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.

I have not been posting a lot over the past couple of months. One resource which I should have mentioned earlier is the new Church Site Design Checklist from the Internet Evangelism Day website.

Your church website has enormous potential as part of your outreach strategy to reach into your community. However, not all churches understand how to design a site that will do this effectively. This self-assessment questionnaire can help you assess your site, and find new ideas or areas that could perhaps be modified.

When I first learned about the checklist, I worked through the questions with a particular church website in mind — a website I had developed a couple of years ago which was not as outreach-oriented as I would have liked to see it. I was pleased to see that the checklist seemed to rate the website just about where I would put it on a scale between being not outreach-oriented at all and being very outreach-oriented. Obviously, my opinion is not the final word on whether or not a church website is effective in terms of outreach to unbelievers, but it was good to see that the checklist seems like it will be helpful to churches.

This article on mobile phone use in developing countries came out a few days ago. Among its assertions:

• 22 percent of Vietnamese own a mobile phone.
• In the Philippines, more than 4 million people use their cell phones to conduct online transactions.
• Afghanistan has 20,000 fixed-line phones and 2 million cell-phone subscribers!
• According to the UN International Telecommunication Union, cell phone subscriptions in the developing world rose to 1.4 billion at the end of 2005 (compared to 800,000 in countries with “advanced” economies).

Today, mobile phones are the primary form of telecommunication in most emerging economies, fulfilling much the same role as fixed-line phone networks did in facilitating growth in the United States and Europe after World War II.

This represents a vast opportunity for using digital means to spread the gospel in the developing world. The challenge, as with any digital means of outreach, is finding ways to use mobile technology as a way of intriguing the unbeliever enough to want to be immersed in Christian community, where a full presentation of the gospel can be made.

More Information:
Web Evangelism Guide: Mobile Phones and the Internet — Using cellphones for online evangelism
White African: Mobile Phones as Platform in Africa
White African: A Web Technology Idea For Africa

LinkedCampus helps campus-focused businesses connect with their most valuable customers by harnessing the power of text messaging. We offer a web-based marketing tool that allows organizations to reach college students like never before. Gone are the days of ineffective email and flyers posted on bulletin boards; LinkedCampus allows local businesses the ability to impact college communities instantly and effectively.
http://www.linkedcampus.com/

Hmmmm .... I wonder if there is an application for churches in college towns. If user permissions are respected, I would think this could be a good avenue for churches to get the word out about the life of their community.

I received my copy of The Blogging Church a couple of days ago.

I’ve been following the progress of the book for months now ever since it was announced on author Brian Bailey’s blog, Leave It Behind. And so it was exciting to finally receive an email from Amazon telling me the book was on its way to my home! But alas, I’m in the midst of a big project and didn’t have time until this evening to give it more than a cursory look.

After it had sat on my desk for a couple of days, I finally picked it up this evening to read a bit and was immediately intrigued by a couple of statements from the Foreword, written by Ed Young, Senior Pastor of Fellowship Church:

I have a daughter in college, and she uses technology in a whole new way. There’s a generation coming that spends a huge part of their lives online. A creative church, a spiritually mature church, is one that is comfortable with uncomfortableness. You wouldn’t be reading this book if you weren’t willing to do a lot of different things, to get outside of the box, in order to reach those who don’t know Jesus Christ. The church has to be willing to change, go into new places, and be uncomfortable, or we will no longer matter to the people who matter so much to God.

and ....

Is blogging about you, or is it about others? When a blog is all about us, we turn inward and get dragged into endless debate that doesn’t amount to anything. We stare at our navels and sing Kumbaya while the rest of the world goes to Hell. When a blog is about others, we swallow our egos and put all of our energy into getting people connected to Christ and His bride, the local church.

There’s so much there that resonates with my thinking. Much of the church today, I think, is uncomfortable with the online world because of a lack of experience, because of the lack of control, because of the unknown. But if we are committed to seeing today’s world reached for Christ, we have to go to where the people of today’s world are, in fact, comfortable, even if it’s uncomfortable for us.

And we need to be making our online efforts about them rather than about us. One small part of Ed Young’s comments which, I think, have great significance is that he sees blogs as a way of connecting people not only to Christ, but to the local church. This resonates with me as well because of my conviction that online ministry should not be primarily about seeking conversions, but rather seeking to introduce people to the local church where they can view the love of God in action (cf. John 17:21-23) which will ultimately lead to conversion in many cases.

Am I willing to go where I am uncomfortable (or get behind those who do if they are better prepared to go where I am uncomfortable)? Are my online efforts for my own satisfaction or to reach those who do not yet know Christ?

Blake Atwood recently wrote an interesting article for BetaChurch.org about a new website he launched a few days ago. It’s a city portal designed to allow the church to, in Blake’s words, “enter into the conversation of the city around it.”

I’d encourage you to not only read the entire article but to also visit IFoundGeorgetown to get a flavor of Blake’s new project.

As some of you may know, I maintain a local Christian portal website called ChristianCruz which is designed to be an online resource for believers living in Santa Cruz County, California.

When I began the site in 2000, my intention was actually to use it as a vehicle to build a local web design service for churches, ministries, and Christian business folks (I had read somewhere that starting a community portal was an effective way to build a web design service). Before long, however, the Lord changed the direction of the site through a series of what I believe were divinely-appointed connections. Within the space of a week, I came into contact with several people involved in community-wide, cross-church and cross-denominational efforts to reach our county for Christ. Through these connections, I came to believe that there was a greater purpose for ChristianCruz (to play at least a small part in encouraging Christian community across denominational and individual church lines, community which would become the foundation for local outreach efforts).

Because of the way the site was started (sort of haphazardly, without a focused vision), I have never formalized any "reason for being" for the site, although I have certainly thought about it a great deal. Over the past couple of years, I have thought a lot about the need to write a white paper to document what I believe are important reasons for this effort, not only for ChristianCruz.com, but also to support a vision I have had to help other local areas begin similar sites.

I have finally been able to come up with a basic, yet rough, outline of what the white paper would say. I'd like to include that outline here and solicit feedback from the readers of this blog (positive feedback, negative feedback, accusations of mental problems, spelling corrections, suggestions for further resources to study, etc., etc. — all types of feedback will be welcome).

With that as an introduction, here is the very rough outline:

1. An authentic demonstration of Christian community is the foundation of all effective outreach.
2. In John 17:21-23, Jesus said that if His disciples were one and perfected in unity, then the world would know that the Father loves them and that the Father sent Jesus (I believe that also includes an understanding of WHY Jesus was sent to earth).
3. The converse is true – if Jesus’ disciples are not one and not perfected in unity (I would add “in a local area”), OR if it is not evident to the community in a local area that Jesus’ disciples are one and perfected in unity, then the world will not know that the Father loves them and that the Father sent Jesus (along with the reason for His being sent).
4. If a person does not know that the Father loves him/her and that the Father sent Jesus (along with the reason for His being sent), they will not be converted to Christ.
5. MAIN POINT: If unbelievers in a local area do not SEE (whether it exists or not) a vivid, ongoing demonstration of authentic Christian community (across denominational and individual church lines), that local area will not be reached for Christ.
   • Robert Banks illustrations regarding going down to the harbor and the first century house being open to the street – the life of the church lived out in full view of the unbelieving community (this is a note to myself that will remind myself of supporting material)
6. With the current state of the church — being expressed in multiple individual churches and denominations (as vs. the city wide church of the first century), it is vitally important that the authentic demonstration of Christian community across denominational and individual church lines be PUBLICIZED to the unbelieving community.
   • Another note to self – check Francis Shaeffer, book on Christian media, and book on City Reaching for supporting material
7. The role of Christian media in publicizing authentic Christian community across denominational and individual church lines is important – without such publicity, any demonstration of authentic Christian community within a single congregation risks being superceded in the unbelievers’ minds by the apparent division between individual churches and denominations which may appear to exist on a broader scale (but still in the local area).
   • a city set on a hill cannot be hidden
   • let your light so shine before men (so shine = in such a way)
8. Local Christian media is uniquely positioned to publicize ongoing demonstrations of authentic Christian community across denominational and individual church lines
   • It can report on multi-church projects
   • it can publish the collective voice of the evangelical church in a local area
9. Online media (website) is the most cost-effective approach for local Christians to demonstrate their authentic community
   • citizen journalism
   • blogging technology cuts costs

A few friends of mine and I are working on a missions-related website. We’d like to find several panoramic (i.e., stitched together) photos that would be missions-related (show the faces of people of the world or be of fairly recognizable city scenes). Size requirements - we would have to be able to comfortably resize them to 1600 pixels wide by 185 pixels high. “Comfortably” means they would have to start out at least this size or larger and when resized, they would still have to present a reasonable view. For example, I can find appropriate images that are larger than 1600 pixels wide, but because they aren’t panoramic, when I resize them to 1600 pixels wide by 185 pixels high, we end up with a person’s nose on one end of the image and basically nothing recognizable for the rest of the image to the right.

Anyone know of a good, inexpensive source of such images? I’ve tried istockphoto and bigstockphoto (two of my favorite sources for inexpensive stock photography), but haven’t had much luck yet.

Any help readers of this site could lend would be greatly appreciated!

I just noticed that it’s been a month since I last posted to the blog. It seems like it’s only been a few days. That’s probably because I’ve been very busy with a couple of other major projects and also because I’ve been spending a lot of time in the back end system of the blog battling trackback spam. I think I have that sorted out, at least for the moment!

In the meantime, I found this article on Gadgetopia to be very relevant for churches. The article talks about what a content management system won’t do.

The trend we’ve seen over the past couple of years in which churches have moved to sophisticated content management systems to manage their websites is a very good and important trend as it addresses one of the major flaws in most church websites - the ability to easily add up-to-date content while minimizing bottlenecks in the flow of information.

However the article at Gadgetopia correctly cautions us that the use of a content management system does not mean that our content will be written, formatted, edited, organized, or approved for us. Churches still need talented copywriters to create effective websites.

For churches that do some form of pay-per-click advertising (on Google or Yahoo, for example), I wonder if you have some mechanism of tracking response in terms of people who attend one or more services as a result of seeing one of your PPC ads.

If you currently are engaged in a pay-per-click program, I would be very interested in knowing if you have devised a method to track response. Feel free to use comments to respond.

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.

Churches and ministries might be interested in an announcement from Marqui today about their intention to give away a free web marketing solution to one non-profit organization. The Marqui press release can be found here.

Applications are being accepted through October 15 at this page.

Marqui has "developed the first Web-based suite that simplifies and automates a broad range of marketing communications activities, including e-mail campaigns, Web content management and blogging." They are perhaps best known for their controversial "Pay Bloggers" initiative in which they paid approximately twenty bloggers $800 per month to write about the company.