I ran across a new blog a few days ago - ChurchTechToday, written by Lauren Hunter, a public relations consultant who “(assists) church technology providers in communicating their desires to help churches do ministry better through internet-related technological advancements, whether it’s through using church management software, online newsletters, or cutting-edge social communities to spread the Gospel.”

Launched in mid-July, Lauren’s blog has touched on internet evangelism, the iPod Bible, the “Death of Print,” and technology for church bookstores.

I would encourage you to visit Lauren’s blog and “give it a whirl!”

If you look in the sidebar under the heading “We Recommend,” you’ll find a link to Turtle Interactive. Turtle Interactive is the design boutique of Tim Bednar.

What can I tell you about Tim? Tim pastored a multi-ethnic, inner city church for nearly 10 years, and so he has a good idea of what makes a church “tick,” so to speak. He’s also a brilliant designer and web developer who develops strategic social websites and applications to facilitate online community. He’s been around the web, and specifically around the portion of the web populated by churches and parachurch ministries, for a long time. That’s why we recommend him so highly.

If you’re a church or ministry in need of a new website, you now have a chance to learn from one of the best!

Tim has recently started a new project called the Ashford WordPress Theme.  This new project was born out of Tim’s recent work with WordPress on Greg Boyd’s new site (worth a look just in itself at www.gregboyd.org). In working with WordPress on this project, Tim realized that “most WordPress themes are not really created for normal people who are responsible for building and maintaining web sites. Most of the time, free WordPress themes offer killer screen shots but are a pain to use.”

The Ashford WordPress Theme is for building simple web sites. Tim’s philosophy is to build a theme which focuses on giving “in place tips on how to build and maintain the site.” He is about to release v0.1.2, and is looking for a few ministries who would be willing to test the Ashford theme and give him feedback on the project. Once this test phase is up and running, Tim will be developing additional subthemes, configurations, page templates and widgets.

To apply to be a test ministry, you can fill out the online application.

I was recently told about a website called TED. Here is what the site says about the organization:

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

If you look at the site, you will find speeches by Al Gore, Freeman Dyson, Jane Goodall, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Bono, Bill Clinton, and many other “heavy hitters.” The person who told me about the website was pointing out (rightfully so, I imagine) that the membership of TED probably did not include many believers. So when I visited the site, I was surprised to find that the featured speaker on the front page of the site was none other than Billy Graham.

Here’s what TED has to say about his speech:

Speaking at TED in 1998, Rev. Billy Graham marvels at technology’s power to improve lives and change the world—but says the end of evil, suffering and death will come only after the world accepts Christ. A legendary talk from TED’s archives.

And here is Dr. Graham’s speech:

In May of 2007, James Cooper launched a new website called MinistryPool. James’ original idea (still a good one!) was to build a repository of top quality, easy to remember, domain names for use in ministry and Church marketing projects. The twist is that when one ministry or church is finished using the domain name for its project, the domain goes back into the “pool” so that other ministries or churches can use it.

James sent me an email this morning to let me know that he has expanded the concept of MinistryPool. From James’ “relaunch post”:

ministrypool will now bring together the best of online resources and other stuff for Churches. You’ll find reviews and rating of resources in a wide range of categories that can help your Church or ministry get the best out of the web.

After a brief review, I can say that James has gathered together a great set of resources that will be helpful to any church or ministry looking to improve their digital outreach.

Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team, was recently interviewed by Jefferson Graham of USA Today regarding solid search engine optimization (SEO) principles.

The article, while fairly basic, provides a good start. If churches and ministries just followed these simple principles, I believe they would see some good improvement in their search engine rankings. In the ecommerce world, I like to say that the buying cycle begins at Google (because that’s where people search for your products). The same can increasingly be said in the Christian world - the “searching for a community of believers” cycle begins at Google.

Matt Cutts’ blog is also a valuable resource.

Sally Stuart, a well-known authority on Christian writing (she has compiled the Christian Writers’ Market Guide for the last 23 years), recently posted a letter from Craig von Buseck (Director of Ministries at the Christian Broadcasting Network) about his upcoming book tentatively titled “NetCasters: Harnessing the Internet to Make Fishers of Men.”

Craig is looking for stories of those who have come to Christ through the internet. If you know of such a story, Craig would welcome your input .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Dr. Jay Herndon is the Secretary-Treasurer for the Northern California and Nevada district of our denomination (the Assemblies of God). He is also an old, old friend from elementary school, Little League baseball, junior high, and college!

Jay recently sent an email to a mailing list for the ministers of our district and mentioned an intriguing use of text messaging the denomination is planning on using:

I’ve talked to our District Youth Director about using text response in a slightly different way: When there is an appeal for a call to ministry at Youth Convention and other youth events the kids flood the altars, and there are so many that it is impossible to get their name and address. I’m concerned that we haven’t been able to follow up with these kids. And so I have asked him if we can set up a text number, and ask the kids to text us their name and email. We are not using this to avoid the altar call, but to get the information that we need in a way they are accustomed to give it.

Interesting! What other innovative uses for text messaging are being used by the church today? Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments to this article.

I just received an email from Mike Boyink asking me to help get the word out about a new project he’s starting through his Train-ee website.

Before I tell you about the project, though, let me give a quick word of explanation about Train-ee.com.

I’ve been using content management systems from EllisLab for about three and a half years. I first used pMachine and then switched to ExpressionEngine when it was launched. I’ve never been sorry. I now use or have implemented ExpressionEngine on 13 different websites.

Guess where I found out about EllisLab? That’s right — Mike Boyink has been a champion of EllisLab products for over four years, and he was the one who first turned me on to the joys of using EllisLab products.

In January of this year, Mike launched a new site — Train-ee.com — where he shares his wisdom and experience “to help web professionals get up to speed on ExpressionEngine^® as quickly as possible.” Through Train-ee, Mike provides online and in-person training, ebooks, and screencasts, all designed to help you learn the best content management system around in a minimum of time and with a minimum of pain! Mike is considered one of the experts in the ExpressionEngine support forums, and his combination of knowledge, wisdom, internet strategy experience, and extensive experience with ExpressionEngine means there is no one better to help you learn to use this great CMS.

Now, on to Mike’s newest project. One of Mike’s first projects for the Train-ee website was a series on “Building an ExpressionEngine Site - Small Business.” The series was very well-received in the ExpressionEngine community. And now, he will soon begin another “how to Build an ExpressionEngine Site” series, this time building a church website.  At the end of the series when the site is complete it will be auctioned off on eBay, with proceeds going to a TBD charity. You can learn more here:

A New Blog, A New Series

If you have been looking for a content management series for a new church website or to start redevelopment on an old church website, I am confident that this series will prove extremely valuable to you. Mike is the developer of the Manna? church website and is very experienced in working with churches to effectively use their websites. I would strongly encourage you to visit the Train-ee website and start following Mike’s new series!

I was reading this article on Think Christian last week, and was particularly struck by the comments, especially Jason Wells’ reference to 2 John 12. I often talk about the need for face-to-face community and about how internet evangelism still needs the foundation of a physical gathering in a local area. But I had never considered the relevance of 2 John 12 to the discussion (probably because it would largely seem like an obscure verse without much relevance to anything — shame on me for thinking like that!).

Here’s what 2 John 12 says:

Having many things to write to you, I do not want to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, that your joy may be made full.

The clear implication is that there is something incomplete about communication only through paper and ink — face-to-face communication is necessary for our joy to be made full.

The Greek word which is translated “be made full” in this verse means “to bring something to completion, to finish something already begun.” The verse suggests that face-to-face communication is necessary for believers’ joy to be brought to completion.

If writing letters with paper and ink could not make the believers’ joy full or complete in John’s day, can email make our joy full or complete? Can discussion forums make our joy full or complete? Can online video chat make our joy full or complete? Is there something incomplete about digital communication?

Here’s another blog I came across on Thursday:

ChurchSMO

Here is what the author, Aaron Marshall, writes about himself and his recently-launched blog:

My name is Aaron Marshall, I work for DBS>Interactive, a large web development company in Louisville, Kentucky, as the Director of Sales and Marketing. Being involved in projects from beginning to end gives me copious amounts of opportunity to see web strategies successfully executed. I read between 10-20 RSS feeds a day, regularly finding gold-mines of useful services that could be applied to church and ministry.

I especially like Aaron’s use of videos throughout his articles. It lends a personal touch which is quite engaging.

Here’s a blog that’s been around for awhile but is new to me:

Church Website Help

Mickey Mellen, webmaster at Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church, has been writing the blog since September of 2005 (gee, where have I been to only have noticed it yesterday?).

The article entitled Church Websites Around Atlanta Are Pretty Bad caught my eye immediately since I used to work a bit on a website for a church in the Atlanta area (not on Mickey’s list thankfully!

). The article talks about some of the common mistakes churches make and it also brought the issue of proper canonicalization for search engine optimization purposes back into the forefront of my mind (the issue wasn’t entirely new to me, but I had never given it much thought until yesterday when I carefully read what Mickey had to say on the subject). It made me start testing a lot of my sites! Thankfully, most of them add the “www” in automatically, but the website of my last remaining “design client” (as vs. “strategy client”) does not pass the test, so I’ll need to work on that a bit.

All in all, it looks like there is a wealth of content to explore on Mickey’s blog and I encourage you to add it to your list of RSS feeds so you can read him on a regular basis.

Churches, ministries, and missionaries should all be aware of solid search engine optimization principles and implement them faithfully on their websites. Here is a great resource to help you do just that:

Mihai’s SEO Cheat Sheet

from Mihai Gheza.