Christian Computing Magazine, August 2011

Founder & Editor-in-Chief Steve Hewitt - steve@ccmag.com

Applying Tomorrow’s Technology to Today’s Ministry Volume 23

August 2011

No. 8

7 cover story

Icon Systems Releases the New IconCMO ChMS Web App for the iPad and Android Tablets!

Copy Editor Gina Hewitt Corporate Home Office

By Steve Hewitt

3 editorial

Tablets...it’s all going to be about tablets!

Steve Hewitt - steve@ccmag.com

4 press releases

Ernie Hamilton - Founder, Shelby Systems Inc

Ron Chandler

14 acs ideas to impact

from ACS Technologies

16 accelerating the dynamic church

of Christian Computing, Inc. Written materials submitted to Christian Computing® Magazine become the property of Christian Computing®,

Getting Volunteers into their Sweet Spot

18 parishsoft’s catholic connection

All Rights Reserved Christian Computing® is a registered trademark

Assessing Your Ministry’s Data Security Plan

from Fellowship Technologies

Inc. upon receipt and may not necessarily be returned. Christian Computing® Magazine reserves

Helping Your Staff Learn, Grow, and Serve-Happily

21 logos cms

from ParishSOFT

the right to make any changes to materials submitted for publication that are deemed necessary for editorial purposes. The content of this publi-

Lead with Style

by Tony Ferraro

24 nick at church

cation may not be copied in any way, shape or form without the express permission of Christian Computing®, Inc. Views expressed in the articles

Copier Buying Tips

Nick Nicholaou - nick@mbsinc.com

26 your church on facebook

How 1188 Facebook fans were added to “Spread Jesus Today” in 1 Week!

Chad Gleaves - chadgleaves@gmail.com

30 digital evangelism 32 the power and the danger

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11 ccmag hall of fame

Social Evangelism

Contributing Editors Lauren Hunter Yvon Prehn Nick Nicholaou Kevin A. Purcell Russ McGuire Bradley Miller Michael L White Chad Gleaves

and reviews printed within are not necessarily the views of the editor, publisher, or employees of Christian Computing® Magazine, or Christian Computing, Inc.

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Is Public Wi-Fi Safe?

35 ministry communication

By Russ McGuire - russ.mcguire@gmail.com

What Church Technology can do to Alleviate World Hunger

Yvon Prehn - yvon@effectivechurchcom.com Articles that are highlighed are provided by our partners www.ccmag.com/2007_03/2007_03editorial.pdf

Christian Computing® Magazine

August 2011

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editorial Tablets... it’s all going to be about tablets!

Steve Hewitt - steve@ccmag.com

For two years I have been preaching that “mobile computing” will be the computing of choice. Smart phones have been the fastest growing technology sale during this entire recession. But, I think tablets are going to be the real winner. I predict that in two to three years from now, most of us will be using a tablet computer as our main instrument of choice when it comes to computing. You can debate me if you wish, but my experience tells me this is where we are heading.

So, how should that change the way ChMS and other programs should present themselves. Some believe that things probably won’t change much since everything is going into the cloud anyway. After all, a tablet will access web based services just as easily as a desktop or notebook, right? Actually, wrong.

I believe the interface on a tablet computer (apps instead of programs, touch screen instead of a mouse, etc) should dictate that ChMS companies will need to begin adjusting their offerings to work specifically ON a tablet over a desktop or notebook. Sure, desktops and notebooks will be around for a long time, but I believe in the next few years, you will see more and more people walking around with a tablet all the time, in the car, or with them in meetings and at the restaurant. THIS is where they will want to do most of their computing, and for church leadership, this is where they will want to take advantage of new ChMS apps that utilize the POWER of a tablet. Just imagine how ChMS should evolve once these programs begin utilizing your location as it relates to your membership data (just one example).

So, what tablet should you consider buying? One of the many Android tablets (I like the new Toshiba Thrive, and the Samsung Galaxy) or an iPad. Well, for those registering on our site (www.ccmag.com) and filling out their profile, including their picture, we are going to draw a winner to receive a new tablet computer on Nov 15, 2011. I sent out a special e-blast to all of our readers and asked YOU which tablet you would want to win, an Android or iPad. The votes are in and they were 3 to 1 in favor of an Android tablet.

And, according to those that left comments, this is largely due to the fact that the iPad can’t view FLASH. Check out this month’s cover story about ICON Systems move to tablet computing, and check with your favorite ChMS company about their plans to implement tablet computing in your future!

Together We Serve Him,

Steve Hewitt Editor-in-Chief steve@ccmag.com

Christian Computing® Magazine

August 2011

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Press Releases ConnectNow Ministry Scheduler Released ParishSOFT announced today that its fully browserbased ConnectNow Ministry Scheduler product is now available.

Ministry Scheduler, the only product on the market that integrates directly with the ParishSOFT family suite, gives parish staff the tools they need to organize any service, special event, or ministry and recruit and schedule all volunteers. Once parish volunteers are designated as available to serve in the system, scheduling is fast— about 20 seconds to schedule six months of liturgies.

And full integration means that for ParishSOFT users, Ministry Scheduler works dynamically with the family and member records that are already in your database.

No additional import or export process or duplicate data entry is required. When used with the ConnectNow My Own Church parishioner portal, members can log in securely to the Ministry Scheduler system to manage their entire, personal volunteer experiences online. While online, members can check schedules and set preferences for themselves and their families, ranging from the simple (e.g., I’m on vacation this Sunday) to the complex (e.g., schedule my wife and me so that one of us can stay seated with the children during mass). The system tracks all of the variables that affect who can serve when and

Christian Computing® Magazine

then uses that information to create fair, balanced schedules automatically for any event and date range.

The ability to let parishioners interact with their parish’s ministry opportunities on the Web makes Ministry Scheduler a powerful recruiting tool for churches looking to grow participation and engage their members in new roles. And with smartphone usage expected to grow from 67 million in 2010 to 95 million in 2011 (Gartner, Inc.), Ministry Scheduler and the My Own Church parishioner portal are providing the anytime, anywhere tools that churches and members need to keep in touch and do the work of the Church in an age when millions of Christians, from pre-teens to seniors, are increasingly holding the Internet, and now their parishes, in the palms of their hands.

“Our users and focus groups told us exactly what they needed Ministry Scheduler to do,” said product manager Ted Zettel, “and we’re pleased to deliver a robust program that tames all the complexities of volunteer management and scheduling for parish staff.”

Because all ministry signups can be handled in the Web-based program, the need for paper signup boards and forms can be significantly reduced or eliminated altogether. Parishes can now offer online signups from Web-connected devices placed where signup boards used to be. Whether members access the system from their personal devices or from a laptop in the parish gathering space, their interest and availability to serve goes directly into the system and is flagged for authorized ministry

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Press Releases coordinators. This marks a much needed upgrade to paper ministry signup processes, where each line item of volunteer interest requires an extra step of data entry into the parish software for proper tracking and follow up.

According to Zettel, many parishes reported hearing from members who had used a paper form to volunteer for a ministry but were never contacted about the next step required to serve. “It’s not that staff weren’t doing their jobs,” explained Zettel, “but a paper process is simply prone to lost forms, inaccurate data entry, and ultimately, underserved ministries. When a member raises his hand to serve in the Ministry Scheduler system, we can be sure he’s invited to take the next step.”

Ministry Scheduler will gradually replace the desktop module Time & Talent, the company’s original volunteer tracking and scheduling program, which was launched in 1998 as part of the Parish family suite of modules. Nearly 2,000 parishes that have the Time & Talent program may now upgrade for the new Ministry Scheduler program at no additional license fee.

To learn more, please visit www.parishsoft.com/ministryscheduler for product information, an introductory video, and links to register for our free Ministry Scheduler webinar, which includes a demonstration of the product.

About ParishSOFT Founded in 1998, ParishSOFT offers a complete suite of church and diocesan management software to connect people and the church and to reduce administrative work. The Ministry Scheduler program is the latest in the company’s ConnectNow series of fully browserbased products that offer secure anytime, anywhere access to parish data. ParishSOFT continually invests in improving its software and Web solutions, as well as adding new features and products. ParishSOFT presently serves more than 5,200 parishes and 52 arch/dioceses.

Visit www.parishsoft.com for more information about ParishSOFT’s products and services.

Visit www.parishsoft.com for more information about ParishSOFT’s products, services, and its annual Users’ Conference for parish and diocesan staff.

faithHighway’s Awardwinning Sermon Flow Product Receives an Upgraded User Interface faithHighway, a web design and software as a service company, has just released an upgraded user interface for the award-winning media suite: Sermon Flow. faithHighway has spent the last few months working on upgrading Sermon Connect’s Sermon Flow to a new interface: Sermon Flow Social.

Sermon Flow Social is designed to help churches and ministries present on-demand audio and video streaming Christian Computing® Magazine

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Press Releases and includes upgraded functionality to help them share their messages through various social media channels.

Some of the new features include: • Go Social – Getting audio and video items onto social networking sites with share options for Facebook and Twitter • Website Integration – Adding to the ability for a stand alone system, now Sermon Flow can embed within a current website and navigation • Multi-level Navigation – Taking the Sermon Flow navigation to the next level with multiple levels giving series and items unique covers • Enhanced User Interface – Creating a new design that streamlines all the features of Sermon Flow into an easy-to-use interface • Widescreen Video Player – Presenting videos in the new 16x9 format player Sermon Flow Social will still have all the great functionally of the original award-winning Sermon Flow, including: • Navigate media by flipping through the sermon series (similar to the iTunes CoverFlow) • Offer an unlimited number of sermon podcasts and mp3 downloads • Sell media online with a hassle free, turnkey ecommerce solution • Store unlimited amount of media online • Track media and first time visitors with usage reports • Send out html broadcast emails • And so much more!

available for your worship facility.”

Sermon Connect’s Sermon Flow interface won: • Best Digital Church Products: Podcasting, Webcasting, & Website Streaming Media Solution • Best Overall Digital Church Product About faithHighway The goal of faithHighway is to equip local churches and ministries with powerful, top-notch tools that they can use to reach their community in affordable and cost effective ways. As the nation’s leader in church solutions, faithHighway has served thousands of churches, from church plants to large congregations, for over a decade by providing cutting-edge custom church websites, robust award winning media centers, powerful outreach evangelism television commercials, logo design, and full media placement services to the church market, including TV, radio, direct mail, billboards, online advertising, and other marketing mediums. http://www.faithhighway. com

In 2008, SermonConnect, and specifically the Sermon Flow interface, received two awards at the WFX Conference presented by Church Production Magazine and Worship Facilities magazine, in which “the New Product awards recognize the newest and most innovative facilities, management and tech products on the market today for houses of worship. These winners highlight the best of the best products Christian Computing® Magazine

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cover story

Icon Systems Releases the New IconCMO ChMS Web App for the iPad and Android Tablets!

W

By Steve Hewitt

hen I saw the press release from Icon Systems, I stopped everything else I was doing and began reading their announcement and clicked on the links they provided for more information. ChMS Apps are the future. Simple. My experience (over two decades of publishing CCMag) tells me tablet and mobile computing is where we are going!

Recently, I was invited to meet with a church staff in Houston, Texas (something I always enjoy doing) and shared with them that “desktop” computing will be around for a long time, but only for a few of those that have special data or processing needs. Most of us will simply move away from a desktop or notebook computer and adapt to mobile computing, and that tablet will be the platform of choice! When I suggested that their next serious computer would be a tablet instead of another notebook, I saw some frown. However, two days later, the person that invited me to share with their staff sent me a Dilbert cartoon. The dialog was all about one character asking the other “Are you getting a lot done on the grandpa box?” When asked what he meant, the character replied “The people in my generation do our work on our phones and tablets.” The “grandpa box” was referring to a desktop computer.

Of course, with many ChMS services moving to the cloud, you can access these sites through a browser.

And, for those that are not cloud based, you can still use a remote access to your PC solution. However, I Christian Computing® Magazine

think these will be a simple stop-gap until real applications become available that provide the access to the data a church needs, as well as takes advantages of the many features provided by tablet computers and mobile computing.

So, what led Icon to create the IconCMO web app for tablets? Well, to find out, I asked for an interview with Bill Gifford, President of Icon Systems, and Jay Sandt, their Sales Manager.

Q: What mobile products does Icon Systems offer and how are they different?

Jay: Icon Systems currently offers two different mobile options that churches can use.

IconCMO Lite: Designed by Italics Software and offered through the Apple App Market. IconCMO Lite is a native application to the iPhone and iPad. IconCMO Lite provides pastors, staff and even church parishioners with the ability to view IconCMO’s demographic data on the go. Having your database mobile will help August 2011

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with a variety of tasks like maintaining contact with members, looking up contact information for others, finding driving directions, texting members, plugging into small groups, etc. Calling the office for member information will be a thing of the past when you are on the road with the new native mobile app for IconCMO! With IconCMO Lite churches can eliminate the paper church directory and it’s always up-to-date.

IconCMO Web App for Tablets: Designed

by Icon Systems, allows churches to use either an iPad or another Android based Tablet such as the Samsung Galaxy to access the complete IconCMO application. Icon Systems made special modifications to the Tablet version to allow for touch navigation and offers a native feel to tablet users. A Web App is different than a Native App because it is used through a browser but looks and behaves like a native application.

In the last three months Icon Systems has released IconCMO Lite, IconCMO Web App for the Apple iPad and the IconCMO Web App for the Android series of tablets.

Q: What’s your view on where we are going with Tablets? Are the going to replace notebooks?

Jay: Laptops have given users a taste of mobile freedom. They want more. Tablets (such as the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and others) have significant advantages over traditional laptops, offering much better weight, performance, and battery life. They are more comfortable for carrying to board meetings and relaxing on the couch. And, due to their streamlined operating systems, much of the typical computer maintenance routine is completely unnecessary: installing and removing applications without fear of complications is routine for those new to computing!

Bill: In addition to these advantages, the multitouch interface paradigm (as used on many touchscreen phones and tablets) dramatically changes the way people interact with computers. Multitouch and the contact-free interaction found on the Xbox Kinect are Christian Computing® Magazine

the two most notable innovations in human-computer interaction since the popularization of the mouse over 25 years ago. We’re just beginning to see the fruits of these new technologies. It’s an exciting time to be in computing!

Q: Before we go much deeper into discussing tablets and your new app, tell our readers a little bit about Icon Systems.

Bill: Icon Systems released one of the first Microsoft Windows church management software programs, Revelations in 1992. Over the past nineteen years, we have watched church needs shift from simply tracking data to enhancing communication and promoting a sense of community. Icon Systems strives to utilize advancing technology to serve churches and their congregations as effectively as possible.

In the late 1990s, Icon Systems foresaw the next stage of technological progress and began to develop IconCMO. The CMO stands for Church Management Online because the program is fully web-based. IconCMO has been a huge success: churches no longer have to deal with the complexities of enterprise networking and are no longer limited in location to the church office. Instead, IconCMO is available any time you want and anywhere you can connect to the Internet.

This leaves the headaches of server administration and backups to us so churches can focus more on ministry and less on maintenance.

This summer, we updated IconCMO to be fully compatible with the Apple iPad and a variety of AnAugust 2011

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droid tablets, bringing the power of a complete church management software package to the palm of your hand.

Q: Why did you decide to create an IconCMO web app for tablets? Why is it unique?

Bill: Software is a tool that serves its users. With today’s on-the-go, fast-paced active ministry, software needs to adapt in order to serve effectively. The era of sitting behind a desk entering data for eight hours a day is ending, so Icon Systems is working diligently to help churches enter the new era of mobile technology.

IconCMO is particularly unique because it is the only church management software with a complete fund accounting package available on tablets. Not only can you keep tabs on your membership, but you can record transactions, run reports, and answer any question about the church financial situation with just a few taps.

but with people! Being able to instantly connect to Facebook, Twitter, email, the church directory, and more has never been easier, faster, or more mobile than now.

Current clients that either are planning or have started purchasing tablets for their organization see that tablets offer something for everyone: staff can record contact information while greeting visitors, leaders can unobtrusively take notes on important conversations, pastors can schedule counseling visits, and the welcome committee can send an informational email before the service has even ended. Congregations can download an electronic bulletin, sermon outlines, and even a recorded sermon video before leaving Sunday morn-

Q: What benefits do you see for the IconCMO iPad app in the mission field or across multisite organizations?

Jay: Delivering an iPad application to our IconCMO multisite clients—both in the United States and global—has proven essential. The same technology used to support multisite churches can also be used in the mission field to further the overall vision of the organization. Tablets can utilize cellular networks so they can instantly connect to social networks, email, and church software anywhere. Ministries around the world can use tablet technology to work more effectively across diverse locations.

Q: Do you think many churches will switch to using tablets?

Jay: Tablets have often been characterized as consumption devices: reading news, web surfing, email, and gaming.

Applications like IconCMO, however, are leveraging tablets as ministry tools—not only interacting with data Christian Computing® Magazine

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ing. Educators can keep track of children’s information immediately without having to wait for an administration break. Helpers can take attendance while on the go.

Classes can be enhanced with extra interactivity and multimedia. Additionally, tablets are often an attractive way to show visitors information about the church or available small groups. They can even be donation kiosks!

Bill: IconCMO’s fund accounting package offers an additional array of possibilities. Church councils can review up-to-date financial information at any time— keeping the church in a proactive fiscal position and reviewing detailed transaction registers during board meetings. Church accountants and auditors can reconcile bank statements and prepare payroll checks for printing while traveling or commuting. Volunteers no longer need to frequent the church office to complete tasks—they can now do their work with nothing more than a tablet and an Internet connection!

Q: Has this mobile technology been a difficult transition for you?

Bill: While moving to a tablet required significant modifications to IconCMO, starting with a web-based product meant our turn-around was measured in weeks, not years. In addition, since IconCMO is in the cloud, the changes for tablet compatibility improved the user interface for all of our users—both tablet and desktop.

Q: How are your customers using tablets in their ministries?

Page Ackler of Elevate Church: We use mobile technology in a number of ways. It has increased our productivity through project management apps which sync to all staff mobile devices as well document and media management software accessed by leadership.

We use ToDo to update project statuses and modify task lists remotely to ensure critical items don’t get overlooked, even on the go. Dropbox allows us to access everything from PowerPoint sermon slides to leadership team meeting minutes anywhere with an Internet connection.

Access can be limited or expanded and those with mobile devices can set them to wirelessly sync all new reports or other documents as desired. We even run a digital decibel meter from several iPhones to ensure the worship music volume is at just the right level.

One unique area we’ve leveraged mobile technology is through the use of the Open Eye camera system app.

Christian Computing® Magazine

This allows our ushers to use an iPad, iPhone, or any computer to view real time video from our security cameras. This capability means they can count attendance without disrupting services, monitor and secure any area of the church from one location, and even check on the facilities throughout the week from home.

Q:Do you think members benefit when they have a tablet?

Page Ackler of Elevate Church: Members can not only use their mobile devices to take notes, by downloading our Elevate Church app from iTunes or the Android Market, they have access to audio and video of previous sermons, video announcements, update blog, and campus events calendar, as well as a text and audio integration of our church endorsed Bible reading plan.

Members can watch a previous message, check coming events, read or listen to the days selected scriptures and post a passage and their thoughts to Twitter or Facebook—all from their mobile device.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about tablets or IconCMO? Bill: Tablet computing is going to become more intertwined with our personal lives than ever before and Icon Systems will be in the forefront of this technology for churches. Tablets will continue to complement the increasingly mobile church, from its missions at home and abroad to multisite strategies to staying connected within the local community. Icon Systems is looking forward to serving pastors, churches, and their ministries for many decades to come, utilizing the latest in technology to help accomplish the oldest task of mankind. We hope that we can serve you and your church soon!

For more information please visit our mobile products or call us at 1-800-596-4266.

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christian computing hall of fame

Ernie Hamilton - Founder, Shelby Systems, Inc.

A

By Ron Chandler

s a pioneer in the field of church management software, Ernie Hamilton developed a strong background in fund accounting while establishing the data processing center at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas in the 1970’s. In 1976 Ernie Hamilton left the Seminary to begin Shelby Systems. The company has become one of the lasting and most respected companies providing software to churches, parishes, denominational headquarters, independent ministries, as well as religious and secular development organizations.

Shelby Systems actually fulfilled a dream of Ernie’s, as he envisioned giving the same kind of management capability to churches that businesses enjoyed. Seeing the computer as a new tool for enhanced ministry, he designed computer software for more efficient and more accurate financial and data operations. Member and prospect tracking became more than simply contributions and Sunday School records. With the knowledge of the abilities and needs of their participants, organizations could now more readily define and refine their ministering activities through the use of Shelby programs. Further, knowing that these non-profit organizations needed specific kinds of financial record keeping, Ernie developed software modules based on fund accounting principles, and saw the product become one of Christian Computing® Magazine

the most respected in this very specialized market.

Although Ernie Hamilton died in a private plane accident in November of 1998, Shelby Systems continues to carry out his dream. Shelby software helps to support churches and ministries as they touch the lives of millions of people worldwide.

To say Ernie Hamilton was a hard worker is definitely an understatement. Whatever he did, he did with great passion. Yet, like Solomon, the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes, Ernie knew that life was meaningless without God. Ernie Hamilton not only was a pioneer in the church information management industry, he also touched the lives of everyone in his family, those who called him a friend, those who worked with and for him, and others whose lives he touched in unique ways. He left a huge legacy in the field of church information management, but his other legacy of loving and caring for people is just as large. Ernie spread his passion for life to all those around him all in the name of ministry and Jesus.

Young and old alike who knew Ernie have made statements such as: “He was one of my heroes. I told him that when August 2011

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I grow up I want to be just like him”, to which Ernie would respond, ”God wants you to be more than that”.

“When I think of multiplying ministry - approaching all things with a large perspective to impact the largest possible audience - Ernie was a model.”

“Ernie was an affirmer and mentor. He supported people in ways known to few.”

One local Memphis church tells the story of Ernie working side by side into the night with their staff to get their old system 34 up and running. Local seminary students were always a target of Ernie’s generosity. He loved offering them the opportunity to work at Shelby during their seminary years, enabling them to go on to perform full-time ministry after graduation. Several pastors and church staff members through the years have come to Shelby suffering from ministry burnout and congregational abuse. They have been rehabilitated while contributing to Shelby’s support to ministry and then gone back to full time ministry.

During Ernie Hamilton’s life, Shelby Systems became a hospice for families and individuals with terminal diseases. When more than one employee experienced life-threatening diseases, and in some cases, life-ending battles with disease, Shelby Systems’ support made a huge impact on their lives. Many current employees and families can tell you of deeds of kindness Ernie Hamilton did for them and their families, known only to them.

Ernie had the gift of grace. It was a special gift that he possessed and tried to invest in all that his life touched. He loved aviation and was himself a pilot, once donating a van to a small airport. His wishes were that the proceeds from the rental of that van go to maintain a small plane and to help young people with an interest in aviation.

After Ernie’s untimely death, other young people contacted the family to say that Ernie helped them through a difficult time, helped them get their self-esteem back, and even paid their college tuition for a few semesters to get them back on track. Others said that they are successful in their lives and vocations today because of the investment Ernie made in their lives. Ernie and his wife, Mary Ann, have helped many others with places to live, personal loans, vehicles to drive, places to vacation, untold meals and recreation, all the while doing it quietly and privately “as unto the Lord.” He was known to say, “Don’t worry about material things. They fade away or can be replaced. People are the most important thing in Christian Computing® Magazine

What Others Said About Ernie Hamilton

by Steve Hewitt.

Nick Nicholaou, President of Ministry Business Services shared, “Ernie was one of God’s guiding lights to many of us who serve Christian churches and ministries. He always had his eye on the big picture and helped to elevate my perspective a number of times.”

Pat Faudree worked at Shelby for many years and served as the companies historian. When I asked her about Ernie, she stated, “Let’s say you’re interested in how computers and churches became connected. And you said ‘just draw me a picture of how this came about.’ Your best bet would be to somehow get graphic representation of the workings in the brain of Ernie Hamilton.

An acknowledged pioneer in making the computer a realistic tool for churches as early as 1975, he oozed confidence in what could be accomplished AND in how he could help that typical church secretary decide she really could write a letter and track attendance with nary a typewriter.

Following what he believed to be God’s calling him to be a pastor, Ernie helped to set up the computer and accounting system at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. The long nights laboring over the kinks and quirks of primitive programming helped him visualize what was on the horizon. He could see the obvious benefits to administering the myriad aspects of this major campus. Think of how the Lord’s work could be furthered if the local pastor had such a tool that would ease the administrating and free him to minister.”

Dan Bishop who served Shelby and Ernie for many years shared, “What struck me about Ernie was his faithfulness to his family, his employees (who he treated like family) and the Lord.

He never grew weary of helping people, especially those in ministry who struggled with tough times. Very few ever knew of Ernie’s hard times.

He was never focused on himself – always on helping others. Ernie Hamilton’s legacy is people, who became successful because he helped them grab their own bootstraps and he lifted right along with them. Many are in ministry today, because Ernie encouraged and helped in tangible and spiritual ways.”

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life.”

Ernie invested his spirit in Shelby Systems. He made statements such as: “All employees are family. Do your best. Approach your work in a Christlike manner. Your work is a ministry to the Lord.” These were common statements heard around Shelby Systems every day. It’s no wonder that Shelby Systems has grown from his bedroom to a multi-million dollar ministry business supporting the stewardship investments of thousands of ministry customers.

Prayer was his conduit for guidance in doing business and helping others.

Even today, Ernie’s legacy continues to impact thousands of lives. His strong belief in Christ, family, people, the church, and helping churches and organizations do ministry through technology has and continues to be a dream of Ernie Hamilton, a pioneer in the field of church information management and technology.

Frank Canady, the present President and CEO of Shelby shared, “Ernie and I working together far more than 40 hours a week. He loved coding on the IBM mid-range hardware that he knew best. He also loved selling and training. He even survived a typhoon while training a customer in Guam. We did a lot of software in the early days for manufacturing, rental, farms, etc. to pay the bills while developing our first package for churches.

We survived a lot of very lean days early on to make it to where we are today. He always tried to develop a solution when asked by a customer or prospect but was also known to ask why you would want to do that if it didn’t relate to a broader audience. He was the best man in my first marriage, pall-bearer when she died and best man when I re-married.

He was my closest friend.”

Christian Computing® Magazine

11:10 AM

I’m looking for a new church management package.

Help?

11:12 AM

Sure, what are your top needs?

11:19 AM

Small group management, online member tools, check-in, communications, volunteer tracking…

11:21 AM

Go check out what Shelby has to offer. The Shelby Arena product has exactly what you’re looking for.

®

Church Software Since 1976 • discover.shelbyinc.com

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ACS

ACS ideas to impact

Assessing Your Ministry’s Data Security Plan

from ACS Technologies

O

ne recent survey suggested that organizations lose an average of more than $55,000 due to IT and data failures each year. A big chunk of those losses come from hardware failure and human error. Less common causes of data loss include software corruption, computer viruses, theft and hardware destruction.

The all-new ministry guide “Data Security for InDemand Ministries” provides a tool for assessing data security practices in three key areas: staff, servers, and backups. In this article, we’ll provide a preview to help you start thinking about questions like what your IT staff could achieve if they had more time, what your church would do if there was a problem with your server, and how good your backup system really is.

Staff: In today’s churches and ministries, there are many stresses competing for the time of IT staff—and that’s if you have dedicated IT staff.

Server issues, software upgrades, backups … the todo list goes on. Many nonprofits, including some forward thinking churches, have decided to free up time by outsourcing a huge energy-drain: data security.

At St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Raleigh, N.C., there is no IT staff. But they do have one volunteer who helps out. “He was having to come over all the time,” said Susan Little, Financial Administrator at the church. But St. Michael’s made a key decision to outsource many of those key IT func-

Christian Computing® Magazine

tions, and to get their church management software off their in-house server. After that, the calls to the IT volunteer all but disappeared. “It’s really lightened his load, and it’s freed us up, too, because we’re not having to call him and wait for him to come over,” Susan said. “It’s been a real time-saver.”

Servers: Andric Daugherty, administrative pastor at Pathway Church in Mobile, Ala., said his church was “dead in the water” when their server went down. The staff was at a standstill, and the idea of spending another $5,000 on a server was a bitter pill to swallow.

“We decided to not only address the safety issue, in having our records stored better and backed up, but to eliminate even having the server. All we were using that server for was hosting our church management software,” he said. After getting help from their church management software provider in retrieving key data from the useless server, Pathway went live with a hosted version of the software they were already using.

It was a smart move for Pathway in part because August 2011

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the church has a mixed office, with people who use both PC and Mac computers. By using the Internet to access their church management software, everyone was granted access to the same systems, no matter what kind of computer they used.

Backups: Cass McCollum, CFO and an associate pastor at Covenant Church of Pittsburgh, thought her team was on top of backups. “We were doing full system backups every night, and every couple of weeks we would take one of our backups to another building that’s a couple miles away,” she said. “We also would take a backup once a month and put it in our safe deposit box at the bank so we were sure our data was secure up to our last backup.”

Sounds good, right? Problem was, that system didn’t turn out to be so bulletproof.

“What we realized was that our system wasn’t finishing the backup,” Cass said. They had trusted that the backups were working because they said “successful” at the end. “But they weren’t successful, they hadn’t caught everything.”

Putting automatic backups in the hands of trusted professionals was one driving factor in Covenant Church of Pittsburgh deciding to go with a hosted version of their key software.

It’s essential to protect your ministry’s data. Whether it’s financial information, member data, organizational data … data is more than files.

It’s an essential ministry tool – and the costs associated with data loss can be huge when you add it all up.

Download the free ministry guide “Data Security for In-Demand Ministries” for more information and to take a self-assessment on how your ministry is doing.

Christian Computing® Magazine

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accelerating the dynamic church

Getting Volunteers into their Sweet Spot

Accelerating The Dynamic Church® from Fellowship Technologies

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hat makes a happy volunteer? More often than not, it has less to do with their sunny disposition and more to do with how fulfilled they are in their role.

Often we hear about various recruiting techniques for growing a volunteer base. While some of these techniques might yield moderate success, we’ve found that when people’s unique gifts and abilities are understood, connecting volunteers with a role that meets the needs of the church and is fulfilling to the volunteer increases their happiness dramatically.

DON’T RECRUIT! INVITE! Instead of recruiting for a needed position, consider the natural gifts and capabilities of your congregation by using tools for identifying their strengths and spiritual gifts before introducing them to a volunteer role. Then, invite them to serve in a role that matches their strengths. Frankly, when we guilt someone into serving because of a need, there’s a good chance that person won’t be in their volunteer sweet spot. Quite often the result is a volunteer who leaves and is hesitant to volunteer when asked a Christian Computing® Magazine

second time.

The more you know about your congregation, especially when it comes to helping them discover their strengths and spiritual gifts, the easier it is for a volunteer to serve in their sweet spot. This benefits the church (who doesn’t love a really happy and fulfilled volunteer?) and the volunteer, who is likely to be an active promoter of the volunteer area where they serve.

Fellowship One church management software provides a powerful way to capture and leverage these talents and abilities for placing volunteers into roles. A church can use any program, such as S.H.A.P.E., PLACE or Strengths Finder, and create a giftedness profile for each person.

Building out job profiles in Fellowship One’s giftedness help automate the process for identifying which potential volunteer jobs are likely best-fits for volunteers. In addition to building out giftedness atAugust 2011

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tributes, it’s also possible to build out custom attributes that are not tied to a volunteer role. In this way, a church can both search for people based on giftedness test results and attributes that help identify experts, professionals, people group types and the like. The combination of the giftedness and attributes makes it easy to sort and search through hundreds or even thousands of volunteers and make new groups (even temporary groups).

Need to find those who have giftedness for intercessory prayer and are stay-at-home moms? You can identify them. Want to know who has completed and passed a background check and works with children in their day job? Yep, you can know that, too.

By capturing these attributes, the probability of volunteers being fulfilled in their role dramatically increases. And, as we all know, a happy volunteer is a committed volunteer!

In the book Why You Can’t Be Anything You Want To Be, authors Arthur Miller and Howard Hendricks share their research on what makes us tick. Based on the idea that every person is endowed from birth with a unique pattern of competencies and motivations, or giftedness, this book describes what the authors call a “Motivated Abilities Pattern”.

This indicates a person’s personal giftedness and encourages them to pursue their unique calling and live a purposeful life that is highly productive and richly satisfying. It’s a must-read for church leaders Christian Computing® Magazine

to understand how to help guide, lead and empower volunteers for finding their sweet spot.

Imagine the kind of volunteer ministry you could have when you know their motivated abilities pattern? It all starts with knowing your people, then providing the tools to gather and organizing the information for both staff and volunteers.

Perhaps the most important part of leading volunteers is not plugging in people to positions, but rather assisting them in finding the opportunity to serve with their natural talent and enjoying a fulfilling role in the body of Christ.

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ParishSOFT

ParishSOFT’s Catholic Connection

Helping Your Staff Learn, Grow, and Serve—Happily The scenario below is based on a true story. Names have been changed to protect the innocent and good-intentioned.

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from ParishSOFT

t a recent seminar, we demonstrated to several priests how applying consistent data management standards to census and sacramental records made it possible to compile a particular annual diocesan report in seconds—a process that otherwise took days of grueling manual analysis.

Collectively, the priests were quite impressed and agreed that this new method would give them far more accurate member and statistical data than they’d ever had before. Suddenly Fr. Joe’s face got a pained look, and he said, “If I tell Judy, my secretary, she has to do it that way, she’s gonna quit!”

The room got quiet as each priest considered how his own staff might feel about adopting this new process. Across the room, Fr. Bill signaled for a touchdown and broke the silence with an enthusiastic, “Hooray!” The room erupted in cheers.

God is perfect. People are a work in progress.

Fr. Joe’s secretary wants to serve her parish, but she’s impacting it in ways she may not even realize:

• The pastor actually considers not adopting a money- and time-saving process because he fears her reaction and doubts she’ll cooperate • Other staff are burdened by the extra work she creates • Parishioners and ministries get less attention because Judy spends the bulk of each workday doing what she could do in an hour using her software.

Your staff members are the face of your church—often the first point of contact for people Christian Computing® Magazine

in their greatest time of need. And keeping them equipped with the tools and knowledge they need to better serve your mission must be an ongoing formation process, not a one-time shot. Let’s take a look at some basic strategies that can help staff (even Judy!) learn new skills, work more efficiently, function as part of a team, and better serve your mission.

Understand your strengths.

Fitting people into the right type of work seems like a no-brainer, but if you have a Judy-type running your religious education program with a pencil and paper rather than the software you’ve bought to handle everything she needs, something’s got to change.

A tool like the Clifton StrengthsFinder is a great way to identify an individual’s natural, God-given strengths and help people—staff and parishioners alike—map their talents to parish work and ministries that fit just right.

At St. Gerard Majella Parish in Port Jefferson Station, New York, Fr. Bill Hanson and Fr. Chris Heller used Gallup’s Clifton StrengthsFinder and congregational engagement research tools to grow their parish from a community of rather nonchalant Catholics into an August 2011

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engaged community of growth and service . . . a place where people didn’t just show up but felt excited to belong.

Today, St. Gerard Majella has quadrupled its parishioner engagement, and the Clifton lingo has become such an integral part of parish culture that staff wear shirts embroidered with their top strengths—like “Connectedness” and “Learner.” Parishioners wear their strengths on lanyards and on the parish website.

Understanding the talents in your staff team can generate a lot of excitement and “Aha!” moments. With a new set of tools and “strengths” language, your team can have productive discussions about how well your strengths—and weaknesses—are serving your mission. From there, tailoring administrative assignments to create a perfect fit becomes a ministry-oriented team decision rather than a mandate from the pastor. We may discover it makes sense for our dear Judy to put her strengths to work on the phones for part of the day, while another staff member handles the software administration portion of the religious education program. And that’s okay!

Hire and retain the right people Being good stewards of our finances means never settling for a candidate who is less than qualified to run our church. Smart hiring is obviously the best way to build a team of staff who have the technical and people skills, enthusiasm, faith, passion and theological background needed for the job. Look for people who will embrace the opportunity to learn new things. Consider how well a person will work with both your current pastor and your next pastor. Don’t limit your search to within your congregation—cast a wide net, and be willing to pay a reasonable, competitive salary to attract educated candidates with professional skills and experience.

Salaries need to strike a balance among several factors: what your church can afford, employee responsibilities, qualifications, and performance. While there are some competent volunteers out there who are willing to work for free (or very little), compensating staff with a living wage and keeping them happy means you’ll have dedicated employees who aren’t looking for a better gig. And for established churches, budgeting for staff compensation is the Christian thing to do. (The Enrichment Journal offers some great tips on “Hiring Eagles.”)

Make lifelong learning part of your church culture Faith formation doesn’t end on the day we’re confirmed. Like our relationship with Christ, learning should also be a continuing process. Staff development can better equip your team to handle conflict, work together and communicate with parishioners more effectively, grow personally, sustain the connection between their task lists and discipleship, and handle their administrative work as efficiently as possible.

If the thought of signing up for a one-hour webinar is causing you stress right now, take it as a sign—seek and ye shall find the help you need to reduce the stress and enjoy your work! Use those office stress triggers to help identify your greatest points of pain, and look to your network of software vendors, service providers, diocese Christian Computing® Magazine

✓ Census

✓ Sacraments ✓ Offertory

✓ Online Giving

✓ Religious Education ✓ Ministry Scheduling ✓ Church Accounting ✓ Email Newsletters ✓ 24/7 Web Access

Great! Now I can get on with ministry.

www.ParishSOFT.com August 2011

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or other parent organization, and even other churches in your area for support, training, and advice.

For example, if scheduling ministers is taking days, or if you have a lot of “no-shows” on Sunday mornings, evaluate your workflow and tools.

Not only is there a great software program out there (like ParishSOFT’s new ConnectNow Ministry Scheduler) to make your job easier and connect parishioners with their volunteer commitments, you can take a training class to get up and running right away.

For just about all your parish administrative tasks, you can find a technology tool that will save you time and give you better avenues to more effective communication and ministry. And attending training, webinars, and events like the ParishSOFT Users’ Conference can help your entire team discover how to use your ministry tools to their fullest potential.

Pastors lead by example.

Fr. Michael Wilkes, Associate Pastor at St. Hugo of the Hills in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and Fr. Peter Wehrle, Pastor at Our Lady of Fatima in North Bergen, NJ, attended our Users’ Conference for the first time in 2010 and are looking forward to this year’s sessions in Anaheim, Calif. “So much has changed in the way we communicate with each other and keep track of people and events in our daily lives, both inside and outside the parish,” said Fr. Wilkes. “To do the work of Christ in today’s culture, we cannot use advanced technology in our personal lives and expect our parishes to continue doing things the old way, using outdated tools.”

Fr. Wehrle would agree. He asks his staff to get trained in the Microsoft® Office® and ParishSOFT programs because he use those tools himself to reach parishioners and “better be Christ” to them.

And at our 2011 Users’ Conference, Fr. Wehrle will lead a special workshop to teach other priests how to use the census, giving, and statistical data in their software to anticipate the needs of families, better manage their parishes, and plan for the future.

As technology innovations for the church continue to come at a tremendous pace, clergy and lay staff who are on board with lifelong learning and the value of technology for ministry will be better prepared to adopt the tools they’ll need to keep connected with members. “Change always throws us a learning curve, but in the end, learning to use the tools we have enhances ministry, makes the job of parish staff much easier, and allows us to serve Christian Computing® Magazine

our parishioners in the best way possible,” said Fr. Wilkes.

Priests like Fr. Wilkes, Fr. Hanson, and Fr. Wehrle, who embrace new tools as a means to ministry, are leading their parish staff by example.

At St. Gerard Majella, the enthusiasm and commitment that began with the pastors quickly permeated their small groups and became an integral part of parish culture. Through their willingness to learn and change, they have built an engaged church!

Remember: you’re not alone—you have a network!

One of the greatest, and often unexpected, benefits of attending learning events is realizing that people in other churches face the same challenges, and they’re willing to help you. We’ve seen it year after year at our Users’ Conference. Parish and diocesan staff share their experiences and discover that someone in the room has already found a great solution to their exact problem. They exchange contact information and call on each other for advice long after the conference has ended.

Church staff who embrace learning and have the opportunity to learn can better support each other as a team. They work efficiently, and their disciples’ hearts are energized continuously because they see the fruits of their efforts in the ministries of your parish. Their work is their ministry, and they’re happy to do it. They are the faces of your church.

Additional Resources Building an Engaged Church, featuring keynote speaker Fr. Bill Hanson and workshop presenter Fr. Peter Wehrle, Nov. 7-9, Anaheim, Calif. conference. parishsoft.com.

Growing an Engaged Church, by Albert L. Winseman, featuring a chapter on the story of St. Gerard Majella Parish.

Star12 training by National Seminars Group—they offer live seminars, webinars, and online courses, as well as resource library materials you can share with your church staff.

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LOGOS LOGOS CMS

Lead with Style

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by Tony Ferraro

eaders must know who they are and how they are perceived. They must know whether or not the perceptions others have of them matches who they are trying to be. If those two do not align, leaders will lack the ability to motivate others, take charge when necessary and mobilize followers towards a given goal. Remember, leaders are only leaders because others choose to follow. A leader cannot be in front and in the rear at the same time. Leaders must be the first to “move” after laying the framework on which others choose to move also.

One valuable place to start is to focus on Leadership Style. Often leaders have a misconception of how they lead. Generally, they believe in their vision, direction and strategy to execute; so, they assume everyone else is “on board”, particularly employees that work for them.

After all, employees “must” execute their orders, right?

However, we have all learned that solely because an employee must execute the orders does not necessarily mean they will do their best job. To motivate others to perform at their peak, leaders must select the right leader style based on the individual they are leading and given the circumstances in which they are leading.

There are at least three styles of leadership, the Director, the Rally Crier and the Collaborator. Each style has strengths and weaknesses and as well as appropriate and inappropriate conditions in which they should be used. The key for the leader is to know which style they most naturally execute, how to employ the others when necessary and how those they are leading perceive their style.

The Director Leader spends time shaping a vision, goals and sometimes strategy. They have a clear picture as to what needs to happen and how to get it done.

Once resolved, they Director Leader gathers the desired

Christian Computing® Magazine

“followers”, casts the vision and the execution strategy and then starts moving with the anticipation they will be followed.

Leading as a Director in an “at will” relationship, i.e. employer / employee or teammates, requires a strong well of relationship capital. Directors must build relationship equity throughout the normal course of the relationship so that when they are called to direct, those that are following trust their leadership. Followers must believe they are being led to a safe place and that the Director has considered their best interests. These two senses of confidence come through relationship building when the Director is not leading. They provide the foundation on which the troops will mobilize out of respect for the leader. Unless the Director has a forced relationship, i.e. military or police, without first building a well of relationship capital, their leadership will fail by either lacking followers, burning out followers or having the followers they do have perform at sub-par levels due to a lack of trust and motivation.

Conversely, however, if Directors are successful in building relationship equity, when duty calls, the masses will follow. Directors enjoy a more rapid execution of their leadership than either of the other models of August 2011

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leadership. Simply put, their vision gets executed upon their command, expeditiously and with great enthusiasm.

The Rally Crier Leader spends time shaping a vision, goals, and sometimes strategy. They have their vision mostly figured out concerning what needs to happen and how to get it done. Once resolved, the Rally Crier meets with the desired “followers” one at a time or in small groups of two or three and casts the vision. Accepting “some input,” they ask the individual followers if they will support them or join them; often the “ask” sounds like, “I really need you to ____” and may include, “are you with me?” After completing the rallying of the followers, one at a time, the Rally Crier Leader brings the followers together, sharing the direction and vision to the full group with any adjustments that have been introduced along the way and then starts moving with the anticipation that they will be followed.

Rally Crier Leaders generally enjoy the highest amount of relationship capital. Their style demands a high degree of “face time” with their followers. Rally Criers typically know best what motivates each individual on their team and they continually motivate their team members to their personal strengths and goals. Generally, Rally Criers figure out how to fit the individual goals of their team members into their vision so that everyone feels as though they are a part of something bigger and feel a high degree of confidence that their interests are protected.

The drawback of the Rally Crier, however, is time.

Rallying the troops takes time. It requires smaller meetings prior to the larger meeting. When immediate action Christian Computing® Magazine

is required, the Rally Crier will need to shift their leadership style to that of Director. The struggle, then, is that they may lack the confidence to lead as they have not “sold” their idea to their followers. The benefit, however, is that the Rally Crier leadership style looks very similar in many ways to Director; so, it is not as far of a jump in style as it would be for the Collaborator.

The Collaborator Leader has an idea; it may be “fresh” or “well formed”. The Collaborator Leader gathers the followers, casts the vision and then seeks input and shaping. They work with the followers to deterAugust 2011

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mine what the vision should be and it is “ok” if the result of the collaboration produces a different vision all together; however, the Collaborator Leader is the one that decides what the best vision is, walking the team through the collaborative process. Once decided, the Collaborative Leader starts moving with the anticipation that they will be followed.

Naturally, the Collaborator leadership style suffers the same drawback as that of the Rally Crier. It simply takes time; however, the Collaborator is typically having one or two meetings as opposed to several small meetings to be followed by a larger one.

Collaborators enjoy the highest level of follower “buy in”. When the team gathers, debates and influences their leader’s direction, they feel as though they have submitted to their own idea.

Because they invested in the process, they have a greater tendency to trust the direction and strategy and the highest degree of sharing the same vision. Their personal goals were represented in the discussion and they believe the plan is in their best interests.

Clearly, there are best and worst times for each of these styles to be employed. Naturally, every leader will have a tendency and giftedness towards one or the other. Most leadership oversights related to leadership style, however, comes from leaders not knowing how they are perceived. In other words, often leaders believe they are executing well under one style when in fact their being received under a different style. The biggest misconception is Director Leaders who believe they are Collaborator Leaders. Directors often make the mistake of assuming that because people are following they are “on board”. They believe that because a follower says, “Ok”, they must share their same vision. Otherwise, they would “speak up” right?

Leaders are leaders. They are typically strong in their direction. Good leaders will not make the mistake of assuming that because others are not offering a counterview they must all agree with the leader. Great Christian Computing® Magazine

leaders solicit input and feedback to insure that followers are on the same page.

It is imperative that leaders regularly ask the questions, “How am I doing and how can I improve?”, “Do you feel as though your strengths are appreciated and contributed?”, “Do you feel as though you have a voice in my organization?”

If everyone in your organization is saying, “Ok”, it is probably time to sit down and have an open forum about your leadership style. If you have built a team of people with individual and complementary strengths and do not have clash or opposing views when determining strategy, the chances are your team is not really contributing their hearts and your leadership will fail.

To ensure you are creating an atmosphere that stimulates the results you are looking for, make sure your team perceives your objectives and methods the way you intend for them to be perceived. Just ask, they will tell you.

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nick at church

Copier Buying Tips Nick Nicholaou - nick@mbsinc.com

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Reprinted from NACBA Ledger

hile at the NACBA National Conference last year I was talking with Rob Leacock, Christ Church Fort Worth’s business administrator. We were talking about his recent decision to replace their copier, and his process was impressive and effective! Especially how much money he saved! Here are the details.

Starting at the Beginning Rob wasn’t happy with his copier, so he set out to find the best replacement copier for his team. The challenge was to get objective information, not opinions offered by marketers who want you to buy the systems they offer.

He started by contacting other church administrators, but found that process to not be very helpful since everyone seemed to love and/ or hate different machines! “I knew there had to be an objective resource out there,” Rob said.

He found an organization known as BLI (Buyers Laboratory, Inc., www.buyerslab.com) whose website states: For over 45 years, Buyers Laboratory Inc. (BLI) has been the leading source for unbiased and reliable intelligence for the imaging industry…. BLI is completely independent in all of our testing processes and subsequent reporting. With BLI, you can count on unbiased data and information. All of our product evaluations are conducted by highly experienced emChristian Computing® Magazine

ployees in our on-site testing facility where we evaluate and report on hundreds of new copier, printer, fax and multi-function (MFP) products each year.

There are several BLI reports on each copier, and there are also reports that compare manufacturers against each other. Though they were all helpful, he found the most helpful to be the benchmark tests.

A problem, though, was that getting access to BLI’s reports was expensive. A one-year license for access to their online database costs $1495, which is prohibitive for most churches. So Rob contacted the copier manufacturers’ distributors and asked them to provide their BLI reports, which they were happy to do at no charge!

Next: Manufacturer’s Distributors Rob read the BLI reports and narrowed his focus down to three manufacturers. Then he began researching their distributors. What he found was that in his area there were multiple distributors for each manufacturer, and that gave him some leverage. Two even loaned him machines so he August 2011

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could give them real-world test drives!

The distributors all wanted to meet with him. Like most church administrators, Rob is a busy guy, so he declined their meeting requests and instead sent each of them a spec sheet of his needs. That reduced his time drain considerably since he only needed to meet with the top contenders.

Part of Rob’s distributor selection process included research on their service quality.

He included service response guarantees on his spec sheet, and he also checked their references to see how well they delivered on the service component. Though most would agree that this is a good ‘due diligence’ test, many skip it because of the time it takes. In Rob’s case, it really helped him identify the top distributors.

Contract Negotiations Having done his research well, Rob was ready to enter the negotiation stage. But this is where he did something that was even more unique.

He discovered an attorney who specializes in copier lease negotiations! He hired Wade Cascini with Xippa (www.xippa.net) whose website states: At Xippa, we’re here to help you, the customer, get the most out of your Copier and Printer lease agreements, including Managed Print Services and Cost Per Page contracts. Our policy of free, no-obligation Copier and Printer lease contract review consultation means you only pay us if we can save you money….

With over 20 years of proven industry experience in Leasing and Service Level Agreements, we’re able to ensure that when you come to us, you’ll know exactly what your contract is giving you, and how to

Christian Computing® Magazine

get what you need out of it.

I spoke with Wade and he said, “Most people are not aware that there are experts like us that can save them a lot of money in these negotiations— bottom line! Having done so many of these has helped us know what’s possible, and we use that to our clients’ advantage.”

Through Wade’s counsel and negotiations, Christ Church Fort Worth saved considerable funds in leasing the copier that rose to the top of Rob’s objective selection process, promising to meet their needs very well. At the time of this writing they have had their new copier in place for nearly a year and are very pleased with it— and with their distributor/ service provider in every respect. So much so that they recently got a second machine!

Nick Nicholaou is president of MBS, a consulting firm specializing in church and ministry IT and CPA services. You can reach Nick via email (nick@mbsinc. com) and may want to check out his firm’s website (www.mbsinc.com) and his blog at http://ministry-it. blogspot.com.

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your church on facebook

How 1188 Facebook Fans were added to “Spread Jesus Today” in 1 Week!

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Chad Gleaves - chadgleaves@gmail.com

want to share, step by step, how in one week I added 1188 people to “Spread Jesus Today!” Facebook hasn’t been an easy road for me. I’ve made it a point to study under every “guru” out there, to learn what works and what doesn’t and to be honest. Facebook is very straight forward.

1. Relationships build a Facebook community and a good Facebook community will build Relationships.

2. Advertise by using Facebook ads, quality posts, likable pictures, church bulletin, and church email.

3. Post every day!

4. Participate in the conversations.

5. Minister to people.

6. Be available.

These are the basics but you first need an audience or you’re just “preaching to an empty choir loft.”

I’m going to talk about a blueprint that WILL bring traffic to your Facebook fan page.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to cover: a. How to create an effective side banner. b. Creating a welcome page that converts visitors to fans, c. Creating content that demands a conversation or Christian Computing® Magazine

other fan page essentials.

If you would like more instruction on those topics, please visit my tutorial site at http://getyourchurchfanpage.com/fm .

Let’s dive in.

Have a professional side banner that clearly explains your mission.

Like I said, I can’t go into everything; but let’s take a brief overview to look at the banner. Start by

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maximizing the side banner to its full potential as it provides a great avenue for promoting your Church’s Facebook Fan Page. I strongly suggest you use this banner to inform people what your Church Fan Page stands for by clearly defining your mission into that small ad space - in a fashionable way. When making a banner, I always make it a point to follow the standard size of 180W x 540H pixels. You can experiment with smaller sizes if you choose.

If you’re not familiar with creating banners, I’ve got some free template designs as well as an easy to follow tutorial series that teaches how to design a professional looking side banner.

It’s easy!

Make sure you post every day.

When I was just starting Facebook, I tried looking around at other Fan Pages and saw that the most popular ones were those pages which posted every day. It didn’t take me long to notice some significant similarities between the successful fan pages and the unsuccessful fan pages.

I did further research on how Facebook’s Fan Pages work and found that the average Facebook user forgets about your page the second after they like it – if they do not see new posts.

With that in mind, regular and timely updates are the key for my Church Fan Page to achieve better Facebook engagement.

Meaning, it is not enough that I post, it also matters what time of the day I make my post.

Luckily for me, I stumbled upon a great tool which helps me schedule my postings on Facebook, it’s an application called “Sendible.” I was so impressed with Sendible’s service that I made a walk-through lesson on how pastors or ministers could take advantage of Sendible’s scheduling features. It’s a life saver!

Facebook Ads: How to make them work for you and not break the bank!

OK, I know everyone wants something for nothing! Let’s look at this. Would you get a yellow page ad for free? Radio ad?

Tv ad? Why are we so cheap when it comes to Facebook. For the results, NOTHING is cheaper. I spent $15 dollars a day for a total of $105. Thats it!

Getting a Facebook Ad is practical and frankly the best way Christian Computing® Magazine

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to reach Facebook users. However, it takes careful planning in order for it to be effective. In my experience, here are some of the steps that I took to bring significant traffic to my Fan Page.

How I created killer ads that perform and are dirt cheap!

My biggest concern, like every newbie, was the cost of placing Ads on Facebook. For that reason, I’ll try to make this as plain as possible.

Make sure it stands out – Which ad stands out more? Ad 1 or Ad 2? Ad 2 outperformed Ad 1 by 350%. Remember that there are millions of Fan Pages on Facebook. In designing your Ad, consider who your target audience is and what appeals to them. I read somewhere that the more provocative Ads ALWAYS outperforms the bland ones by a 15:1 ratio.

That is why I make it a point to use bold language or images in every Ad to attract more people.

Use pictures that are close up.

Referring to the same Ad above, I discovered that close-up face shots are far more appealing to an audience as compared to a group picture of people. It’s not enough that you use a face shot, make sure it’s a close-up shot. Notice also that Facebook liked both ads’ performance and gave me low rates, but the face shot blew the other away in performance BY FAR! Get cheaper rates by targeting your Ads by location.

In setting up your Ads, you also need to pin point your target audience by location. I have to tell youChristian Computing® Magazine

the wider the scope you set, the more expensive your Ad rates will be.

This means that if you target EVERYONE on Facebook, Facebook will “dislike” your ad and penalize you! So, it is really important to carefully select your audience in order to get lower rates from Facebook.

For example, if you are in Dallas- mainly target Dallas. For my Page, I regularly get .11 cents per person by targeting my audience by using keywords like “I love Jesus” or “Bible”. Otherwise, Facebook will charge me $1.50 - $3.00 per person that clicks on your ad.

Target your Ads by keywords.

“Bible, I love Jesus, Christian, Church,” etc are all keywords that I use to target and limit the audience that sees my ads. Also, you could reverse that logic and target people with words like “alcohol, beer, party animal” or other “non church” terms as a way to witness. By designing your Ads for a specific person and limiting your audience for those ads, you make Facebook “happy.”

The result: You will spend very little and reach a TON of people in return.

Change your Ad regularly.

I learned from experience that a typical ad will work for 1 to 2 weeks before people get tired of it or simply stop noticing it. People on Facebook respond better and are more attracted to an original and new concept.

To avoid that lull, I usually create a new ad just like it and change the picture. There are simple ways to change or re-design an existing ad such as: 1. Put a border around it 2. Change the background color 3. Put the person on the other side or change the color of the text Do any ONE of these items at a time and reserve the other changes for future use. If you keep doing this, you’ll notice that making tiny changes are big August 2011

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enough to put your ad back on the Facebook users radar.

By the way, I also recycle my Ads by keeping the old ones to run down the line a month or two later.

Make sure it is the right size.

Just like what I’ve mentioned with the side banners, taking into account the size of your Ad before doing the design will spare you from problems later on. The standard size of a Facebook Ad is 120 x 80 pixels.

Here’s a cool tip that I’d love to share: After I’m finished making one Ad, I also do at least 5 variations of that ad and see which one works the best. I’ve often been surprised at which ads work and which don’t.

Here are some suggested variations that you can use: ● Try 3 Ads with one pic - 3 Ads with another ● Try targeting one town with an Ad and then another town with the same Ad and see which town likes you better ● Try a red border around one of the ads ● Try your smiling mug shot on one ad ● Women’s face shots outperform men’s faces 10 to 1 (most times) test, test, test! ● Try a solid color with white text Keep your ads short.

Since these Ads serve as my invitation to my audience, I must be able to catch their attention as well as keep their interest. That is why I try to keep the photos simple. The more complicated it is, the harder it is to understand my message.

I also choose to relay my message in easy to understand language by keeping the text short and sweet.

Christian Computing® Magazine

This works all the time - one to two lines are enough.

It loses its impact the longer it takes to read.

Call to Action.

Here is a simple yet effective way to get new fans.

At the end of your ad, simply put “Like This Page.”

They will! To test this for yourself; run an ad that simply says: “If you love Jesus... Like This Page!” People will do it and connect with you with that simple phrase. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to easily get more Fans for your Facebook Fan Page. If you follow the simple steps I did with my own Page, you’ll soon be reaping the rewards on your Page, too! If you want a Fan Page your church will actually use, go to http://getyourchurchfanpage.com/fm and receive your free training on “how to get your first page up today!”

You will also find more advanced courses for seasoned vets wanting to take their page to that next level.

Retain visitors and increase member involvement with an Inreach Site powered by IgniteCRM, a web-based Church Relationship Management suite that allows you to: • Connect People with Interactive Member Dashboard • Empower Members to Give Online & Your Staff to Track through Integrated System • Increase your Reach & Member Participation with Social Media Integration • Track Contributions, Attendance & Member Engagement

Call 877.703.2484 and Press 2 to Receive Free eBook on Connecting Visitors and Members

August 2011

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digital evangelism

Social Evangelism Michael L White - mlwhite@parsonplacepress.com

T

here was a time in the not too distant past when the term “social evangelism” might have been synonymous with a concept called “relationship evangelism,” but my use of the term “social evangelism” here has an entirely different application. In the past, relationship evangelism was too often a cop-out and a salve to a raw conscience that permitted a cowardly Christian to avoid the practice of personal evangelism altogether, all in the name of “relationship-building” prior to sharing the Gospel.

The problem with that approach is that after years of supposed relationship-building with a friendly prospect, the cowardly Christian is seldom any closer to sharing the Gospel than on his first encounter with this person. Furthermore, we find no example of this long-term approach to evangelism anywhere in the Scriptures. So, how does social evangelism differ from relationship evangelism, and how can we practice social evangelism today? Keep reading, and I’ll tell you.

Social evangelism differs from relationship evangelism primarily in the manner and the time table in which the Gospel is shared. What I mean by “social evangelism” is the use of so-called social media to share the Gospel. I’m sure by now that you’ve heard a great deal about social media, and you may already have multiple accounts with a variety of social media services, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so forth. While all of these services are terrific for updatChristian Computing® Magazine

ing folks on the latest news of what’s happening with us, have you considered using them for evangelistic purposes?

In the interest of “full disclosure,” I must confess that I, too, am only just beginning to consider these media for evangelistic uses. Nevertheless, with time running out to share the Gospel before Jesus returns for His Church, everything we do for the spread of the Gospel nowadays is more important than it has ever been since Jesus ascended back into Heaven nearly two thousand years ago.

So, how can we use social media to evangelize others? Well, we could use Twitter to dash off a quick thought-provoking statement such as, “What if Jesus comes today: are you ready to meet Him?” or “If you died within the next hour, where would you spend eternity?” or “How can you be sure you’ll go to Heaven when you die?” or “Just because Harold Camping August 2011

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keeps getting the date wrong doesn’t mean it isn’t still on God’s calendar!”

I’m sure you can come up with a few more like these on your own.

We could use Facebook to post a comment on our own wall and on the walls of others that uses the same wording we just used in the aforementioned tweets. On our LinkedIn account, we could post an update that is synchronized with our Twitter account so that the same update goes to both LinkedIn and Twitter at the same time. Again, we could use the same tweets already mentioned, or we could use something more in line with our professional collegiality on LinkedIn, such as, “Is making money and collecting material things as fulfilling as you thought it would be?” or “How can it be true that ‘he who dies with the most toys wins,’ when someone else gets the toys after he dies?” or “Make sure your ‘ladder of success’ is leaning against the right wall. Do you know Jesus? Better yet, does Jesus know you?”

Just remember to keep all of your updates and tweets to a maximum of 140 characters (that includes blank spaces and punctuation), whether you’re submitting them via Twitter or LinkedIn, or else Twitter will truncate them. Your message will lose most, if not all, of its impact if part of it is missing.

While Facebook currently offers the option of linking to other accounts, such as MySpace, Google, and Yahoo, it doesn’t offer a link to Twitter or LinkedIn at Christian Computing® Magazine

the time of this writing. Perhaps they will consider adding these to their list in the near future.

I’m sure there is a number of other ways to use social media for evangelism, so why don’t you share your ideas with me via Christian Computing Magazine’s new online community? Just go to http://community.ccmag. com/ to join, and then contact me using the Directory look-up. This is just one more example of social media at work. I look forward to hearing from you!

Michael L. White is a full-time pastor, part-time military chaplain, and part-time independent Christian publisher and author living in the Mobile, Alabama area. His book Digital Evangelism: You Can Do It, Too! (Parson Place Press, April 2011) has been recently revised and expanded for a second edition.

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the power and the danger

Is Public Wi-Fi Safe?

By Russ McGuire - russ.mcguire@gmail.com

I

’ve just returned from a family vacation on a cruise ship.

I’ve got to confess that being relatively disconnected for an extended period of time was quite unsettling. The ship had Wi-Fi service but it was expensive and slow, when I could even connect to it. So, instead, I resorted to using Public Wi-Fi during our shore excursions – typically at the restaurant where we had lunch.

This experience was eye opening from many perspectives. For starters, it forced me to consider my reliance on 24x7 connectivity – is that a good thing or a bad thing? My second realization was just how ubiquitous Wi-Fi has become.

For example, one of our stops was on the island of Sark. Cars are not allowed on the island. Your transportation options are to walk, bike, take a horse drawn carriage, or ride a tractor. The Sark tourism home page currently includes this quote “The biggest event in Sark’s summer calendar took place recently when hundreds of locals and visitors enjoyed the Sheep Racing weekend.” Sark is a charming and beautiful place, but I would never represent it as being on the cutting edge of technology. And yet, standing in the middle of Sark’s one block long “Avenue”, my tablet picked up at least a half dozen Wi-Fi hotspots. Based on the naming of the SSIDs, we chose a restaurant for lunch and asked if we could use their Wi-Fi. They provided the password and I was good to go.

What is Public Wi-Fi? Although I doubt it with this audience, perhaps I’m Christian Computing® Magazine

being presumptuous in assuming everyone here knows what I mean by “Public Wi-Fi.” Just to be sure we’re all on the same page; let me take two steps back.

Wi-Fi is a brand that has been established to market products that allow wireless network connectivity using the 802.11 family of standards. There are entire books written about the different flavors of Wi-Fi, but the most common are 802.11b (the version that launched the initial popularity of the standard, providing up to 11Mbps using the 2.4GHz frequency bands), 802.11g (which increased the bandwidth to 54Mbps), and 802.11n (providing up to 450Mbps using both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands). Most products are backward compatible, so if you have a mix of devices, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n, they will generally work together without any concerns.

Wi-Fi was initially intended for use to replace wired LANs in homes and businesses. The expectation was that all users on the network would be trusted. As the Internet revolution kicked in during the second half of the 1990s, and Wi-Fi began to be commonly available, either built into laptops or using August 2011

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a separate card or USB dongle, “How to have more time for ministry!” entrepreneurs saw the opportunity Do you want to save time, get more done and to use Wi-Fi to provide connectivhave fewer headaches? Then Donarius Church ity to the Internet. Thus was born Management Software will make it easy for you the Public Wi-Fi hotspot. to track your members, contributions, pledges Starting at $63.97 There are many different and more. Imagine what you can do with the for the base version with models for Public Wi-Fi. Some 25% off for small churches extra time! Donarius will also: are free, while some charge by the Download a free demo at: • Print your tax receipts session, the day, the minute, or www.donarius.com • Show the giving pattern of your members • Print your church directories the megabyte. Some are open to 1-888-479-4636 • Send personalized letters, emails and text the public and don’t even require Nuverb Systems Inc. messages to keep your members informed “Software tailored for you” a password, while some are just for customers of an establishment mean that your information is secure as you use these (hotel, restaurant, coffee shop, church). Some merely services. require connecting to the hotspot, while some also I’d like to call out three specific types of threats. require opening your browser to agree to terms of The first is called a “Man in the Middle” attack. service (and perhaps provide payment information).

In this case, another user on the wireless network Whatever the case, connecting is relatively easy and launches a hacking tool to insert their self into the you can be synchronizing e-mail and browsing the data stream between your computer and the wireweb within minutes. less access point. Once they do that, they can see everything you’re typing – including your user ids How Does Public Wi-Fi Bring Power to the Kingand passwords, and everything that gets sent to your dom? computer, including e-mails and files. This is fairly The great thing about the widespread availability easy to implement. of Public Wi-Fi hotspots is that you can stay con The second is called an “Evil Twin” attack. The nected most places that you go. One online directory evil twin is a rogue Wi-Fi access point that is config(JiWire) currently lists 580,153 public hotspots in 143 ured to trick users into connecting to it. The users countries (and they don’t even show any on the island connect to the hotspot thinking they are connecting of Sark). As the Internet has become integral to so to a legitimate trusted service, but instead, the hacker much of ministry, this ubiquitous connectivity option can intercept all of their traffic in the same way as the can help us use networking technologies to serve the Man in the Middle attack. For example, Joe’s CofKingdom anywhere/anytime. fee Shop may have a Wi-Fi hotspot with the SSID of “guest.” A hacker may establish a rogue hotspot with What are the Dangers of Public Wi-Fi? the SSID “JoesCoffee.” Joe’s customers connect to Of course, Wi-Fi is not without its dangers. A rethe rogue hotspot thinking that it’s the one provided cent story in the news reported on an 18 year sentence

by Joe. handed down to a Minnesota man who had terrorized In both cases, the simplest advice is to avoid a neighboring family by hacking into their home Wisending any sensitive information while connected to Fi network and gaining access to their e-mail and ona public hotspot. Whenever possible, use encrypted line accounts. There also have been numerous reports connections (e.g. the https version of web services of people being arrested for criminal acts performed such as Gmail and Facebook) so that any hackers by others who accessed the Internet through their intercepting your messages can’t easily read your unsecured home Wi-Fi networks. Obviously, securing information (including user ids and passwords). your home, ministry, or business Wi-Fi networks is The third type of threat is the potential of getting absolutely critical. viruses from public Wi-Fi networks. Hopefully, all However, the dangers change when we’re dealing Christian Computing readers are already running viwith Public Wi-Fi hotspots. In this case, we have no rus and spyware protection software to protect against control over the security of the wireless network, in these types of attacks, but it’s worth thinking about fact, the very reality that we can connect to it means your increased risk of viruses while connected to pubthat it isn’t very secure. Even if you have to provide lic networks. a password to connect to the hotspot, that doesn’t Christian Computing® Magazine

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It is my hope and prayer that these articles on the power and danger of technology will encourage you in your daily walk with Christ.

Whether it is the printing press, radio, television, personal computers, the Internet, mobility, or Wi-Fi, new technologies continue to advance our ability to know God and to serve Him, wherever we go.

Russ McGuire is an executive for a Fortune 100 company and the founder/co-founder of three technology start-ups. His latest entrepreneurial venture is Hschooler.net (http:// hschooler.net), a social network for Christian families (especially homeschoolers) which is being built and run by three homeschooled students under Russ’ direction.

Christian ComputingÂŽ Magazine

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ministry communication What Church Technology can do to Alleviate World Hunger Yvon Prehn - yvon@effectivechurchcom.com

W

arning: this article is very depressing at the start, but it’s written to give you hope and solutions.

Tragic facts: almost 16,000 children die every day from hunger-related causes—that’s one child every 15 seconds. The famine in Africa worsens with 29,000 deaths so far—at the same time, hunger-fighting groups have their lowest balance of resources in recent years. How do we wrap our minds around facts like these? What can we do? As Christian communicators using computer technology, we can do a lot and this article will get you started.

We forget the power we have Every church office that has a somewhat new computer has a more powerful computer than NASA had when they put a man on the moon. Any church that has a copy machine has print production capabilities that Reformers and kings could not imagine. Every church with an Internet connection has

world. I decided to write this article and in addition I’ve created a section on the Effective Church Communication website called the Micah 6:8 Communication Project.

In case you can’t immediately call to mind the verse, here it is: He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

communication abilities with a reach and low costs unimaginable a few decades ago.

And what does the LORD require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 (NIV)

We can use all of these tools to educate, equip, and mobilize the Body of Christ to meet the needs in our world.

I realized this, following night after night of crying every

time I saw the news or read about what is happening. I gave what I could, but I knew my tears and meager donations weren’t enough. After more tears and prayers, I remembered the power of Christian communicators and how by using the

Following are some ways we can use technology to make the most of the resources. In addition to the ideas here, on the website, http://www.effectivechurchcom.com is a permanent link on the home page that will take you to a section of Micah 6:8 Communication Project resources. All of the resources in that section will be free for anyone to download and use. These resources will be updated weekly.

tools we have; we could make a big dent in the needs of the Christian Computing® Magazine

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Your most important tool The most important tool you have is your ability to communicate continuously for almost no cost.

It is vitally important to teach your people that “doing justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God” is not something we do only for a once a year, at a special event, or only on a mission-emphasis Sunday. Though special events are great for extra giving and focus, hunger and desperate needs are a constant in our world today.

We have the technology to continuously push out ideas, education, tools, resources, stories, links, to our people to keep a lifestyle of giving always in front of them, if we will take the time to do it. Though we no longer have the excuse of cost, we do have the personal emotional cost of a constant focus on difficult subjects. Hunger, poverty, and human trafficking are not pleasant topics to communicate. But one day we will meet Jesus face-to-face and we don’t want to be like the man in the story about the Good Samaritan, who didn’t want to look at a bloody, beaten man, so he turned and walked away on the other side of the road.

We want to face these issues, communicate about them and encourage our people to take action. Here are some reminders of what we can do: Create with the computer How easy it is to forget what it took to create church bulletins, bulletin inserts, postcards and brochures before the days of desktop publishing. If your church wanted to put out a publication that encouraged people to give to hunger projects or any kind of compassionate project, and if you wanted it in full-color, you were looking at a major expense.

Today, all it takes is a little time in MS Word or MS Publisher to create it and a color printer or copier to reproduce it.

The list of links on my website or any of your denominational websites will give you materials you can download or modify to provide a continuous stream of materials that remind people of needs and ministries meeting them.

Christian Computing® Magazine

PDF what you don’t want to print on paper You don’t even have to spend money on paper if you don’t want to—you can create your communication, save it as a PDF and then either email it to people or post it on your website.

Educate and link on your website Speaking of your website, you can easily create a list of links, call it the Micah 6:8 Connection and have a place where people can immediately link to organizations that serve hungry people.

Feature one a month; tell people about the group. Go to a website such as the Charity Navigator: http://www.charitynavigator.org/ and give people the background, statistics and evaluation of the various charities. Some of the statistics you’ll find show what various groups, even highly rated ones, spend on administration and other costs. That makes even more amazing the work of the World Hunger Fund, which is supported by the Southern Baptists and administered by them, that gives 100% of donations to the hunger projects. To see one of the most beautifully simple and clear hunger related websites ever go to: http://worldhungerfund.com/ Many of the aid organizations have videos, stories and other educational materials that you can link to. Screen these August 2011

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ahead for what is useful and denominationally appropriate for your congregation

You want the freedom to

and then make the links clear and easy to access.

… reach out

Preach, teach, and supply devotions on your blog or website

… minister to people

You can’t preach or teach every Sunday about hunger and world needs, but you can create devotionals, short articles,

… create fellowship … contribute to your community

devotions and similar content on your website or blog on a consistent basis. I’m

PowerChurch Plus was created for just that!

working on materials to help with that if your creativity in this area is weary.

Push out links on social media On a consistent basis, tweet and mention on Facebook what aid groups are doing, the status of current needs, success stories, images or pictures. There are many great things happening—share those stories with quick summaries and links.

For example: one of the most wonderful is a little invention called Plumpy Nut (Google it for pictures—fantastic ones available). It is an incredible nutritional supplement in little packets that tastes like sweet peanut butter and is revolutionizing the ability to restore health to starving children because it needs no refrigerator or reconstituting. A Plumpy Nut picture of the week with links to groups who are distributing it is just one idea of the kinds

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We provide you with the tools to increase administrative efficiency and streamline accounting tasks, freeing you up to perform the work that matters.

Install on your PC or network, or access online.

Choose which fits your needs.

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We provide software tools, freeing you up to fulfill your mission.

www.PowerChurch.com • 800.486.1800

tivechurchcom.com.

7/14/11 10:23 AM Go to the link on the home page of http://www.effec-

PCS-11301-ChurchExecutive_4.75x7.25.indd 1

of things you can do. Here is one story: http://www.worldvision.org/home.nsf/pages/home.htm#/home/main/hungerdrought-horn-africa-1-1374 Share your ideas with me!

Technology has given us incredible tools to use to alleviate world hunger and other pressing pains in our world. The ideas above are only a start of what we can do. PLEASE send your

tivechurchcom.com and click the big box on the right column that says “the Micah 6:8 Communication Project” to see, download and use the ever-growing resources of free materials and links.

Finally, no matter what organization you give to or what you do, pray lots, give sacrificially, and always: “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”

ideas with permission for me to use them to: yvon@effecChristian Computing® Magazine

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