Ian Paisley, the First of Minister of Northern Ireland, had suddenly decided to step down as moderator of 12,000-strong Protestant congregation in January, after almost 57 years in charge. Retirement shouldn’t be far from Mr Paisley’s mind at the age of 81, but the circumstances indicated he may be jumping before being pushed by an unprecedented revolt among his most ardent followers.
Many small churches are starting to see the benefit of having a website. Today it is easier than ever to get a sharp-looking website up with little effort, little to no knowledge of code (like HTML or PHP), and little impact on your bank account.
Here are some very basic suggestions and resources that you might find helpful as you get started.
Many of you may know that sharing your email address on your church website or blog is a surefire way to increase the amount of SPAM you get. Spambots are continually crawling the web and stealing email addresses whether they are visible on the page (e.g., john@church.com) or merely in the code (e.g., email me).
Yet many churches share the email addresses of their pastors and staff in such a way that they are prime targets for SPAM. Even a larger church like First Baptist of Taylors, SC does this (e.g., pastors and staff).
A 17 year-old from New Jersey recently achieved fame by being the first to “unlock” the Apple device. George Hotz, who many are referring to as the new “DVD John,” rigged the $599 iPhone to operate on any network with any SIM card. For his epic hack, Hotz was given a freeNissan 350Zand three 8 GB iPhones.
This version adds a substantial new feature (many are calling it Google Sky) which lets you not only look down on the Earth, but also look up at the night sky and see the starry heavens through the perspective of the world’s most powerful telescopes.
That’s what Rev. Jim Hanson is doing. He pastors a very small Christian and Missionary Alliance church in Dunedin, FL, and has just started using YouTube as a means to broaden his influence. He’s already reaching nearly twice as many people at his “internet church.”
Here are some snippets from the story:
Even when the pews are empty, Rev. Jim Hanson is still preaching.
The web can be a great tool. Email makes communicating very convenient. Blogs and RSS feeds enable us to keep track of massive amounts of helpful content. All of these things are supposed to make life easier for us and save us time, but often they take more time than we should be devoting to them.
Scott Young shares some tips for how he cut 75% of his time on the Internet and maximized his productivity.
Make it Daily
Find a specific time of day you will leave for internet time. . . . Consistency is crucial when making a pattern of behavior, so constantly changing the time or conditions I run the ritual would make it less effective.
Prioritize
Write down on a piece of paper the numbers one through ten. Use this list to prioritize the importance of various sites, inboxes and forums you visit. . . .
Queue It Up
Once I’ve created a list of internet sites to check, my next goal is to queue up all the places I will visit along my browsers toolbar. This cuts out time typing in address names or searching for a specific part of a larger site. . . .
Set a Time Limit
Your ritual may be a little faster, but it won’t really improve your productivity unless you set a time limit. . . . Normally I keep my time limit between 30-45 minutes. . . .
Group all Internet Activity into One Point
Grouping all your net activity onto your daily ritual keeps it from creeping out and stealing time from your day. . . .
Make it a Habit
Take out a thirty day trial to help reinforce your new internet ritual. If you want tips on how to make it a habit, check out my Habitual Mastery series or stay tuned for my upcoming book, How to Change a Habit. . . .
YouVersion is a free online Bible that allows users to associate video, audio, images, text, tags, and links to other websites with any verse or series of verses in the Bible. Each piece of contributed content can be labeled as public or private, so the application can be used both as a personal study tool and a public expression of user-generated commentary. In addition to contributing content, Scripture can be organized by assigning user-defined “tags” to any verse of the Bible.
For users who are skeptical about whether the Bible has application for their lives, YouVersion provides a platform to learn from the experiences and perspectives of others from around the world in a non-threatening and easily navigated environment.
ChurchMarketingSucks.com polled 275 of their readers on the question of how they would find a new church. Here are the results:
35%—Check the web sites of local churches
24%—Visit churches your other friends go to
18%—Just start visiting churches
10%—I’m so over that. I’ll start my own.
9%—Why would I ever want a new church?
4%—Recommendations of staff or members from your previous church
Does your church have a website? If not, why not? It’s easier than ever to build a great website very inexpensively (solid webhosting is as low as $5 per month) and with little to no coding skills using free software like WordPress or Joomla.
Here are today’s bullet points:
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Here are today’s bullet points:
Many of you may know that sharing your email address on your church website or blog is a surefire way to increase the amount of SPAM you get. 
Here are today’s bullet points:
Here are today’s bullet points:
The web can be a great tool. Email makes communicating very convenient. Blogs and RSS feeds enable us to keep track of massive amounts of helpful content. All of these things are supposed to make life easier for us and save us time, but often they take more time than we should be devoting to them.
