Discover how to leverage technology in your church

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.

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?

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!