Putting the dusty word “theology” right next to the gleaming word “technology,” may seem a little bit odd. Theology and technology feel like opposite poles on the planet of science. This is the year 2010, however, and the church has the responsibility to transmit theology through technology. But why…and how?

Continue reading “Theology through Technology – The Age of a New Church” »

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It’s a given fact that a lot of churches are embracing technology in a major way. By “technology,” I don’t just mean a microphone, electric lights, and a telephone line. Today’s churches are going big time with the cutting edge stuff.

Continue reading “Grow Your Church by Embracing Technology” »

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I’m pretty sure the First Church of Antioch, or Jerusalem Community Church didn’t have church wide WiFi or even Facebook Fan Pages. Yet most churches today are equipped with technology to the hilt—from flat screens in the foyer to Facebook feeds online, the web has become a core component of many church’s existence. Have we gone too far? Are our churches too Internet-dependent? Or are we utilizing the web to form church community?

Continue reading “Utilizing the Web to Form A Church Community” »

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Twitter plus church has been getting some attention. Even Time magazine had an article about it last year, titled “Twittering in Church, with the Pastor’s O.K.” The discussion has been raging ever since Twitter’s popularity explosion. Still, as Twitter continues to stalk the land, attracting more and penetrating deeper into the fiber of our culture, many pastors and church staff are wondering, “Is this Twitter thing for us?” It’s a good question. What’s the answer?

Continue reading “Twitter and the Church: To Tweet or Not to Tweet” »

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Just last night, I spent some time listening to a preacher who lives three time zones and 2,700 miles away from me. It’s not unusual. That kind of thing is going on all the time. Thanks to something called YouTube, invented by three web wizards in SoCal, millions of people everyday watch all kinds of videos–from videos of their grandkids, to sports clips, to educational lectures. In the Web 2.0 gen, YouTube is a staple of Internet intake. What does this mean for the church? Maybe, a better way of asking this is “What should this mean for the church?”

Continue reading “YouTube Your Church – Reaching the world by broadcasting your ministry” »

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Josh, the youth pastor, was looking at a very frustrated teen. Chris, a fourteen-year-old in Josh’s youth group, refused to speak with Pastor Josh about anything. Josh had tried talking to Chris about sports, music, and even girls. Chris wouldn’t respond with anything but monosyllables. Then, Chris would shuffle away when the silence got awkward. Josh was in a tough situation. If he could simply break through the communication barrier, he could actually reach Chris and help him out. It was obvious that Chris needed help. But how could Josh help someone that you he couldn’t even talk with?

Continue reading “Pastoral Counseling on Facebook” »

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You might be involved in sending out a church email newsletter. And, by the way, if you’re not, you may want to think about it. If you are, we would like to share some tips regarding your newsletter. This post has to do with how often you should send out your newsletter.

Although you may want a simple one-word answer to the question, the real answer actually depends on various factors. How much time do you have? What kind of information do you include in your newsletter? How big is your church? Here are some things to keep in mind as you ponder the issue:

Not Too Often

• Email is all too often abused. We call it spam. People don’t like to receive things that take up their time, yet apparently don’t deserve their time. Don’t allow the church newsletter to be guilty of that perception. And, yes, an every day newsletter is too often.
• Do you have time to send out a newsletter every day, week, month? Consider your own time constraints, because putting together a newsletter does take considerable time–or the time of other church administrators. Consider the importance of a newsletter compared to the importance of other church ministries, and prioritize accordingly.

But Just Often Enough

• The point of a newsletter is, among other things, to keep church in people’s minds. If you go dark for months on end, you will not achieve this important quality.
• The church has a message. There are many compelling reasons to send out a newsletter. Neglecting a newsletter is neglecting the opportunity give your people spiritual encouragement, prayer requests, relevant church news, important updates, and deeper integration within the life of the church.

The Simple Answer

• A monthly newsletter is a good frequency for many ministries. This provides the “often, but not too-often” approach, and gives contributors the time to work on developing content for the new newsletter edition.
• A seasonal newsletter (four times annually) is another suggestion. By having more time to work on the newsletter, you can provide more material or make the newsletter longer.

Some Suggestions

• In addition to sending out a church newsletter, your church may also want to consider sending out occasional important updates via email. This does not need to be a newsletter, but rather a way of maintaining email contact between newsletters, and providing only that information that is necessary for people to know immediately.
• Keep it interesting. A boring church newsletter is one that lacks pictures. Use Sharefaith’s vast library of images and graphics to make your church newsletter readable.
• As we have discussed in recent posts, Constant Contact is a helpful way to manage your entire church email effort. With intuitive tracking tools, professional templates, and other helpful features, it is the perfect way to sustain every aspect of the church’s email needs.

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Today, we want to give you one of the most powerful tips for enhancing your email newsletters, devotional emails, or whatever other type of email marketing you may be doing for your church. It has to do with emailing graphics. Graphics add interest to your email. Knowing how to keep your email correspondence interesting, fresh, and informative has to do with knowing how to add graphics. In a future post, we will explain the whole process for creating vibrant looking emails using banners, headers, and footers. For now, here is a quick and simple tutorial for how to add graphics in Constant Contact emails. Continue reading “Church Email Marketing: Adding Flair” »

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Surveys are powerful tools for enhancing your church’s effectiveness. However, surveys are useful only if 1) you have results, and 2) you have responses. Here’s how to get both. We’ll start off with discussing survey results…

To look at your survey results, first log in to Constant Contact. If you’ve already sent out a survey, you will be able to select the survey from the “My Surveys & Polls” section. Clicking on the survey takes you to the next screen where you can analyze survey results.

You can select from the four options underneath the survey title: Survey Details, Overall Results, Individual Results, and Invitation Results. The Overall Results tab may be your most important tool. This will show you the exact number of responses to certain questions.

Here are some features that you may find useful as you use surveys and track results:

• Find out which surveys have had the most responses in order to determine what type of questions to use next time.
• Find out who is and who is not responding to the survey.
• Get immediate survey results as they happen.
• Study the survey results using detail views and graphics of the responses.
• Export survey results in .csv format to save, analyze, and track over time.
• View subsets of survey responses using the survey filter option, giving you greater insight into results.

So, what’s the best way to get survey responses? The first way is to put your survey into an easy-to-respond format. Constant Contact does the work for you. Here are some tips that you can employ in your surveys to enhance the number of responses that you’ll get from your surveys.

• Provide a brief introduction to the survey. Constant Contact gives you the option of including an introduction note for each survey. This is a great way to briefly explain the purpose of the survey, approximately how long it will take and a kind word of thanks for filling it out.
• Be personal. The church is not the Internal Revenue Service, so it’s not necessary to use stiff language, business terms, or formal verbiage. Be familiar, kind, and fun.
• Tell them “thanks.” At the conclusion of the survey, you can add a brief thank you note for their response. In addition, you may want to tell them how the survey may benefit them in the future.
• Make sure the survey questions are easy to understand and easy to respond to. As we discussed in the post yesterday, asking for large amounts of text or lengthy responses will be a sure discouragement.
• Include a deadline. Sometimes people respond better if they know that there is a deadline. Obviously, you don’t have to call it a “deadline,” but state, “the survey will be closed on…” This will encourage more responses.

The more you use surveys, the better you’ll become at it. The best way to learn is to get started. Why don’t you give it a try? If you haven’t done it yet, go ahead and sign up for Constant Contact and take advantage of two months of free service.

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It’s now time to run a church email survey. You’ve decided you need to find out more about your congregation, or discover how you can better meet their spiritual needs. What do you do next? Creating a church email survey is, thankfully, uncomplicated and takes little time using Constant Contact. Here’s how to do it.

1. Log in to Constant Contact

2. Click on “create a survey” by either choosing the tab at the top or the button right underneath “create an e-mail”

3. Choose a name for your survey that will help you remember the purpose and date of the survey. Don’t worry about choosing carefully or creatively, since you will be the only one who will see this title. Click next.

4. Now comes the fun part–creating the actual survey. First, you should choose a survey template. Since Constant Contact does not cater exclusively to churches, there are a variety of commercial-style templates to choose from. You will want to select a template that will best accomplish your specific objectives. Take a minute to browse the options and choose one that you think may work. Remember that you can create a completely customized survey aside from any of the predesigned templates. The screenshot below shows just one of the possible templates you may choose. When you have selected a template, click next.

5. You can customize each of the questions as well as the answer selections, simply by clicking on the edit button, and making appropriate changes. Some changes may be simple, for example, changing “Customer” to “church member.” You may also have to change question options or answer formats. When you are satisfied with your survey, click “save and continue.”

6. On the page that comes next, you can select whether or not you want to include a greeting page with your survey. If you choose to include a greeting page, you can customize the message to give instructions about the survey, a word of thanks, or just a word of introduction about the survey.

7. In addition to a greeting page, you can select a closing page to provide a fitting end to the survey.

8. After you click “next” you will be brought to the final page before sending your survey. We recommend that you test your survey before sending it to the church.

9. When you have perfected your survey and are prepared to share it with the church click, “go live now.” On the page that follows (which you can return to later), you will be able to track survey results and analyze the responses.

Congratulations on successfully creating your first survey using Constant Contact. Remember that you can design a survey to find out as much as you want to. Be judicious in your use of surveys, but enjoy the help that they can bring.

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