Digital @ Leadership Network

Getting Your Church Listed

Jon Acuff, the guy behind Stuff Christians Like, is at it again. On June 15 he launched Can I Wear Jeans? He explains, "Most church directory sites only offer info such as phone number, website, etc. The ones that list more usually charge churches money so you end up getting descriptions like 'Our church is awesome. Come see its awesomeness.' People that go there never get to tell you the inside story and say things like, 'Our worship leader is great and is a huge metrosexual with a goatee. You will dig him.' No one gets to be honest and say, 'Come early, because traffic can suck.' No one ever gets to answer the greatest question of all, 'Can I wear jeans?' Until now."

Acuff invites anyone to add their church to the growing state-by-state (and even country-by-country) directory by simply posting a comment on the related state or country page with the answers to these questions:

• Name of church
• City
• Website
• What's the worship music like? (Contemporary, hymns, long, fast, loud etc?)
• What's the speaking like? (Old school Bible, culturally relevant, by video etc?)
• What's the childcare like?
• What's your favorite thing?
• What would you change?
• Can I wear jeans?

For example, my home state of North Carolina already has 12 churches listed. But there are other options online that accomplish much of what Acuff is after—with a lot more bells and whistles:

Relevant Magazine has had its own church directory for several years, with lots and lots of churches already listed and the ability to post comments on individual church listings.

ChurchCloud.com offers an always-free "introductory package" for churches that includes "an enhanced listing on Church Cloud, one year of sermons on Sermon Cloud, unlimited events, and the ability to reply to comments as the 'official' church representative."

Other sites you might want to consider getting your church listed online: Squidoo and Get Satisfaction

—Steve Knight, Kingdom Journalist and International Communication Coordinator for SIM (Serving In Mission)

Dynamic Church Conference 2008 in Dallas

Fellowship Technologies is hosting it's 2nd annual Dynamic Church Conference in about a month.  If you are a church leader who wants to know more about ChMS, learn more about leveraging the power of the internet, networking with partners, etc., please join us in Dallas, May 15 - 17. 

Because there are two Leadership Network Digital contributors on the speaker list, I thought you'd like to know we'll be at the Frisco Convention Center.  We'd love to meet you.  Here's more of what's offered:

• An optional pre-conference called 'Power Start' with six different, personalized training classes    
• 60% more sessions across six different tracks, both Beginner & Advanced user levels
• Guest speakers include:
  
  • Terry Storch, Digerati Pastor, LifeChurch.tv and YouVersion.com
  • Joe Suh, Founder, MyChurch.org
  • Cynthia Ware, Pastor, Writer, Blogger, The Digital Sanctuary
• 50% more hands-on training labs, both Beginner & Advanced
  
• Dedicated Q & A - 'Ask the Experts' with Fellowship Technologies staff
• Free wireless Internet throughout the conference facilities    
• Free 2 hour live worship concert featuring Lincoln Brewster    
• And much, much more!   



- Cynthia Ware, The Digital Sanctuary  

A Lesson for the Church: Data Portability

It has seemed that many of the driving forces behind culture in recent years have dug deep roots into the online world. It's hard to pinpoint exact examples because culture and the internet have become ubiquitous, feeding one another for the general population. Geeky and technosavvy words enter our lexicon daily. Social networks are still being discovered for use by churches, while he pioneers of such tools are anticipating the next big thing.

As these tools become less cutting-edge and more a common utility, churches will be able to find better ways to utilize them for the needs of their congregation. But when we use someone else's toolset... it doesn't always work out like we planned. Sometimes the service stops working, or sometimes you can't get back what you've done with the service. Using a closed system locks you into it, with all of it's benefits and negatives.

If 2006, 2007, and 2008 were about the rise of MySpace, and the subsequent shift to Facebook, what is on the horizon?  I believe we are about to see a shift away from several online tools moving away from "services" and towards being a "utility."  Open standards will beging to form that will allow users to access their data how they want, the way they want.

The beginnings of this movement is taking place with the Data Portability intiative. This conglomerate of online services are working towards taking exisiting standards (i.e., rss, microformats, and openID), and promoting their use to put together a way for various services to talk to one another.  The latest news on the Data Portability fron is that two of the big services heavyweights, Facebook and Google, now have representatives working with the Data Portability team.

The issue with this is, however, that it may take years for this to all get worked out.  Churches are doing the right thing and exploring the idea of social networks... but what happens to the church that isn't on the cutting edge of technology, and locks their time, effort, finances - and church members - into a non-open service?  I know of many churches who bought into developing church websites, paying for the hosting fee or using a monthy-charged WYSIWYG editor... and then leave their sites dormant.  The American church, as a whole, is on a wide range of discovering the internet... some don't see the need for it, others are broadcasting their services in Second Life.  Has the average church even begun to look into social networking?

Of course, if the average church has yet to find the benefits of a social network, of podcasting their services, of having an up-to-date website, or even having a broadband connection in their offices... what is the point of looking forward?  Does the idea of open services and data portability mean anything to the church?

I think there is a huge lesson to be learned by the church from these consumers of cutting edge technology: the trend is being open, no secrets, and the ability to do what you want with your stuff whenever/however you want it.  We as the Bride of Christ should be the shining example of these things.  Our lives should be open.  Our churches should have no secrets.  Our members should be able to share and use our stuff however we want - as well as the stuff of our brothers and sisters.

We as the church need to find a way to have data portability between our church homes.  We need to be able to have an easy way to research a church's history.  We need to be able to easily access budgets.  We need an online standard for prayer requests to be aggregated.  Is there a way we can walk along side the creators of online culture, and find a better way for the church to be a "roaring lamb" in the online world, instead of a just a consumer?

(Aaron Linne)

P.S. Who are the roaring lambs of the internet that are already out there?

Can I use Amazon SimpleDB?

In my Google reader I follow over 350 RSS feeds. From that I try to get a decent understanding of the zeitgeist of the online world. Since so much of the online blogosphere is created by techies, there's always a huge slant towards tech-oriented stories, ideas and news. So, sometimes, I get this rush of excitement as all these feeds light up heralding the coming of something new and web-changing. And so, since the announcement of Amazon SimpleDB, I too got excited.

But then I realized that I don't really need it. And, though I see the vast potential... I wonder exactly "who" needs it.

But first: What is Amazon SimpleDB?

A while back (two years ago, I believe), Amazon introduced a service called Amazon Mechanical Turk. This service existed to allow people to make requests to actual humans to do work, like tagging the colors in a photo or some other menial task. The humans were then paid a small fee for their actions.

This led to Amazon slowly introducing other services, such as data storage and data processing.

The intriguing issue with these services is that they are slowly developing a complete platform to run services from. The only way for the end user to access these services, however, is to be an actual programmer. Amazon supports a number of languages with APIs:

*PHP
*C#
*JAVA
*Perl
*VB.NET

But, if you don't know how to program... does SimpleDB matter? And, even if you do know how to program... could it matter to your church? Your online ministry? Your everyday life?

I don't think Amazon SimpleDB effects us "layman" tech users as much as it might someone who is coding everyday. What it does do is open the doors for people willing to learn a new technology to scale their system efficiently. Perhaps the right person with the right motivation can create a scalable online church management solution using SimpleDB and the Amazon S3 data storage tool?

I think other tools are better suited at this point for the more common users. For example, I wrote a simple database app using Zoho that can track and create ISRC numbers. Even that is something relegated to my full time job, not personal or church interest. A great use for a database might be keeping track of what worship songs were song when at your church, or for your pastor to easily keep track of what verses he has used.

Unfortunately, Amazon SimpleDB can't let me know build such things, unless I have extensive coding skills. So for now, I'll keep using Zoho (but there's still this little part of me that is excited about SimpleDB... ah the curse of the Internet zeitgeist).

(Aaron Linne)