Technology In The Church

[Kevin Brockus]

Technology involves so many areas that we have a vast array of ways to use technology as a Missional and Outreach tool. We have email, webpages, text messages and powerpoint presentations to name a few of the ways we can use technology in the Church. Please feel free to make suggestions here on ways we can use technology both inside and outside the church.

[James Nored]

Kevin, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts, as a tech guy, about what forms of technology that we are missing out on and need to add. What do you like about what we are doing, and where can we improve?

[James Nored]

Garth,

As long as we have face to face meetings, we'll probably have paper bulletins. However, we can start posting electronic versions of our bulletins.

Mike Epinette from World Radio is hopefully going to join the network. We can ask him about the radio outreach.

Where did you see Greenville Ave's advertisements? I would be interested to know how effective they think this is.

Webcasting-I'm going to get a web cam soon and start doing some of this.

Robot preachers, huh? How about satellite preaching? That's about as far as I can go on that!

[Kevin Moses]

Having the sermons available as podcasts in iTunes has been great and an easy setup. Having this more prominently advertised would be a good thing. Maybe in the bulletin. Once the video is setup you could do video podcasts also. Since teenagers have headphones on all the time having good wholesome content would be a good thing. They could even share with friends. For the adults having a podcast would allow them to maybe listen to the sermons while driving to work. That is a good time to listen.

Getting involved in Facebook and the other secular social networks would be a good thing too. I think many parents would benefit from knowing who and what their kids are into on the internet. It would also allow socializing with others as an outreach. That would be a good idea for keeping in contact with people and knowing about sicknesses and following up with visitors.

How about adding email and facebook/myspace/whatever spots on the guest cards so visitors can be contacted through those means.

Anything to keep connected with others and reach the community would be a good thing. I think James' blog is a great resource and should be advertised more. It's good reading and timely in it's information. Also it is how many people get their information. At least in this part of the country. Linking members blogs would be a good thing too to show how christians live through Christ.

The thoughts above are pretty free form but I just wanted to get some thoughts out there.

[James Nored]

Kevin, great thoughts! I really like the Facebook idea. We could have a team of members who take the email addresses that we collect and send out invitations to people to join facebook. I am going to start inviting people who mark that they are interested in outreach to join this network.

Thanks for the good word on the blog! As you point out again, we could better advertise this to our own people and encourage members to invite their friends to this, facebook, and this site.

Kevin, what would be the best way to ask members to get involved in this kind of outreach?

Kevin Moses said:

Having the sermons available as podcasts in iTunes has been great and an easy setup. Having this more prominently advertised would be a good thing. Maybe in the bulletin. Once the video is setup you could do video podcasts also. Since teenagers have headphones on all the time having good wholesome content would be a good thing. They could even share with friends. For the adults having a podcast would allow them to maybe listen to the sermons while driving to work. That is a good time to listen.

Getting involved in Facebook and the other secular social networks would be a good thing too. I think many parents would benefit from knowing who and what their kids are into on the internet. It would also allow socializing with others as an outreach. That would be a good idea for keeping in contact with people and knowing about sicknesses and following up with visitors.

How about adding email and facebook/myspace/whatever spots on the guest cards so visitors can be contacted through those means.

Anything to keep connected with others and reach the community would be a good thing. I think James' blog is a great resource and should be advertised more. It's good reading and timely in it's information. Also it is how many people get their information. At least in this part of the country. Linking members blogs would be a good thing too to show how christians live through Christ.

The thoughts above are pretty free form but I just wanted to get some thoughts out there.

[Matt Brunk]

Have you seen the business cards some folks use? They are very small business sized dvd's. It's a cool way to let people learn about you or your organization in the comfort of their home. You can set up links that take them to your church website,etc... At a previous church, we ordered these. Can't remember the price, but they did bring some folks into our church doors.

Also, we did some outreach activities using a projector to show a movie on the backside of the house. We used a boombox for the sound and had folks bring lawn chairs and treats. It was a backyard movie event that attracted non-Christian friends. We showed a family friendly movie. No devotions- just a movie and relationship building.

Matt

[Jo Pierce]

I have several questions?
Why do we need to bring Bibles? It's on the screen, printed in the bulletin, and not a lot of references made to actual scriptures. Is carrying a Bible to church not necessary? I'd rather not have the scriptures on the screen or in the bulletin, but a reference on the screen for all to look up, and have a sermon outline to fill in the blanks on the back to take notes.
Why do we need an order of worship? Since the 1960's I've been going to large churches, 1000+, (Highland and Hillcrest in Abilene, Broadway in Lubbock) and back then we didn't have an order of worship, yet everyone just followed the leader like we do now. Most, if not all, directions are on the screen, anyway.
I'm with Garth.....why do we have so many inserts in the bulletin? Just print them as part of the bulletin, or is the bulletin printed out of house? I'm ready for an electronic bulletin. Those that don't have cpu's, well move into the 21 C. What a waste of trees and church money.
Who controls the budget? Put a couple of frugile women on that committee! We can cut the fat. LOL Have you ever wondered how many years went by before Christians even had a budget? I know we need to know how much money will be given to pay for our comforts.
Why do we have so many announcements? We have a bulletin and a screen that can give the announcements.
Why do we have announcements in the bulletin that are 9 months away. especially for the young? They nor their parents have any idea what will be happening in their lives in 9 months. LOL
Okay, I'm through. LOL
Toodles,
Jo

[Rebecca Hope]

Aha!!! Outlook is an excellent tool! Everyone in the office at High Pointe has Outlook in use on their computers....except...ahem!....James.... I was Outlook resistant at first...but it really makes scheduling so much more efficient. It also helps others to drop appointments and meetings directly to you that you can accept directly to your calendar. It helps to keep up with tasks and planning, too. It gets everyone connected with their time, just like Facebook connects you socially.

Garth Hope said:

We need to be sensitive when it comes to those that are not tech savey, but certainly the time of the paper bulletin has come and gone. It is a dinosaur.

Eliminate the paper bulletin, and you have eliminated an announcement and printing deadline. And people could actually see the announcements real time as they are posted on the web site. Want to know what is going on, check the calendar. Perhaps we could spend the money we save by not printing the bulletin and spend it on some tech to allow the church calendar to be integrated and shared with Outlook or other Standard Calendars?

[Tanner King]

I agree about the dinosaur that is the paper-bulletin. The typical argument against eliminating it, as has been brought up in this conversation, is in respect to those people without access to the internet / or knowledge of how to access the internet. Two things: 1) I wonder how long it would take, after eliminating paper-bulletins altogether, the church to save up enough money to purchase public "hot spots" throughout the church building. 2) Isn't assuming that our elderly wouldn't be interested in learning something about the world that we now live in (i.e. how to access information online) revealing something inherently negative about our understanding of their mission in this world?

A couple of days ago, I got the opportunity to listen to Leonard Sweet. He asked two rhetorical questions that have been bouncing around in my brain since: What world did God call you to live in? What year is your church living in?