Church website beauty

Church Beauty is the Church web site equivalent of CSS Beauty.

Most of the designs are very heavy on graphics and have a "slick" look. Many of the included webs seem to have a home page that's less functional that I'd like to see for visitors and members alike. A few have some uniquer approaches to presenting information that are worth considering. But remember that Church Beauty is about the look, not the content.

Personally, slick looks make me nervous and I cringe at the jarring, over-saturated colors of some church webs -- they have an "circus" atmosphere. I prefer a "good" look with outstanding content over a flashy look with mediocre content.

The Web-Empowered Church

I pulled some key points from the online video by Mark Stephenson about the Web Empowered Church (WEC) ...

The big 3 pluses of WEC

• Automate ministry processes.
• Store information for easy, immediate access.
• Connect with people anytime from anywhere in the world.

WEC Goals: expand, increase, extend

• Expand evangelism, discipleship, and care.
• Increase ministry efficiency and effectiveness.
• Extend ministry beyond the church walls.

Other points, tips, and ideas

• Web be more cost-effective communication than nearly any other media type. You can fund a web site for a year for the cost of a few mailings from the church.
• You can start with volunteers. The first 1,000 pages at the Ginghamsburg site were done by unpaid servants. The site is now at 4,000 pages, including several years' of text and video of sermons.
• You can minister to people worldwide 24 hours a day.
• You can get the word out immediately.
• Easy 24 x7 member participation (emails; online discussions -- IM, chat, discussion boards, "communities", blogs; ).
• The Web-empowered Church (with a capital C) is NOT a replacement for a physical church. The Internet cannot hug, love, or think.
• Connect people in need with those who can address the need, including requests for help in the community.
• Community Prayer Exchange (Prayer Line = one-to-one). In a community Prayer Exchange, you'll need to address the need of some people to submit a prayer request anonymously.
• "Post a thought or Prayer" -- adds to online display. This is most posted-to page on the Ginghamsburg site.
• Servant connector. List opportunities, then let people check blocks and submit -- match talents to needs.

Branding - advertise your web site

Some people get annoyed when asked to adopt "standards" for church print and electronic publications.  But churches need to use such "branding" to establish a standard church "identity".

Here are some places you really need to make sure your web address is on all communications, including:

• Business cards
• Church bulletins
• Worship inserts
• Emails (add in the "signature" area)
• Church publications (brochures, newsletters, flyers, ...)
• Letterheads
• Promotional materials
• Advertising
• Signs

Also remember that if you do not need a "www." at the start of your web address, leave it off! Keep it as simple as possible.  A shorter address is easier to recall.

Twittering the Psalms

The Worship area of the General Board of Discipleship has plugged the "Summer Psalms" Twitter project by Providence United Methodist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina.

Providence UMC's senior pastor is using Twitter to get followers thinking about the Psalms. A Psalm number (and usually a verse number) is followed by a brief quote or summary.

This is an excellent, innovative use of Twitter. It's not the usual blather about "what I'm doing". It's spiritual. It's short (by necessity). And it's thought-provoking.

Hallelujah!

Blogs were originally journals by individuals. Now they have broadened into everything from photo collections with comments to news to varied types of main web sites.

Twitter too will be going through these birth pains and significant expansion of the original "what I'm going right now" idea. Organizations are discovering new ways to use it to accomplish some of their varied goals. The original premise was pretty ego-centric. New uses such as Summer Psalms is just the tip of the iceberg in better use of this web-based service.

ScribeFire blog editor for FireFox users

ScribeFire is a great blogging tool for FireFox users. Some of the ScribeFire features I like the best:

• Categorize and tag your blog posts
• Post an entry as a draft
• Save works-in-progress as notes
• Use FTP to upload files
• Upload images
• Set timestamps

Chart your local area

A mapping site called maps.huge.info can yield some useful data for your church. You can easily find the Postal ZIP codes within a specified radius of your church address, for example.

The radius search is a Google Maps mashup that uses a polygon to approximate a circle and displays ZIP Code area results graphically on the interactive map. You can drag the green radius indicator to change it or you can use the text box to change it.

The results also display brief demographics about the area selected. One example -- a couple of demographics for the ZIP codes found within a 3-mile radius of Avondale Pattillo UMC:

• Year 2008 Households: 69,019 (est.)
• Year 2000 Households: 62,142

The following postal areas were found within that 3-mile radius:

• Avondale Estates
• Clarkston
• Decatur
• Scottdale
• Stone Mountain

"So what?", you say.

Let's be clear ... the more you know about the area around your church and the people who live there, the better you can serve your local community. Use the ZIP Code maps to consider where to "aim" mailouts or decide in which communities to seek to enter event (calendar type) information? Locate emailed newsletters or online calendars that serve the areas within your selected radius. Then contact the publication editor and find out how to get in their pub or on their calendar. This Google mashup can help you better target your external communications.

Trying to decide on a door-to-door evangelism-related effort? Use these maps to spark discussion on which local areas to go into.

Online ZIP Code mapping programs can also visually identify which parts of other ZIP Code areas are near you. Remember, different areas within a ZIP Code may have different demographics than the ZIP Code area as a whole.

Speaking of demographics, combine online demographic data for ZIP codes near your church with knowing what parts of which ZIP Codes are in the radius you wish to primarily serve.

• Selected ZIP Codes by radius (at maps.huge.info)
• Demographic U.S. Census information by ZIP Code (example is Zip Code 30002)
• U.S Census map: Percentage of Black or African-American (for Zip Code 30002)

The state and future of Tweets

The Xconomy blog has an informative posting, Tweets from the Edge: The Ups and Downs of Twitter. It talks about current Twitter use and even a potential change to open source.

Some have described tweets as inane. Some see twitter users as people who are very egotistical. Some view most twitter users as addicts. Yet many are using the service. Is there a good use for Twitter by churches without the church becoming an egotistical addict? I say yes, but not necessarily as many use it now.

What I mostly see in Twitter is a series of daily mundane, inane comments that are kind of ridiculous to "follow". Nobody really cares when you'll be home, what baseball game you are watching, or why the Mets stink, let alone, be subjected to unfathomable tweets such as, "Dude!" as an answer to someone specific.

Wouldn't it be great if churches actually avoided bombarding people with mundane tweets and instead gave them less frequents ones that had some genuine religious content? Church webs, blogs, and Twitter accounts are not personal ones -- they need to reflect the spiritual life of that church. They need to have a deliberate spiritual slant. Christians are called to live "in" the world yet not to be "of" the world. Our online presence should reflect that.

None of this is to say that churches should not set up non-religious webs sites, blogs, or Twitter accounts with the aim to address a specific topic (baseball, computers, whatever). Those type sites need to be designed specifically for non-church people, with minimal reference to the church or a religion. Keep that type site separate from your "normal" church ones.

Churches could very productively use a church Twitter account to:

• Remind members about important functions or meetings.
• Advertise upcoming events.
• Give a spiritual message (limited to 140 characters, of course).
• Pass out urgent news (for example, news of a church closure due to impending bad weather).

Pastors and youth leaders could use Twitter to:

• Reflect on an event that day (with spiritual overtones, not just mundane thoughts).
• Pitch an upcoming church event.
• Thank specific people for helping others (but avoid full names to protect privacy).
• Give a short spiritual message.

This runs counter to current Twitter use, but to gain respectability, avoid irritating people, and give more meaning to church and church-related tweets:

• Limit tweets to significant ones. No bursts of "I'm headed to the store" or "Hot Dawgs! Go Georgia!!"
• Limit tweeting frequency. Start with a maximum of one per day unless urgent news needs to get out. If you are tweeting more than once per day, you are probably losing potential "followers".
• Do a reality check. Ask yourself, "What religious or spiritual meaning does my Tweet have?" If the answer is, "None", seriously consider keeping silent. Tweeting too much on unimportant, non-religious topics by church leaders and organizations can viewed as "for the birds".

Don't catch a "Social" disease

Social networking sites are quite popular these days. But the very nature of these sites makes them ripe for criminal activity. In order to protect both your own personal information and that of your family and friends, you'd need much tighter security and less information sharing than social networking demands.

Below are a few quotes that should make you shudder and "go very slow" if approached about your church setting up a page on a social networking service. Can you justify deliberately adding risk for your church's children and members as well as its visitors?

• "With more than 150 million members worldwide and a huge amount of data on every user, [FaceBook] is a dream come true for spammers and identity thieves." (WindowsSecrets newsletter)
• "[Facebook] site has been hit by five separate security problems in the last seven days, say security experts. ... Security firms warn that the popularity of social networking sites makes them a tempting target for hi-tech thieves." (BBC news)
• "Get used to this [Koobface worm attack]. I think we'll see a steady stream of these kinds of stories with malware propagating via social networking contacts throughout the next few years. And, given the increasingly flexible APIs the social network sites are implementing, bad guys will be able to mine this information for attacks far more effectively." (SANS Security Newsletter)
• "In an analysis of cyber crime activity in the 2nd half of 2007, security vendor Symantec Corp. found that two social networking sites [FaceBook and MySpace] together were the target of 91 percent of U.S.-based phishing Web sites." [And it will likely only get worse] (The Washington Post)

If you insist on taking personal risks with your own computer and identity and that of your family, at least consider the impact on your friends if they get infected, attacked, or scammed after visiting your web site or using the social network more extensively after visiting your site.

Churches place great emphasis on providing a "Safe Sanctuary" for children. But they leap onto FaceBook without any concern for their congregation or the visitors they hope will visit there. Taking some teens on a picnic lunch in a park is a great idea. But if that park is a known hangout for drug pushers, muggers, and rapists, we would never take them there.

Yet most churches ignore the very real (and increasing) criminal activity related to social networking sites because the sites are neat, modern, and popular. Churches need to do better at protecting our children, members, and web site visitors. Fun and fad should never trump the safety of our flock.

Maybe it's time for a "Safe Web" policy for churches. Does your church have such a policy? Does it enforce it?

The US-CERT governmental organization has issued some tips for people who just have to risk everything and have a social networking page/site. (See the US-CERT tips) These tips appear aimed at getting teenagers to be less naive about Internet use in general, but there are lots more steps that people should take. Why don't many take these steps? Because if they followed them, it would take some of the "fun" out of their (risky) surfing. Here are a few:

• Never use your real name in your email address. Give away as little information about yourself as possible.
• Use disposable email addresses when singing up at online stores or services (including social networking sites). If an address starts getting tons of Spam, you may be able to determine where it came from. You may even be able to alert a "friend" that their computer may be infected and that any email addresses on it may have been "harvested".
• Whenever possible, do not give out your real name or other information that identifies you personally.
• Do not identify other people by name, especially a full name, while online.
• Always provide the minimum required information when signing up for a service or buying a product. Don't fill in every field on a form just because it's there.
• Never "assume" that Jane Doe is really Jane Doe, even if "she" has a cute photo icon that is really her and she's using "her" email address. Anyone can copy images that appear on the web. And criminals steal email addresses all the time.
• If you want to share photos, use a photo service such as Google Photos or Flickr. Don't use a social networking site for photos. That's just one more thing the criminals can steal.
• Avoid associating personal information with online photos.
• If you really must create a social networking page, tighten the security by customizing the configuration. The social networking site usually has info on how to do that. But the default for nearly all social networking sites is very "open" and not very secure.
• Be paranoid. Be very, very paranoid. It's a good and righteous thing to be paranoid when the "bad guys" really are "out to get you"!

Is Twitter for churches?

Even Ellen Degeneres now tweets away on Twitter. Can anyone resist the urge to deluge the world with trivia about their mundane life? Who doesn't want to accumulate "followers".

Even that term makes me cringe. Should churches really want people who are "followers" of anyone other than Jesus? Are "followers" just the Greek chorus to the dreary drama of a dismal narcissist?

Jay Leno recently asked if those who use Twitter should be called "Twits". Are tweets for the birds? Is there a valid, spiritual use of Twitter? I think there is, but don't know that anyone is using it (more on this on a future post). Nearly all Twitter use I see is self-aggrandizing egotism. As a church member recently told me, "It's pretty arrogant to think that people really care about what you are doing or thinking all day" -- in 140 character or less bursts of "information".

Ministry Marketing

"Ministry Marketing". Yuk. I hate the taste of "Marketing" in my mouth when applied to church. Yet the "Ministry Marketing Coach" blog has tons of excellent ideas and tips. Here are just a few:

• Avoiding five direct mail mistakes
• Tips for more appealing & effective communications
• Things to do before advertising
• Is your outreach purpose-driven?
• Watch your language!
• Tips for your First Impressions (Greeter) Ministry
• Population trends that will impact your ministry

Picasa 3

Picasa 3 is fresh out of beta. Google says that key goals were a faster and more stable photo organizer/editor/sharing software.

If you use Picasa, update now. If you have not tried it, check out the new and improved features of Picasa 3. It's free software from Google.

• Picasa downbload
• Picasa 3 feature review
• Google Photos Blog
• Known issues and recent fixes for Picasa

Photography money saving tips

An example of a Google Knol is "Money-saving tips for photography enthusiasts". Google defines a Knol as "an authoritative article about a specific topic."

• Knol search results for "photography"
• Knol search results for "digital camera"

Even babies like chunking

Johns Hopkins researchers have found that babies learn better with chunking -- grouped data. While that's news, it's not really so new. After all, web content experts have been advocating chunking of text for quite a while.

Breaking up text into bite-sized chunks in different ways makes it easier to quickly scan for information. No matter how good your content, you can improve it by separating the text into logical chunks -- chunking.

Some good ways to chunk and organize your text include:

• Use heads and subheads
• Use short, simple sentences
  See Write Simple or WebAim's "Writing Clearly and Simply"
  
• Put key information first (inverted pyramid style)
  
• Use short paragraphs (white space between chunked text)
  
• Use lists (unordered or ordered) when possible
  
• Use tables for tabular data
  

ScribeFire blog editor for FireFox users

ScribeFire is a blogging tool for FireFox users. Some of the ScribeFire features I like the best:

• Categorize and tag your blog posts
• Post an entry as a draft
• Save works-in-progress as notes
• Use FTP to upload files
• Upload images
• Set timestamps

I used ScribeFire to upload this as a draft post to the blog. Then I checked the code with the Blogger editor. Here's a couple things I learned:

• ScribeFire surrounds all the text you add in ScribeFire with a DIV element and a link to the W3C Validator. OK, but a bit much and not something I needed to add. So I deleted the DIV and associated link.
• ScribeFire uses no paragraph elements. Though that's the Blogger default too, I much prefer to use code for paragraphs and to use CSS as desired for the P element.
• ScribeFire left extra spaces around a lot of text and did not pull lines together. This can cause problems in Blogger and needed code cleanup.

In short, the tool is quite handy, but you may want to do some code cleanup before posting to your blog. I'll use this due to its ease of use but will publish only as a draft. I'll do code cleanup in Blogger. That's annoying for such a potentially great tool.

Finding a robust, easy CMS

Our church has been seeking a Content Management System (CMS) and new Web Hosting for over a year. The frustration is palpable.

In the process, though, we have come across a couple of very useful sites that let you compare CMS software features and even give them an online trial.

• CMS Matrix
• Open Source CMS

We have also had time to look closely at our list of required and desired Web Hosting features. While that list seemed great at the time, after looking at a feature comparison at CMS Matrix, we revised the list to add specifics about the CMS. The list below shows our current features list for both Web Hosting and a CMS.

Web Hosting

• Offers a Content Management System (CMS) and templates suitable for our church's use.
• The web hosting company must be an established one.
• 24 x 7 support. Email is OK, though phone is better.
• Hosting firm has good ratings (when I can find them).
• A very high percentage web server uptime.
• Web server operating system: Windows 2003 server, Linux, Unix, or Apache (needed for a lot of open source CMS solutions).
• The hosting package includes room for our web to grow (pages/disk space)
• Offers at least 30 email addresses, auto-forwarding, POP access, and Spam filtering.
• Hosting solution is $300 or less per year. (E-Zekiel is way out of our price range for the size web we have.)
• Domain name registration/renewal is inexpensive (these should be very low cost these days).

CMS

• The CMS should let nearly everyone (with minimal orientation) add, edit, or delete text, add or delete images, create or delete pages, and upload files. Templates must be pure CSS -- no use of tables for layout.
• Ability to directly edit the code as well as use a pure GUI.
• Must allow addition of alternate text and/or titles to image code (for accessibility).
• Ability to upload files via FTP or via Web.
• Absolutely no ads or forced frames with hosting company info showing.
• CMS templates must allow inserting of multiple-level menus -- horizontal or vertical or both. Pure CSS menus code is heavily preferred by Java is acceptable.
• The system requires email verification to activate a new account.
• Granular privileges by page or content item.
• Administrator can see who's logged in and disconnect the user if required.
• SSL logins and pages are possible.
• Versioning
• Good online help and developers forums.
• Drag-n-Drop of content
• The system lets you force friendly URLs, not database code characters for "page" URLs.
• Integrated Spell checking of content during editing.
• Users can subscribe to varied "pages" and receive email notification of changes.
• The Administrator can force a less advanced user interface for basic content editors.
• The system allows Undo of content changes.
• A WYSIWYG editor.
• You can schedule posting of content changes.
• The CMS allows sub-sites.
• The CMS provides Web-accessible statistics.
• Support for RSS.
• Support for iCal.
• Event management using the calendar.
• WAI compliant.
• XHTML compliant.
• Allows use of Metadata for content objects.
• Provides blogging capability.
• Provides Chat capability.
• An app to organize FAQs.
• Link management.
• Forms for email.
• Users can subscribe and unsubscribe themselves from email lists.
• Photo gallery.
• Polls.
• Surveys.
• Quizzes.
• Site search.
• Site Map.

Open Office 3.0 features

OpenOffice version 3.0 is about due for release and the OpenOffice.org Ninja blog has a decent article on some new OOo 3.0 version features.

Just try to ignore some of the fanboy rants (both pro- and anti- Microsoft Office) in the tons of comments. My take: OpenOffice is definitely improving but I'd like to see more and enhanced features along with an improved look and feel (user interface). That would make it an easier sell to more managers in the business community.

Also remember that Sun's StarOffice is free software you can grab as part of Google Pack. Installed that for my mother-in-law and she's never asked for any help with it -- a great sign of ease-of-use for the basic user.

Tech trends among Christians

A recent Barna Research group study, "Social Networking, Online Entertainment and Church Podcasts" has some interesting results. Christians use technology in the following most common ways (in decreasing order of use)

• Searching online (Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, etc.)
• Instant Messaging (including texting on a cell phone)
• Listening to a sermon or church teaching via a podcast. This was more common among Evangelicals and others who consider themselves "born again".
• Viewing a video of some sort online.

The challenge for churches is to better relate its message to the current generation. When Paul said, I am all things to all men" he meant that he couched the message of Christ in terms and in a way that the particular audience could best grasp it.

For churches today, that means seeking ways to better communicate using the web tools available to us. That also means keeping up with newer methods as they become available. At the same time, we must remember to help safeguard the privacy of our members and web site visitors. Until Facebook and similar social networking sites become more secure and users a bit more savvy about not divulging personal data, I'll stay away from using it as an integral part of the church's online presence.

You may want to read the full Barna report.

New media in ministries

What is "new media" and how can we use it in our church ministries? Aaron Linne has a few videos online about this topic. The introductory one, "New Media for Ministries: What is It?", is below. Here are links to the other videos on Vimeo (so far):

• Interactive Metafiction
• Creative Commons
• Concepting a web page

New Media for Ministries: 101 What is It? from Aaron Linne on Vimeo.

Technology 101 workshop slides

The Digital @ Leadership Network blog put slides to its Technology 101 workshop online. Be patient after clicking on the link -- the slideshow takes a while to appear.

Web 2.0 can be dangerous

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen says Web 2.0 can be bad. "Before throwing spending money at "2.0" features, make sure that you have all the "1.0" requirements working to perfection." He says that most web sites don't yet use terms in headlines and page titles that their visitors would use.

What's the message to church web developers? Before you leap into trying to adopt fancy new techniques, make sure you have done your best using the older methods. Few churches have a lot of time and funds to devote to web work, so make the most of what you have. For example, do you meet all the below criteria on every web page of your current site?

• Each page's code includes keywords appropriate only for that page, a descriptive page title, and a short description.
• Common, non-churchy language and terms.
• Easy navigation that any visitor can understand.
• An uncluttered design .
  Don't distract from the text message.
• No splash or introductory type page.
  Such pages force the visitor to click once again just to get to the real home page.
• A minimum of animated graphics.
  Animated graphics pull the eye away from the main content area, which should be the meat of the page.
• A good contrast of text and background.
  A background image may look great, but also make text hard to read when placed on top of it.
• Text is easy to read at any common screen resolutions.
  A fixed 10pt font on a 1024x768 screen resolution is "squint print".
• Visitors can easily resize text.
  At over 1024x768 pixel resolution, visitors may need to enlarge small text to make it easy to read.