My friend Bradley Burck just launched a website for his new book — Conquering Nonprofit Chaos.

Bradley is a fundraising and marketing consultant who works with non-profits and Christian ministries to help them craft strategic development and marketing plans. His firm, Burck Communications, also provides design, copywriting and print services as well as training for non-profit boards and staffs.

When you have a chance, check out their new website. There is a lot of content which will prove helpful to churches and ministries.

Here is what appears to be a new blog on internet evangelism (at least the first and only post is about internet evangelism), written by someone named Bob Fox. Does anyone know anything about this blog?

A couple of months ago, in this article, I mentioned that I had stopped designing and coding websites for churches and ministries in favor of consulting regarding web strategy issues and also in favor of some personal projects.

One of the websites I was thinking of when I mentioned “personal projects” was actually a team effort by some friends of mine and myself. And today, I’m happy and excited to announce the launch of MissionEquip.com, a virtual toolkit of services to assist in preparation for missions trips, both short-term and long-term. The site is divided into four main sections: Prepare, Go, Connect, and Share.

I put some time in this weekend to sprucing up this blog a bit. Things were getting a bit stale, and I've been toying with some changes for awhile, so the three-day weekend seemed like a good time to do some housekeeping. Here are some of the changes which I've made:

1. A New Logo. I've long been dissatisfied with the masthead I was using on the site (for those who don't remember, it was simply the words "Strategic Digital Outreach" and the tagline "Telling the old, old story via modern-day wineskins" sitting on top of part of a map of the world. Recently, while looking for some world maps at a stock photography site, I came across some globes that had been transformed into cube shapes. I was fairly enamored of these cubes and thought they would lend themselves to a good logo treatment, so a few days ago, I started playing around and it wasn't long before I came up with the simple logo you now see in the masthead.
2. A New Sidebar Design. The new logo sparked some ideas for a cleaner sidebar, primarily through repeating the cube motif in the various sidebar headings. I also have wanted to bring the feed icon up higher in the sidebar and give it more prominence.
3. LinkedIn. In keeping with a desire to concentrate more on consulting than actual nuts-and-bolts design work (more on that in a moment), I decided to beef up my LinkedIn profile (largely following the encouragement of Guy Kawasaki in his blog article LinkedIn Profile Extreme Makeover) and add a link to that profile in the sidebar. While I've greatly improved the content in my profile, the largest deficiency is definitely the relative lack of connections! So if you are a LinkedIn member and you would like to connect, please feel free to send me an invitation!

4. I feel a little bit like Bob Dole. On May 15, 1996, at the outset of his presidential campaign, Bob Dole announced his retirement from the U.S. Senate with these words, "So today I announce that I will forego the privileges not only of the office of the majority leader but of the United States Senate itself, from which I resign effective on or before June 11th. And I will then stand before you without office or authority, a private citizen, a Kansan, an American, just a man."

   I still remember listening to that stunning announcement and thinking what a huge risk he was taking in giving up the power and trappings of his position for an uncertain fate at the hands of the American voters. I feel a little bit like him.

   I've said on more than one occasion (both publicly on this blog and in private conversations with friends) that I feel my strengths lie more in the area of web strategy than in actual design and coding of websites. And yet I have continued to some extent to do just that — design and code websites for churches and ministries. Several weeks ago, however, I decided to take a risk and stop coding and designing so that I could give myself entirely to consulting with churches and ministries regarding online strategy (internet marketing, usability, writing, etc.) as well as to some personal publishing projects of my own.

   The risk in that is that the coding and design of websites was helping pay my family's bills. Now, "I stand before you" as a simple strategist and not a designer/coder. And I'm not sure that online strategy consulting (especially to churches and ministries) will be able to help pay the bills.

   Several weeks ago, some readers may have noticed that I added a section to the sidebar of this blog entitled "We Recommend." In that section, I have listed (currently) six web development firms who I recommend that churches and ministries consider contracting with to develop new or improve existing websites. All of these firms are owned by Christians and all are excellent designers and coders. If you need web development, I would strongly encourage you to contact one or more of these companies.

5. New Projects. For as long as I can remember, the "Projects" section of the sidebar on this site has included only one website — ChristianCruz.com, a local portal for believers living in Santa Cruz County. With this "mini-relaunch" of the Strategic Digital Outreach website, I have added two additional websites — ProdigalGod.com (definitely a work in progress) and ChristianScreenSavers.com.
6. Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict and Valid CSS. When I first began this blog, I set up the content management system and page layouts very quickly. I always meant to work on the code so that it would validate, but I never seemed to get around to it. But this weekend, I decided that I would bring the site up to standards compliance (especially since I talk about the importance of standards compliance on this site from time to time), and I'm happy to report that I've been able to do so.

Cynthia Ware left a comment for my recent post about Marqui, and as I normally do when someone new (to me) comments, I went to visit her blog — The Digital Sanctuary. It looks like a great resource to add to the growing list of bloggers who discuss how the church can effectively use technology to reach the world.

From her introductory post in July:

Welcome to the online intersection of technology and the Church.  This site is designed to embrace, explore, evaluate and enhance the vehicle of technology as it is used by the Church to deliver information, connect individuals and revolutionize the way we interact with our world.

I’d encourage you to visit her blog and spend some time reading her articles. Her educational and vocational background would seem to give her a unique perspective on technology issues facing the church and how the church can embrace technology for good.

Mark Bradford has started an online discussion forum to provide a place to converse about evangelism:

EvangelismForum.com

Why not stop by, register, and introduce yourself?

Thanks to Andrew Careaga for the heads-up!

Church Beauty is a website I ran across yesterday which highlights well-designed church websites. From the site’s introduction:

My goal with this website is showcase and promote excellent church website design. After doing quite a bit of research I can honestly say that there is not an abundance of high quality, top notch church websites. However, with your help I want to promote the ones that do exist in hopes of inspiring more churches to reach farther and go the extra mile.

The first post is dated March 20, 2006, so the site has not been around too long, but they seem to have a good collection of attractive church websites highlighted. They are actively looking for recommendations for sites to highlight, so if you know of some great church websites, why not stop by and submit your recommendations?

Almost exactly a year ago today, I was sitting in a local coffeehouse with my friend Dave Whiting, the Director of Evangelism at Santa Cruz Bible Church. We were waiting for one of the pastors from Santa Cruz Bible, Chuckk Gerwig, the Family and Youth Pastor at Santa Cruz Bible. Dave had told me that Chuckk (and yes, it’s spelled with two k’s!) wanted to pick my brain about web stuff.

I had never met Chuckk (my loss up until then) and didn’t know what to expect. When he walked into the coffeehouse and sat down, I quickly surmised that we weren’t going to be talking about a traditional Christian website!

Today marks the beginning of a new blog in the Christian web strategy blogosphere - Christian Web Trends from OurChurch.com. From the first entry on the blog:

I genuinely believe God has blessed the staff at OCC with a unique perspective in the area of Christian communication that ought to be shared.  I think the breadth of services and experience we have will translate into a broad array of topics.  I’m hoping that the one-on-one contact we have with thousands of Christian webmasters who are also pastors, teachers, entrepreneurs, missionaries, and musicians will give our writing a personal feel. I think our staff’s own service as elders, Christian school board members, worship leaders, small group leaders, and Sunday school teachers will translate into practical advice you can use.

Why not stop on by and let the folks at OurChurch.com know that you’re reading their blog?

Here’s a new blog I found this morning: ItsGottaChange. Here is part of the author’s statement of purpose:

My goal is to engage people. I have a platform as a pastor - and am able to interact with people from various backgrounds in our community, at the gym, through friends - but if God provides an opportunity to engage more people - I want to do that.

I love that - using a blog to engage people. It’s all about relationship!

The actual post that originally caught my eye is entitled New Blog For Seekers? in which the author asks if it might be appropriate for him to start a new blog, specifically targeted at seekers.

Anyone who might be interested in having a Blog available that is solely dedicated to addressing issues that seekers have with Christ, the Gospel or the church, please let me know. It has been a blast working on this Blog-which originally was intended to challenge believers, but some of my emails indicate an interest in a separate Blog solely for those who are seeking but not sure...people who really aren’t prepared to walk into a church yet but do have questions and would like to ask questions or see issues addressed. I see that as an incredible ministry opportunity.

Why not head over to the site and encourage the author?

I am pleased to announce the relaunch of the website of The Northern California and Nevada District of the Assemblies of God.

The district’s resource center, located in Sacramento, California, serves approximately 125,000 people, roughly 440 congregations in over 360 cities throughout Northern California and Nevada, and about 1,500 ministers. The resource center supports local churches and ministries through providing materials, lending advice, organizing seminars, etc. As such, communication with various constituencies is vital. Similar to many Christian organizations, the district is not wealthy and is therefore always looking for ways to improve the efficiency of their communication while lowering costs.

This relaunched website (actually the third iteration of the site which was initially launched in the summer of 2000) takes advantage of the Expression Engine platform to accomplish just that — improved communication for less expense.

We’ve just added a new entry to our directory of Localized Christian Portals: RogueValleyChristian.org.

Based in Medford, Oregon, RogueValleyChristian describes its purpose as follows:

RogueValleyChristian.org exists to encourage believers to use the Internet to support and encourage each other. It is our hope that RogueValleyChristian.org will enable Christians to share the many resources, which God has used in their own lives with others.