Last week, I shared a video clip from an interview with @Jack, founder of Twitter — he shares an interesting perspective in that conversation that gives a clue to Twitter’s potential and original intention.

Twitter has been a great platform for me over the last couple of years.  I’m getting a chance to see Jack Dorsey in person later this week and it got me thinking about some of the great things that have come out of my Twitter experience to date.

Here’s just a few benefits of Twitter:

1. Access to people & new relationships -- This is by far one of the biggest advantages of Twitter.  If someone else is on twitter, whether they are a celebrity or successful leader or just an average joe, I know have the potential to connect with them and build a relationship if there is real value in doing so for both sides.  I now routinely converse with people I’ve first met on Twitter like @djchuang or have traded direct messaging with soem of the “big guys” like @rickwarren, @michaelhyatt and @pogue.  This level of access wouldn’t have been possible just a couple of years ago.  The friction around new connections has been radically reduced with social media platforms like Twitter.
2. Real/near-time updates on various news items.  Next to Google, a Twitter search can yield some great results, especially for topics where there might not have been much time to have a lot of publishing around it just yet.  If it’s just happening, I got to Twitter search vs Google first.
3. Customer service. It’s been quite helpful to tweet about a customer service #fail and get quick attention to the matter.  When brands care about what is being said about them in the Twitterverse (and more and more brands are coming online), then you can usually get the attention of someone that’s empowered to find a solution.
4. Traffic to my websites.  When posting a new blog post, I usually share it on Twitter announcing my “new post” — that or other ways to include links to specific blog posts in replies to others.  I have had some decent months where referrals through Twitter click through links have shown up on the radar of my website analytics.  Well written content draws people just like in an other medium.

It will be interesting to see what Jack says about Twitter, especially about where he think we are all going.

What benefits have you found working on Twitter so far?  Please share them below with a comment.

If you’re like most organizational leaders, a significant part of what you do on a daily basis is process emails. . . Responding to emails, initiating emails, filing, deleting and forward emails.  We all do it.

The problem with the clear majority (95%+!!!) of email is that when you sit down to process your email inbox, you are deciding to let other people’s agendas dictate how you spend your time IMHO.  So figuring out how to tame that inbox is one of the most strategic things you can do for your own work.

One of my colleagues is a master of killing that inbox every day.  So I asked Rich Birch, to share some of his best practices for dealing with email.  Take heed and you’ll find hours being freed up every week so that you can spend more time on things that are on *your* agenda, not others’.  Enjoy today’s post below.

Here are 6 “not-so-obvious” email tips from what I’ve learned after almost 25 years of trying to figure out this email thing . . .

1. Email Is Not Your Job

2. Schedule Your Time

3. Don’t Use a Smart Phone

4. Filters Are Your Friends

Every email program has some sort of filter function built in. These filters will automatically process emails when they come into your inbox. I currently have over 40 filters running on my inbox. I have emails that I get every month that I need to forward to other people . . . my system automatically forwards those emails and I don’t ever see them in my inbox. I want to highlight emails from some people as urgent when they arrive . . . as soon as my email sees that certain people email me it flags them for me. I’ve heard that some people will even filter out those pesky forwards from parents who always send them their way . . . of course I’ve just heard about that and have never done that.

5. Reply Sparingly

6. Use Gmail

Rich Birch is one of the early multi-site church pioneers in North America. He led the charge in helping The Meeting House in Toronto to become the leading multi-site church in Canada with over 5,000 people in 12 locations. In addition, he served on the leadership team of Connexus Community Church in Ontario, a North Point Community Church Strategic Partner. Currently Rich serves as Operations Pastor at Liquid Church in the Manhattan facing suburbs of New Jersey.

Rich is passionate about helping churches reach more people, more quickly through excellent execution. He blogs at www.killerchurch.com

I was fortunate to connect with Paul Caminiti, vice-president of church & bible engagement at Biblica at the Q conference in Washington D.C. this April.  On a daily basis, 700 people quit reading the Bible.  And that means not just taking a break or putting the book down for a couple of months, we’re talking *quit*.  The latest project at Biblica (the copyright holders of the NIV), is an elegant approach to a seemingly ubiquitous circumstance.

Distinctive features of Books of the Bible NIV – part of the Community Bible Experience

• They’ve taken the NIV bible and the chapter and verse numbers have been removed.  
• It’s printed in single-column across the page like any other book we are used to reading these days.
• The books are re-arranged (un-arranged?) in an order that makes more sense in terms of keeping authors’ writing together and individual books that later tradition divided into separate parts were put back together again.
• And footnotes, headings and any other call outs have been removed from the pages of the sacred text.

Q. It is interesting how instead of going through deep word studies of various scriptural pericopes, or other similar avenues that Bible study groups typically end up pursuing, the Community Bible Experience decidedly takes the path of trying to read the Bible in large conceptual swaths as it consumes it through a story lens. To this effect, how does Community Bible Experience promote conversation within the small group / book club setting?

A. In-depth word studies are great, but only when you have the big picture backdrop. You don’t gain a comprehensive understanding of your favorite novel by doing grammatical analysis of a word here or there. You gain the most understanding by reading the whole thing. Same goes with the Bible. That’s what we’re trying to achieve with Community Bible Experience. We’ve found the very act of “reading big” promotes conversation, simply because when you read 12 pages a day, you come to the group with plenty to discuss. We give groups five basic questions to help navigate the conversation; but some groups don’t even need them. They just open up and start talking. Sometimes the best thing we can do is get out of the way.

Q. Typically, book clubs grow organically as friends of club members hear about it and get invited in.  How does Community Bible Experience fall in line with that trait of book clubs?  

A. Community Bible Experience is still fairly new – and relatively small. We don’t have big promotional budgets or a slick ad campaign. So most of our participation so far has been through word of mouth. We’re OK with that. So many programs promise to revolutionize your church or whatever. We happen to think in-depth Bible engagement is the one thing that can make a difference in every area of Christian life, but we’d rather let the experience speak for itself. So we’ve kept it as simple and organic as possible.

Q. How would you pitch this book club to a fellow soccer mom or dad? How do you overcome the visceral gut reaction to hearing that a bunch of people are sitting down and reading/discussing “the Bible” straight through — typically perceived as a very boring, Bible-geeky, or even a religious fanatical thing to do by most people outside the church?

A. Our sense is that many people, including those who are nominally Christian or  consider themselves “spiritual but not religious,” have a natural curiosity about the Bible. Reading the Bible at least once is on a lot of people’s bucket lists. But many of us have tried one of the various “read the Bible in a year” plans and failed. What if there was a way to read the Bible that (a) is doable and (b) doesn’t come with a hidden agenda? That’s how we see Community Bible Experience. We see our role as helping you experience the Bible; we’re not here to tell you what to think of the Bible. We’re not here to force a particular interpretation on the text. That’s why Community Bible Experience has been embraced by churches and groups across the spectrum – from Episcopalians to Southern Baptists.

Q. Is there a difference in themes or issues that tend to get brought up in the conversation under this format? How does this Bible study experience differ than a “traditional” Bible study group?

A. The biggest difference is that it doesn’t matter where you’re coming from. Some of the best groups have been those where seekers and seasoned Bible readers were in it together. The book club model levels the playing field, so to speak. It also opens the discussion to a wide range of questions – including those not normally considered “safe” or “acceptable” in a traditional Bible study. We’re not asking people to give fill-in-the-blank answers. In other words, we’re not trying to “control” the discussion.

Q. One of the immediate flags that many people have is when they see that you are “messing with” the Bible.  They might say we have final expression of the current canon for a reason.  Are you trying to replace the NIV Bible people carry? Do you expect them to carry just one or the other? How does The Books of the Bible NIV compare to the current one being used in the church?

A. We would probably say we’re “un-messing” with the Bible, giving it an “un-makeover.” Much of what we’ve done is to remove formatting that’s been imposed on Scripture over the last 500 years (e.g. verse numbers, which were first added in 1551, centuries after the Bible was completed). The book order was quite fluid until the invention of the printing press. Sometimes, reading in a different order than the one we have today can be quite helpful. For example, which is more useful: to read Paul’s letters from longest to shortest (as they appear in almost every Bible today) or to read them in the order they were most likely written (as they appear in The Books of the Bible)? That said, we’re not out to replace people’s traditional chapter-and-verse Bibles. A lot of the features in a traditional Bible are there for reference purposes – to help you find a specific word or passage. We still need reference Bibles. We see The Books of the Bible as an ideal “reading Bible” to compliment and help you get more out of your traditional Bible.

Check out The Community Bible Experience Resource Site

Check out Books of the Bible on Amazon

Paul Caminiti is Vice President of Bible Engagement at Biblica, where his team pioneers innovative ways for the 21st century church to engage the Bible. Previously Paul was the Bible publisher for Zondervan, where he led the launch of the award-winning Archeological Study Bible and The Bible Experience. A leading spokesperson on all things Bible, Paul has been featured in media such as NBC, Fox News, Newsweek, The New Yorker, USA Today, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

This spring has been an amazing sequence of events for me.

The next one on the docket?  Seth Godin Live in Tribeca, NYC on May 16 – yup an all day event with Seth Godin himself.

So I’m ordering up a set of new custom business cards for the event and pulling out some of the good old Seth Godin books, etc.

There’s a bunch of interesting people that are sure to be there, so it should be a great place to connect with some amazing new friends too — hopefully there will be some actual project collaboration, perhaps even before we leave the event.

If you’ve never read any of Seth’s books or heard him speak, here’s a little taste of Seth at TED:

Are you going to the Seth Godin event?  Let me know in the comments below — let’s meet up!

What would you ask Seth if you had the chance?  Let me know in the comments below — if it’s a good one, I’ll ask it if I get a chance!

Wanting to go to the Seth Godin Live event?  I have an extra ticket — let me know in the comments below and you can have it for $300 if it’s not taken yet.  Share what you do and where you’re coming from.

Do you spend time thinking about what’s going on in your city?

Do you pay attention to what’s happening beyond the streets you normally traverse in your commute or daily/weekly routines?

Do you ever go off the beaten path?  Even within your own zip code?

One of the interesting ways to look at social media is to see it as a listening post.  A way to observe and feel the pulse of the city you live in, no matter how big or small it may be.

Before you start spewing a whole slew of social media content to gain the tons of followers you think you can amass, one of the most basic elements (and advantages) of social media over other mediums is its ability to let you visualize in a sense, what people are doing, saying, going around you.

Check out this insightful video interview of Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and how he came to the current iteration of the social media platform that we know today:

Do you look at social media this way in your usage of the medium?  Are you more concerned with what you have to say vs. what you can see through Twitter and other social media available to you today?  Please leave a comment below.

This is going to be a great week ahead.  I’m headed off to Q DC (www.qideas.org) to hear and interact with some forward-thinking ministry leaders and then returning to NYC to participate in Redeemer’s Entrepreneurship Initiative annual conference called the Ei Forum.

This year, I’ve been invited back to speak as a communications practitioner and share some of the trade strategies I have been employing for ministry and non-profit campaigns.  It should be a great time.

Right now, the workshop is shaping up to dive into three specific areas of which many church and non-profit leaders seem to be apprehensive about.  These are areas where most know they need to figure out at some point in the near future, but there’s a lot of anxiety, apprehension and just plain fear of being sucked into a time sink that won’t ever end.

But in my experience, these three areas are also very powerful ways to extend the reach of your communications efforts and tap new audiences in a very efficient manner.  Also, if you are strategic in your approach, using some structured frameworks, it doesn’t have to take over your life.  In fact, it can be quite manageable.  So the three areas that I’ll share in the Ei Forum presentation will cover:

(1) PR.  Public relations is a very powerful tool.  Earned media as they call it, can provide awareness, legitimizing influence and tangible outcomes if done well.  I’ll share the three keys to success in crafting great PR stories that news media outlets want to cover.

(2) Video & SEO (search engine optimization).  As our world gets even more media savvy, content production and distribution is becoming easier and easier.  Anyone trying to maximize SEO potential, needs to take a serious look at how they can incorporate video into their communications praxis.  I hope to share a simple yet powerful framework called the “10-4″ methodology for video syndication success.

(3) And lastly, social media.  Social networks can leverage existing networks and the more important weak links in your contact ecosystem.  Last year, at this same conference, I shared my “5 C’s for Digital Community Engagement.”  Since then, Google+ has been one of the most recent entrants to the game that everyone needs to take notice about.  Not just because Google Plus has gained a tons of users to give it a core network worthy of connecting with, but just the fact that it’s run by the Google behemoth.  I’ll have a co-pilot for the presentation from the Google+ team in LA that is flying out to NYC to share some Google wisdom in this area.

I plan to share much of the content covered in the presentation here on this blog in the near future.

But in the meantime, take a look at this promo video for the Ei Forum this year:

Tim Keller will make an appearance from the stage on Saturday afternoon. Last year, his Ei Forum talk was about how “God is an entrepreneur.” It was fantastic. I’m looking forward to what Tim has to say this year around.

Will you help me with crafting a practical and impactful presentation? What’s your one question that’s top of mind about PR, search engine optimization (especially WRT videos), and social media? Leave your question in the comments section and I’ll see if I can address it directly in the presentation and/or a future post.

Today, Facebook is changing the design of the “pages” that most churches use to the “Facebook Timeline” format.  

I had a chance to sit down with Sean Coughlin of FaithStreet.com recently.  He has been gearing up for the transition for some of his church clients.  

So I asked him to share some tips that you can use right now to helping reach a bigger audience on FB.  Enjoy today’s guest post.

Here are 5 tips to make sure your church’s timeline is optimized to reach people on Facebook. 

(1) The change to Facebook Timeline happens on March 30th, so be ready!

Facebook says, “On March 30, 2012 your Page will automatically get the new design.” Right now, Facebook allows page users to edit their timelines in a preview stage, so take advantage.  If you haven’t made any preference changes, it’s time to visit the admin section today!

(2) Choose a beautiful cover for your Timeline.

Probably the most important feature of the Facebook timeline update is the “cover”. (The cover is the giant 851 x 315 pixel banner at the top of your new profile). Churches should make sure to choose a wide angle, high resolution photo to minimize distortion. Your church is your people, and studies have show that people engage with pictures of other people far more than pictures of places. A church we work with here in NYC, City Grace, has done a great job of creating a good-looking, welcoming covers shot. Check out City Grace Timeline and Cover here. 

(3)  Pin the posts that you want people to see first.

If you have a post that you’re especially proud of or just want visitors to see on your page first, make sure to “pin” it to the top of your timeline. This might be another great picture of some members, a recent milestone you celebrated or a campaign you’re running now. To pin a post:

• Scroll over the upper right-hand corner of the post and click the pencil icon.
• Scroll down within the menu and click “pin to top”
• The post will now appear at the top of your timeline until you “unpin” it.

As TechCrunch recently reported, “The feature gives you significant control what visitors to a Page see first. Be sure to at least keep a link to your website pinned at all times, and rotate it with links to your apps and whatever else you want to drive the most traffic to or impressions of.”

(4) Post Pictures Wisely

As I mentioned above, newcomers and church members alike respond to pictures. Pictures generate more likes and shares than most other types of content, which means more exposure and an expanded “reach” for your church. Since pictures are powerful outreach tools, you want to get the most out of them, right? Here’s how you do that. Instead of posting an entire album, post one picture at a time. You’ll get more engagement per photo if you individually post them than if you post an entire album. Try posting 3 photos per week – one of Monday, one Wednesday and one Friday. This will create anticipation within your Facebook community and drive engagement.

(5) As an admin, make sure your church members (and your friends) “Like” the page

This was true for “Pages” and is still true for “Timeline”, the first step to using Facebook as a tool to reach new people is to make sure your church’s people “Like” the page. By simply inviting their congregants to “Like” their Facebook page, one church we work with here in NYC went from 35 “Likes” to almost 100 in less than a week and increased its “reach” by 495%. (reach is the number of people who have seen a post about your page, and yes, that four-hundred-and-ninety-five-percent!) You can invite your friends and fellow church members to join the timeline by clicking on the “Build Audience” tab at the top of the Admin panel.

Then, you can track your page’s reach, likes and how many people are talking about your church from the Insights box on the Admin Panel.

Sean Coughlin is the co-founder and CEO of FaithStreet.  FaithStreet helps churches reach people using the Internet. Follow Sean on Twitter: @seanwcoughlin

Pinterest is taking the social media scene by storm.

The platform’s users are overwhelmingly women (90%!) as of now. In 5 months, the has gained over 15 million new users.  WOW.

One of the stats that stand out about typical Pinterest behavior that speaks into the potential from a word of mouth marketing perspective is that 80% of of the content on Pinterest is shared content – that’s the essence of what social media is about.   Contrast this with Twitter users, where only 1.4% of the content is passed along (via Retweeting) by other users.

What to make of this?  It means that the chances of content to spread has huge potential on Pinterest.

The mad rush from business is taking place as new teaching content starts to emerge about how to take advantage of the traffic referrals that can happen with content introduced to the Pinterest ecosystem.

Take a look at this infographic that shares some of the interesting aspects of the Pinterest social media platform:

The question that arises of course is, what about the church? Can Pinterest be seen as an effective vehicle for church marketing?

I’ve been spending time on Pinterest over the last several weeks now and have started to formalize some approaches for sharing content which in turn drives traffic to the site where the images were originally picked-up.  I hope to share some of these practices in the near future here.

But in the meantime, here is a round-up of various posts that have started to explore how Pinterest might be relevant to church communications:

• Big Bible Project – 10 Ways Church Can Use Pinterest
• Internet Evangelism Day Site – another Pinterest infographic
• Church Marketing Sucks – Churches Reaching Out with Pinterest
• Ministry Best Practices – How to Use Pinterest for Your Ministry
• Church Juice – Pinterest for Churches – Part 1  Part 2
• Mars Hills Church’s Pinboards

Just got out of a team meeting where we reviewed Andy Stanley’s leadership talk on Trust.

Aside from the call out he makes in the video where he challenges ministry organizations to become (start by defining it as a goal!) the best place to work in your own city, he makes a great case for ensuring one aspect of team culture that is vital to success of any ministry organization:

Stanley’s premise is simple: “To maintain the relational integrity necessary to operate as a team, we must choose to trust and be trustworthy.” Stanley emphasizes that trusting and being trustworthy both are choices. “Often there are unexplainable gaps between what we expect people to do and what they actually do. We choose what we place in those gaps. Our choices determine the integrity of the relationships. We can choose to fill them with trust or suspicion.”

While the talk itself could have benefited from some message compression, the core principles he teaches are so important for healthy teams.

This is a great example of a basic operating principle that might not normally warrant a full-blown staff meeting.  But if you do circle wagons around core issues that can drive (or kill) organizational culture, it not only makes sure everyone is on the same page, introduces common language, but it also signals explicitly the expectations for culture norms.

Here’s the talk from Andy Stanley that we reviewed together as a team:

Sure, he probably didn’t need to spend a full 40 minutes on this stuff, but I appreciated the “protocols” for:

(a) defaulting to trust when there are unexplainable gaps between expectations and performance

. . . and in particular, his spelling out of

(b) how to choose to be trustworthy with your peers:

1. Do what you say you will do.  And more importantly, when we don’t deliver on what we said we were going to do, tell them immediately.
2. Don’t over promise, and under deliver. Promises > Delivery is a BAD thing.  Here’s the kicker — when you are mid-stream on a committment and know you’re headed in this direction, flag it out loud.
3. And lastly, you have to build a trusting environment, where you invite others to flag it for you.  When someone points out gaps in your commitments or promises and what you’re delivering, choose to tell the truth.  What is the cause of the gaps?  Sometimes they are great reasons.  Sometimes, you just messed up.  It’s time to put out all on the table.  When you do this in an environment of ongoing trust and trustworthiness, the margins are there to absorb the occasional gaps.

One of the best one-liners I caught in this talk was:

Being trustworthy is not the equivalent of being flawless in character or performance.

~ Andy Stanley

If we are successful in these areas, it can become a great example of living out the tension between grace and truth — which at the end of the day is the distinctiveness of our Christian faith – applied in the workplace.  Faith & work integration at its best.

YouTube is the #2 search engine on the web today.

In the time it takes you to read this post, over 100 hours of video have been uploaded to YouTube.  That’s because over 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.com every minute of every day.

And people are watching a lot of it.   Viral video campaigns have changed our culture with millions and millions of video views.

And as we become a YouTube nation, viral videos are changing themselves.

So what makes a video go viral?  There are tons of people studying the phenomenon.  Here’s one guy that might be worth your video view — his job is to go to work each day and watch YouTube videos all day long.  Kevin Allocca is the “trends manager” at YouTube (as if trends can be managed. LOL).  But anyway, he recently spoke at TED sharing his 3 insights for why and when videos go viral across the Interwebs.

Check out his TED talk and see if you agree with him:

I believe the church marketer has the opportunity to produce messaging (and in video format too) that hits upon the points Kevin shares in his presentation on viral videos.  What can your church be doing to become the tastemaker locals come to trust and follow?  I’m talking about becoming the curator of excellent content, highlights of life in your city, and interviews with interesting people in your community.   Becoming relevant to the people outside your church walls is one way of gaining attention and trust as a contributor to community life in your city.

Now wouldn’t that be a totally unexpected yet refreshing role for a local church?

Here’s an excerpt from a press release I sent out today for a project I’m working on right now — The Adoption Journey Project (www.adoptionjourney.org)

There’s two factors of this example I’d like to highlight.  .  .

But first, here’s the content about the campaign first:

This year’s football fans gathering at various watch parties will have access to one Super Bowl coach’s personal thoughts during halftime. A free downloadable video kit is available to local game watching party organizers which features Super Bowl winning coach Tony Dungy and his wife Lauren.

The video message includes a personal appeal to Americans on the subject of the current orphan crisis and adoption. Dungy is involved with The Adoption Journey Project (www.adoptionjourney.org) to help influence more couples to consider adoption.

“The big win on Super Sunday would be to raise awareness about the millions of children who need a family. I would love to see thousands of local community groups and circles of friends gathering together to stop and consider how they can help,” said Dungy, the winning head coach of the 2007 Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts.

“With more than 100,000 children in need of a stable and loving family in the US, if just a fraction of groups gathering to watch the Big Game influence just one family to adopt, we would make a huge dent in this social crisis,” said Marc Andreas, Vice President of Marketing at Bethany Christian Services, the largest adoption agency in the country.

 

Basically, we’re asking anyone that’s hosting a Super Bowl watch party to play 3 minute Tony Dungy video message sometime during the halftime.  Dungy is the Super Bowl winning coach of the 2007 Indianapolis Colts team.  PLUS, the 2012 Super Bowl is being hosted in Indianapolis this year.  And Tony & Lauren Dungy are also Christians as well as adoptive parents.

The downloadable video file is available at www.adoptionjourney.org/dungyhalftime — along with instructions to burn it to DVD or stream it to TV set-top boxes like AppleTV, Tivo or WD Live devices.  Hosts can also download a printable conversation guide with some suggestions on how to set it up and spark some discussion.

So what are the two factors I wanted to highlight about this campaign?

(1) The usage of press releases and a resource-filled landing page is a tool most non-profits and ministries really should be considering.  The release is being sent out over PR Newswire and Christian Newswire.  We’ll see for sure over the next week or so if utilizing these outlets will gain us positive coverage and exposure.  But in general, using a tier-1 wire service can really help the cause.

Once the release is published it will also help us in approaching bloggers and other influential leaders by pointing to a media resource page with some or all of the following:

• clean full text copies of the published press release — both as text on the page as well as a downloadable PDF.  For example, you can find the PDF of the full press release on the Halftime video campaign landing page
• listings of early media hits for the story to give social proof
• downloadable and embedable video clips that relate to the story
• static images / photos that help tell the story — with captions
• background on your organization, sometimes called “boilerplate” ABOUT US type info
• FAQ’s that anticipate the basic questions a writer will have about the story
• contact information so media can reach out to you to coordinate interviews and quotes

(2) See how this campaign takes advantage of timing around another public event — with this example, it is a national event that is brings with it a lot of pre-existing top-of-mind and awareness related to the advocate talking about the cause.

Over 100 Million people will be gathering around TV’s to watch the Big Game on Feb 5th, so it is a rare opportunity to reach tons of local groups huddled around the TV set on a single day.  If just a tiny portion of a percentage of game watching parties actually showed the video, having the Dungy give this appeal to Americans about the orphan crisis could make for a huge win for adoption initiatives.

Keeping tabs on current and upcoming trends will help you jump on the bandwagon and take advantage of topics that have built-in enthusiasm from the media community.  If you build your story properly, you’ll be able to get your message played in front of the audience others are already building for you.

If you still aren’t sure about press releases in general, I’ve written before about why I think press releases are a good tactic to use in your communications mix.

QUESTION: How can you start using press releases to draw supporters, participants and simply more awareness to your programming efforts?  Leave your brainstorming comments below.

Your church marketing worked.

New people that have never been to your church before walk through the doors.  So what do you do?  

Do you accost them and demand they fill out the “visitor card” so you can stalk them or nag them like a telemarketer?  Do you have a committee that instantly has a dozen people “friend” them on Facebook out of the blue?  Do you ask them to stand-up in front of everyone during service and make them stand out literally like a sore thumb with the intention of making them feel “welcome”?

One tactic that is widespread is the first time visitor bag. . . A goodie bag filled with marketing collateral that probably hardly gets read, along with some tchotchke or knicknacks that are are usually branded with your church logo or carries a cross or a dove or an icon of the bible.

Here’s some ideas to keep this tactic fresh:

• Get Out of Offering Card
• Digital Media Download Card
• Chocolate Bar
• Shirt
• Sunglasses Visor Clip
• Coupons for services by church members (like babysitting)

What did you find in a first time gift big when you visited your currently minstry? Anything out of the ordinary”

This is the third in a series of guest posts by Howard Freeman – Founder and Principal of Zoey Creative Development, a charitable giving consultancy in NYC serving both organizations and also individual philanthropists.

He is also the author of the upcoming book on online giving called, ‘Making A Difference 2.0’ (Skyhorse Publishing, May 2012) and can be reached at howard@zoeycreativedevelopment.com

GARDENING IS ACTUALLY THE WORLD’S OLDEST PROFESSION

During the last two segments, we’ve looked at finding more money and raising more money.

This week, we look at tending to what we’ve found and been entrusted with.

Wise farmers, and smart geneticists who deal with environmental issues, know that over-farming or farming the wrong crops can all but permanently ruin a piece of land.

Those of us in ministry who ask our people to give need to consider them not as ATMs but as living, organic beings who are created in God’s image (Gen 1), are fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps 139) and in fact are God’s very handiwork (Eph 2:10).  If we truly took these truths to heart, we would fully engage in the top two tasks yet not fail to do the last.

Let the ground ‘lay fallow’ sometimes.

One of my favorite ministry leaders sends monthly letters that one might expect would ask for support but instead tell a story and relate one of God’s truths.  They bless me.  I look for them in the mail, and I have given to this organization simply because it refreshes me, in addition to the good work I believe it does.

Likewise, the national political campaigns that have raised the most money online since 2000 have been the ones that emphasize building community first and ask for money second.  (They want money, no doubt, but they know what must come first in donors’ minds.)  The most successful of these to date solicited one time for every nine news items or community messages.

Refresh your donors.

Thank them often.

And trust the sovereignty and goodness of God who—when you selflessly invest in the spiritual growth of your givers, whom he has made for a purpose—will provide for you to carry out your purpose as an organization.

This is the second in a series of guest posts by Howard Freeman – Founder and Principal of Zoey Creative Development, a charitable giving consultancy in NYC serving both organizations and also individual philanthropists.

He is also the author of the upcoming book on online giving called, ‘Making A Difference 2.0’ (Skyhorse Publishing, May 2012) and can be reached at howard@zoeycreativedevelopment.com

GIVE TO GET

Last time we looked at how to find more money.

Christian organizations should avail themselves of select professional tools like prospect research, because fundraising and engaging donors in a vision is a profession and should be approached with professional standards and ethics.

This week we look at raising more money. Our recommendation is not exactly ‘orthodox’ by traditional fundraising standards. But it is biblical.

Most organizations try to employ increasing numbers of tactics to make people give larger gifts and more frequently.  Some of these techniques are certainly useful, such as one- or two-click online giving, multiple methods of giving, fundraising events, classes in budgeting (to reduce debt and free up income for giving), etc.

But the truly radical way to get people to give is to teach them what the Bible has to say about money, who Jesus is, and calling them to live a holistically generous life.

What makes it radical is to do it with no expectation of return.  (Try passing this by your church finance team!)

One group doing this very well and offering programs almost free to Christian organizations is Generous Giving.

Their ‘Journey of Generosity’ (JOG) events now have metrics to show that the transformation of attendees is not just deeper discipleship but—to make those finance teams happy—fuller coffers.  Of those surveyed:

• 75% say that the JOG “changed their perspective or practice related to generosity.”
• 43% say they have already made a new gift they would not have made before the JOG.
• 76% say they plan to make a gift in the next 12 months they would not have made before the JOG.
• 97% say they have talked about the impact with someone else.
• 77% say they plan to attend another GG event in the next 12 months.

The key, though, is that it must be done for them, and not for your organizational budget.

While space doesn’t allow here, studies by George Barna and Brian Kluth show that regularly talking about the budget from the pulpit can increase giving marginally, but teaching on generosity can increase giving exponentially.

In the next and final post, we look at something—stewardship—that the best secular and faith-based organizations both do well.

And I use the metaphor of the world’s oldest profession.  (It’s not what you think…)

We’re in the 11th hour before Christmas Eve services here at Liquid Church and our Church Online team is totally pumped about our first ever Christmas Virtual Choir that we’re pulling together.

What started as an interesting idea to allow our Church Online community to participate in our church-wide services, has become a great tool to talk about Christmas at church — and invite family and friends to one of the 6 services being held on Saturday at our campuses as well as 2 services for Church Online.

Since there is some novelty in a webcam- or “YouTube Christmas Choir” it has to potential to draw in some people that might be sitting on the fringes of the crowd.  I love that aspect of it.

So our video producer and media team has been rocking it all night since the deadline for submitting individual renditions of Silent Night over the web. . . And here’s a first peek at the Virtual Christmas Choir which will sing Silent Night:

Yes, we’ll have a traditional preached message and live worship band, etc that go along with a church service, but this one of the small ways we’re aiming to mix it up a bit… keeping the church experience fresh and inviting for those that walk in the door — some for the first time in a long time, others for the first time ever.

QUESTION: What is your church doing to mix it up this year at Christmas?

As we have pushed forward into the information age, ministry has followed suit in many ways. . . ministry work has evolved so that it isn’t strictly about counseling, facilitating discipleship, teaching on a one-to-one or one-to-some basis. Sophistication in communication resources has allowed growth-oriented ministries to find themselves planning, producing & presenting more content, running more outreach programs, serving more people by collaborating in teams and more.

This has changed the daily routine of ministry work a bit for some.

Have you ever had meetings to plan volunteer training, or leadership lunches, or ministry team retreats?

I’m sure you have at some point, if its not already a regular occurrence in your work.

Are you aware that you’ve gotten to the point where you are meeting about meetings?

Today is a Monday, and it’s typically a meeting-heavy day here.  I already know not to schedule any meaningful calls or meetings with new people on Mondays because I’ll be consumed with various standing meetings.   In the end, Monday’s are not really a day where I “get work done.”  Have you ever felt the same thing?

How do you change this? At least for the people you manage and interact with?

Before you figure it out, here’s a great TED talk where Jason Fried discusses “Why work doesn’t happen at work?” to put it into context:

One of my colleagues at work, Rich Birch, has offered up this response:

The author, Al Pittampalli, is trying to dig one layer deeper than usual to figure out how to radically change our work habits around meeting and productivity.

Rich has arranged an opportunity for us to sit down internally with Al this coming January, and I’m excited to read his book, READ THIS BEFORE YOUR NEXT MEETING — and then interact with him to see how I can activate some of the insights for my own praxis in year ahead.

I definitely want to ramp up productivity in the next year, what about you?

QUESTION: Are you sick of meetings? What do you do *during* your inefficient meetings? Got any tips to make meetings radically useful to everyone that comes? Share your rant or tip below in the comments. I’m looking forward to hearing all of it!

I’m excited to share a little project that I’m involved with at Liquid Church of New Jersey — through which we’re hopeing to bring a little joy to the world this Christmas Eve.

How — you ask?

How about by organizing the world’s first virtual Christmas choir made up of singers from around the world wide web.

Whether they’re soldiers in the Middle East, moms in Estonia or students in Phoenix, Arizona, the church will leverage technology to synchronize individual singers into a unified choir rendition of Silent Night.

The sermon message for Christmas eve will touch upon how the body of Christ can come together as one voice.  And so this project is a nice tie-in to the message while providing something fresh at Christmas.

The project actually arose from the fact that Liquid not only has over 2,000 people who attend our church services each week, but thousands more come to church online or download any of the hundreds of podcast files each month.  One question that we asked ourselves was: How do we increase interactivity and sharability at the same time?  Well, a guy named Eric Whitacre recently presented at TED about a virtual choir he assembled by harnessing the connectivity of the web.

And in a simliar way, we decided to ask our people at our campuses and across the web to help spread the Christmas cheer together this year with us by getting involved.

Singers are given access to sheet music, music tracks and a video-recorded conductor so that anyone can record and upload their contribution to YouTube. Liquid Church’s media team will then assemble a composite video production that integrates all of the individual videos into one large-scale synchronized video rendering for the Christmas Virtual Choir.

Participation in the Christmas Virtual Choir is open to everyone around the globe.  And it’s easy-peasy.  Here’s my own video submission for the Silent Night song:

The deadline for those who want to participate in the choir is December 15th. Instructions are available at http://www.lqd.ch/xmasvideo.

The Christmas Virtual Choir’s performance will occur at six live Christmas Eve services in New Jersey on December 24th held by Liquid Church as well as church online services that weekend.

If you’re a Christian techie, two of the big names to take note of might be:

• Tim Keller
• Google

Well, what happens when they intersect?

Basically you get Tim Keller speaking at Google HQ in their Authors@Google series.

Dr. Keller has spoken there before, and it’s one of the the more popular videos (approaching 200,000 views) on the web featuring Dr. Keller.

The latest book out of Redeemer City to City‘s Content Labs is The Meaning of Marriage.

So Google’s invited him back to talk about the book and the Christian view of Marriage.   Take a looksie at the hour long talk . . .

One of the interesting (perhaps controversial) tidbids he puts out there in this talk is about gender and marriage. He touches on the Christian view of marriage — is for character building. Meaning. . .to bring to bring the two diametrically different genders together — they “clash” in a way to rub off the edges that each other carries. But we also “mesh,” in complementary ways. And it is in those two ways that we complete each other. Much of what marriage is supposed to do can only happen within traditional husband-wife unions.

For those of you missed his first visit in 2008, back when he published The Reason for God, here’s the video of that appearance:

Speaking at gigs like this is very different than preaching 3-point sermons. But he certainly employs the Tim Keller approach to presenting.

What did you notice about this talk?  Leave a comment below.

This is the first in a series of guest posts by Howard Freeman – Founder and Principal of Zoey Creative Development, a charitable giving consultancy in NYC serving both organizations and also individual philanthropists. 

He is also the author of the upcoming book on online giving called, ‘Making A Difference 2.0’ (Skyhorse Publishing, May 2012) and can be reached at howard@zoeycreativedevelopment.com.

There is not a ministry which I’ve heard or read about that doesn’t need to raise more money, or raise more money this year than last year.  If you’re in the group that still needs to raise money, here are tips to find more, raise more, and sustain more. 

A METAL DETECTOR WILL FIND THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK

Most ministries and even churches go to “the same pockets,” leaving these individuals and families worn out and even discouraged, especially if they hear from the leaders only around the end of the fiscal year or during campaigns. 

What most organizations fail to do, though, is look at steady givers deeper in their database or even to do research on them.

Considering “prospect research,” however, appalls a lot of Christian organizations.

But just as some churches should consider a press release, even though that seems counter to “what churches do,” organizations of all types should know what giving capacity their constituents have.

image: vichie81

At the last two organizations I worked for, we used a research tool that my firm now uses with our clients.  At my most recent organization, using this at the beginning of a campaign translated into more than $100,000 of unanticipated gifts in the first two months, making the tool cost less than $0.03 per dollar raised.  It became cheaper as more gifts came in.

If you don’t want to invest in using a research tool, consider these measures to find more gifts and more donors among older and younger constituents:

• Ask people to make monthly gifts, not end-of-year only gifts.  Monthly gifts can accumulate to be larger, and it develops their spiritual discipline of giving.

• Ask older church members or constituents to consider a charitable gift annuity (CGA), even a deferred CGA.  They can name themselves as beneficiary, or they can name one of the pastors as beneficiary to benefit years from now.  A portion of a deferred annuity can potentially be written immediately to the bottom line.

• Ask your younger constituents to volunteer for something.  Studies show that most people aged 35 or younger who make a financial gift to an organization have first volunteered at that organization.

Next time we’ll discuss ‘raising more’ money.  Our recommendation is a bit unorthodox—according to fundraising textbooks, that is.

In the last post, I shared a useability testing secret everybody who has a website should know about.

The quick answer to the question of how much testing you should do is . . . “5 is the magic number.”

The inevitable question now is – how do you go about actually testing the 5 users you can easily round up in a flash?

There are a couple of options, but one of the services I know about and have used is www.openhallway.com — in short, it’s a site that lets you assign a task to a user, who then goes through your site and narrates what they are thinking and doing the entire time so that OpenHallway.com can record the screen, mouse movements and the users’ narration for later review.

(TryMyUI.com is another service that does similar kinds of screen-recording of user sessions with your site.)

OpenHallway.com was birthed from the same idea as what Jakob Nielsen is promoting:

A hallway usability test is where you grab the next person that passes by in the hallway and force them to try to use the code you just wrote. If you do this to five people, you will learn 95% of what there is to learn about usability problems in your code.

Basically, all you have to do is go out and recruit 5 people to test your website.  This should be a no brainer — get on Facebook, Twitter, Email, or literally, go down the hallway and ask the next 5 people you see.

The next part is the fun part. . .

Then have them try to accomplish one task that you set-up with a service like OpenHallway.com.  Perhaps it is to find information about what you do specifically in one area of offerings.  Or it might be to try to find directions to your place.  Or to figure out the schedule for one of your programs.  Think of tasks that any given user would be thinking of accomplishing by going to your website.

Then sit back and wait for the recordings to come in.  Almost every video I’ve reviewed has uncovered an “Really?” or “Ah-Ha. . .They’re right about that.” whether it be small or big.  It’s always something to consider in improving the site experience.

Once you get 5 user tests completed, you’ll see that some of the issues will be repeated by more than one person.  Those are the problems you want to address immediately.  You’ll probably discover some one-off issues too.  Here you can ask 1 or 2 more people to do an OpenHallway test that tries to zero in on that issue to validate the concern or throw it out.

Sometimes the problem can be fixed with better navigation to the final spot on the site.  Other times, it is how you describe or represent the issue or process.  And some times you have to throw out what you have existing on your site and start from scratch.

They guys at OpenHallway.com recommend the book, Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug.  It’s an easy read, and much of it seems like common sense.  But probably worth you picking it up if you’ve never done anything in the user testing arena.

After you make your quick fixes (or biggies too), it’s time to go back and find 5 more people to test it again.  You’ll crack a big smile if those problems do disappear in the next round of testing.  It means that the testing worked.

QUESTION: What is the ONE area of your site you would want to test this week if you could?  Be specific!  Leave your answer or questions in the comments below and I’ll try to address them (or hopefully others will jump in too).

Whenever an organization sets out to tinker with the website to improve it, or even go for the complete revamping of the site, it’s based on some feedback that the site isn’t doing what is intending to do.  This can be based on internal feedback, implicit or explicit comments from site visitors, a gut feeling that the site can communicate better, or the plain facts that your site conversion goals aren’t happening.

So what happens next?  Most often than not, a group of people go into meetings and set about reconfiguring the site structure, improve navigation, updating the aesthetics to reflect current Web 2.0 and beyond trends, and revising the content.   Hopefully they do it in a way that is strategic in nature or bring in someone that can help with that.

But whatever the process, when you finally flip the switch, only the actual usage by site visitors can tell you whether you succeeded or not.

Here’s the part where most groups drop the ball.  One of the most critical milestones in site development happens right here — not before when you’re whiteboarding the site and its contents.  This is where you need to do some usability testing.   Qualitative and quantitative research will guide you on what works and what doesn’t.

But because focus groups and user testing seems so sophisticated and enigmatic, most site owners don’t ever go through with the steps that can radically impact how your message is received by the visitors coming to your site.  The superficial pushback on this area seems to be in two immediate areas beyond the lack of comfort / knowledge for how to preceed:

(1) We don’t have money for that!  Testing dozens and dozens of people would cost more than we can afford.

(2) We don’t have the time for rounds of user testing.  That would delay our website project too much, or we have so much other stuff to do now that we’ve finished the website revamping.

But here’s the kicker, it doesn’t have to be expensive nor time-consuming to get the critical feedback you need to communicate better with your visitors.

And here is why 5 is the magic number in useability testing:

According to Jakob Neilson, the usability guru (seriously, you should check out his site, www.useit.com), the ideal scenario usually warrants 76 users for comprehensive quantitative testing that addresses the typical outliers that come through.  And a more manageable 15 users need to be tested in order to get at all the qualitative usability issues in the design of a site.

But in reality, the magic number is really 5.  That’s it.  FIVE people. . .

Jakob sums it up in this sentence for me:

The cost-benefit analysis of user testing provides the optimal ratio around three or five users, depending on the style of testing.

The other tip that goes along with this research is that you need to approach it as an iterative process.

It’s better plan for multiple tests of small batches.    Instead of getting the 15 people to give you absolute confidence in finding all usability problems with your site, he recommends that you rather do 3 rounds of testing 5 people with each update of the site.  This will get you much further along in the end.

So how do you do the actual tests?  His site and other places on the web can help inform that process.   I personally have been using a site called OpenHallway.com which allows me to set-up a task to test and offer it to multiple users.    I’ll share more about it in the next post.

It’s your turn to share: Have you ever done user testing on your site?  Have you ever participated in feedback testing?  Leave your answers in the comment section below.

In my last post, I wrote about  WHY your church should be putting out a press release about the great things your church is doing out in the community.

Press releases are something most churches have no experience with. . . Partly because it’s a craft that’s engimatic and not very easy to understand.   And partly because of a conceptual allergy to practices that are embraced by the marketplace.  “The church has no business doing business,” some might say.

Since most churches don’t have people on staff that have really done much official PR before, the big question that arises usually is:

So just how/where do you send out a press release?

Well, I personally recommend that you try at least once with one of the Tier-1 press release syndication services.  I’ve used PR Newswire numerous times in the past, each time with very good results.

(1) Here’s an insider’s tip though:  If you’re a non-profit organization (501-3C, or listed in Guidestar), you qualify for non-profit discounts for PR Newswire press release distribution.  Yup, churches qualify for this discount too.

eReleases newswire service acts sort of like a reseller of PR Newswire and they have a product called CAUSEWIRE that offers the non-profit discount.

For example, I just picked-up a pre-paid credit for a press release for $179 (for a standard 500 word press release.  It costs $100 for each additional 100 word block of words in the release).  This goes out over the national wire service via PR Newswire as well as two industry specific lists.  In past jobs, I’ve had to pay extra for these industry lists (and that alone cost more than $179).

The only catch is that you have to schedule the release 3 days in advance of when you want it sent out.  If you need immediate release scheduling, you have to pay the regular rack rates, but even then, the standard pricing is cheaper than if you went to PR Newswire directly.

(2) Another option is Christian Newswire, which prices several sub-lists separately a la carte style from $65 (for 400 words, then 50% more for each group of 100 words over 400 words) and up each.  It’s much more affordable, but know that this is not an apples-to-apples comparison to using PR Newswire.

(3) I’ve also been considering using a service called PR Web.  They were originally a free press release web distribution service, that grew up, and then got bought out by a big company called Vocus.  Now they partner with BusinessWire, which is a competitor of PR Newswire.  Just as eReleases sends your press release over PR Newswire, PR Web sends your press release over Business Wire.  Does that make sense?

Anyway, PR Web offers various levels of service.  But the lesser priced ones aren’t really worth much since they are simply auto-syndicating/posting your release on a bunch of partner sites that take their feeds and push them live.  This might yield decent traffic results in the short term, but as Google continues to move toward weeding out all that duplicate content out there, content farms and similar strategies are going to loose their visibility in the search engine rankings.  PR Web  does have discount pricing if you commit to volume — one package I know of offers 2 releases a month for under $140 each.  That’s pretty affordable, and I’ve asked PR Web to let me test out the service under these packages to personally see what type of results they bring.  Stay tuned on if they respond.

I’ll add some details about what else you need to consider for a basic pr campaign in an upcoming post, but for the time being, these are the 3 biggie newswire service options that non-profits and ministries should consider.

Does your church work with any outside community groups on a service or outreach project?  That’s where I’d start with crafting the story to tell the world.

QUESTION: What is your resistance to sending out a press release about an upcoming event or program your church is planning?  Can you articulate it in a comment below?

There is one marketing tactics that I believe most pastors think should be off-limits (or rather don’t ever think about) for getting the word out about the great stuff their ministry is doing.

What could that be?

It’s the basic press release.

But a press release will accomplish several things at once.  In addition, what you think might be newsworthy only on the local level might actually be interesting to national media outlets in telling the story of what’s on the pulse of the nation.  One press release we sent out recently got the attention of 175+ local news stations across the country.

Consider just a couple of the following benefits, and let me know what you think:

1) Press releases gets your news out on the web.  Everyone talks about search engine optimization and marketing, and press releases in a very efficient way to get your ministry and corresponding links to pages on your website sprinkled across the web in front of new audiences.  This benefit is for more than just the immediate timeframe, as the links will help drive incremental traffic over time as people find the older releases and click through to your site, even years after you have sent the press release out.

2) If you want your local and regional community to take notice and talk about your ministry, a press release alerts local papers and hyper-local news outlets like the Patch, and radio stations.  Without a press release, it would be almost impossible for them to proactively find your ministry efforts so that they can share with their audiences.

3) If you write your press release in a very targeted manner, you will be able to insert yourself into the conversation people are already having around the water cooler about what they find in various media outlets.  If you are able to be strategic in relating your news or activities to the current zeitgeist, you’ll find yourself become immediately relevant to new audiences in a fresh and interesting way.

By the way, did you notice something that’s common to all three points above?  How about the fact that one of the major benefits of sending out a press release as a part of your church marketing activities is that it gets your ministry in front of new audiences.

If you start with this objective in mind, you might find that a strategically planned press release distribution and follow-up plan might do your ministry some good in getting new people to cross that threshold.

Have you considered sending out a press release regarding your church?  If not, what questions do you have about press releases and your ministry?  Leave them in the comment section below and I’ll try to answer them in the next post on PR.

For the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, Liquid Church commissioned a new song by songwriter/singer Dave Pettigrew. Its called “There Is Hope”

You can find the lyrics and free mp3 download form on the Liquid website here.

The song itself received great exposure, making its way to Sirius/XM Sattelite Radio and beyond. Some of the feedback the song received was amazing. It has touched a lot of hearts and helped in healing for many that have heard it to date.

Now, the song has lived on beyond September and has broken into the Top 50 at IndieHeaven.com. Would you help the song reach more people by clicking a few clicks and vote up the song?

Here’s exactly how to do it:

Music is such a big part of people’s lives and it takes on meaning of its own for many of them. Seeing the journey that this one song has taken is been wonderful. This is just one of the innovative ways we are trying to reach more people outside the walls of the church, and it seems to be working.

Do you have a song that has been meaningful in your life? Would you share your story with a comment below?

In 10 days, we’ll arrive at the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. I don’t think many people have thought about it much yet. Here in NJ, we just got through a mini-earthquake, Hurricane Irene and still struggling without power or flooded main streets.

But it’s been 10 years. Yup 10. Many of us are still living like it happened just recently.

While the Gospel is not patriotic to our red white and blue stripes, there is a call to attend to the healing that is still going on. And it’s not just “our people” in the pews every week. This is one event, may I say especially in the northeast, if not NYC Tri-State Area, where 9/11 touched almost every family personally or via someone they know.

Most communities and churches are planning to do something on that date in this country. The question is just who are you trying to remember, and re-unite? This seems to be one of the rare opportunities where the church has the chance to be in a position of leadership within the public square — isn’t this when we can reveal the beacon of light on a hill that we have found in our faith?

Liquid Church is trying to embrace the widest definition of that word “community” and trying to reach out to anyone that wants to walk in the door that Sunday morning, planning six different memorial services for 9/11 in three NJ cities, geographically located in three different counties. The intention is to provide a meaningful way for people to gather and bring loved ones with them to hear a message that, perhaps, only the church can share: hope is something we have to hold onto, even in the darkest hours of our time together here.

I think many churches tend to limit themselves in thinking that by default, they don’t have a chance to the attract *everyone* in a given community to their programs and outreach events. But if we start with such a self-defeating posture, what chance do we really have for a really big win?

This doesn’t mean you have to hype it up and be all splashy in order to gain the the broadest reach, of course. Here’s one creative way that this might be expressed. . .

Since so much of our generation is almost surgically tied to our iPods, and iPhones, music has become a powerful and meaningful way of expression and common experience. American Idol has shown us a little bit of this.

One example of trying to reach outside the normal boundaries that church signals reach is a project that was hatched this past year. Here’s a video that was created to accompany a new song titled, “There is Hope” by Dave Pettigrew. (You can download it for yourself here.)

With music, it seems that there might be less friction for word of mouth to happen. In addition, the spread-factor takes an entirely different route as well. Here’s the song being shared right now:

As you can tell, this message of hope is also something that comes across well via songwriting medium. Hopefully it is one additional means to reach someone that may not normally be in proximity to or responsive to typical communications messaging from churches, but really needs to hear it. Do you see how in this one instance, trying to reach someone on their own terms and inviting them into the fold this way is at the same time — expanding the boundaries of what we might envision the total potential *community* we can engage with?

Is this the message that your church is prepared to send out during this time of need and gathering? If not, where are you going with your 9/11 Sunday message this year?