Where to Build a Free Church Website

 church, internet  2 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Jun 152013
 

freeThere are a few options for churches to get a basic church website built via self-serve without having to installing software or use a credit card. Here is a list of online website builder platforms that specifically serve churches and ministries:

  • Churchuna - ”a WordPress-powered web publishing platform, created especially for the church” - free level has 50 MB storage space; paid level starts at £8.33/month *invitation only*
  • City Gates  “beautiful website that’s simple to manage. City Gates combines powerful web tools, ease of use, and great design” - free plan for 1 admin, 2 ministries and 1 GB storage; paid plans start at $39.99/month
  • FreeChurchOnline.net - ”FreeChurchOnline.net was started in March of 2008 as a ministry arm of ChurchOnline.net. After realizing that some churches were very small and sometimes in debt where they could not pay for any web site, we decided to use our profits to sponsor a free version of the product.”
  • OurChurch.com‘s NE1™ Web Builder has a free plan with 12 pages, 2 MB space; paid plans start at $5.95/month
  • SteepleSites.com - free plan has 3 Pages, 10 MB storage, 1 User; paid plans start at $29/month
  • ChurchPres – a free WordPress-powered website with 3 GB space, or paid upgrades starting at $25/month

Note, however, that time is more valuable than money. While you could earn more money, you can never earn more time. Having a free web presence is a  way to get started, but I’d encourage you to diligently make room in your church budget to get a professional website built that better represents your church and the God that we worship.

Why doing a multisite church is challenging

 church  No Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Jun 052013
 

No models are perfect. Some are helpful. The multisite church model — one church in multiple locations — was an innovation that’s become the new normal for American churches and other countries around the world in recent years. And a recent conversation sparked this epiphany – that using a multisite strategy is not easy.

Yes, there are a number of advantages to doing multisite, like bringing ministry closer to where people lived, reaching people across a broader geography, leveraging what’s already successful to breed more success, to name a few.

And there are commonly known complexities and concerns, like how to manage consistency and complexity in multiple locations, would people respond well to video preaching (even though less than half of multisite churches use exclusively video preaching, the novelty of video preaching has cast a long shadow stereotyping the whole, along with its megachurch stereotype that overshadows the fact that the majority are not super-sized churches), how to transition the change for normal people, pushback questions about the theological basis and Biblical legitimacy, and many many more. All these are nuts and bolts operational kinds of questions along with the hard work of managing organizational change.

1 aha that hasn’t been vocalized much is this: the reason for why doing multisite church is hard because there is no steady state. This model is unstable (though that’s a little bit of a loaded word, so don’t let be a emotional trigger) and there’s no cruise control button. You don’t ever arrive or figure it out how to do it right.

With a single location church, it’s comparatively easier to get things up and running, define the weekly routines, and turn on cruise control for months and years with occasional adjustments for unexpected change. We’ve collectively got years and decades of experience with this model.

With a multisite church model, the church leadership team and pastoral staff has to constantly and actively manage the systems and processes that keeps it going. In part because the multisite church strategy is a useful way to facilitate growth, not to create growth, something that’s growing means something is changing, and that is not a steady thing. With human dynamics, that probably means every time you add another 50-100 people to the weekly attendance, you’ve got to make more adjustments. Change is stressful, even the good kind. While it’s a good kind of work and effort, it’s still work and effort.

So maybe by bringing this unspoken expectation into the light will help to lessen this subconscious frustration and add to your persevance in doing good things in multisite churching.

Dashboard to keep track of frequent flyer miles

 internet  No Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
May 232013
 

So much information to keep track of, and that’s just how it is in the 21st century digital age, and all the more for travelers and road warriors on the go. Each airline has their own frequent flyer miles program and some of them share miles or points across their own network.
photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradjward/4973315691/
And I was just wondering, how to keep track of all of those, sorta like the way Mint.com and PersonalCapital.com tracks personal finances across multiple accounts, like how LastPass.com keeps track of multiple logins and passwords. Here’s what I found for viewing all your airline frequent flyer miles in one place:

  • usingmiles.com (web) – “supports 248+ programs, ranging from airlines, hotels, credit cards, car rentals, trains, dining programs, retail, daily deals and more!”
  • traxo.com (web) – “Your Ultimate Digital Travel Wallet”
  • awardwallet.com (Android, iOS, web) “AwardWallet keeps track of your reward programs such as your frequent flyer miles, hotel and credit card points…. tracking 562 loyalty programs.”
  • mileBlaster.com (Android, iOS, web)
  • tripit.com (Android, Blackberry, iOS, Windows Phone 7, web) – Pro version ($) tracks air miles and hotel points


I asked my Twitter followers about the apps they use for tracking frequent flyer miles and didn’t get a reply. Maybe bad timing? Add a comment if you’ve got a favorite app or use a web dashboard to stay on top of all these numbers. Aside: and, one big potential down side to these all-in-one dashboards is security, since they have to get all your logins to get access to all your info, so you’ll want to check into how they’ll keep your info safe…

How to be effective by having no agenda

 dialogue  No Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,
May 082013
 

I enjoy meeting all kinds of people and it’s easy for me to talk with people without an agenda. I love to get to know people by sharing our stories with each other, talking about what we’re working on, and explore how to help one another in life. But, I have to confess, I get easily confused about these “networking” opportunities, when I read tweets like these:

“The best way to convince people you don’t have an agenda is to not have an agenda.” — Kip Jacob via @Qideas

“It’s great to have good friends who truly love me and don’t have an agenda.” — @JanPlansATL
no-agenda
I’m good at not having an agenda, being sincere, unassuming, and helpful. But maybe there’s more to the story, or there’s too much to explain that doesn’t fit into a tweet, because just having no agenda doesn’t quite work in cultivating business as a consultant or salesman, does it? I’m confused, when the tweets above are contrasted with these tips for success::

via 3 Powerful Skills You Must Have to Succeed in Sales –

Listening sincerely and without an agenda. The buying process is not about you and your wants and needs, it is about the customer. Too many of us come to the sales table with our own agenda. We are sometimes too busy thinking about quotas, promotions and commissions. It’s not about us, it’s about the wants, needs and expectations of the prospective buyer.

A sales person with an agenda tends to push too hard and often doesn’t listen well. Leave your agenda at home.

Huh? How can a sales person close a sale if s/he doesn’t have a desire to make a sale, thus an agenda? I get that listening well and explaining how a product/service fits the customer needs is a good thing, but that sounds like an agenda to me, because a competitor’s product/service might fit better during that conversation. Does a good sales person without an agenda tell the truth and honesty refer the competitor, rather than manipulate the conversation to sell the product/service that’d earn him/her commission?

via book description for The Hidden Agenda: A Proven Way to Win Business and Create a Following by Kevin Allen –

Each of us pitches ideas every day. Sometimes we sell our ideas to a small room full of skeptical colleagues. Sometimes we pitch to a boss, or a board of directors, a new organization, or for the contract of our dreams. Regardless, it all boils down to the act of stirring someone to join you—to agree to follow you. Yet we consistently underestimate how critical it is to recognize the needs, spoken and unspoken, of the decision maker. Decisions are made by people, and people have needs and agendas. Understanding these needs and agendas are critical to success in business. Kevin Allen’s approach is not about persuading, but about creating a connection that assures a mutual win.

So do I need to have an agenda or not? Or are there different rules when it’s about friendship vs. work in the marketplace? Help a brother out, help me understand, please, thank you.

difference between Western and Chinese educational approaches

 Asian American, internet  Comments Off  Tagged with: , , ,
Apr 172013
 

Are there different approaches to learning? Of course. Here in the US of A, that’d be most obviously public vs private schools, and then there are homeschoolers and Montessori schools. Plus, there’s different ways of learning in different cultures, as aptly outlined in this op-ed by David Brooks The Learning Virtues –

In the Western understanding, students come to school with levels of innate intelligence and curiosity. Teachers try to further arouse that curiosity in specific subjects. There’s a lot of active learning — going on field trips, building things. There’s great emphasis on questioning authority, critical inquiry and sharing ideas in classroom discussion.

In the Chinese understanding, there’s less emphasis on innate curiosity or even on specific subject matter. Instead, the learning process itself is the crucial thing. The idea is to perfect the learning virtues in order to become, ultimately, a sage, which is equally a moral and intellectual state. These virtues include: sincerity (an authentic commitment to the task) as well as diligence, perseverance, concentration and respect for teachers.

 

Churches with Multiple Languages and Peoples

 church, multiethnic  14 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Mar 272013
 
photo credit ryerson http://ryersonivcf.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/it-starts-with-12-ryerson-ivcf-at-urbana-12/

As the church adapts to serving a multicultural global village, some are developing ministries in multiple languages too. (cf. polyglot - someone who can speak multiple languages) Ethnic Asian churches and other immigrant churches have done that for decades. For some ethnic Korean churches, it’s ministering in Korean and English, for Chinese ones, it’s ministering in Mandarin, English, Cantonese and/or Taiwanese.

For more diversified multiethnic church, that could be at least 3 languages across multiple racial groupings. (Please add a comment – and I’ll do my best to keep this list updated.) Here’s a list of multi-lingual multi-racial churches:

Articles & resources about multilingual churches and worship

[nb: of course, it can be argued that there is only one race, the human race; yet in the context of the United States with a racialized history, there are significantly different social dynamics in a multi-generational Asian American context vs. a multi-ethnic context with Anglos, Asians, African Americans, and Hispanics]

U.S. Church Diversity has nearly doubled from 1998 to 2010

 church, multiethnic  Comments Off  Tagged with:
Mar 252013
 

The percentage of multiethnic churches in America has grown from 7.5% in 1998 to 13.7% in 2010, based on 2 different survey-bases studies, using a 20% minority criteria. One of the leading church researchers, Dr. Scott Thumma (Professor of Sociology of Religion, Hartford Seminary), posted this on the Huffington Post blog, Racial Diversity Increasing In U.S. Congregations, alerting us to some notable progress in the desegregation of American churches:

Martin Luther King’s once said 11 a.m. Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. That statement seems to remain true today, 57 years later. However, the 2010 Faith Communities Today report shows a major shift toward desegregation is underway among the nation’s religious communities.

The study, which included more than 11,000 congregations, found the number of multiracial faith communities has nearly doubled in the past decade. Nearly 14 percent of congregations are considered multiracial, with at least 20 percent of members coming from racial groups different from the congregation’s majority race. The study also found 4 percent of America’s congregations are multiracial, with no racial group having a majority.

Researchers have been tracking these changes since the 1990s. Mark Chaves, in the 1998 National Congregations Study, reported that 7.5 percent of all congregations were multiracial. Another study in the late 1990s by sociologist Michael Emerson found 5 percent of Protestant churches and 15 percent of Catholic churches were multiracial.

When compared to this earlier research, our 2010 Faith Communities Today study… found the percentage of multiracial congregations (using the 20 percent or more minority criteria) had nearly doubled in the past decade to 13.7 percent.

List of Churches with Innovation Pastors

 church  8 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Mar 042013
 

What may be emerging is a new role in the church: pastor of innovation. (Granted this may not become mainstream where every church would have one, since most churches have more pressing operational day-to-day needs.) I’ll do my part to keep this list updated. (Please do add to this list.)

how_different_people_accept_something_new

How much of their job is pure innovation and experimentation? Would you like to know? Me too!

There are over 30+ definitions of innovation and over 6000+ definitions of leadership. Organizations, especially organized churches in the 21st century, need more innovation and more leadership, not less. What’s worked in the past is not working as well as it used to, so we as the Church capital-C must make room to develop new ways of doing things.

Peter Drucker has said, “Any time an organization fails to change at the rate of the world around it, that organization is doomed to failure.” and ”innovation is change that creates a new level of performance” and ”All organizations require one core competency: Innovation.”

The chart to the right (from Leadership Network) illustrates how church innovations get adopted over time. As an experimenter, I’ve had very limited resources to experiment in developing innovations; I’m praying for more resources to do more. [disclosure: I do contract work with Leadership Network]

Rob Rynders makes a case for innovation in his denomination - Why The UMC Needs an Era of Innovation -

We need an intentional, grassroots, movement of innovators willing to put new ideas into action, fully realizing that many of those ideas will fail, but some will be successful. Even the failures will allow for immense learning, evaluation, further experimentation and adaption, ultimately leading to success. As successes and failures build, over time, we must apply those learnings from those models to other contexts and allow easy ways for others to learn, model, and adapt.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, there are 4 levels of innovation, so not all innovation has to be risky and be revolutionary game-changers. Pastor Karl Vaters provides a helpful list for key questions to consider when preparing a church for change (and innovation) @ 10 Questions Every Innovative Small Church Pastor Needs to Ask.

An ultimate new job: Chief Innovation Officer

 dialogue, internet  3 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Mar 032013
 

Think outside of the box? How about creating a new one. This excites me big time! There’s a new emerging kind of role in the marketplace, and Wikipedia has a short entry for it: Chief Innovation Officer. This is so new the acronym for it isn’t settled yet — I’ve see it as CINO and CNO.

What kind of a role is this? — According to What does it mean to be a chief innovation officer? ”Chief innovation officer: one part hacker, one part change agent, one part idea generator, one part creator of collisions“. Sounds like my kind of dream job.

And what is innovation? Mark W. Johnson describes in Viewpoint:The Role of the Chief Innovation Officer the need to be devising a language of innovation:

… A common language that is used across the entire organization helps frame a company’s principles of innovation. The starting point for that shared language is a practical definition of innovation. The definition I favor depicts innovation as something new: a product, service, process, business model, or combination thereof that can be commercialized because it solves the problem of a “job to be done” for the customer. Whatever language is used, it should distinguish between innovation in the core business and innovation that creates platforms for new-business creation. That distinction is critically important because the chief innovation officer’s raison d’etre is to lead new-business innovation that will ensure the company’s continued survival and growth.

Orchestrating-to-get-things-Done1What does s/he do? Gina Colarelli O’Connor explains in The Real Role of a Chief Innovation Officer that this person is an orchestrator, and it’s an exciting trend for 2 reasons:

First, it signals a recognition that innovation is distinct from other functions, including R&D, Corporate Strategy and Marketing. In other words, innovation is accepted as incorporating both invention and new business creation. Secondly, it shows there is a mandate for companies to build a strong capability for breakthrough innovation.”

However, research by O’Connor’s group shows this is only the hope and not yet the reality. “In several companies we have studied of late, the turnover in the role is high, and the role title is modified frequently. Some tell us that there is ‘baggage’ associated with the title, left over from its previous holder’s failure to make things happen, or that resentment is building in the organization among those not incorporated into the ‘innovation’ function.

Plus, I’d add that not all innovations are the big game-changers. Most look smaller. This chart from The Four Levels of Innovation: Assess the Time, Effort, and Resources Necessary to Join the Ranks of Innovation (Kris Miner, 2010) shows 4 levels:

Innovation-levels-miner

 

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