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| October 19, 2005 |
Last month I shared with you free or very inexpensive strategies for driving people within your ministry region to your online equipping center. This month, I will now turn my focus to strategies that will help your ministry “go into all the world and make disciples”.
Some ministries utilizing E-Church Essentials have already seen the benefit of being part of an online ministry network. One pastor called me about ten days after they registered their ministry…they had not built a website or anything yet…yet they had a man from
If you think about it, outside of
Because E-Church Essentials is the only commercial online ministry system currently available, I will illustrate the following strategies using the E-Church Essentials software. However, if your ministry has developed a custom online ministry system, these strategies will likely also apply.
Strategy #1: Optimize Your Website(s) for Search Engine and Directory Spiders
Ministry organizations are often so focused on their little part of the world, that they do not take this important step seriously. Fundamental to global online ministry is defining who your target group(s) may be, and speaking directly to their distinct issues. Once your have created a targeted website, it makes no sense what-so-ever to register your website with search engines and directories, if you have not set up your website to be properly read by the internet “spiders”. A “spider” is an internet program sent by search engines, designed to seek out key words and descriptions associated with your website, so that your website can be properly cataloged on the search engine database. To optimize your website for spidering, please implement the following rules:
- Key Words: Select three dominate words (or two-word phrases) that you believe an internet user would most likely input into a search engine that would lead the visitor to your website. These three words MUST be included in the keyword meta-tags of every page (I’ll explain this in a moment), and MUST appear at least three to four times on every major page of your website. DO NOT place these key words on your page randomly and DO NOT hide the key words on your pages by making the text color the same color as the background. These are old optimization tricks that most search engines now consider “spamming” and will likely result in your website being dropped from search engine listings.
- Key Descriptions: Write a one sentence description of your website, including the key words defined. This description must be included in all description meta-tags and will display within search engines. You may add an addition sentence, on a page-by-page basis, for describing each page of your website. Within E-Church Essentials, configuring meta-tag keywords and descriptions is very easy. Within the content editor you may configure meta-tags in the “properties” portion of the editor (see graphic below).
- Page Title: Every page of your website should have a unique title. If the menu label for a page is “Student Ministries”, the page title, configured again through meta-tags, can be a descriptive phrase such as “Student Ministries of
- Alt-Tags: Short for “Alternate Tags” are brief descriptions that may be applied to graphics, media and Flash elements so that a search engine can read what these elements are. Alt-Tags are optional. If your system supports them, then it is helpful to include them. However, they are not crucial unless your web page contains no textual content at all.
- Use Web-Safe Fonts: Many people are surprised to learn that a website does not embed the fonts used to create the website. When an internet visitor comes to your website, the website literally tells the visitor’s computer to display the appropriate fonts from the available fonts on the visitor’s computer. If the font cannot be found, it is any one’s guess what font will actually be utilized. If web-safe fonts are not utilized, your website may not be spidered properly by search engines, your website may load slower as the fonts cannot be found on the visitor’s computer, and your website formatting may be distorted by substitute fonts. Safe fonts include: Ariel, Sans, Times New Roman, and Veranda. Main textual content should be formatted using 8-point to 12-point fonts. Headings should be formatted using 11-point to 14-point fonts.
Strategy #2: Register your Website with DMOZ…it’s FREE!
DEMOZ is the Open Directory Project found at http://dmoz.org. The Open Directory is the most widely distributed data base of Web content classified by humans. Its’ editorial standards body of net-citizens provide the collective brain behind resource discovery on the Web. The Open Directory powers the core directory services for the Web's largest and most popular search engines and portals, including Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others. Registration is 100% FREE. Be extremely careful about the category you select for your listing and the descriptions that you use. Make sure you use the same key words and descriptions as utilized on your website.
Strategy #3: Register Your Website with Search Engines
There are so many search engines today that it does not make sense to manually register your website to hundreds of engines. Rather, I would encourage the use of reputable service organization like SubmitIT from Microsoft. For only $49/year, your website can be submitted to most of the popular search engines and included in Microsoft’s business directory.
Be wary of organizations that “guarantee” top placement in search engines. The only way such organizations can make top placement occur is by breaking the rules that govern the internet and search engines. Many websites have been banned from search engines and directories for breaking the governing rules. Primary among these rules are that websites will list higher when they receive more traffic, and will list lower when they receive less traffic. There are legitimate ways to drive traffic to your website. The methods used by marketing firms to “guarantee” top placement is considered “spamming” and will likely result in a brief top-listing and then a banning of your website from the search engines altogether. Search engines may take as long as six months before your website is even listed. It will take another six to twelve months to build momentum on the internet through search engines. This is normal. So be patient. (NOTE: If your ministry is not willing to invest at least two years in trying to develop a serious online ministry, then your ministry clearly does not understand what it takes to build traffic and synergy on the internet. Plan and budget for a two year trial period.)
Strategy #4: Manually List Your Website with Topical Directories
There are thousands of topical directories on the internet. All require manual registration of your website. Fortunately, the marketing principle of “targeting” means that only a few dozen such directories will likely apply to your ministry website. To find relevant directories, I recommend using Google as your search engine and entering the following categories in quotations (“ “):
- “Christian Directories”
- “New Age Directories”
- “Religious Directories”
- “Religion Directories”
- “Spiritual Directories”
- “Church Directories”
Many of these directory sites will not be “Christian”. That is alright, we are seeking to reach into the cultures across the planet. We need to meet the world where they are at before we can bring them to where we are at…”In Christ”.
Strategy 5: Banner Advertising
Depending upon your strategy, and how serious your ministry really is about reaching the world for Christ, you may have to commit to a financial budget to really utilize banner advertising effectively. However, banner advertising can be highly effective at sending prospects to your website and online equipping center. I would encourage you to target websites that are popular and originate in the countries you seek to reach. Properly executed, your banner campaign could easily generate 10,000 visitors or more to your website each year. You can expect a registration rate of 2-3% of your website visitors.
Banner Example:
Strategy 6: Online Radio Advertising
This is another potentially very effective strategy. Christian radio is rare in many parts of the world. More and more the international community is turning to internet radio for Christian music and teaching. Advertising with many Christian internet radio stations is down right cheap, as little as $50/month.
Although there are hundreds of online radio station options, you may wish to explore this online radio option as an example for international advertising:
- Premier Radio - http://www.premier.org.uk/engine.cfm?i=144
Alternatively, if your ministry has the outreach budget available, there are several online Christian broadcast networks that will help your church set up your own online Christian radio station. Start your own online radio station for as little as $15/month for a basic starter package, or $99/month for a professional package, with Live365 at http://www.live365.com/pro/index.html. They offer an easy and robust means of empowering your ministry to broadcast your own music and teachings. People listening to your online broadcast ministry, can then register with your online equipping ministry and receive the relational support and nurture that they require.
Strategy #7: Unleash the blogosphere!
I cannot stress enough the potential impact of this strategy…both locally and globally. However, to understand how this strategy works, you need to understand what a blog is, and more importantly, why blogs on the E-Church Network specifically can greatly benefit your online spiritual equipping community.
A blog is an ideal platform for writing articles, providing resources to people and sharing spiritual meditations. I believe every pastoral person SHOULD blog. For an example, click here. Young adults prefer blogs 10/1 over viewing websites. The reason is that blogs have relevant content that is constantly changing, the content can be “broadcast” directly to their computer through the use of “News Reader” programs (for a Free News Reader, Click Here), and because blogs enable people to respond and comment on each blog entry…a blog is more conversational.
How E-Church Essentials handles blogs is very unique and is designed to build online synergy for your ministry. Within your ministry’s online ministry account, each member has the option of having their own multi-media capable blog. Our philosophy is that your key staff and lay leaders should have a platform in which they may communicate their heart and ministry to others. Here is the kicker…The more blogs that exist through your exclusive online community, the more doorways you have for bringing people into your online spiritual training community. And since your numerous blogs are all ministry-based, you will be attracting people who are truly spiritually hungry. A modernist analogy to this strategy would be door-to-door evangelism. The more people you can send door-to-door (back in the 1940’s -1970’s), the more people you are likely to lead to Christ and bring into your ministry. We need to knock on as many internet doors as possible in order to maximize our online ministry impact.
Strategy #8: Google Ads
The last strategy is not free, but it can be fairly inexpensive. Google provides a banner advertising service called Adwords. Recently, Adwords was expanded to include “Targeted Sites”. Targeted Sites enables you to identify specific websites on the Google network and have your test-only banner advertisement display on that site. The cost is as little at $1/1000 views. This is a phenomenal traffic generation strategy. To get your ministry started, go to https://adwords.google.com/select/.
Strategy #9: Strategic Partnerships
Identify ministry organizations within the regions your ministry wishes to target, and negotiate strategic partnerships with them. The strategic partnership will provide your ministry with a relational connection to the cultures your ministry seeks to reach. And because your online equipping center is truly international, leaders from your strategic partnerships can develop websites, conduct training and participate in community forums all through your online equipping ministry. Such leaders will be the cultural bridge that your ministry will need if it is to truly make a significant impact within foreign cultures.
Strategy #10: Begin a Missionary/Church Planting Network
E-Church Essentials can enable your ministry to maintain a communication and training connection with missionaries/church-planters, all over the planet. So while your ministry may wish to have “feet-on-the-ground” those feet can still be an integral part of your everyday ministry organization. Each missionary/church-planter can have their own website and blog through the parent ministry, and all related ministries can share a common community and equipping center. This is really a modified version of the classic satellite ministry model depicted below:
The more ministries you add to your network, the greater your regional and global impact will become. Furthermore, each additional ministry can help distribute the overall cost of your online ministry, making it cheaper and cheaper for all involved, the larger your online ministry network becomes.
Conclusion:
If you would like more information about how to implement any of these ten suggestions for global ministry impact, please feel free to contact me or call me toll-free at 1-800-724-1159. The world is at your door, and they desperately seek to know Jesus, all it takes is for your leadership to catch the vision, be willing to step out of the 1800’s, and become a ministry of the new millennium.
| October 13, 2005 |
I recently spoke with an elder of a local church who confided in me that his elder board was beginning to explore the possibility of a new building campaign. Their church presently has two crowded services and is having to move to a third service. My response about initiating a building campaign was less than enthusiastic.
If you have read some of my past articles like “Bye, Bye, Boomers” then you know my concerns regarding churches that accumulate massive debt that cannot be paid off within the next ten years. Research guru George Barna is convinced that within the next fifteen to twenty years, institutional churches are likely to experience an attendance decline of 50%! I am inclined to agree with his perspective. The era of the mega-church and mega-budget-buildings and programs is quickly drawing to a close. Young adults are fleeing the large institutional church because it lacks intimacy. They also feel that large churches have proven themselves incapable of nurturing spiritual authenticity and depth. Everything that today’s young adult desires is what our present church paradigms refuse to offer. Young adults seek:
- Intimacy
- Authenticity
- Spiritual experiences
- To serve the world, not an institution
- In depth Biblical study with in-the-moment application (See Previous Article)
- Spiritual mentorship
The larger an institution becomes, the less likely that these important values will be supported. This is why the polls and trends confirm that the emerging generations are abandoning the established institutional church model. But wait a minute…didn’t this article begin by relating how a church was growing? Yes. Many churches are still growing. However, church growth does not automatically equate to spiritual health. The real issue at hand is how effective a church is at retaining and spiritually nurturing those that come to the church. Young adults do come to contemporary churches because they are deeply spiritually motivated. They are hungry to know and experience God.
But two years later, how many of these young adults have been retained? Even more importantly, how many would claim that these churches helped them to significantly grow in their relationship with God? The crucial markers of “retention” and “maturation” are the issues at stake, not how many people we have in our Sunday morning crowds. And yet the sad thing is that I have not yet met a pastor who can tell me their retention rate over a 1, 2, 5, or 10 year span, nor can they tell me objectively what defines spiritual maturity and how many people have grown spiritually through the ministry. I believe most church leaders and boards don’t really want to ask these questions because they don’t really want to come face-to-face with the answer. To come face-to-face with the answer means that how we do ministry would have to change, and change in the church culture often results in political and vocational suicide.
But what if there was a way to ensure that the ministry continued to grow without endangering the pastors or staff, and to grow in a manner that empowered change and effectively addressed the needs of the present and emerging generations? One ministry paradigm, that I believe can achieve these goals quite effectively, is the Satellite Church Model.
I first encountered the Satellite Church Model approximately ten years ago. An East coast ministry had grown so large, that they decided rather than continue to “build bigger barns”, they would strategically build smaller barns throughout their ministry region. Each congregation belonged to one large church that met corporately once a month in a large arena for a massive worship service. See the graphic below:
Because the individual congregations were smaller, and were visionary church plants, they were able to more effectively target the needs of their community and mold their ministry around the needs of their people.
The philosophy behind the Satellite Church Model has always held two dominate beliefs:
1) Smaller churches are more nimble and relational, but on their own, they lack the resources and professionalism our culture has come to expect.
2) By sharing human, administrative and capital resources, the satellite churches can better steward the resources God has given the entire ministry.
While the Satellite church growth model has many virtues, organizations who have attempted this model have experienced difficulties. In particular, the dominate hurdles include:
- Communication of available human resources
- Communication of administrative resources
- Communication of people with each other
Communication, Communication, Communication…some might say, “Three strikes and you’re out”. But since Christ is leading His Church, there is always a way to overcome ministry barriers.
This past year, I once again encountered another church organization, this time on the West coast who were implementing the Satellite church model and had grown to approximately eighteen satellites. However, they also were experiencing the very same communication challenges other such ministries had struggled with over ten years prior. They were searching for technology solutions to help them overcome these crucial barriers to further growth, and could not find an established solution.
Fortunately, internet-based technology has now matured to a point that, in the very near future, the Satellite ministry model (and other mission networks) will be able to truly thrive. A large part of the solution is found in E-Church Essentials, but E-Church Essentials is a ministry program, not a business management program. E-Church Essentials is presently in the early stages of exploring a strategic partnership with a major church management company. If this strategic partnership becomes a reality in the months to come, ministries will finally have at their disposal the most powerful web-based internet ministry and business administration system in the world! The Satellite model would then look like the following graphic:
Through the incorporation of fully integrated web-based ministry, community, and administration systems, church and mission networks of all kinds, shapes and sizes will finally be empowered to flourish. After all, it only takes communication, communication, and communication. Thank God we live in the era of communication.
| October 12, 2005 |
- Provide Resources That Your Visitors Repeatedly Need
- Provide Interesting Interactivity
For this brief resource article, I want to focus on FREE sources of interesting interactivity...namely, online games and cartoons.
Online games can cause young adults to visit your website, return repeatedly to your website, and even cause young adults to direct their friends to your website. Games are "Sticky". While I have always known that online games could make a website "Sticky", I have been strongly reminded of this fact by a recent event.
My wife Tamara is responsible for Global Communications for Johnson Controls International. We recently attended the company picnic and won a Sony PSP in a free drawing. If you don't know what a PSP is, it is a hand-held video, music and game player that is an extremely hot item with kids and young adults. In fact, we had several offers to buy the PSP from us right on the spot.
The PSP came with one game included. Well, my kids are hooked. Even though we have tried to keep our children from playing computer games, it only took a few minutes for the PSP game to totally engage them.
Games and cartoons are not spiritual. But they can help draw an online crowd who may explore your website further once they have finished playing the games or viewing the cartoons. In some cases, you may even be able to draw analogies from a game or cartoon to apply spiritual principles.
I have included below some good quality FREE Flash games that you may wish to include on your website, especially in the the children's and student ministry sections of your site.
- Video Game #1: SkidWRX...Spiritual Metaphore: "Who's Driving Your Life?"
- Video Game #2: Pochi...Spiritual Metaphore: "Running From God"
- Video Game #3: Archery...Spiritual Metaphore: "Targeting People for Christ"
- Video Game #4: Moon Landing...Spiritual Metaphore: "Will God Let You Crash and Burn?"
- Video Game #5: Pong...Spiritual Metaphore: "Get Positioned to Bounce Back"
- Video Game #6: Ball In The Hole...Spiritual Metaphore: "Meaningless Pursuits"
- Cartoon: The Sheep...Spiritual Metaphore: "Flee From The Evil One"
You will require an un-zip utility to open the zip files. WinZip is Free!
Clearly the generation 2 design is preferred to the original design.
The generation 2 design earns a B- grade. This makes me wonder what our customers and prospective customers would like to see different? Email Me and let me know, or better yet, select "comment" below and begin a discussion regarding this blog article.
Clearly it is very important to all ministry's that their branding be consistent throughout the entire system.
Colorization is also highly important to ministry brand identity.
The "Branding" theme continues to be very important to ministrys through customized descriptions.
This one surprised me. The response regarding cross-bowser compatability was split nearly 50/50 with a desire for cross compatability just edging out IE6-only supporters. E-Church Essentials certainly would prefer to support additional browsers, but this is more of an issue with the browser developers not interpreting standards in the same way. The result is that currently we would have to dummy-down our software to support other popular browsers.
The next year holds many potential changes in the browser world. In particular, Steve Jobs has announced that Apple will begin to use Intel chip sets. Many believe this is a move to enable Apple computers to support Non-Apple software. Steve Jobs has already released the "Mighty Mouse" which includes a right-click button in anticipation of the upcoming changes. Apple also anticipates an upgrade to their popular browser in light of the changes. E-Church Essentials is hopeful that one way or another, we will be able to support Mac-machines. But in the mean time, Apple customers can use VirtualPC...it's cheap and E-Church Essentials runs just fine on it.
NOTE: E-Church Essentials is now initiating work on Generation 2. Based upon your feedback, we have decided to provide full custom header design capabilities that would display consistently on every page of your online community and equipping center. This will enable your ministry to have full branding control and to duplicate the look and feel of your website. We are also very hopeful that Generation 2 will support Apple and Firefox browsers.
Many of you are quite acquanted with E-Church Essentials and it's monthly membership dues. However, did you know that if you properly utilize and manage the program, E-Church Essentials can literally become a FREE ministry resource? That's right...FREE! Furthermore, it can even generate revenue for your ministry over and above weekly tithes and offerings.
To learn more about how E-Church Essentials can be "Virtually Free", please download our white paper (pdf) which will highlight just four simple ways in which E-Church Essentials can both save your ministry money, while at the same time generate revenue that can be re-invested into ministry.