The Internet and our Church....

[Stan]

I watch google ads, almost everywhere I go. ( Esp looking for mine )

I do find it interesting that I see so many ads from various Churches, especially if the webpage or any search engine has to do with last days, or final day events etc.

HOWEVER our Church seems silent. We still expect people to come to us. (as a Church)

Members who have done things, oft feel like they get hit with baseball bats from 'the brethern'. SOME of these actions are rightly so as well, wacky folks with a keyboard, I better stop there.

There are a number of great websites our Church has done, and net events etc. YET it seems like HELL will freeze over BEFORE we promote it on the net.

When was the last time you viewed an ad for a 'net event, or It Is Written, or ANYTHING that is from the Mother Ship? or any of it's subsidiaries?

I find this so frustering...

[Stan]

I often see Mormons offering a video aimed at youth on MySpace.com often.

Perhaps the MySpace users need to become holy and repentant first, before the Mother Ship is willing to do anything.

[Stan]

Here is a sample I did, as part of my office work

We had 1,400,000 impressions on computers in the City of Prince George, BC. Population about 80,000.

Cost was around $400.

[Stan]

Most of them have one, some do not even know they have one..

My point is, what is lacking is doing something to get folks there.

Often ministries advertise in our union/division papers for out reach sites.. yet do no advertise elsewhere.

[Amelia]

I think the church is just a little to staid and unwilling to get with the times.

[Curly]

I just received a letter from Leo Schreven -- advertising one. He has this vision to use the internet to create an online church as there are those who live to far from a church, or as in the case of certain countries can't attend church. It is at least interesting, whether it works or not is another thing.

The website as sections --

Section one: they learn how to master their lives mentally, physically, financially, emotionally and spiritually. They can download 60 seminars for free at their convenience.

Section two: is 24 sermons that can only be viewed in order, so they must watch the first, then second and so on.

Section three: a internet family of believers that can fellowship and interact online.

I think you can learn more about it by going to his website: www.allpowerseminar.com

[fccool]

Stan, I share your frustration. In our chuch the current mentality is to go door-to-door promoting the evangelistic series that will be held (and are yearly held) in our church. Usually 5-6 people show up, and the rest are members who are trying to show support.

On top of that, the seminars spread out so long that people are unwilling to spend that amount of time going to our church, which is on the edge of the town... even those who do have desire to hear about it.

It's ironic that with all of the technology today which is breaking down the communication barriers... we still hold the same mentality of "come to us and listen".

I'm about to start a new channel BTW online. It's going to be a site that I will be promoting heavily and basically will be a TV channel for people to tune in online. The difference is that people will send in their video questions to be asked and answered... it will be practically oriented programming that people will be able to control. I'm planning to use www.ustream.com for video multicasting, and I have scheduling software to schedule programming... and of course the interactive contents on the site.

Basically the idea is that various churches would be producing the programming (that will be presented in a contemporary manner) and sending it in for me to schedule for broadcast. Then we will advertise the channel as interactive Christian TV for NON-Christians . Not that Christians would not be allowed to watch, but the target audience will be non-Christians.

I'm in the planning stages right now. Trying to come up with catchy concepts and presentation mode. But, I'll be producing the "mock commercials" to stick in between that would also be having the impact and be entertaining at the same time.

I think it's important to consider who it is that we are reaching out to, and come up with new and creative ways to do that in spite of the environment that Devil is setting up. It is quite obvious that we don't have the "Middle East hospitality" in our country that Jesus enjoyed back then. Door-to-door is not the most efficient approach, especially when you have to compete with Curby salesmen and spam mail.

[Joe_in_RP]

Stan I disagree with you on this one.

Quote:

Section two: is 24 sermons that can only be viewed in order, so they must watch the first, then second and so on.

This is the problem with church leaders. Control. Internet is about choice. Extraordinary choice. They will never understand.

When I read the history on HMS and Radio I am appalled. Do you know they wanted to fire HMS in his peak in the 40's?

There are other famous preachers who are also making serious internet mistakes.

But lets not underestimate our laypeople. I know several undercover website that are fabulous. I say undercover because they do not advertise the fact that they are Adventist. Lay people move fast and are well educated in this new technology.

I am not sold on adwords. Organic search is much better in my opinion. Yes it is harder to do. But I believe it will be much better at delivering a targeted audience in the future. Google will not be the leader forever. And Google is not the best for Asia.

What I think would be very successful is if the church would underwrite free publications that our lay websites could give away. And the postage. That would really pay off.

Talk about leaves of Autumn.

[Stan]

hi Joe

I did not make the comment about the 24 sermons..

I am not specific to adwords. BUT can tell you they have been very successful for me, in other projects i am doing in Asia.

The point is, one site I will leave unnamed, spent almost 80,000 developing it, and did, an outreach site for non-sda's and spend their $$$$ advertising it in Union papers.

I see the google ads all over the place for various factions of the Armstrong Church of God. I see nothing, almost for Amazing facts, Hopetv, 3ABN, VOP etc etc etc

[Joe_in_RP]

Yes I agree the Armstrong church is doing a great job.

But history and my experience with leaders tells me the Lay people can do it faster, better.

I think the church could be a dynamic catalyst if they wanted to.

I think the Holy Spirit is working in our lay people very strong.

We probably have different goals. I am talking about seed planting and cultivation.

You are probably talking about harvest.

Internet could be fabulous for nurturing also.

But I am skeptical our leaders can work with the small ministries that already have the talent, experience and a plan.

Besides I share your frustration because I doubt they have the vision to do it right. Perhaps that is the biggest hurdle.

[Joe_in_RP]

Quote:

The point is, one site I will leave unnamed, spent almost 80,000 developing it,

I have a buddy who already has a site running for years. People request EGW and other materials. He has VERY LITTLE money to send them out. He is thousands behind. For 1/5 of what that site cost he could send out thousands of pieces by mail to people who SPECIFICALLY want it. He has already had many baptisms. But there is no money for the literature. What a shame. There is a case were the leadership has no vision.

Then there are territorial issues.

[fccool]

I agree to an extend. I think it has mostly to do with understanding. The clergy are mostly theologians and social workers. They are trained as such. It's not their jobs to understand how to run a website/tv station/advertising. In fact, most of them have a very poor idea how these things work... yet many of them are thrown into position to develop these. Many times there are unrealistic expectations about time and costs involved. And they have very low understanding of what looks right, and what works well when it comes to these things. I don't mind doing things for free, but it's very hard working a full time job and doing these things on top of it. Yet, somehow it's expected that the only paid position in the churches are pastors. I don't think it's right. Our treasurer, for example, should be paid with the amount of work/hours he's putting in.

We've had a website for years that looked like it was developed by a 6th grader. I asked the webmaster if it was ok for me to take a wack at a new design, and she said that she would love that. I did so, and presented it to the church. She was beside herself, even though the church loved it. She made a scene as I was presenting it. It was unbelievable. Now, I do those things for living, but I had to back off because we did not want to offend people and create controversy.

So, many times this becomes the case. People who can do great job are left out because of the "territorial issues". And people are really end up misplaced when it comes to using their gifts for the church. We need to value gifted people and encourage them to do more, not tell them to back off, or go through several board votes before their proposals are a go... even though many of these people are using their own time and resources to accomplish these.

[Joe_in_RP]

Sadly the church thinks they are doing something.

A group of Seventh-day Adventist Internet pioneers were honored by the Communication Department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists during the 2008 Global Internet Evangelism Forum held here July 11. At the same time a separate award program offering as much as $67,500 in annual prizes was announced to drive further innovation in technology and ministry.

http://news.adventist.org/data/2008/1216071562/index.html.en

One award for 67,500 How sad. I suspect this church spends 100 times that on fliers every year. Fliers that less that 2% of the people respond to.

[nuff sed]

[Taylor]

Sadly the church thinks they are doing something.

A group of Seventh-day Adventist Internet pioneers were honored by the Communication Department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists during the 2008 Global Internet Evangelism Forum held here July 11. At the same time a separate award program offering as much as $67,500 in annual prizes was announced to drive further innovation in technology and ministry.

http://news.adventist.org/data/2008/1216071562/index.html.en

One award for 67,500 How sad. I suspect this church spends 100 times that on fliers every year. Fliers that less that 2% of the people respond to.

Wow I guess this surprises me. I was thinking "Wow what couldn't be done $67,500? True you could spend millions but this is a great start! If I were a recipient of this prize money I would be so grateful and honored. Maybe we need to get even more inovative. The post before mine (Gladusee)that talks about people mailing out the sermons every week, is a great idea!! We need to keep thinking outside the box of how to reach our world for Jesus!

[Woody]

If the $67,500 is used well ... and there are good results ... I am sure that more will come. You have to be faithful in the small amounts before larger amounts should come. I'm glad that our church is not throwing large amounts on unproven ideas. Best to be responsible with God's money.

[Stan]

No, that money is a 'reward' for those who do a great job with some software..

It is still the problem...

We build buildings but don't invite folks to come..

We build buildings for outreach and only invited adventists.

[fccool]

I don't think that problem is money. There are plenty of willing people who would be willing to do things for the cause. Yet it's the "committee" mentality that exists and prevails, because the people in charge are not trained to be creative. I say it with all due respect, because not everyone does everything well. Accountants work with numbers, and creativity carries a negative connotation in accounting for example .

It's not a job of the pastor to maintain a web ministry. Neither outreach is a pastor's job IMO. Pastor's job is to empower and encourage people to do these things.

There's only 1 consistent outreach that we do have in our church... and it's still ends up to be in reach... because every other Sabbath people distribute fliers door-to-door, and these invite people for a Prophecy seminar or a Bible study.

I thought that distributing DVDs was a better way to go, until my wife got a DVD about life of Buddah from the one of the followers. That DVD set there for 3 weeks, until we decided that we did not want to watch it. I think it's important to consider what you would do with things that you are mailing to begin contemplating the success.

[Joe_in_RP]

That's the great thing about the internet. These are people who want more info. Its a targeted approach as opposed to wasting money on people who have no interest.