Matt Johnson

• from Liquid Church
• Motivation for using social media: Take church to the people.
• Phone call – 6 days
• Email – 6 hours
• Facebook, Twitter, Text – 60 seconds

Anthony Coppedge

• Former tech director
• Now at Fellowship Technologies as Director of Communications
• Attends Gateway Church
• Writer, blogger

Session points and highlights:

• It not about the tech, it’s about my people.
• Communicating with people in real time all the time.
• Twitter has been become a replacement for Google search for Anthony.
• It can be a method to get to IRL (in real life).  It doesn’t have to, but that’s very important to some people.
• I may not be able to get to a person IRL, but maybe I’ve met someone near a person who can go IRL.
• People will be more transparent more quickly online.  You can share what’s hard to share when it’s just a keyboard.
• Social media has made everyone a publisher, the Internet our distribution channel and attention our currency.  How will we spend our new cash?
• Engagement is key to breaking through the noise.  Cash > Engagement

Personalizing Social Media

• LinkedIn – Resume online
• Facebook – Your society
• Twitter – You broadcast
• Friendfeed – Your shared knowledge-base (Google Wave could replace this.)

Twitter

• You don’t have to have a Twitter account to follow people on Twitter.
• You only need a cell phone (and a texting plan).

Ways to Use Twitter

Broadcast – Like a megaphone:

• Messaging to all followers
• Announcements
• Event Reminders
• Staus Updates
• Cancellations
• Time-Sensitive Info
• Non-Demographic Specific Info

Selective Communication

• Messaging to specific people
• @username
• @ multiple user names
• Direct Messages

Direct Commuication

• To single person
• DM – d space username
• NOT d @username

Misc thoughts and tools

• Unless you’re using Protected Updates, your updates are visible to the entire world.
• If you put it out online, it’s permanent.
• Hashtags make it easy to search.
• ParaTweet
• Use URL shortening.  > Budurl.com – has analytics
• Twitter.com/widgets

Managing multiple twitter accounts

• Tweetdeck
• Hootsuite
• Apps on iPhone, Blackberry, etc.
• Monitter.com – real-time search for Twitter
• Imagine Church
• Twitter For Churches – ton of resources

• A mind stretched by a new idea never returns to its original shape.  – Oliver Wendall Holmes

As Jesus was getting ready to send his followers out he told them to be shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves.  See Matthew 10:16.

• Tension between being shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves.
• Truth is found in tension.
• If you’re not experiencing tension, maybe you’re not very close to the truth.

Being Innocent as Doves

• Our motives need to be right.
• It’s easy to get “good” and forget why you’re doing it.
• Find a way to periodically check yourself.
• Mark has a picture of the cow pasture where God called him into ministry behind his desk as a reminder of why he is doing what he’s doing.

Being Shrewd as Snakes

• Genesis 3 – The serpent was was the shrewdest of all creatures.
• Outwit your enemy – be better than Satan.
• Most of us have not been trained to exegete culture.
• Contextual intelligence – See something that has nothing to do with what you’re doing and finding a way to redeem it for your purposes.
• Jesus didn’t tell us how to go into the world; He just told us to go.

Equation #1

1% change = 99% difference

• Pay attention to the smallest little details.
• Shape > Color > Content
• Successful retailers know:

1. Many check out lines.
2. Make type big.
3. Greet each customer with hello.
4. People walk to the right.
5. Hands are at 3 ft.
6. and more.

• What are we doing in the church to use these concepts and more?
• The greatest message deserves the greatest marketing.
• We are fostering spiritual co-dependance in the church.
• NCC is doing a series through the whole Bible next year.
• Jesus asked the Father what to say and how to say it.

Equation #2

Change of Pace + Change of Place = A Change of Perspective

• If routine becomes routine, you need to change the routine.
• You need the ability to confuse people.  Do something to interrupt people’s routine to engage them.
• One God Idea is Greater than a Thousand Good Ideas
• It can be tough to discern the difference between a good idea and a God idea.
• One God idea will change your life.
• 2 Corinthians 10:5 – Take every thought captive.
• Take captive the God idea and nurture it, protect it; give it blood, sweat and tears.
• You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right.
• What has God put on your heart that you’ve pushed down?
• What has God put on your heart that you don’t even dare speak?

2 Timothy 1:13-14
2 Corinthians 3:17-18

From Revelation
4 Faces – The Glory of God

Ox – Face of a Servant

• Have an experience for the outside not the insider.
• Make the whole experience easy.  See Acts 15.
• Generosity
• Wrote margin into their bylaws – next year’s budget can only be 90% of previous years income.
• They never sell resources.
• Margin will give you options.
• Humility – Don’t elevate people.  Elevate Jesus.

Man – Face of Relationships

• Authentic – Be as authentic as you possibly can.
• Answer emails.  Return phone calls.
• Enjoyable – Laugh!
• Church ought to be the most enjoyable place that you go all week.
• Teamwork
• Pastors – don’t let your team tell you what to do but let them help you by telling you how to do it.

Eagle – Face of Excellence

• Mark 7:37 – The people saw that Jesus did everything well.
• People need to leave your experience and see that you do everything well.
• We should be doing things in a way that make people say wow and it naturally commands their respect.
• Discipline – Fast, pray, read your Bible, take care of yourself, take a Sabbath
• Integrity – Do whatever it takes to be squeaky clean.
• Productivity – We have to grow.  Assess yourself.

Lion – Face of Power

• Presence – Need the tangible presence of God.
• Boldness – You don’t have to be mean, but tell the truth.
• Perseverance – Stand firm because all hell will break loose against you.

There was a lot of bouncing around.  I won’t be able to easily attribute ideas to each of the speakers.  I’m going to group my notes by topic.

Motivation for online campus

• People are doing everything else online, so why not church online.
• Take church to the people.

Some of the how

• Live Stream of simulated live stream
• Livestream
• Lightcast
• Computer
• Camera
• Internet Connection
• Be aware that if you’re going live, be prepared for problems.  Something is always going to happen.
• Matt’s church started did live Q&A with online pastor once a week.  It gave them a place to test and work out kinks for live.
• Wirecast

Format

• Central Christian has splash page with countdown to online campus and Facebook campus
• Option to set up a profile like any social media site.
• Go to lobby first and talk to people as a group or one on one.
• There are lots of volunteers – virtual greeters and ushers.
• Live prayer button – team of people to chat.
• Live help button – tech help and general info about church.
• Stream worship
• Host time – Welcome, announcements, offering
• Pastor’s teaching
• Outro – thanks for being here

Staffing requirements

• Liquid Church: Lead pastor / teacher, Creative team, plus 2 dedicated staffers
• Liquid is modeling staff after what they’d do for size of a multi-site
• Central Christian – 1 part time person plus other staff who have hands in it like Creative and Media team support
• Volunteer support base absolutely necessary.

Launch strategy

• Central – spent no money on marketing, launched with 400+.
• Start Facebook Fan Page
• Webcast / conference call and gave presentation about what the online campus would be like
• Use social media
• Virtual mission trip: gave people the tools to invite people to church; mobilized people that they already had; treated it like a real mission trip
• Promote with a cause

The how

• Central – tries to mimic a physical campus as much as possible
• Create a place online where a believer in one place can invite a friend from another town or state to church.
• Starting churches in cities where large groups of people are attending online.
• People live online and look for that first connection online
• Ok for people to remain online, but push people to try watch parties.
• Growing house churches this way.
• Extension campus at college, prisons, military bases, etc.
• Ask people to raise a small amount of money and then send projector, PA, screen etc to start a campus.
• Central Christian has a packet for how to start an online extension campus.
• Altar call – Lead pastor brings up to it, fades out to campus pastor who refers people to live help button to talk to a person.
• Central Christian has an electronic next steps packet for new believers.
• Have small groups that meet online.
• Small groups – talkbox video chat, can handle up to 30 people.
• Central Christian Baptism – Give instructions on how to be baptized; make it an event in your home, find a believer to baptize you.
• Liquid Church – Find another believer, pastor walks through via video chat.
• Communion – talk through communion, give instructions to gather elements and take together.
• The church isn’t a building.  It’s a body of believers.

Here’s a few things that caught my attention:

• Pastors timid about getting involved in Twitter and social media: If you’re going to live in a glass house, you might as well define the parameters.
• Find a way to relate to people in the way that they need to be connected with.
• Am I adding value?  Or am I just talking?

Completely off topic but something I found very helpful:  When Anthony was on staff at a church, his staff had a “pet project” each week.  They were to find something that they thought was cool and then figure out how you’d do it, make it, recreate it.  That might be a video intro, a mailer, etc.  This is a great way to learn and grow.  This require margin and intention in your week.  Use a project management system.  If you’re tracking your time and projects, you’ll better know how to prepare and plan for growth.

• It’s a shame that most churches cannot say that they love their website.
• What makes a really, really good website?
• Content v Design – Design is important, but content is more important.

1.  Content

• Site map
• Audience
• Your Church’s Products
• Your Church’s Benefits
• Brand

Target Audience

• Figure out what the demographic makeup of your church is
• Determine what your psychograpics graphics are
• Make a complete list of the things that your church offers
• What are the top 3 benefits of your church?
• Narrow those three things down to get to the top one to get your positioning statement (or slogan)

Home Page

• Logo
• Positioning Statement
• Service Times
• Doctrine
• Social Media
• You don’t want things deeper than three clicks

What’s on your site

• About us
• Current Series
• Ministry Opportunities
• Pastors
• Calendar
• Media
• Blog(s)
• Online Giving
• Use eye interruptors like bullets, pictures, white space, etc.
• How to Find, Contact, and Interact with You

How to Develop Content

• Gather Development Leadership and a team including good editors
• Content Management System (CMS)
• Blog – People will spend 60 second on a blog page vs the average 10 seconds on a webpage.

2.  Context

• Content + Design
• Things you don’t want to dreak
• Menu Locations, Link Colors (Keep the ugly blue)
• Content Delivery
  No Horizontal Scrolling
  Screen Resolution / Size = 1024×768
• Searching – SEO
  Not a One-Time Event
  Be patient
  Keywords in tags AND in content
• Relevant Content
• Make sure that your benefits are in tags and keywords
• Back links – getting other people to recommend and link to you
• Web analytics
• Up-to-Date
• Non-Flash

3.  Consistency

• Saying the same thing over and over and over again
• Brand
• Fonts – Serif fonts for print, sans-seriff fonts for digital
• Design Elements
• Menus
• Spelling

Colors

Think of a a guy in a suit in 3 colors:

• The Suit – Most used color is a simple neutral color, nothing outrageous.
• The Shirt – This is the secondary color on your site.  Something brighter, bolder.
• The Tie – This is where you can get crazy and show personality, but just as an accent.
• Same for fonts

We’re already podcasting on iTunes, streaming our sermons through Vimeo, etc at Southbrook.  I’m hitting the highlights and things that stuck out to me.  Check out Dave’s blog to download his notes.

Podcasting

• Consider using podcasts for training in sub-ministries.
• People can get a taste of your church before coming to your church.
• Expands your geographic reach around the world.
• Be where people are.

Streaming Video

• CDN – Content Delivery Network
• Live Streaming requires an on-site or off-site encoder.
• Flash or H.264 are common the final standard codecs.

Compression

• In general, try to double the compression rate (in bits) that your service (Vimeo, etc) is using.
• Your service is then going to compress your file further based on their standards.
• The goal is the highest quality in the smallest file for the device or application.

Dave’s notes have some great recommendations for minimum specs for audio and video files for various uses and devices.

• If you have relationships with people, you’re a wealthy person.
• God pushes the envelope and breaks boundaries.
• God always has more than you.
• Park has built a multi-use space that is a true community space.
  Services, concert location, conference center, business incubator, banquet hall, medical missions hub, and much, more.
• Framing v Foundation | Container v Content
  Technology and media are the framing and container.
  Eternal relevance is about foundation, not framing.
  Jesus stressed foundation but used many different frames.
  God is calling us back to the foundation.
• The one enemy that you cannot overcome on your own is death.
• Be revived in your commitment to the foundation.
• Be secure in your trust of the content.

• Why we do things?  What we do?
• Matthew 20:25-28 – Serving and giving for the cause of Christ.  This is the foundation for Healing Place Church

4 Values

1. Enjoy the process.
   • Have some fun and laugh a little.
2. Keep servant and relational based leadership as a priority.
   • Keep servant and relational based leadership as a priority.
   • Jesus style ministry.
   • Make people feel like you’ve been preparing all week for them.
3. Celebrate the victory of others.
   • Acknowledge others in your community who are doing great.
   • Don’t act like you’ve been dropped onto the planet by yourself.
4. Stay in love.
   • No matter what happens in the church, you must stay in love with your spouse.
   • Stay in love with your kids.
   • Stay in love with people; the church needs to be high tech and high touch.
   • Stay in love with Jesus.

• We must ace encouraging other people.

1. Live on the edge with authenticity.
   • Acts 2:42 – Glad and sincere hearts.
   • Bible school and seminary teach us to distance ourselves and not be totally real with others.
   • Hebrews 10:22 – Draw near to God with sincere heart.
2. Be convinced that authoritative leadership is obsolete.
   • Spiritual abuse is just like physical or emotional abuse.
   • Romans 12:9 – Love must be sincere. Hate evil.
   • Some leaders have to be right and tout the authority in their position.  They have to keep reminding people that they are the leader.
   • Some leaders genuinely garner respect.  This is better and people follow.
   • Some leaders replicate.  This is best.  People respect and follow but also bring others along.
   • You’re not remembered by your entrance but by your exit.
3. Annihilate Condemnation
   • People are loaded down with condemnation.
   • Don’t just show people their weaknesses; help them out of it.
   • Condemnation just leaves people in their sin.
   • God whispers because we have to be close to Him to hear what He’s saying.
4. Be the First to Forgive
5. Don’t Give Away Your Dream
   • You don’t want to look back and wonder, “What didn’t I dream more?”
   • God wants to hear your dreams even if it’s obvious.  See the story of blind Bartimaeus.
   • You can tell who dreams and who doesn’t.