This is the product of an inspiration I received from a buddy of mine that had created a monthly twitter newsletter for his church. To continue in the student ministries desire of being faithful stewards of resources this calendar covers January – May with Jan-Mar on the front side and Apr-May on the back side.

I thought it was a perfect concept for the high school ministry as many of the students are on twitter. You can follow them at hashtag #209.

When I saw these statistics it made me reflect on a church community web site that is going to launch this week. It left me wondering with the connectivity in social networking how are, and can church web sites reflect their true flavor. A flavor that is dynamic, true, raw, and real. A web site that has a balance of information for regular activities and the raw life it’s community is wrestling with that engages. Ultimately “raw life” plays out in the physical relationships with others.

• Do you agree or disagree that the church should engage more in social media?
• What would balance if information and “raw life” look like in a church web site?

In the last three months I have watched about 5 online church services, got glimpses of 3 live church leadership/communication conferences. One was all prerecorded by various leaders around the globe that had nine minutes to share what was on their hearts. It was powerful to see the variety of church leaders and the impact they are making in their respective communities.

I have appreciated the church leaders who have stepped outside their tech comfort zones to communicate in new ways. In addition to these conferences I would follow comments posted about the conference on Twitter. Even though I was unable to be present and missed some of the speakers, I was able to gather various quotes that stuck out to people as they tweeted during the conference. Gone is the day where you only have the option to be present o learn. You can learn and discern through comments and blogs by others. I am not saying that it is not worth while to attend conferences as that is the only way to truely connect with fellow believers, church communication or church leadership folks.

It is my hope and desire that church’s continue to make steps to reach out to people by utilizing technology.

Shortly after this change we started printing custom notes pages for each night and we discovered that again we were throwing away paper that weren’t even touched. Currently we are printing notes pages that are used for the whole series with much less waste.

All opendoor communications are conveyed through

• upfront time at the gatherings
• detailed info online with documents available for download
• weekly e-mails

For the first time visitors, we have designed a simple card that just gets printed as often as we need to restock.

By reducing print we have also been able to focus information about last minute changes.

Recently moved the members from the opendoor facebook group to the opendoor facebook pages. We have already seen a much higher interaction with members commenting and “liking” the updates. The next project is to test out Twitter for opendoor.

Isn’t Easter an important enough of a day to celebrate and put some planning and forethought into? Especially with mail blast capabilities (like MailChimp) messages can be scheduled in advance for a timed release. That way no one has to be bothered with sending a last minute e-mail to the church’s e-mail system 12 hours before the sunrise service even begins because there is concern that people have forgotten when it is. Better yet, send multiple campiagns marketing the upcoming Easter Sunrise Gathering at 6AM including important information like directions, who to contact before the event with questions, a little blurb about what someone can expect the experience to be like.

May next year be planned a little more in advance to give people to invite friends, neighbors to these amazing Easter Sunrise services to experience Christ rising from the dead in a new way.

Template proposed for Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church 2009 Men’s Retreat.

Adult ministries at  Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church wanted a eye catching design for their seasonal catalog of all events & classes offered. This is a simple design of using a vibrant image of fall colored leaves and organizing the info into two columns on each page.