and more are shared. Basically, Pinterest wants to connect people based on similar interests or organizations.

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The Complete Guide to Redesigning Your Church Website

By Rev. Bill Johnson | May 2, 2017 12:15:00 PM

So you’re thinking of doing a complete redesign of your church website.  The theme is dated, the info is out of date, and those 4000kb background images were never good ideas.  That’s right.  It’s time to burn the whole thing down and start over from scratch.

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Agile Failing for Church Communications

By Seth Hinz | Apr 25, 2017 9:00:00 AM


Done is better than perfect, and I needed to learn to get to “done” faster.

True confessions - rapid fire edition.

  • I love working on teams.
  • I love getting feedback on my work.
  • I hate working alone.

Here’s the problem: Most of the time, I work alone, in an office digging away at code, video editing, graphic design, you name it.

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Is the Medium Really the Message?

By Billy Schultz | Apr 20, 2017 9:45:00 AM

A half-century after its publishing, Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man continues to be a popular work in the area of media and communications. In the opening paragraph, he proposes the following:

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Setting Your Social Media Response Strategy

By Kimberly Myers | Apr 13, 2017 9:30:00 AM

 

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How to Connect with Easter Visitors

By Vanco | Apr 7, 2017 1:30:00 PM

 

Easter is a season of anticipation and celebration for people who may seldom attend church the rest of the year.

For churches, Easter also requires preparation for greeting those infrequent attendees and converting them into regular members. Starting the outreach process immediately shows that your church embraces, listens to and cares about connecting with them.

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Silos: Good for Farms, Bad for Church Workers

By Ann Ciaccio | Apr 6, 2017 9:00:00 AM

 

When you hear the word “silo” do you think of farming, work environments, or congregations?

For farmers, a silo is used as part of the process in crop storage. It is a sealed environment, keeping bad things out and good things in. 

In a work environment or congregation, it can be destructive.

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Am I Too Old to Reach College Students?

By Jenn Eickman | Apr 4, 2017 9:00:00 AM

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Social Media Roundup - Posts Churches Can Try

By Seth Hinz | Mar 28, 2017 9:02:04 AM

If you oversee scheduling social media posts for your church, you may sometimes feel like you’re staring at a blank canvas each week. Either that or the canvas has so much paint on it you don’t know what you’re looking at anymore. If this is you and you’re looking for a refresh, here are some ideas for your social media calendar. 

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How to Build a Church Website: Content and Navigation

By Meagan Thole | Mar 21, 2017 9:00:00 AM

Welcome to the wonderful world of creating your website! Feeling some pressure? Don’t. You can do this. I promise you, with a little guidance you’ll be sailing through and wondering why you ever worried in the first place.

In this series of articles you’ll learn the easiest way to make an attractive website for your church with the least amount of headache.

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An Overview of Copyrights for Churches (Part 2)

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Mar 16, 2017 9:00:00 AM

While the copyright law in the US provides several rights exclusively to the rights holders of a creative work, the law nonetheless allows use of works, even those covered by copyright, in specific ways. To protect the ability of artists to reference one another’s work, teachers to educate, and critics and commentators to reference artistic works, the copyright law provides a series of principles collectively known as Fair Use.

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Public Relations and Your Church

By Ann Ciaccio | Mar 14, 2017 9:00:00 AM

pub·lic re·la·tions 
ˈpəblik rəˈlāSHənz/
noun

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An Overview of Copyrights for Churches (Part 1)

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Mar 7, 2017 9:00:00 AM

This article is intended to familiarize you with the basics of copyright as it relates to churches.  Because copyright is a legal issue and the intricacies of your situation might make a significant difference in your rights and responsibilities, you should consult a lawyer who is familiar with your circumstance before following any legal guidance.

Copyright is a set of laws designed to help artists and others who produce creative works to be able to benefit from their work and to control its use.

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Why You Must Question the Cultural Orthodoxy

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Feb 28, 2017 10:00:00 AM

Within any culture there’s a certain orthodox set of ideas that aren’t allowed to be challenged or compromised except at great peril.  Some of those are held in common across most, if not all, cultures, such as the idea that killing without justification is wrong.  Others of them are unique to a particular culture, place and time.  In ancient Rome, for example, one of the guiding principles was that of polytheism.  It was perfectly acceptable for someone to worship whatever god they chose to follow, as long as they didn’t make any claims to be the only god.  Obviously Judaism and early Christianity ran afoul of this principle, and as a result they found themselves on the margins of Roman society pretty quickly. 

In the western world today, we also have a set of guiding principles. 

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How to Improve Your Church Announcements

By Billy Schultz | Feb 23, 2017 9:00:00 AM

If you’ve attended worship at a variety of churches, you know that church announcements are a wild card. You might get a newsletter when you enter into the sanctuary. There may be screens with looping announcements prior to the service. The pastor(s), staff, lay people, or a combination of those people might give verbal announcements at the beginning, middle, or end of the service. In many of our churches, there is a lot of information we’d like both members and visitors to know about us and what’s happening in our ministries.

Improving your church announcements is an important task to consider, as it’s a component of your overall communications strategy.

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Topics: Newsletters

4 Tips for Using Google Chrome Efficiently

By Andrew Osborne | Feb 21, 2017 10:00:00 AM

I love finding tricks and "secret" ways to do things easier. When I was growing up, my brothers and I played lots of video games together. I remember always trying to look online and find out if there were any secret codes I could type into the game and get extra coins or abilities. Sure, it may have taken away from the actual game-play a little, but it made me feel pretty cool.

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Using Slack to Better Team Communication

By Rev. Daniel Ross | Feb 9, 2017 9:00:00 AM

If no man is an island that goes double for churches. It would be downright impossible for one person to do everything. Now, the bigger a church gets the more staff and volunteers are needed to do the work of calling all to faith. And, the more staff and volunteers a church has the more imperative it is for effective organization and behind the scenes communication.

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6 Lent Social Media Campaign Ideas for Churches

By Rev. Daniel Ross | Feb 6, 2017 9:00:00 AM


In less than a month it will be Ash Wednesday. The first thing I want to say is to my fellow church workers: breathe, it is going to be ok.

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How to Measure the Goals of Your Church

By Ann Ciaccio | Feb 2, 2017 9:00:00 AM


Utilizing the proper measurements — and checking and rechecking them can benefit us in so many areas of our lives.

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Interview with a Church Communication Professional - Rebecca Thomas (Part 1)

By Seth Hinz | Jan 26, 2017 9:00:00 AM

 

Part one of a two part series on Church Communication Professionals.

In the world of church communications, it is important for us to learn from each other and share what works and what doesn't. With that in mind, I wanted to interview Rebecca Thomas, an amazing church communicator who serves as the director of communication for Trinity Lutheran Church in Clinton Township, Michigan, and give us all a chance to learn from her ministry.

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3 Dangers of Over-Communication

By Jenn Eickman | Jan 19, 2017 9:00:00 AM


Think all of the ways a person, group, or ministry can communicate information at your church. More than likely your church has a website, a bulletin, church announcements (both verbal and slides), a monthly newsletter, and possibly social media and emails.

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The Best Meeting Agenda Template I've Ever Used

By Seth Hinz | Jan 10, 2017 9:00:00 AM


Have you ever been in a meeting that veered off course and shifted to family, sports, or even movie recommendations? Most meetings appear harmless, they start with “we need to discuss X.” However, five minutes into many meetings, a team can end up looking around wondering who actually called the meeting and if it’s supposed to go 30 minutes or 60 or? 

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Why Person-First Language Matters

By Rev. Daniel Ross | Jan 9, 2017 9:00:00 AM


I read it in news articles. I hear it on newscasts. I hear it walking on the street. I have even heard it used in churches. I see and hear it everywhere, and it makes me cringe —Every. Single. Time. What is it? It is people using a characteristic (usually a disability) to define who a person is. And it is wrong.

Now, I am no Social Justice Warrior. Nor am I a guy who is on the extreme edge of being politically correct. This is not about that. So please, hear me out before you tune me out.

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Opportunities to Reach Unchurched Teens

By Ann Ciaccio | Jan 5, 2017 9:00:00 AM


Three opportunities presented themselves to me in a relatively short timeframe.

  • An international mission trip that connected with unchurch youth
  • The decline in youth group participation
  • A youth event open to our community
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Topics: Outreach

How to Use Online Surveys in Your Church

By Andrew Osborne | Jan 2, 2017 9:00:00 AM

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I wonder what my congregation thinks about (fill in the blank)” or I wish I could ask my youth group if they preferred (option one) or (option 2)”? Well now that a majority of people use smartphones, you can!

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How to Run Effective Meetings

By Katy Crawford | Dec 26, 2016 9:00:00 AM

On average, a church worker spends about 39,204,823,907,402 hours of his or her life in meetings. Okay, maybe the number isn’t quite that large, but there are times it doesn’t seem too far off. We have board meetings, council meetings, voters’ meetings, informational meetings, and training meetings, just to name a few.

Meetings can get a bad rap, but when we keep a few things in mind, they can move from a begrudged necessity to a powerful ministry tool.

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Inspiration or Imitation?

By Kimberly Myers | Dec 19, 2016 9:00:00 AM

Many people who are active in social media and blogging feel pressure to constantly develop new and exciting content. That pressure can sap creativity, making it hard to come up with original content and tempting you to closely copy something someone else has done.
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Topics: Branding Design

How to Keep Your Church Staff on the Same Page and Organized

By Ann Ciaccio | Dec 12, 2016 9:00:00 AM

Whether you are speaking of corporate staff or church workers, keeping staff organized and on the same page is critical to the success of your mission.

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3 Ways for Churches to Give Thanks on Social Media

By Andrew Osborne | Nov 24, 2016 9:00:00 AM

Happy Thanksgiving! There is so much for which we have as Christians to be thankful! Despite our best (worst) efforts, God continuously gives us undeserved grace because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. While our world seems to us to be falling deeper into sin and depravity with each year that goes by, we remain thankful that our hope is in Christ and His promise to make all things new again.

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Topics: Thanksgiving

4 Voicemail Etiquette Tips

By Ann Ciaccio | Nov 22, 2016 9:00:00 AM

Why bother, you might ask? Some experts estimate that as much as 75% of business calls end up in voicemail. Voicemail etiquette is key to securing good relationships. And, good voicemail manners create good relationships. 

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3 Benefits of Electronic Giving for Churches

By Andrew Osborne | Nov 10, 2016 9:00:00 AM

In August of 2015, Vanco Payment Solutions conducted an online survey of 1,002 U.S. Christian churchgoers. They created a report that details the survey’s findings about current attitudes toward e-Giving, the most compelling motivations for church giving and preferences for communication and technology. Some of their findings were that:

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Church Website Photos—Stock or Original?

By Hannah Hansen | Nov 7, 2016 9:00:00 AM

One of my favorite things on the Internet is horrible stock photos (seriously, just Google “weirdest stock photos.”). Why would anyone ever need a picture of someone wearing space glasses holding an ear of corn? The Internet is a strange and mysterious place.

When you’re picking pictures for your church website, you can either use royalty-free stock photos or images that are of your congregation. There are benefits to both options, so it’s important to weigh your options and choose an option that fits your church website’s needs.

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4 Ways for Church Workers to Keep Up with Technology

By Andrew Osborne | Nov 1, 2016 9:00:00 AM

As Christians we believe that God's Word is unchanging. Our God doesn't flip-flop or change His mind. When He gave us His Word, it was final and infallible. In contrast, we humans tend to change pretty much at the drop of a dime.

One week, we'll have an extreme opinion on a topic, but then the next we'll learn more and change our opinion. Some of us seem to change our careers every five years or so. Our tastes and style change every time the newest fad hits the market. One of the seemingly biggest changes to hit us most recently is the change in the way we learn.

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4 Ways to Use Photography in the Church

By Andrew Osborne | Oct 31, 2016 9:30:00 AM

The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” has been tossed around for a long time, but it is absolutely true. Pictures have a way of sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings with people that can sometimes be hard to put in words. You can even experience God in pictures by viewing the beauty of His creation. Photography is another tool that churches can use in a wide variety of ways.

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Incremental Change vs. Transformational Change (Part 2)

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Oct 27, 2016 9:00:00 AM

Part two of a two-part series on Incremental Change vs. Transformational Change by Rev. Bill Johnson.

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Topics: Church Office

Incremental Change vs. Transformational Change (Part 1)

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Oct 25, 2016 9:00:00 AM

Part one of a two-part series on Incremental Change vs. Transformational Change by Rev. Bill Johnson.

An author I once read (and have now forgotten the name of) shared a story about incremental change. Take a photo. It’s a good photo, and probably one you’ll look back at often, but it’s just a photo. Take a second photo of the same subject moments later. Now, switch back and forth between the two photos. You will see that a few things have changed, and the experience will begin to feel a bit like one of those “Spot the Difference” puzzles you find in the Sunday newspapers. It’s a change, but it’s really just a notch forward. Two pictures aren’t really all that much different than one picture. This is incremental change.

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Topics: Church Office

Avoiding Zombie Communications

By Ann Ciaccio | Oct 24, 2016 9:00:12 AM

Zombie communications reduce the ability of your information to be communicated in an effective and reliable manner. As the information travels down the pipeline, it becomes less and less effective, reducing your message to nothing more than nonsensical words. They can become an epidemic, traveling across all lines of communications. Zombie communications can destroy the collaboration between various departments within an organization. It’s that serious.

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8 Tips and Tricks for Microsoft PowerPoint

By Rev. Daniel Ross | Oct 18, 2016 9:00:00 AM

 

October is not only Pastor Appreciation Month, but it is also conference month! Well, at least for the Kansas and Michigan Districts. Which means, I just sat through a whole bunch of PowerPoint presentations. And, by-and-large they were not pretty. Not trying to criticize, just stating a fact.

Nowadays PowerPoint is easier than ever to use. But, if you grew up in olden times it was quite the tedious program. Because of that I get the sense that many people think that the things they would like to do are cumbersome and time consuming. Well, not anymore. Things are much more streamlined and fairly simple. But, before we dive in, read Katy Munson’s article: How to Use PowerPoint Effectively.

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Topics: Branding Design

Interview with a Church Communication Professional - Sheree (Part 1)

By Seth Hinz | Oct 13, 2016 9:00:00 AM

Part one of a two part series on Church Communication Professionals.

In the world of church communications, it is important for us to learn from each other and share what works and what doesn't. With that in mind, I wanted to interview Sheree Howard, an amazing church communicator who is currently serving as the Communications Director and Director of Contemporary Worship at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas, and give us all a chance to learn from her ministry.

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6 Ways to Prepare Your Church for Advent

By Katy Crawford | Oct 11, 2016 9:00:00 AM

I have to confess. For a church season that is focused on anticipation and preparation, I don’t have the best track record when it comes to anticipating or preparing for Advent (and Christmas) communication efforts in the months leading up to it. This often results in a bunch of hurrying and scurrying in a time set aside to for reflection, repentance, and preparation to celebrate Jesus’ first coming and wait expectantly for his return. 

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