Applying Tomorrow`s Technology to Today`s Ministry

Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Steve Hewitt - steve@ccmag.com
VP of Operations
Michael Hewitt - mike@ccmag.com
Applying Tomorrow’s Technology to Today’s Ministry
Volume 23
March 2011
No. 3
3 cover story
Meet ParishSOFT
By Steve Hewitt
Contributing Editors
Dr. J.D. “Doc” Watson
Lauren Hunter
Terry Wilhite
Yvon Prehn
Nick Nicholaou
Kevin A. Purcell
C. Brian Smith
Russ McGuire
Drew Goodmanson
Bradley Miller
Michael Curylo
Copy Editor
Gina Hewitt
8 special feature
BombBomb - An Email Service Provider with a Twist, Include Videos!
Steve Hewitt - steve@ccmag.com
12 ACS ideas to impact
Corporate Home Office
Mailing address:
PO Box 319
Belton MO 64012
Delivery address:
311 Manor Dr.
Belton, MO 64012
Phone: (816) 331-8142 FAX: 800-456-1868
Your Ministry On Demand
from ACS Technologies
© Copyright 2010 by Christian Computing®, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
14 accelerating the dynamic church
Church Small Groups – Like Herding Cats?
from Fellowship Technologies
15 higher power with kevin
WORDsearch Books in Bibleworks: Two Great Apps that Work Great Together!
Kevin A. Purcell - kevin@kevinpurcell.org
17 big ministry - small resources
Google Calendaring
Bradley Miller - bradley.w.miller@gmail.com
22 tablet time
What About Android?
By Russ McGuire - russ.mcguire@gmail.com
25 ministry communication
How To Tune Up Your Website NOW So You Won’t Disappoint Easter Seekers
Yvon Prehn - yvon@effectivechurchcom.com
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Articles that are highlighed are provided by our partners
www.ccmag.com/2007_03/2007_03editorial.pdf
Christian Computing® Magazine
March 2011
2
cover story
Meet ParishSOFT
W
By Steve Hewitt
henever I am asked, “Who reads Christian Computing Magazine?” I
am always at a loss to describe our “average” reader. We don’t have an
average reader! We have readers at all levels of technology implementation and they come from every Christian denomination that can be found. Over the
years I have been aware that we also had a good number of readers who serve in the
Catholic Church. For example, I remember seeing the Archbishop of Boston on our
mailing lists back in the day when we used to send out the magazines in print form.
And, last year, I was given several opportunities to speak at conferences designed to
help Catholics better use technology to enhance their ministry. One of those speaking engagements was at Villanova University where I was honored to give the keynote address at the center for the study of Church Management. While there, I had
the opportunity to meet with the representative from ParishSOFT exhibiting at that
conference and catch up on what they have to offer.
In November of last year, I was invited to give
the keynote and lead some sessions at the ParishSOFT national user’s conference. I always love
opportunities such as these, because it gives me
the chance to meet the staff as well as really get to
know their customer base. I had a fantastic time,
and left with a better appreciation for ParishSOFT
as well as the goals of Catholic churches to use
technology! I also discovered many long time
readers at their conference, and the opportunities
to speak at more of their conferences have continued into this year. I am looking forward to leading
some sessions at the Diocesan Information Systems Conference in Boise, ID, in June of this year.
So, this month I thought it would be a great
idea to interview ParishSOFT and let our readers
Christian Computing® Magazine
know more about their company, their ministry,
what they have to offer and where they are heading. They already introduced me to Faith Interactive, which is the company from Higher Logic that
is helping us create our upcoming Online Community. I hope you will benefit from learning more
about what they have to offer to you as well! And,
starting next month, I have asked them to host a
column in CCMag, providing information specific
to the technology needs for Catholic churches!
Enjoy the interview...
Tell us how ParishSOFT got started
Our founder, David Rosenberg, was happily
working in medical information systems in the
1990s when he boarded a flight and found himMarch 2011
3
Press Releases
Christian Computing® Magazine
March 2011
4
self seated next to Auxiliary Bishop Bernard Harrington from the
Archdiocese of Detroit. Their conversation quickly turned to the
challenges of demographic trending and strategic planning in a
world where there really was no information management software
to serve the Catholic Church. In Detroit, parishes were closing, and
Bishop Harrington knew that if the archdiocese had had access to
better data in prior years, they could have better prepared parishes
for the transition and perhaps even spared some from closure.
Rosenberg recognized this experience as the tap-tap of God’s
hand on his shoulder and said yes to putting his talents to work for
the Church—it was an answer that would set the tone for ParishSOFT’s long-term vision.
When staff in his own parish, St. Joseph in Dexter, Mich.,
showed him their existing software tools and processes, he discovered that not only did the software fall far short of meeting the
informational needs of the diocese; it wasn’t serving the day-to-day
operations within the parish as it should. There was no integration
with tools like Microsoft® Word®, Excel®, e-mail, or the Internet.
Worse, there were no relational databases, so in parish after parish,
the people who did religious education, scheduling, offertory, and
general parish communications each had their own separate lists of
names and addresses. Trying to keep them all updated was impossible, and so was getting an accurate census. Rosenberg formed
a technology team and partnered with several parishes to define,
develop and take to market the first suite of integrated Catholic
parish software.
How did Catholic parishes receive the technology?
In the early days, there were times when we had to work really
hard to overcome the notion that technology had no place in the
Church. Staff had strong emotional connections to their paper files
and manual processes. They were also reluctant to give up control
over their personal lists of parish family and member information.
Once we showed them how they could maintain just one database
of families and members and manage their census, sacraments, religious education classes, ministry scheduling, and offertory all from
a central place, the response was tremendous. From the beginning,
parish staff recognized that being able to target communications to
any group of families or members and generate e-mails and letters
directly from their church management software had significant
advantages for ministry and administrative cost reduction.
What makes ParishSOFT unique?
Our commitment to focus on the Catholic Church and to listen
to our customers has been vital to understanding their needs and
providing products and services that support their mission. Each of
the 194 Catholic dioceses operates as its own entity. That means in
every diocesan implementation, we have had to address a unique
set of regulations and processes, as well as keep our products current with canon law and the guidelines of organizations like the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Without
Christian Computing® Magazine
March 2011
5
the devotion of the entire company, powered by men and women
who embrace the work of the Church, we could not have blazed this
trail successfully.
We’re blessed with an incredible staff of men and women who
understand that what we do each day makes a difference in the
ministry of every diocese, parish and school we serve. Their dedication complements our technology, and it’s been essential to earning
the trust of our customers and opening lines of communication. Our
customers take the time to share their ideas with us because they
know we’re listening—they’ve seen the fruits of their efforts in our
new products and enhancements to the tools they’re already using.
Building the parish suite around the way Catholic parishes operate has given us a great advantage in the Catholic Church software
market; but our collaborative partnership with our users has kept
us on-mission so that our technology now does so much more than
manage church data: it gives staff and parishioners new ways to
connect with each other and serve.
How has the technology evolved?
As we learned about the annual parish-to-diocese reporting
and census update requirements, one thing became very clear: the
census, sacramental, and financial data being maintained at the
parish needed to be available at the diocese. Parishes were spending countless hours doing painstaking diocesan reports and census
updates that our software could easily automate. Diocesan development programs were kicking off campaigns each year with outdated
addresses and census information. And the disconnect between parish accounting systems meant that
although Canon 1284 gives the bishop the responsibility to ensure that no abuses exist in the administration of church goods, he did not have technology to help implement standards, ensure compliance, or
consolidate financial data across parishes and schools within his diocese.
All of this inspired development of our Archdiocesan Information Management (AIM) suite, which,
like the parish products, offers modules so that a diocese can purchase just the tools it needs. We are the
first and only company to offer a system that synchronizes data between the parishes and the diocese, so
that when an address is updated at a parish office, the change is available right away to diocesan staff.
It’s revolutionized church data management. The implications for development alone are huge: better
addresses equal a more successful campaign. What has surprised us is how much this technology has
fueled collaboration. Parish and diocesan staff who otherwise may never have met now attend training
and user groups together, where they share best practices, establish data management standards, and
work together from a common technology and reporting platform. We’ve seen the exponential growth
of teamwork in dioceses where parish and diocesan staff are using ParishSOFT products.
In that same spirit, we developed the ConnectNow Church Accounting suite, building on the financial software expertise of our sister company, Church Management Solutions, and our customer focus
groups. Now, dioceses can provide their parishes and schools with a standard, Web-based fund accounting system that allows transparency, oversight, and consolidation. The days of manually compiling
financials for the diocese are long gone for our customers—they can roll up, drill down into transaction
details, and get reports that reflect church ministry any time they like. What specific benefits do Web applications bring to ministry?
As we take our other products to the ConnectNow Web platform, staff and parishioners are gaining
new opportunities to connect, collaborate, and spread the Gospel using the tools of our time. ConnectNow removes the obstacles that can get in the way of ministry—unread mail, delivery or response lags,
Christian Computing® Magazine
March 2011
6
paper forms, outdated informa“How to have more time for ministry!”
tion, forgetful parishioners—
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and gives God’s people a way
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of mailing census update forms,
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have your members log in to My
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messages to keep your members informed
“Software tailored for you”
ConnectNow Ministry Scheduler
to sign up for ministries and set
to cut costs in this area is significant enough that
their own scheduling preferences. Offer Online
the software very quickly pays for itself. Giving so they can contribute and pay fees on your
Accountability is essential. Parishioners need
parish Web site. Is forgetful Phyllis scheduled
to know that the money they give is being safeto serve on Sunday? Religious education classes
guarded, handled properly, and used as intended.
cancelled? Meeting moved to a new location? Get
Online Giving lets them control their own account
a message to exactly the right person or group by
information and donate to the funds they want,
text, phone, or email to keep everyone informed
when they want. And our ConnectNow Church Acand participating.
counting suite lets churches record income from
To meet the social networking needs of our
all sources, track dedicated donations and projects,
users, we’ve partnered with Faith Interactive and
pay the bills, and answer to any group of parishiowill be launching our new Connected Community
ners, the finance council, and the diocese.
to give parishes a safe place to interact and share
ideas and resources. Parishes can give members
What does the future of ParishSOFT look like?
access to their own Connected Community pages,
Very bright! Today we serve nearly 5,000
branded to look like part of their parish Web site.
churches and 48 dioceses. Parish suite sales have
Integration with My Own Church makes this a
always been strong, but as more dioceses transigreat collaboration area for ministry. Plug-ins for
tion to standard technology for census manageother services like Facebook, Twitter, and Linkement and accounting, we’re growing rapidly.
dIn let churches tie all their social networking
What’s most exciting is the demand for our Conefforts together in a central place. nectNow Web applications, especially Church Accounting and the products that engage members in
What is the financial impact of technology on
church life. As we improve our existing products
the Church?
and develop new technology, one thing is certain:
One of our goals is to help churches take good
parish and diocesan staff are helping to shape the
care of the resources entrusted to them, so they’ll
ministry tools of tomorrow, and we’re listening
have the funds needed for ministry. We accomplish
carefully.
this goal from several angles. Our software is designed to make church administration as efficient
About ParishSOFT
as possible, so staff can handle their day-to-day
ParishSOFT offers a complete suite of church
tasks and still have the time and energy they need
and diocesan management software to connect
to be creative, develop programs, and interact with
people and the church and to reduce administrative
parishioners. Integrated communication tools let
work. For more information about ParishSOFT’s
staff reach any group of members by email, text,
products and services, visit www.parishsoft.com/
or phone right from our programs. And, when they
ccmag or contact Mike Cusick, Vice President of
do need to prepare statements and mailings, we ofSales and Marketing, at 866.930.4774. fer Mailroom Solutions so they can take advantage
of the best possible postage rates. Churches spend
thousands of dollars on mailings, so the potential
Christian Computing® Magazine
March 2011
7
special feature
BombBomb
An email service provider
with a twist, include videos!
I
By Steve Hewitt
love attending user group conferences and meet new service providers. I was
honored to get an invite to speak at the Church Community Builder’s annual
user group meeting last year, and while there I met an incredibly enthusiastic
man by the name of Conor McCluskey. Conor happily introduced me to BombBomb (Don’t you love the name?). BombBomb was there to show churches their
email service. I have seen and used several email service providers, but since
Conor was so enthusiastic, I stepped in to see why. I soon became enthusiastic as
well, when I saw what BombBomb provided. Besides HTML templates and the
reporting you would get with a broadcast email service, BombBomb included the
ability to add video!
They provide a free trial on their site (www.
bombbomb.com), and I gave it a spin. It was
easy to include any video directly into the email
and send it out to your entire church, or specific
groups. Since we just finished up our annual Christian Video Awards, and I viewed a good number of
fantastic videos created by churches to either promote their church, or as a way to announce a new
ministry, service or event. What a fantastic service
BombBomb would be for these churches! They
could include such videos directly into an email,
mail it to their members, and encourage them to
forward it to their friends!
I recently interviewed Conor, as I believed our
readership would benefit from learning more about
their cool service. Check out this interview, and be
sure to visit their site for more information or to
give their service a try!
Christian Computing® Magazine
What exactly is BombBomb?
BombBomb is an email service provider that
focuses on delivering professional-looking HTML
email messages for ministries, non-profits, and
small businesses. We differentiate ourselves by
giving our clients the tools to use video in their
emails for a more personal approach with their
communications.
How did BombBomb get its start?
The idea for BombBomb came in early 2006
while I was working in sales for a local media
company. I had grown my client list to the point
where I physically wasn’t able to keep up with
each client. Being in sales, personal touch was
everything to me – I needed a solution. I had this
idea that using video in an email would be a better way to communicate my personality, and presMarch 2011
8
ent my product. The issue in 2006 was the email
technology; nothing was even close to giving me
a service that catered to my needs. So, I created
BombBomb around the end of 2006 with aspirations to help improve the way we communicate
electronically.
Why is video email better?
These days with the prevalence of the internet,
marketing has morphed from internet marketing
to ‘interactive marketing’. Truly, there’s nothing super-interactive about traditional HTML
email marketing. Email marketing needs video
to compete and succeed in regards to how people
are using the internet and what their expectations
are. The days of long over-written static emails
are leaving us; people are gravitating to video for
quicker access to information that’s more appealing to them. BombBomb’s video email service
gives our clients the ability to put a real voice and
face to their messaging that people can relate to.
It also removes recipient literacy barriers, time
constraints in regard to reading the email as well
as increasing appeal with the email recipients.
What are some of the benefits video email
brings to a church?
Video email is a great fit for churches, because
church communications are typically meant to
connect with people rather than market a product.
By sending video messages, a church can communicate with large numbers of people in a way that
still feels personal and authentic. People are more
likely to engage with the message when there’s
a human face and voice attached to it. It has the
power to connect people in new ways. It’s effective, and it maximizes time and resources. Pastors
are typically great communicators, and the video
application comes naturally to them. They are not
afraid of the camera, they usually have something
to say, and they have a community of people that
want to hear from them.
Can you share a specific example of how
churches use BombBomb?
A great example is a church called The Gathering – They have been a customer for almost 4
years, and they send a weekly video message from
the pastor, sometimes he shares a scripture that
he has been studying, and other times it’s simply
what’s on his heart, or talking about things that are
going on within the church. They also use BombChristian Computing® Magazine
Bomb to communicate face to face with specific
groups within the congregation. That may be
the youth pastor talking to students, or the Small
Groups Pastor talking to the small group leaders.
They’ve had a great response, and people say they
feel more connected to the church body. They get
really excited when they talk about their email
program and that gets us excited too.
Are there other features that BombBomb
offers? BombBomb provides a variety of useful features, like free email templates, form builders,
auto-responders, multi-list management, campaign
scheduling, and WYSIWYG (what you see is what
you get) HTML email editing. We offer detailed
statistics on delivery, opens, clicks, and video
plays – so you can measure the effectiveness of
your emails.
A new feature we’re excited about is video
hosting, which means you can not only include
video in your emails, but also store your videos
in BombBomb, to embed and share without using
multiple video services. Combine those features
with our videos playing in the majority of smart
March 2011
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phones and the reach of the
email and video go even
further.
I’d also like to highlight
our deliverability rates.
It’s not a feature, but it’s
important for ministries to
know that we build, monitor and foster relationships
with internet service providers so that we can ensure
our clients get over 90% of
their emails in the inbox on
average. Industry average in
deliverability varies in the
mid 80’s.
Is BombBomb integrated
with any other Church
Management systems? We currently integrate
with Church Community
Builder and Icon Systems.
Our integration allows
churches to manage their
lists within CRM and reduce
workload around importing
and exporting lists for email
deployments – which really
helps ministries get emails
sent out quickly and easily.
We’re also evaluating other
management systems for
potential integration in the
future.
How much does it cost
the average church to use
BombBomb?
Our email marketing services start at $12 a
month. The pricing scales by the amount of active
contacts within the account, not by the amount
of email you send. Ministries also get a 25% per
month discount compared to for-profit companies
and another 15% on-top of that if the whole year is
paid for upfront.
Do you help the churches design the emails?
Absolutely, we have free pre-built email templates that are ministry focused, but we also build
email templates for clients that request them. I’d
actually like to promote that here if that’s okay.
Christian Computing® Magazine
Through the end of April, anyone who mentions this CCM article to our team and purchases
our product for a minimum of a month – we’ll
build you a custom email template for free.
Why did BombBomb decide to get into the
church market?
Great question; first of all we believe in the
core mission of the church, and at BombBomb we
operate from a set of core values. BombBomb got
into the church market because of our number one
core value which is people. We believe people
matter and that the way churches communicate to
people matters. The church community plays a vital role in people’s lives and we have a passion for
March 2011
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helping the church communicate in
a personal way. We are a company with purpose; we all have the opportunity
to make the world a better place
than we found it. By connecting
people through better communication we are helping to strengthen
relationships and we are living our
core values. There is one thing that
I want to hear when I get to the
end and that is well done good and
faithful servant. We understand that
this is not about us.
Our thanks go to Conor McCluskey and BombBomb for taking
the time for this interview. If your
church is interested in learning
more about what BombBomb has
to offer, visit https://bombbomb.
com/ministries to watch testimonials from other churches, sign up
for a Free 14 Day Trial, or request
a demo session with one of their
trainers.
Christian Computing® Magazine
March 2011
11
ACS
ACS ideas to impact
Your Ministry On Demand
A
from ACS Technologies
server crash is a scary thing, no matter the size of your church.
In July of 2007, Trinity United Church of Christ, which operates a ministry that
includes 8 properties in two different states, had a big network crash – everything
was down for days. It was indeed very scary! The megachurch had to spend a lot
of time and money to try and recover what they could. The experience made Trinity United administration realize how vulnerable they truly were and they vowed
to never let it happen again.
“It pointed out to us that we needed to move
away from having things on our own network
and server,” said Wilfred Bentley, the business
manager at the church. At that point, they began
a search for the best safety measures to avoid the
inevitable next crash and sleepless nights wondering when it was going to happen.
The crash was a big motivator to the church in
deciding to look into a hosted software solution,
rather than a desktop option.But a more important
reason to get church software off of local servers,
Bentley said, was so they could do their ministry
more effectively.
“We utilize on demand tools as we try to use
all tools: to support those that are doing ministry,”
he said. “Those who are doing ministry need to be
able to access information someplace other than
our particular network. So if they are out of town,
at the hospital, or someplace else, the ministers
need to be able to get the information.”
“We have a minister who is dedicated to the
sick and shut in — primarily those people who
are hospitalized or in hospice –and their ability to
Christian Computing® Magazine
utilize our database gives them the ability to bring
up not just the member, but to get directions to
where they live or to be able to call them at their
preferred telephone number, or email them, even
though that minister may be at a hospital.”
Bentley said he was happy to find that the
same solu
tion that allowed ministers on-thego access to important member data also allowed
staff to work from home, especially with the
sometimes-severe weather in the Midwest.The
paper “Your Ministry On Demand” outlines how
churches can benefit from hosted software solutions, just like Trinity United Church of Christ
did.
For larger churches like Trinity United, the
ability to manage and access important church
data from multiple locations is certainly key.
But for smaller churches, like Brevard-Davidson
River Presbyterian Church in Brevard, North
Carolina, which serves 300 people at services
every weekend, hosted software is useful for the
flexibility it gives to the staff of two.
Nita Padgett, the church administrator at
March 2011
12
Brevard-Davidson, was a fan of
the hosted software solution her
church had begun using right
away. She liked that her data was
backed up regularly. She loved
knowing that everything was secure in an offsite area, and that she
didn’t have to worry about doing
her own updates. But when Nita
broke her leg, thathosted software
solution came in handy.
“I was at home for three
months. I just set up my computer
with the recliner chair,” Padgett
said, and added with a chuckle, “I
had it made.”
You can read more about how
a hosted software solution can
help your ministry by downloading the free paper “Your Ministry
On Demand.” In the paper, you’ll
find detailed information on how
your ministry can use a hosted
software solution to add flexibility
and efficiency to your day-to-day
work. Information in the paper
includes:
• Tips on how to ease
workloads for your staff
and volunteers
• Ways to focus on ministry,
not technology
• Details on how you can
gain 24/7 access to your
data
• Information about how you
can be sure your data is
truly secure.
Download “Your Ministry OnDemand” today for the full story
on how your ministers and staff
can worksmarter with anytime,
anywhere access to your software
and data.
Christian Computing® Magazine
March 2011
13
accelerating the dynamic church
Church Small Groups – Like Herding Cats?
M
from Fellowship Technologies
anaging the growth of small groups can be a lot like herding cats. Organizing people and right-fitting them into groups has the potential
to become administratively exhausting.
In addition, keeping track of ¸
!CCELERATING4HE$YNAMIC#HURCH
group membership, attendance and leader updates proves to be hit-and-miss.
The growth of small groups can be better
managed when self-service for group leaders is
part of the solution. Instead of managing multiple
databases or spreadsheets, church staff need a
single point of connection and collection. Fellowship One, 100% web-based church management software, provides full administration of
small groups anytime, anywhere for any staff
with an Internet connection. It’s also easy for
church members and attendees to search for a
group right from the church website,
thanks to a tightly integrated {incomplete sentence}.
By sharing the workload between
staff and volunteers, organizing and
keeping up with group activity is
robust, concise and simplified. Staff
and volunteer group leaders can enter
new contacts and update status of
existing group members, all in realtime, online.
It’s important for small group
leaders to be able track attendance,
add group meeting notes and even
notes for a specific prayer request.
When they do, it provides visibility
for church leaders to see into dozens
or even hundreds of small groups.
With the right software, like Fellowship One, church leaders can view
reports over a multi-week period
for an instant snapshot to see small
group trends.
Christian Computing® Magazine
Since small groups are a key part of connecting with people and meeting needs, churches
require the right tools and processes to manage
the individuals in each group efficiently and effectively.
Herding cats may be difficult, but organizing
small groups shouldn’t be with the right tools in
place.
March 2011
14
higher power with kevin
WORDsearch Books in Bibleworks: Two
Great Apps that Work Great Together!
F
Kevin A. Purcell - kevin@kevinpurcell.org
inding two Bible software makers working together to create modules that work in their competitor’s
application is something we don’t expect to see
in the post-STEP world. For more information about this
see last month’s edition of this column (“Both Exciting
and Troubling Trends in Bible Software Development”
January, 2011; http://bit.ly/hLvZfl). Having just written
that article last month, I was surprised to hear about the
partnership between Bibleworks (http://www.bibleworks.com) and WORDsearch
(http://www.wordsearchbible.com).
WORDsearch is now making some of their resources available
for download in Bibleworks 8 format. There isn’t a huge selection
yet but we have been told that more are coming. For now, to see
what is available, see the list on WORDsearch’s web site (http://
www.wordsearchbible.com/bwbookupdates.php).
We were given a couple of test books to try it out and found
that while the process is a little more complicated than we’d prefer,
the result is that I now have two WORDsearch books available in
Bibleworks 8.
After logging into your WORDsearch account, you will be able
to download the Bibleworks installer for those books. You will have
to register and purchase some of the books if you are not already a
WORDsearch customer. To find it click on the “My Account” tab in
the upper right and then click on “Unlock and Download eBooks”
link in the center of the page. Midway down the page is the link to
download the installer. It will run and ask you for the ID# and passcode. Do not use your WORDsearch login information here. This
tripped me up. The two strings you input are on this same page. The
installer will download and install the modules you have available
in your account.
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After the installer is finished, start up
Bibleworks 8 and you will find them in the Resources menu. Below are screen shots of the menu. I have one commentary and one dictionary in my list. The first is the New Bible Commentary.
The second is The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels.
When a WORDsearch resource is opened, it will not be a typical Bibleworks 8 tool that is accessed either in
the Bible reading window or in the Resources tab in the right hand side of Bibleworks. They are only in the Resources menu and will open as Bibleworks 8 help files, much like Bibleworks users are used to opening things like
grammars or Matthew Henry’s Commentary.
While it is not as ideal as it would be if you could have a Bible file pane and a commentary pane side by side
like you would in WORDsearch or another application, it does give people who love Bibleworks access to references and books other than language study tools. I’m personally sticking with using my WORDsearch files within
WORDsearch. But if you don’t want to use a separate tool and love Bibleworks for all things related to Digital
Bible Study, then this is a great development and I hope to see more of this kind of cross platform cooperation.
One last note: if you are a Mac user, WORDsearch has new version of its port available. For those who follow my Twitter account (http://twitter.com/kapurcell) you likely read my negative comments back in November
regarding their Mac version. But
there is now a much better version
that is the WORDsearch we love.
If you want to see this updated
version running I have a video
here: http://www.kevinpurcell.org/
archives/1126.
I will be covering Mac Bible
software more and more on my
personal web site. Don’t worry
Windows users. I will still be
keeping things here mostly Windows related. But I will have a
review of Accordance for Mac
coming up in the next couple of
months.
Christian Computing® Magazine
March 2011
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big ministry - small resources
Google Calendaring
T
Bradley Miller - bradley.w.miller@gmail.com
he phone rings and it’s another excited bride on the
other end of the phone, anxiously wanting to plan
out when her special day will happen. A quick
glance at the desk calendar . . . “oh ok, yes I think after you
go through your six month pre-marital counseling . . . and
yes that weekend next year in June would be available.”
(It’s a year away . . .what could possibly be conflicting
now?) After digging around for a calendar a post-it note is
carefully placed and the call is forgotten. A few weeks later the pastor reminds
you of the upcoming projects for the next year and you can only imagine the ensuing mayhem as you tell the bride to be that she will have to reschedule the VanDenboom Variotones Polka band - even though it was their only free weekend.
Church facility scheduling is like
a tight-rope balancing act between
needs and wants, but keeping track
of it all can be a logistical nightmare.
I’ve looked into this several times
and tried approaching it a multitude
of ways at our local church and I’ll
share some of the insights I’ve found.
(Not to discredit our church at all, the
story above is totally fictional . . . no
Polka bands have ever been turned
away!)
It has to be in one place! Yes,
from the scribbled notes to the calendars of so many activities, having
everything in one place should be the
utmost concern. For some it literChristian Computing® Magazine
March 2011
17
ally is that gigantic wall calendar plastered on the
side of an office somewhere that becomes the sole
resource for scheduling. It’s better than nothing
but becomes cumbersome because everyone has to
sync their schedule to the master paper one. I hope
you invest in erasers!
To move your church into the 21st century,
let’s turn to a free service that Google offers - the
Google App. You can sign up under the Educator and Non-Profit umbrella and put in your FEIN
(Federal Employer identification number). You
will need to use your domain name, and from personal experience you want to make sure it’s the right one you want to use. We originally started out with a sub-domain
for the site (calendar.myheartland.org) and that ended up being very problematic because although we could receive mail
at our regular domain name, several users had problems with mail messages sending the sub-domain name as their reply
to address.
When I first signed up and tried to get the calendar system working
in 2008, there were many technical issues that I couldn’t quite figure out
and it didn’t seem like there was much in the way of support from the
Google organization. I was very pleasantly surprised when I needed to
migrate from the sub-domain to our actual domain name - a representative contacted me and was able to get things setup in less than 24 hours.
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March 2011
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If you have played at all with the
Google calendar (or any type of
computer based calendar) it should
be very easy to figure out how to get
things rolling. But here are some of
the gotchas that you need to know
about:
Once you get signed up you
will want to access your Control Panel area. In the Educational edition you’ll see a new link under the calendar settings called “Resources”. This can be rooms, equipment, or whatever you have a need to
associate with a calendar event.
Here you can see we have our room areas listed for the church.
This was because of a bit of trial and error on our part on how things
work.
The first thing that put a strangle hold on things was how
Google shows the “Where:” on an event. I originally put in our
resources as “Main Sanctuary”, “Multipurpose Room” etc... and then
when you would click on an event it would list the “Map” link.
The map link would search for “Main Sanctuary” anywhere . . . not actually putting it to your specific location. I got
around this issue after finding you could specify an area like this: address (what you want to say). The “what you want
to say” part makes the marker pin show that text instead.
When you add an item to the schedule you can click on the “Rooms, etc.” part (on the right side of the form) to add
what rooms or resources you need.
It might look a little funny with the address stuck in there multiple times, but it works. (If you have multiple campuses you probably don’t need the free route on Google. Perhaps looking into a service like MinistrEspace would be
worthwhile?)
The best part of this is when you add your calendar to your web site for others to view. There should probably be
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March 2011
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March 2011
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some good thinking put into what
you want displayed on the site
versus what needs
to stay private. It
might not be the
best idea to list
Suzy and Johnny’s
Wedding on the
church web site if
Johnny’s formerly
jilted girlfriends go
Googling his name
and decide to crash
the party.
You want to
make sure people
can see your calendar, and not only
see it, but know
if you are doing
something. If you
don’t get the settings right, it will
show an event but
the event will be
listed as “BUSY”
when you are not logged in . . . hardly informative for
someone looking at the calendar on a web site.
Clicking on the specific calendar (“Public Events”)
Shared: Edit Settings link allows us to fix that. You want
to “Make this calendar public” and select the “See all event
details”.
When you click on the Calendar Details you can get
the link to embed a calendar.
Clicking on the “Customize the color, size, and other
options” link brings up a great little helper. You can customize a wide variety of things to make the calendar match
your site needs. You can also select multiple calendars to
display on one master page.
You can then use the copy and paste code to put the
calendar into your web site via an iframe (inline frame).
Here’s an example of ours:
The beauty of this becomes even more apparent as you
use the ever changing landscape of connected devices like
tablets and smart phones to subscribe to your events via
RSS (really simple syndication) or iCal feeds. Suddenly a
change can be known to your leadership teams and scheduling conflicts can be minimized. Allowing everyone to
knowing what is going on is a huge step forward in comChristian Computing® Magazine
munication.
To allow people to request days on the calendar, I
would recommend building a Google Form (which is a
fancy interface to the Google Spreadsheets and worthy of
another article in the future) that allows people to request
the resource and day they need. Then your facility planner
can simply look at the requests and schedule accordingly.
I like what it says in Psalm 39 about numbering
our days. What we have here is literally not even a blip
compared with the infinite time we will spend with our
Lord. I pray that through researching your own calendaring solutions you can be the best stewards of both time and
resources to further God’s kingdom among all those who
are lost.
Psalm 39:4-5 (NIV 2011)
“Show me, LORD, my life’s end and the number of my
days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made
my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as
nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those
who seem secure.
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tablet time
What About Android?
By Russ McGuire - russ.mcguire@gmail.com
A
few months ago I started this series discussing the
impact that tablet computing is likely to have on
our lives as Christians. I started by talking about
the iPad, and Apple recently announced the iPad 2. But last
month I introduced you to my new tablet – the Androidbased Samsung Galaxy S Tab. It seems like it’s a good time to revisit a topic I
first addressed during my series on “The Mobility Revolution.” What about Android?
Way back in 2009, I wrote an article about
Android. At the time, Google’s operating system was almost unknown. T-Mobile and Sprint
each had two Android handsets on the market,
but Verizon hadn’t yet launched their first
Motorola Droid and AT&T wasn’t even talking
about Android.
Even so, at the time I wrote “That last
paragraph speaks volumes to the difference
between the Apple approach and the Android
approach. Just in the U.S., there will soon be
at least five different Android handset models from three different major manufacturers
running on three different wireless carriers.
Meanwhile there are only two models of iPhones, from one manufacturer running on one
wireless carrier.”
I went on to compare the mobility revolution to the PC revolution. “For anyone who
Christian Computing® Magazine
has been around technology for long, it’s not
hard to see the parallels to the PC revolution.
Apple was the early leader in personal computers with the Apple II… Apple really moved the
PC industry forward with the ground breaking Macintosh… However, for the most part,
Apple refused to enable other companies to
manufacture Macintosh computers, believing
that a vertically integrated business model was
critical for producing the highest quality product. … However, Microsoft worked with Intel
to enable lots of companies to produce DOS
and then Windows-based computers. Companies like Dell and Compaq flourished and
Windows-based PC sales quickly surpassed
Macintosh sales…More importantly, software
developers needed to decide whether to [develop for the Mac or Windows] – the more
Microsoft-based PCs that sold, the more attractive the PC was for developers.”
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At the time, I reported that there were over
10,000 applications available for Android compared to over 100,000 for the iPhone. I said “I
believe it won’t be long before the gap closes
and there are more Android apps than iPhone
apps. … I also believe that the iPhone’s days
are numbered as the leader in the smartphone
space.”
In a post at my blog last October, I continued this theme with a focus on innovation.
“Unlike Apple, Google has allowed the Android ecosystem to innovate in all dimensions,
and even in the app ecosystem, Google’s lack
of constraints is winning over developers. …
Think about it - Apple makes great handsets.
But they introduce one new iPhone handset a
year. How much real innovation is represented
in that one handset? Only as much as one company can imagine and productize. Now think
about all the different Android handsets you’ve
seen and the level of innovation that handset
OEMs are bringing to market. … Think about
it - here in the U.S. Apple has limited the
iPhone to one carrier. How much innovation
has that operator delivered to customers since
2007? … The Android ecosystem benefits from
[all the innovations introduced by Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile], but the iPhone ecosystem
doesn’t.” (Note: Earlier this year, Verizon also
began carrying the iPhone, so now Apple is leveraging the innovation of two of the top four
Christian Computing® Magazine
mobile operators in the US.)
What Does That Have To Do With Tablets?
This same dynamic is now playing out in
the tablet space. At the recent Mobile World
Congress conference, Android tablets were all
the rage with Acer, Asus, HTC, Huawei, LG,
Motorola, Samsung, Toshiba, Viewsonic, and
ZTE all introducing new models. (Computerworld provides a good overview of highlights.)
The scope of innovation and choice being
delivered by all of these manufacturers is almost overwhelming. It certainly puts to shame
the few catch-up improvements introduced by
Apple in the new iPad model. That’s not to say
the iPad isn’t a great product – it is. The iPad
will continue to benefit from Apple’s vertically
integrated model and iron grip on the supporting ecosystem. I won’t be surprised if 10 years
from now Apple’s tablets are still the highest
quality, classiest, and most stable products on
the market. However, for consumers seeking
innovative new features and different form
factors, Android will be the better choice, and I
expect Android sales to surpass iPad sales.
I’m not alone. A financial analyst from
RBC recently projected that Android tablets
will lead the market by 2014. Raymond James
analysts also expect Android to be the long
term tablet winner.
Already, many of the trends I anticipated are
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playing out. In the smartphone
space, Android has taken the
market lead. Nielsen reports
that Android has 29% market
share to Apple’s 27%. Android
is also attracting software developers, with nearly 300,000 apps
available (growing by 30,000
per month – and accelerating) –
but I believe Apple’s iPhone still
offers more. And when it comes
to applications designed specifically for the tablet form factor,
the iPad has a large lead – for
the moment.
All that being said, what we
really care about here at Christian Computing is how technology can enhance our walk with
the Lord. As we make personal
investment decisions, what’s
the best device to help us in our
daily walk? Next month we’ll
take a closer look at Bible software for Android to help answer
that question.
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.
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March 2011
24
ministry communication
How To Tune Up Your Website
NOW So You Won’t Disappoint Easter Seekers
Yvon Prehn - yvon@effectivechurchcom.com
W
hen you see an advertisement on TV, in the
newspaper, or a magazine, what do you do if
you want to find out more? Most likely you’ll
check out the website. We go to websites to find out the details about a product: about the company, about the costs and
benefits of our possible purchase.What’s true in our everyday perusal of products is also true for the people who check
out and who will be visiting your church website this Easter season. Read on to
make sure yours doesn’t disappoint.
Beyond their initial response to your site, people will
continue to explore
In addition, we make judgments about the company
itself from the overall ease of use and completeness
of the website. We may use the website to contact the
company.How they answer our request will probably
influence our decision to do business with them. A
seeker will make the same decisions regarding their
decision to visit you at Easter.
So, what does your church website say to them?
If you are doing a postcard mailing, a door-hanger
distribution, an advertisement in the newspaper as
outreach for Easter or any other special event, before
you create or send out the outreach piece, take some
time to work on your website. Take time to do this NOW.
As Easter nears and work demands increase, it is
easy to forget the website and nothing is worse than for
someone to get an intriguing advertisement that makes
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them immediately go to your website only to find one
that has not been updated for months.
Though I’ll use Easter as a primary example, these
tips apply to any event. Following is a checklist of
essentials:
Practical website essentials for Easter or other big
events:
• Have items that people can download to help them
celebrate Easter. A wonderful one for the Easter
season is a handout about Resurrection Cookies. You
could have it on your website in a ready-to-download and print PDF. The link below takes you to free
download of why do the cookies (to teach kids about
Easter), how to do them, and the recipe and verses
that go along with it, all ready-to-print. You have my
permission to copy, print, make a PDF, put these on
your website or run off as many as you want for your
church and guest, no attribution needed:
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http://www.effectivechurchcom.
com/2009/03/childrens-resurrectioncookies-for-easter-outreach-teachin/
• Have an “If this is your first visit
with us” section. People might think
they have to dress up for Easter. If
most folks do at your church, you
may want to let them know that;
if your church is California casual
(anything outside of a swim suit is
OK), let them know that.
• Clarify the parking situation. On
Easter some churches have off-site
parking, whatever it is, let them
know about it. Provide maps and
directions.
• Be sure to have a section titled
“What we do when it isn’t Easter”
After Easter what we do on a regular basis. Invite people back for your
regular service and ministries and
let them know your regular events
and times.
• Answer the special questions Easter
brings up. Have questions and
answers about life after death, the
resurrection, many of the questions
about Jesus, why he had to go to
the cross and what his death accomplished.
• In the midst of doing special things
for Easter, don’t forget to be incredibly clear about your schedule of
events for Easter. Explain them,
keeping in mind that many of the
traditions that are treasured activities many mean nothing to a seeker.
Be sure your guests know who the
events are for, e.g. some events for
children may have age limitations.
Essential website care on an ongoing
basis
Just like we often clean the house
before a special event, now is a good
time to make certain that various
house-keeping tasks are taken care of
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March 2011
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for your website. Some of
these include:
• Updated and com-
plete bios of your staff.
People want to know
who your leaders are,
their background, education, why they do what
they do. In an age when
almost all business leaders have Facebook pages,
blogs, Twitter accounts
and almost everything
else you can imagine
for maximum exposure,
for your church leaders
to not have at least an
updated and complete
bio on your website does
not communicate a positive image of your staff.
If the church leader is not
able to do this for him
or herself, as is often the
case when the leader is a
baby-boomer who went
to seminary prior to the days of the personal computer, assign a “web buddy” to update or create this
content. This is a wonderful expression of how we
can serve and support one another in the church.
• Be sure ALL ministries have descriptions and
updated schedules. Without this very basic information, your church will not be taken seriously by
visitors or seekers. Think about it: would you do
business with a company that did not tell you when
it was open; what products or services it offered
or anything about the staff? Ask yourself what you
would want to know about a church and its programs
and be sure you have complete information on the
website.
• Be sure to have a clear explanation of the Chris-
tian faith. It is astounding to me, how few church
websites what it means to be a Christian, how one
becomes a Christian, and links to either pages on the
website or to other sites that answer questions about
the Christian faith. Check out your site--what do you
have on it in these areas? If not, you may want to
take some time and create sections that clearly share
your faith.
Christian Computing® Magazine
The richer the content of your site, the more credibility you will have
There are so many other areas you could put on
your site, both practical and theological.
For example, in the children’s ministry area you
could not only have the basics about what you teach,
what the children do, how you screen your workers,
who to contact about the program, times, dates, etc., but
you could also have practical parenting tips, a Q & A
section hosted by your children’s pastor.
You can attach blogs, link to other helpful sites,
whatever you can think of to connect with people who
are looking for the answers to life.
Pray for wisdom that the Lord will give you eyes to
see the needs of the people in your community, of those
who come to your church and put on your site whatever is needed to answer their questions and to enable
them to trust your church as a place where they can find
Jesus.
For many more resources to help your church create
communications for an effective Easter outreach and
celebration go to www.effectivechurchcom.com.
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