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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.

Peter Frank

Peter Frank is full-time student at Concordia Seminary who also serves part-time at Concordia Publishing House as the Digital Product Owner. His responsibilities include leading Concordia Technology Solutions (CTS), the church management software division. A graduate of Concordia University Wisconsin, his background in theology, business, and technology gives him a unique perspective on technology in the church. He is married and the father of two young children.
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Recent Posts

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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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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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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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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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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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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The Value of Tracking Church Attendance (and How to Do It!)

By Peter Frank | Aug 18, 2016 9:00:00 AM

Church traditions are funny things. There are some traditions that have been a part of the Church for centuries. There are other traditions that are unique to church bodies or even individual congregations. If you have been a member of the same congregation for a long time, it can be hard to tell the types of traditions apart.

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Topics: Data

5 Steps for Evaluating New Software Before You Buy

By Peter Frank | Jun 2, 2016 9:00:00 AM

Some people love to go shopping, but it is not one of my favorite activities, so I try to make it as quick as possible. I go in to the store, I get what I need, and I leave. 

However, I am not that way when it comes to purchasing new softtware. In fact, I tend to go about it in a completely different manner. I research all available options, I search for reviews, I test it extensively, and I sleep on the decision before finally making the call to purchase.

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How to Make Excel Spreadsheets Look Amazing

By Peter Frank | Apr 19, 2016 9:00:00 AM

They say, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," but whoever said that clearly has not seen some of the spreadsheets that I have seen.

In my last blog post about helpful formulas, I mentioned that I have an unhealthy obsession with Microsoft Excel. That's only part of the story; I'm also an data visualization snob. 

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Topics: Software Data