The culture and industries are making the shift to social media.

Has your church?

Food Tidings is a perfect website for your church's food ministry.  Set up a schedule for a new mother and let people sign up for the day they will cook for them.  They can put what they are cooking that way people will not get the same meal twice.

Check it out!

I was a big support of jott when it came out [see previous posts]. However, they have slowly transition from having all of their features for free a year or so ago to offering no features for free today. Not smart...

So I have been looking for other free solutions and along came Dial2Do.



And it kicks the snot out of jott. Not only does it have all features that jott has, but it also can read your calendar, email, weather, news feeds to you. All commanded by your voice! Sick! And did I mention it's FREE!

Check it out.

Over a year ago I talked about online storage and offered some free suggestions.
[click here to read the article]

However, I wanted to make you aware of some other online storage/backup options.

First, ADrive. They offer you 50GB for free!
That's crazy, but they do it.




Another option is Mozy. They offer 2GB for free. But wait... what sets them apart is they have a software add-on that automatically backs up your documents. They also offer an option to pay $4.95/mo for unltimated space. This is great for the church who doesn't have any kind of backup system in place.

Personal, I still use Box.net and like it, but they only offer 2GB for free and do not have automatic backups. It might be time for a change.

Aaron over at Digital Leadership Network wrote a great post on the different kinds of blogs and then gives some suggestions on why and how your church should blog. I'm summarize his comments below.

What Kinds Blogs Are on the Web?

1) Expert/Personality - an expert or big name giving you advice
2) Personal - someone sharing what they did that day [pictures, journaling, etc.]
3) News/Information - group of people who share information [ex- Church2.0]
4) Humor - just for fun

Suggestions for the Blogging Church:

The biggest keys to blogging is consistent updates. My suggestion would be to take the team blog approach, with different people taking on different roles. You can easily offer up separate RSS feeds or pages to break down the blogging into the three areas above:

The Expert Blog: The pastor, of course. If the community is interested in engaging in thinking about the message series throughout the week, the pastor could/should post ideas and thoughts that continue (or set up) Sunday's message.

The Personal Blog: Other leaders in your church? Perhaps small group leaders can use a public church blog to toss information and thoughts around to their attendees. A small group can open up to any curious visitor to your church's website using blogs.

The Information Blog: If a church's blog was consistently updated with upcoming events, prayer needs, updates on church member issues (ex- announcements) it would be a great chance for church members to feel loved and want to interact with the site.

If there is one thing Web 2.0 and the advancements in online software have created it is an attention deficit for those of us who us it. With RSS feeds, email and IM we could pretty much keep ourselves "busy" all day without ever actually getting any of the important stuff done.

On the other hand these tools and their interaction are quickly becoming essential for communication, the processing of information and staying connected to friends and online communities.

Instead of letting this be a Catch 22 check out what Gina Trapani from the productivity blog Life Hacker has found to work. It is something she calls Bi-modal work styles. In one style she has IM open, Email up, Music with lyrics playing and is aware and okay with interruptions and tangents. She can still get work done in this mode, but it isn't as focused.

Then she has a mode where she closes all those programs, closes her door and really focuses down on some work. This a mode where all distractions are locked out and it is a time of focus.

I have found myself shifting between modes like this just out of necessity. What do you think, do you work this way or have you found a happy medium?

Here is an excerpt from the article:

4. What are some common “time management” tactics or approaches that you disagree with or don’t follow, and why?


To some degree, I reject the super-structured, old school of time management thought, the type of rigid planning where you say “from 10AM till 10:45 I’m going to work on TPS reports. From 10:45 to 11:15 check email,” etc. As a “web worker,” by nature I embrace serendipity and tangents, and like to keep myself open to working on unexpected things that excite me, even if they’re not in the plan. For example, a few years back, during some web surfing, I happened upon a tutorial on how to build Firefox extensions. I let myself go down the rabbit hole, so to speak, and now extension development is a big part of what I do.

[From Interview with Gina Trapani, Founder of Lifehacker - Morning Routine, Little Hacks with Big Results, and More… | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss]

My biggest frustration with Google Calendar is this: I'm too cheap for a data plan and the cool phone with which to use it. This means my GCal is tied to online access. While there were rumors that Google Gears was spotted lurking about the GCal app, nothing has transpired in the months since.

So, this is how I cope:

1.) Print a paper copy when I know I need to schedule an appt with someone offline (I hate paper, but sometimes it's necessary, even in places other than the john), and add it to my calendar later.

2.) Use SMS messaging to send an event to GCal. Set up your phone in your calendar's settings and simply text your event to GVENT (48368). I have a separate calendar set up to receive my new events via txt so I can quickly spot them and put them in the right category* (work, family, etc.).

3.) Use Jott to send events. After this is set up through "Jott Links" (so easy!), simply call Jott, say "Google Calendar" when prompted, then say the event, date, and time (e.g., "lunch with kevin friday at 11 AM").

There is an SMS option for viewing upcoming events, but that is limited to a one-day look ahead, so you can't check whether you're free two weeks from now. I'm hoping that with Gears functionality for offline use, will come better options for syncing to handhelds and other mobile devices making it possible to see upcoming events without the need for a printed copy to go.


*Since GCal doesn't really support categories in the same way as other calendars I've used, I have several different calendars to sort and color-code categories of events: one for work, one for tentatively scheduled work items, one for personal/family, one for keeping track of when people will be absent for worship team, and one for events I Jott or txt in.

It has been a fun undertaking this year to write for Church2.0 - the blog. In addition to opening up a channel for talking about some of the more interesting ministry-applicable tools, it's been fun working as part of the C2.0 writing team.

It's not easy picking a favorite post. Like Kevin, I also like Jott. I spend a lot of time on the road in my day job and find Jott incredibly (as in what did I do without it?) helpful for noting ideas and making reminders that I'm sure I'd forget before I get back to the office.



"My nominee for favorite tool is Remember the Milk."
[Chad Lemon, Contributor, C2.0 - the blog]


Included as a gadget on my iGoogle page (along with Jott and a couple other Google tools), I use Remember the Milk daily to keep track of upcoming tasks of all kinds and recurring tasks like bills.

RTM has an unexpectedly extensive list features - you can even use Jott to add reminders directly to your RTM to do list - two of our favorite tools playing together!

Find out more about some of the neat RTM features in RTM's end-of-the-year wrap-up. Firefox and Gmail users won't want to miss the RTM in Gmail extension for Firefox.

Update 1.2.08: Working on planning for next Sunday, I became keenly aware that I can't afford to leave Planning Center Online off my favorites list for the year. Even though I don't use it everyday, I would sorely miss it if I didn't have it. So, Planning Center Online is officially my second nominee for favorite tool! Hey, nobody said I wasn't allowed two.

On church websites I often find somewhere that explains the history of the church. But it's SO BORING!

Imagine going to a church website and instead of being bored by the History of the Church you are genuinely interested and engaged.

Imagine you're a long time church member and on this portion of the website you can add important events, dates and information in the life of the church.

Imagine that during this collaborative effort all the church staff has to do is approve and edit stories that are being submitted. Then embed a few lines of codes to your churches website and an interactive time line will show up. [Shown below - the history of Church2.0 - the blog]

Imagine that after a year you think, "I wish I could make a Book or a DVD that I could give out to my congregation or those who don't have internet." And you find out you can!

OurStory.com makes it all possible. OurStory is actually made for families to collaboratively record there story and genealogy. But isn't that what a church is essentially.

Start your own timeline at OurStory.com

http://ourstory.com/church20

Yes, Ark ALMIGHTY is site to promote the movie Evan Almighty, but don't dismiss it so quickly it does have ministry value.

Encourages the Church to meet needs...

1. Inside the Church - they provide a website to post needs and meet them. [ex- helping widows, balancing someones checkbook, changing someones oil, lawns-care, transportation, finding an exercise partner, etc.]
   
2. Outside the Church - they provide ways to provide "Random Acts of Kindness" [ex- stop and help someone change a tire,
   

They also provide materials, such as a 4-day curriculum with videos.

If you still are a little foggy on what Ark ALMIGHTY is all about watch this video.

Common Craft has tackled yet another [InsertNoun]2.0 topic in "Plain English." This time it's social bookmarking.

Chances are pretty good you already use some kind of bookmarking system, whether crude or sophisticated. Bookmarks are just handy things.

I switched from saving bookmarks in my browser (Internet Explorer calls them "Favorites") to online bookmarking tools a couple years ago - except for a couple key links I use everyday. This is primarily because of the portability of online bookmarks and that they are easily shared.

Social bookmarks take the advantages of online bookmarks and build in the collective interests of others like yourself to help you discover that which you might have missed otherwise. I could explain further, but the video does a pretty good job.



How you could use these is pretty endless. You could share your collection with colleagues and your congregation or just enjoy the benefits of gathering good sites through the recommendations of others with similar interests and needs as yourself. It all gets back to better ministry with less effort and expense.

Those of you who have established a Discipline for Sermon Prep, the next logical step is organizing your information.

For those of you who still use mind maps or webs to organize your thoughts check out Bubbl.us. Below is a teaching series I was kicking around doing on Christian Sacraments. Bubbl.us is an awesome online tool because it's free, easy to use and you can share/collaborate (via website, email, print, etc.) with other users.

Terapad is the real deal if your interested in using a Blog as a church website and/or Brochure as a church website. Those of you who are looking to create a church website or move away from your current provider to something more flexible and functional, check it out.

Content Management System, Blogging, Online Store, Message Boards, Online Calendar, Video, Images, etc. - all FREE!

Don't Get Burnt By a Bad Tech Experience

Technologies are great tools that, in their best form, help us amplify an already powerful message (the Gospel stands on its own, I'm certainly not suggesting otherwise) and reach a broader audience.

Unlike the Gospel, however, technology will occasionally fail us. In the tech training I do in my day job, particularly with reluctant users, I try to regularly emphasize the importance of having a Plan B to fall back on. There are few moments more awkward that standing in from of a crowd wondering if the ailing tool will recover.

With a few exceptions (e.g., software training, video-based messages, etc.), most messages stand on their own with tech tools. Where the breakdown occurs is in the panicked, awkward, deer-in-the-headlights moments that cause discomfort and distraction for everyone in attendance.

You can help minimize such situations by thinking through tech-failure scenarios ahead of time (especially with something new) and asking yourself how you could gracefully recover. Sometimes the solution is to make a substitution, sometimes it's best to eliminate it altogether.

Of course, the most graceful recovery is the one that doesn't have to happen. Surround yourself with people who can help, after all, you have enough responsibility with teaching/preaching without troubling yourself with the tech details. Do a dry run with new tech pieces. Try to recreate the situation as closely as possible beforehand.

Unfortunately, there's not a spiffy web 2.0 failsafe tech for me to tell you about here. Just some well-intended advice.

How do you handle technical hiccups? Add your best strategy to the comments.

---

Image Citation:
Reynolds, Leo. “B” Leo Reynold’s Photostream. 8 Feb 2007. 28 June 2007. http://flickr.com/photos/lwr/.

Summer projects are smacking around the Church 2.0 team - for a glimpse of how Kez is occupying his summer, just look at his blog! For me, it's just family stuff and my day job. So, the outcome has been a bit of a slow down on the blog here. Also, in case you missed it, the RSS feed for the last post was a little flaky, so you'll want to make sure you check out Remember the Milk.

Getting on to the point...

Planning Center Online is this really cool tool for planning worship services. Every now and again I use a tool and find myself thinking that the person/team behind this really knows the situation for which is was built. This is one such tool.

I'm not sure how to succinctly summarize this tool's features except to say that it does everything you'd hope that it would (sequence songs, and other elements of the service) as well as store mp3's, lyrics and other relevant attachments (paid version), schedule and email personnel according to their roles, track and report song usage, import song data from CCLI, and transpose chord charts (also on the paid version) - all on an online interface you can share with everyone involved in the planning and implementation of your church's worship services.

The basic version is free and very functional (this is what I'm presently using). Paid versions add some features and the ability to expand with more personnel and multiple ministries.

The Planning Center Team has done an above-average job with tutorials and walk-throughs of the app's features. Their "11-Minute Overview" explains it all pretty well in about, well, 11 minutes.

I've been trying to figure out a good ToDo list tool for keeping my tasks for work, family, church, and even Church 2.0 all together in one place. I tried Google Calendars for a while for this purpose and it worked OK, but didn't find it ideal for this purpose. But that's the best part of the "everything 2.0" phase: If the tool you need isn't developed yet, wait a few minutes and it will be.

I'm test driving Remember the Milk and finding it pretty likable. What makes this good tool GREAT is that it does so much more than just list tasks. Useful stuff.

Add your tasks through:

• Email
• iGoogle module
• Remember the Milk website

Get reminders via:

"Receive reminders via email, SMS, and instant messenger (AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Skype and Yahoo! are all supported)."

Beyond that, you can share tasks with your ministry team, export tasks to your Apple iCal or Google Calendar, and tag and search items.

One other cool element is the ability to attach a location to a task. I could see this geographic view as being really handy when organizing home visits and other out-of-the-office appointments.


On a related note: Looking for a few very practical tips on more doable ToDo lists? See this great resource by way of LifeHacker.

Only thing better than one Web 2.0 tech, is two 2.0 techs working together, thus:

Since Jott can transcribe to an email address...

and, since most blogs accommodate posting via email message...

and, since your notetaking blog is private, so exact transcription isn't critical...

you could use Jott to post a thought directly to your blog.

You ever start to prepare a sermon or teaching on a specific topic (say 'love'), but you really don't have any material on it? Finding yourself flipping to the concordance looking up the scriptures on 'love' and praying to G-d that he gives you a divine revelation or at least some sort of intervention!

This isn't the best way to preach. It's like trying to cook something w/o any of ingredients.

Get Your Ingredients First!


I have found that the discipline of collecting information, scripture, theology, practical application and personal experience makes all the difference when preparing to teach/preach. The hardest part is developing a system of collecting theses thoughts and making it a discipline.

In the last post I explained how to create a discipline of sermon preparation on your desktop. Rarely am I on the same computer, so I appreciate web applications and tools that I can access from any PC via the Internet. Know this is what I came up with. My system is similar to “Buckets, Chunks & Marinade” but instead of using my desktop applications I use a blog.

First, I created a private blog using Wordpress (any blogging system would do). Then when an idea, thought, quote, scripture, etc. comes my way, I make a new post on it. While making a post I tag it with as many keywords as possible that would make sense. (Example – Gospel, justice, love, marriage, church, family, death, kingdom, peace, possibly book of the bible the scripture comes from, etc.)

After a while you will accumulate many tags that will organize your information/thoughts for you. Your tags become your topics and sermon ideas will start to emerge with little effort. Then when someone asks you to preach/speak you can go back to your private blog and select any given tag to prepare that sermon.

This way you already have some ingredients to start with and your not completely starting from scratch.

PS - I’ll often Jott or text my thoughts to my email address when I’m out on the road. The next time I check my email, I'll copy the thought to my blog with the appropriate tags. You never know when an idea/thought will hit you.

The problem with preaching every Sunday is that it comes once every 7 days. That doesn't give you much time to prepare. Most pastors preach Sundays message which they started to prepare the Monday before and didn't finish until late Saturday. Or worst early Sunday. This kind of rhythm will suck the life right out of you and finding yourself at all time high stress levels. Also the message of Jesus Christ usually suffers because of it.

When I was at the Isn't She Beautiful Conference at Mars Hill Bible Church, Rob Bell explained how he went about preparing his sermons. Instead of frantically preparing a sermon from week to week he believes in developing a discipline he called "Buckets, Chunks and Marinade." First he starts of by saving small doc files of individual thoughts, quotes, questions, scripture, life experience and interaction that he come across. He leaves these on his desktop until a theme emerges and when they do he moves all the files with a similar theme into a 'bucket' (folder/directory). These ‘buckets’ are where he starts to formulate blocks of major thoughts he calls ‘chunks’. These ‘chunks’ become a sermon and/or series. If there is three or more ‘chunks’ this will most likely becomes a sermon series instead of a single message. Once the chunks are formulated he begins the process 'marinade'. ‘Marinating’ is where much of the creative energy is added. He works on the flow and the overall sermon delivery. The longer this takes usually the better it is. Rob says, “they need to simmer a while before they are ready to go.” Once they've marinated long enough he puts them on his teaching schedule. At Mars Hill Bible Church they plan out their sermons topics a year in advance. This may seem a little excessive, but I've found almost every prolific preacher does this scheduling.

Next: Discipline of Sermon Prep (via Blog)

Having posted on how great both Pinger and Jott are, the next logical question is "which one should I use?" In a Pinger vs. Jott match-up, here's a run down pound for pound of each, as I see them. I'll weigh both, the pros & cons, and I'll suggest who I think the winner is depending on the scenario. Let's go to the score card.

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Pinger - wins hands down, if you are sending to cell phone users to leave a message for a large group.

Pros

• Best service for sending voice messages to cell phones
• Reply, Reply to All & Fwd feature is great for instant confirmation/discussion.
• Clear and easy to use when receiving a Pinger via cell phone.
  
• Ability to post to MySpace is slick.

Cons

• Doesn't transcribe & it's not very easy to leave yourself a message
  
• Not as good as Jott when leaving email messages.

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Jott - will take home the victory, if you are sending to email users and/or you wish to leave a message for yourself.

Pros

• Best service for sending voice messages to email addresses.
  
• Transcribing voice to txt is a great feature.
• Clear and easy to use when receiving a Jott via email.
• Ability to post to Blogs is slick. [some additional setup is required]
  

Cons

• Doesn't have performance or features when receiving messages via cell phone.
  
• Jott is mainly a system for leaving messages.
• Confusing when you get a Jott message via cell phone, SMS txt msg.
  

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Similarities:
Both can leave messages for email address and cellphones, have a great website to use to set up and manage accounts, allow you to set up small or large groups to message, both are free, and are easy to use.

Basic differences:
Pinger does messaging and allows for some interaction from the cellphone users, where as Jott is best used to leave messages (both transcribed and voice) for yourself and other users (better result w/ email addresses).

So ask yourself two questions:

1. What kind of users am I going to message? (ex- cell phone users, email users or myself.)
2. Why am I going to voice txt? (ex - quickly inform/discuss, make an announcement that isn't urgent, taking notes, etc.)
   

In my case it's a draw, I use both. Pinger to leave messages to Cells (messages/announcements that need to get out quickly and may need a response) and Jott to leave informative messages to myself and/or email addresses which aren't as time sensitive (a good example is family announcements, "it's a girl!")