Category: Tech
August 31, 2010ChurchSafety.com’s Top 10 Training Resources
What other church leaders are reading and using to keep their congregations safe.
ChurchSafety.com provides expert guidance and risk management information on a broad range of safety topics. We’ve compiled the Top 10 most-downloaded resources from ChurchSafety.com during the past year. Find out what other church leaders have read and used to train staff and volunteers and to develop a safe environment for ministry:
10. Confronting Gun Violence at Church
While the number of incidents involving guns at churches remains small, information and preparation are still vital. Begin by assessing the current security of your church. This download gives helpful advice on how to plan for the unexpected, whether or not your church should hire a security guard, and how to deal with the media in the aftermath of violence.
Children are often the most vulnerable members of our congregations, and their presence also presents some of the most serious liability risks. Most churches use minors to assist in various children's or youth programs. Screening these workers will help prevent youth-peer sexual harassment. Institutions can be found guilty of negligence in these cases for not providing security against such abuse. Learn practical steps to properly screen underage workers and access helpful templates for references and interviews.
8. Creating a Safety Team
When crisis arises, are you prepared? Don’t be taken by surprise next time. Learn to respond appropriately to situations ranging from common medical emergencies to crisis involving gunfire. Every church can benefit from forming a safety team that is trained to respond appropriately to various emergencies. This download will discuss the importance of having a team that can handle situations requiring security intervention, medical response, or evacuation.
Continue reading "ChurchSafety.com’s Top 10 Training Resources" »
The Your Church Blog's Top 10 Posts from Its First Year
The topics that most interested readers like you during the past year.
I love milestones. And I'm a sucker for top 10 lists (thank you very much, David Letterman). Since today is August 26, it means the TheYourChurchBlog.com turns 1. Naturally, I went back and looked at our 10 most popular posts for the first year.
But before I do, a few observations about our past year:
1. Subject popularity appears diverse: 3 of the Top 10 posts fall under the Law Category, with 2 each under Finance and Safety, and 1 each under Staff and Office (the other post was a general one and didn't fall under one specific category);
2. Our highest traffic day came on February 23, on the heels of our post "Oregon Case Provides a Powerful Reminder to Churches," which reviews the implications of an appeals court's ruling that allowed a pastor's victory in a defamation lawsuit against his former church to stand.
3. The post garnering the most comments was "Where You Work Best," which discusses the pros and cons of worshipping at the church where you also work.
Without further delay, here are TheYourChurchBlog.com's Top 10 posts during its first year:
10. Legally Host a Super Bowl Party: If your church is hosting a Super Bowl party this year, you will need to abide by three simple guidelines to avoid violating copyright law ... read more
9. The Top 7 Resources to Combat Church Embezzlement: Earlier this month, we looked at two recent cases of church embezzlement, and the "zero tolerance" stance judges are starting to take against these crimes. Unfortunately, yet another big headline has since emerged ... read more
8. 10 Questions to Ask About Your Church's Communication: As you approach 2010, consider these 10 questions to discuss your church’s communication efforts ... read more
7. What Will the New Health Care Bill Mean for Churches?: Now that President Obama has signed the health care reform bill into law, many churches are wondering what the impact will be on staffing costs. ... read more
Continue reading "The Your Church Blog's Top 10 Posts from Its First Year" »
Making Smartphones Smart for Ministry
Useful apps for the iPhone and other phones church leaders use.
Editor’s Note: Since its launch in 2007, the iPhone has changed the way we use mobile phones, creating a wave of applications and other features that turn these devices into mobile computers. With Apple upgrading its iOS4 software on June 21 (Wired recently compared iOS4 to Google Android’s 2.2), and launching sales of the iPhone 4.0 on June 24, we asked Carol Childress, a self-professed “iPhone junkie,” to share some of the apps she believes can help church leaders.
Time magazine named the iPhone the invention of the year in 2007. Just writing that sentence sounds like ancient history, and it is, in terms of innovations in current technology. I have fond memories of standing, sitting, reading, listening to music, and chatting with others who waited in line with me for the better part of June 29, 2007, to buy my first iPhone.
Despite all the hype at its release, I don’t think Steve Jobs, AT&T, or few others really understood how quickly the iPhone and other smartphones would change the telecommunications industry. The telephone now is almost the least functional feature of my iPhone. Actual telephone usage on all wireless phones is declining. In 2009, for the first time in the United States, the amount of text, e-mail, streaming video, music and other services on smartphones and other mobile devices surpassed the amount of voice data in cell phone calls.
A major reason for this shift is the introduction of third-party applications that convert an iPhone and other smartphones into a computer, a book, a wallet, a movie screen, a photo album, a remote control, or almost anything you can imagine in a single, hand-held device. Because of these apps, my phone has become the single-most indispensable tool I own. The same likely is true for ministry leaders who use smartphones. For leaders who have been reluctant to move to a smartphone, the scope of available apps, new smartphone models, and the increasing competition between carriers may be compelling enough to make the switch.
There are more than 225,000 apps available through the Apple App Store and more than 5 billion apps (that’s with a ‘b’) have been downloaded since it opened in July 2008. Paid apps account for almost three of every four available apps and the average cost of a paid app that is downloaded is $3.04. There are also more than 50,000 Android apps now available (Android apps are available off of their developers’ sites, from Google, Motorola, and a variety of other places).
With so many apps available, and 15,000 new ones submitted weekly to the Apple App Store, it’s hard to know which ones to download, which ones to keep, which ones to use to improve productivity, and which ones to help manage your life and time. Of the more than 250 apps I have downloaded, I have found several to be consistently useful in life and ministry.
Reminder: FCC Mic Deadline Hits This Saturday
Changes may prove costly for churches, as will non-compliance
Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission set a deadline of June 12--this Saturday--for organizations to stop using any wireless systems, including microphones, currently operating in the 700 megahertz (MHz) frequency.
The restriction includes churches.
Your Church published a more in-depth article on the FCC's ruling, "Racing the FCC Mic Deadline," which provides more details.
Churches need to determine if their wireless mic systems comply with the new rules. Several say the changes will result in thousands of dollars in costs. Church leaders who aren't sure whether their systems use the frequency can find out on a website created by the FCC.
The FCC says the deadline will help eliminate potentially harmful interference with public safety systems now using the frequency. The deadline also will allow companies that purchased slices of the spectrum in 2008 to now pursue next-generation 4G wireless devices, the FCC says.
Don't Forget the Check
Remote-deposit capture is an efficient way to handle Sunday offerings.
The buzz surrounding electronic giving options continues to grow as online donation capabilities improve and text-messaging campaigns take hold. The American Red Cross, for instance, says it raised $35 million within 48 hours of the January earthquake in Haiti, with half arriving via its website and $5 million through texts.
But a lesser-known technology called remote-deposit capture may provide significant benefits to churches as they sift through the large number of checks still given weekly. A February survey of 750 Christian households by Maximum Generosity, Church Finance Today, and Leadership shows 90 percent still primarily use checks for their weekly offering.
Remote-deposit capture first gained acceptance among retailers wanting to speed the clearing of checks. In recent years, banks like Christian Community Credit Union, Bank of the West, and Evangelical Christian Credit Union began offering it to churches.
Is Porn a Problem in Your Church Office?
The SEC's embarrassing news provides a sobering reminder.
An eye-opening national headline emerged last week, providing a timely sneak peek into our upcoming issue of Your Church magazine.
The inspector general for the Securities and Exchange Commission--the organization tasked with enforcing the laws and regulations that govern the country's stock and options exchanges--conducted 31 probes of employee internet use during the past 2 1/2 years. The overarching finding? Senior staff members of the SEC spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers, according to a memo obtained first by ABC News.
Among the findings, according to an Associated Press story published Friday:
- One senior attorney spent up to 8 hours a day looking at porn. Upon running out of hard drive space, he burned files to CDs or DVDs;
- One accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month by the SEC's internal filter, yet he still found ways around that filter using search engines;
- In all, the SEC discovered 2 cases in 2007, and 16 in 2008 (as many will recall, the country's financial woes began to emerge midway through 2007).
Unfortunately, this isn't the first government agency to share disturbing news like this. Last fall, the National Science Foundation's agency inspector revealed he had to shift time scheduled to combat grant fraud to instead crack down on porn use by staffers.
So, what's the connection to church leaders and staff members?
Continue reading "Is Porn a Problem in Your Church Office?" »
Discerning Eyes for Church Law, Finance, and Administration
Known, respected leaders to help guide CTI resources.
Christianity Today International's church management division, which publishes Your Church magazine, the Church Law & Tax Report and Church Finance Today newsletters, plus resources, such as the annual Church & Clergy Tax Guide and ChurchSafety.com, recently formed two important boards for its publications and resources.
CTI invited well-known and well-respected members from church legal and financial circles to an Editorial Advisory Board to bring authoritative and qualified eyes to its work.
The 14 advisors will regularly contribute to the church management division’s publications, websites, and resources, and also will regularly provide ideas, thoughts, and feedback, shaping the articles, videos, books, blog posts, and other resources that guide church leaders on important legal, financial, safety, and administrative decisions.
Noted church and business leaders who will lend their expertise include:
Continue reading "Discerning Eyes for Church Law, Finance, and Administration" »
FCC Ruling May Affect Many Churches
Microphone systems must comply with June 12 deadline.
Editor's note: Since this posting appeared on January 22, Your Church has published a more in-depth article on the FCC's ruling: "Racing the FCC Mic Deadline."
The Federal Communications Commission has set a deadline of June 12 for organizations to stop using any wireless systems, including microphones, currently operating in the 700 megahertz (MHz) frequency.
The restriction includes churches.
In its prepared statement, the FCC didn't indicate what penalties, if any, organizations might face for not complying. The FCC says the deadline will help eliminate potentially harmful interference with public safety systems now using the frequency. The deadline also will allow companies that purchased slices of the spectrum in 2008 to now pursue next-generation 4G wireless devices, the FCC says.
Church leaders who aren't sure whether their systems use the frequency can find out on a website created by the FCC.
The FCC's announcement shouldn't come as a surprise, but that may not ease the sting for church leaders who now face the prospect of replacing or modifying their current microphone systems to comply. Your Church covered this looming possibility in May, and included some possible solutions that may not require buying a new system.
In a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article, two church leaders indicated they'll likely need to replace equipment. One estimates it will cost the church $2,400 to replace four mics affected by the changes.
Most telecommunications providers currently use 3G standards, which allow simultaneous voice and data transmissions at faster rates of speed. The upgrade to 4G will accelerate the speeds of those transmissions and widen the types of services those providers can offer. Companies, including AT&T and Verizon, paid the FCC billions of dollars through a 2008 auction for the rights to portions of the spectrum.
Your Church's Top 10 Articles of 2009
Looking back at the articles you read most this past year.
Last week, we wrote about the Top 10 most-read posts on TheYourChurchBlog.com during 2009. This week, we're taking a look at the Top 10 most-read articles from YourChurch.net, the website for Your Church magazine.
For a year riddled with bad economic news, there are a few surprises in these results (hint: Our No. 1 ranked story has nothing to do with the economy, or finances for that matter). What can we conclude from this? Probably not much. Except the fact that church administrators, executive pastors, pastors, and lay leaders wrestle with a variety of challenging, and often complicated, questions on a wide array of topics.
As a not-for-profit ministry, Christianity Today International is thankful it's in a position to help you answer these questions through Your Church, YourChurch.net, and TheYourChurchBlog.com, as well as Church Law & Tax Report, Church Finance Today, ChurchSafety.com, BuildingForMinistry.com, and YourChurchResources.com.
It's our desire to help you keep your church safe, legal, and financially sound. Here's looking forward to 2010!
And now, the Top 10 most-read articles on YourChurch.net during 2009:
10. Why Church Secretaries Quit
The State of Social Media, Part 2
Online tools for churches to build connection, community.
Editor’s Note: Drew Goodmanson, co-founder and pastor of San Diego’s Kaleo Church and a church web consultant, conducted a research project earlier this year on the state of social media for churches. In Part 1, Drew explained the research project, the scope of the findings, and the first of three discoveries that church leaders, business administrators, and pastors should note. In Part 2 today, he looks at a variety of online tools that churches are using for connection and community efforts.
Discovery No. 2: Tokbox Can Help Build Community
Building relationships and community online is an oft-cited goal of social networking. In the research, 40 percent of church leaders say making an effort to connect with, and support, their online communities was one of the most effective ways to use the web. Yet a third of ministry leaders felt building real community was one of the top challenges to being successful online.
In contrast, only 5 percent of church members felt building community online is a challenge. Many church members already see the benefits of online communities as they use tools to connect with past schoolmates and friends throughout the day.
Tokbox is one example of a social, video, and voice technology that can be used for building this community and supporting relationships. Tokbox, similar to Skype, offers free video calling and video conferencing. Conferencing is often equated with business meetings, but Cynthia Ware used it for a small group of moms that she led.
The State of Social Media, Part I
How Facebook is shaping online strategies for churches.
Editor’s Note: Drew Goodmanson, co-founder and pastor of San Diego’s Kaleo Church and a church web consultant, conducted a research project earlier this year on the state of social media for churches. Today in Part 1, Drew explains the research project, the scope of the findings, and the first of three discoveries that church leaders, business administrators, and pastors should note. In Part 2 next week, Drew will share more thoughts on the second and third discoveries made from this year’s research.
The social nature of media will continue to converge in ways we cannot imagine during the next five years. As church leaders, it is important to understand the state of social networking, and the directions of these participatory technologies. These tools may promise significant benefits to churches, who seek to build community, mobilize congregations, and offer greater interaction with unbelievers. And an understanding today leads to better action today and better planning for tomorrow.
To gain a full understanding, though, it’s critical that church leaders learn both the benefits and challenges of social media sites. Earlier this year, Monk Development set out to discover some answers to these questions through a “state of social media” research project, surveying hundreds of church leaders about the social media sites they’re using, what features and functions their church members seek, and what benefits and challenges they face using open source solutions or “church-only” ones.
We first shared the results of this research in a webinar entitled, “Church, Christians, and Social Networking” (you can watch an archived recording of the webinar). I’m the founder of Monk Development, a web consulting firm, and I’m also co-founder and pastor of Kaleo Church in San Diego. Cynthia Ware, who has two decades of pastoral ministry experience and a master's degree in new media, helped me present. She helps Christian leaders use their online presence to enrich and expand their ministry reach, and she actively speaks and writes on the subject.
Our work provided insights on three areas where social networking intersects with social media: outreach, discipleship, and community. While we can’t predict the future impact of social media, Cynthia quoted 1 Chronicles during our webinar, focusing on the passage where the “men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” Hopefully this information helps your church in that process.
10 Questions to Ask About Your Church’s Communications
Use these to help determine direction and strategy in the year ahead
Editor’s Note: Scott Vaughn, a church communications consultant, recently posed these questions in a discussion forum for church administrators. Vaughn, whose firm helps churches and faith organizations, is quoted extensively in “Bringing Joy to the World: A communications strategy to reach more people at Christmas—and beyond,” which appears in our current issue of Your Church magazine. We thought the questions serve as a helpful, quick assessment for church leaders and administrators; many of the themes addressed here also are covered in other articles of our current issue, including best practices for websites and using tech and nontech approaches for communicating with members and the community:
As you approach 2010, consider these 10 questions to discuss your church’s communication efforts:
1. How does our current communications methodology compare to what we were
doing five years ago? Are we changing with the way people in our church are
communicating?
2. Do we talk about a communications budget as an expense or an investment? Are
we strategic in using our communication to advance our mission to make
followers of Jesus? (Remember, a successful communications strategy leads to increases in participation and giving to the budget).
3. Are we talking with, and listening to, our members and attendees and making
adjustments in how they want to “receive” information from us?
4. Is more than 50 percent of our communications budget needlessly paying printing costs?
Continue reading "10 Questions to Ask About Your Church’s Communications" »
Consider Adding Windows 7
Church offices should benefit from Microsoft’s new operating system.
Ministry Business Services Inc., the church consulting firm I started in the 1980s, began testing Microsoft Corporation’s Windows 7 Professional in January. On Tuesday, MBS announced it adopted Windows 7 Professional as its preferred operating system, and it recommends churches to do the same.
This may surprise some, since the challenges with Microsoft’s Windows Vista, the preceding operating system, have been many. Clarence White, the chief information officer for the Salvation Army’s western territory, even asked me on a recent podcast if MBS really believed in Windows 7 Professional. The answer is yes. I told him it’s almost like Vista was a beta for Windows 7, or that Windows 7 is the first service pack for Vista that really fixes it.
Corporate customers have embraced Windows 7’s release as well. The Gartner Group recently said the operating system is ready (Gartner also recommends a 12- to 18-month integration process, saying earlier this month that organizations should start now), and a recent Softchoice study with ComputerWorld found that 88 percent of corporate PCs are capable of running Windows 7. That means many churches and ministries likely are in a position to upgrade to it as well.
High Tech, Low Budget
How one rural pastor uses technology without spending a lot.
In ministry, one can define stewardship as “maximizing the impact of every dollar.” In this economy, this definition takes on even greater meaning. And as the pastor of a small rural church, I have experienced this reality firsthand. Yet, even with added financial difficulties, I cannot forget that the above definition still includes the word “impact.” Our spending, regardless the amount, must make a difference.
One area often caught between stewardship and impact is technology. In my church, I have found that a little bit of technology goes a long way. Yet, the cost presents a formidable challenge to our budget. Unwilling to forgo the impact, I have tried to find creative ways to add technology without adding the typical high costs. Though not profound, the result of my efforts is five effective ideas for becoming high tech on a low budget.
The 2010 Wish-List
Five purchases churches might budget for this fall to buy next year.
Despite the lingering effects of the current economic maelstrom, next year’s church budget will soon become reality, and the need to disperse funds will be here.
Since a church budget should be assembled and managed wisely, it helps to know where trends are headed and how they affect resource effectiveness. For example, spending money on digital signs in the lobby may be a better investment than upgrading the paper quality of the bulletin, since many people have become acclimated to information video displays in airports and shopping malls and often prefer to receive data digitally.
Technology trends, then, give at least a general course directive on how to allocate funds and, while not a panacea, provide a useful tool in the service of worship when appropriately applied.
Here, then, are five current developments your church may find helpful as it considers purchases and next year’s budget:
What Computers and Phones Do Church Staff Need?
Answers to common questions about computers and phones.
Editor’s Note: The author’s consulting firm doesn’t sell or distribute any hardware or software, or receive any compensation for referrals. The firm’s work for many years with hundreds of churches led to the recommendations outlined here.
Many people make one of two mistakes about church technology needs. Either they underestimate the need and look for the cheapest possible solution (which often costs more because it’s the wrong solution), or they overspend on technology and overcomplicate the system.
We’ll look at some common questions regarding two office technology tools—desktop and notebook computers and mobile devices (such as smart phones)—with the hope that church leaders can avoid these mistakes on two essential categories of purchases.
Outside of megachurches, churches rarely have the budget for Information Technology staff. Some larger churches can add part-time staff to help support the technology needs of pastors and office personnel, but outside of that, most churches are best served by simple system and hardware strategies that increase reliability, which means less need for support.
When hardware purchases are strategized, they can drastically reduce the need for support and improve team productivity. And that’s especially important given our missions to share the Gospel and disciple believers.
The answers to these questions can help with those strategies for buying hardware:
Continue reading "What Computers and Phones Do Church Staff Need?" »
