Church Hype

New Website To Launch On October 27th

It's time. Sugar Creek has grown, and technology has grown. We are launching phase 1 of the new website next Monday. We gotta lot to do between now and then, but when we are done done, the site will rock. We're using Drupal and integrating cms, and a few bells and whistles. There will be a blog...in fact a lot of the ministry pages will be blog based. But, I'm excited about the general blog page. This will afford the staff to blog on a larger scale than just their ministry focus. Should be pretty cool.

Here's a mockup of the front page. (click image to see full-size)

The Life Of A Church Communicator

Notes From Scott Hodge @ MinistryCom

Scott Hodge

• Job was not to set the vision, job was to clarify and translate the vision.

• If people don’t get it, then vision really doesn’t matter.

• Most pastors need someone like you to communicate the vision effectively.

• One of the greatest opportunities the communications director has is to create alignment

3 questions you have to have the answer to.

• Who is God calling us to reach? Lame answer = everyone

• What is it going to take to reach them? What is it that we need to stop doing in order to effectively reach who God’s calling us to reach. No unchurched person has ever walked in and asked “Hey do you have AWANAS”.

• Are we willing to pay the price?

Notes From Mike Foster @ MinistryCom

First day of conference was yesterday. Here's a couple of notes I took .

be out there. get out of the tank. leave the office. take vacations.
throw out the religious rule book (not the Bible).
XXXChurch.com: religious rulebook says don’t go there. Don’t do it. it’s not where you’re supposed to be.

• body alteration - 41% considering plastic surgery makes $40k. What can we do with piece of info to connect with that need.

• 3.4 million marriages are men and women living apart

• over 3 million marriages are interracial

• Average age of video game players is 33 years old - if we’re not out in culture, we may think that video games are for kids

• The fastest growing group of knitters are teens and twentysomethings

We need to overcome our fears - we need to grow a pair

• our decisions are often made out of fear

• First porn show - Mike was scared to death. He could believe that he didn’t belong there, or believe and trust God and believe that he was supposed to be there

Action is not only rewarded, it is demanded.

• Creative masturbation - love the process, love the design. Get a lot of pleasure from dreaming. A project, idea are a dime a dozen. An executed idea is the key.

• make sure the work your doing is going to impact people, not just us

Shamu has an easy life. A Killer whale feels pain.
There will be a lot of pain

Top 10 Ways To Get Your Friends To Church

We did a video this week that will be shown this Sunday. It is to encourage our folks to invite their friends and neighbors to a special community event we have coming up.

Untitled from Bobby Chandler on Vimeo.

Free Publicity For Churches

Chris Forbes, of Ministry Marketing Coach, posted an article a few days back on leveraging the free resources available for advertising. Whether a church has a 60k dollar budget for advertising, or none at all, I think this type of advertising can sometimes be the most effective.

Forbes said:

Before plunking down any dollars, consider avenues of free publicity. Learn to write news releases and submit them for publication, as well as short public service announcements for local radio stations.

Read more on this article...good stuff.

The Web Should Be The Primary Vehicle For Communication

There was a great blog post by Kem Meyer a couple of days ago on the use of the web. Some great insight by her:

1. Reduce the amount of information you print. If you make the information available in multiple spots, people won't get used to going to one place to find it. Only make it available on the web, people get used to looking for it on the web.
2. When you need to support something with a print piece, limit the content and drive them to the web for the rest of the story or next step. For example, replace your brochure with a 4x6 postcard with the facts (what, who, when & where). The postcard can drive them to the web for more details (maps, registration, etc.).
3. Don't create handouts for your info counter. Give them a computer and train your guest services team to use the web site for their source of information. Make it easy for them; condense things on 2-4 main landing pages so they can quickly find the answers to commonly asked questions (e.g., events, volunteer opportunities, weekend series, etc.).
4. If a guest comes to the counter and needs a handout to take with them, guest services can print the page from the web on-demand.
5. If your audience is split (1/2 online, 1/2 off), you can serve both audiences without duplicating efforts. Create the content & promotions online with the intent of making printouts of the page available at guest services for people that don't go online. Design it once, use it twice.
6. Give online users the scoop on content. Share the weekend series promo before it's shown in the service. Reveal details not available in the bulletin. Create downloadable resources that extend the weekend service (e.g., discussion guides, Bible readings, etc.). Create a value for going online, not on online version of what's already available in print.
7. Print the web address everywhere; pre-service slides, the bulletin, every handout, etc. Don't make people guess or expect them to remember.
8. Make it easy and clear the one-stop place to visit for all information. Obviously, the more web addresses you drive people to, the more confusing it is. Don't make it hard for people to try to figure out where to go for what. It's more effective and unifying to promote one URL that links to other pages & sites. One front door, multiple rooms.
9. If you have multiple sites for various ministries & departments, make sure they link back to the main site for content that affects 80% of the audience. Don't create redundant content across multiple sites. It creates extra work for you and increases the margin for error. 
10. Make your site navigation simple. A web site with ten basic HTML pages can be more helpful, trustworthy and effective than a web site with 100 pages. Keep everything no more than 1-2 clicks away if possible. More menu choices does not equal more value. If people have to wade through pages of content to find what they're looking for, they'll get frustrated and go back to the paper.

Are Gimmicks Bad Or Good Jesus Buzz?

By definition, gimmicks are meant to deceive, misrepresent, or trick. Certainly churches subscribing to the idea of using gimmicks would never dream of intentionally misleading people. Another definition of gimmick is:

A gimmick is a special feature for the sake of having a special feature.

Well, we use marketing not for the sake of having a cool marketing piece, drawing acclaim or winning awards. We use marketing to point people to Jesus.

So, when does a marketing campaign cross the line and become a gimmick? Hmmm. I don't know. It's unclear, because I think the intentions are still the same...ultimately to point people to Jesus.

• Is raffling off a car a gimmick? What are the intentions: Does that open a door previously closed?
• Is an iPod giveaway a gimmick? What are the intentions: to take a shortcut to outreach, or to point people to Christ?
• Are lights, hazers, gigantic screens, and worship leaders with tattoos all gimmicks? What are the intentions: to look cool on the big screen, or to have the demographic identify?
• Is a series of billboards with the web address mylamesexlife.com with accompanying website a gimmick? What are the intentions: to draw national attention, or to reach people locally with issues they deal with everyday?

As my friend Marcia once said, "Isn't it supposed to be Jesus + nothing?" I can't get that out of my head. How far am I willing to go in order to create buzz about my church? Am I willing to give stuff away in order to get people to listen? I remember serving a homeless dude breakfast in Jackson Square in New Orleans in order to get permission to tell him about Jesus. Is that the same thing? I don't know.

So, I've gotten nowhere on this question, "Are gimmicks bad, or are they good Jesus buzz?" I think it's the intent - are we trying to represent something that doesn't line up with the gospel (trust Jesus and all of your wildest dreams will come true)? Are we trying to dress up and make Jesus more appealing? Or, are God's name and renown the desires of our heart? What are your thoughts?

My Transition To A New Job

It's not a job...it's what God has called me to do.

Here's a long story, but I'll try to abbreviate it as much as I can. Almost a year ago, I went through an in depth interview process with a church in the Houston area for their open Director of Communications position. Turned out the church decided to go with the other candidate.

My wife and I were pretty disappointed about this. We felt that God was sending us there. We fully believed that we would be serving and worshiping there. But God had other plans.

Fast forward a couple of months to October. I accepted an offer to work as an art director at an ad agency in Houston. What a fun place! I quickly became friends with everyone I worked with. For the first time in a long while, I was happy at the place I worked.

Then, a month ago, I received a call from the church that I had interviewed with a year ago. Completely out of the blue I was told that the Director of Communication position was open. Wow!

Obviously, I threw my hat in the ring on that. After going through interviews for the past month, I finally received an offer last week. Of course I accepted. So, I continue my journey as the Director of Communications at Sugar Creek Baptist Church in Sugarland, Texas.

I'm extremely excited about the opportunity before me and can't wait to get started. Well, actually I've already started in a way. I've begun doing work for the church after hours.

All that to say, God has a plan. And God has His own timing. My timing was the position a year ago. But God's plan was for me to learn and sharpen my skills. Mostly, I think it was to teach me to be satisfied wherever He has me.

Make A Handbook Worth Reading

Recently on Kem Meyer's blog, she talked about making the message more attractive. I don't mean "The Message", I mean something that's trying to be communicated. Like for example, the employee handbook.

They developed a little pop quiz that goes along with the handbook. While an employee handbook is not normally very fun to read, the quiz that went along with it was pretty entertaining. In the least, it made the handbook worthwhile to read.Very funny. Check it out here.