Month: October 2012

That’s your new website? Really?

Scott Carnes Communicating Christ , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
That’s your new website? Really?
Image found at:  http://www.webtemplatesgallery.com/

I’m in the midst of thinking about church websites.  I started, as many pastors do, by looking at what I think are “better” church websites.  What I find are a lot of sites that look the same:

  1. You have the static, old HTML format pages that are out-of-date, not relatable,  and …well… ancient.  No thanks.
  2. You have the cookie-cutter sites from E-zekiel or some other company that are obvious from a mile away, are unintuitive, have back-end management systems that are either so complicated that staff job descriptions should require programming languages or are so watered down that you can’t implement mainstream apps like google and youtube, well, enough said, No thanks.
  3. Or you have, what I’ll call, the next-wave church website.  They are much better.  They are visually stimulating and are setup for more dynamic content and they are far less expensive than they used to be.  But they still all look much like one another…  they are still trapped in this mindset of “come to us,” and they still tend to be ‘information-based’ instead of relational.
These websites have come a long way, but I feel like even the best of them are still running behind corporate websites saying, “We want to be like you.  Wait up!”
What is it we need for the church of this millennium?  What is the right answer for us?
In my blog I have already been shouting (in fact, I’m blue in the face) that we need dynamic, relational content on our sites…but I’ve, sadly, always been thinking of the existing model of church website with ‘dynamic’ content and more relational content in an existing structure.
This week I’ve been thinking that this is altogether the wrong concept.
Right now, the typical church website tends to have information about itself, some stories about upcoming events (all of this in a depressingly informational style), a calendar, a link to sermons / bulletins, and the *ALL-IMPORTANT* newsletter.  Hmmm,  Church websites, then, are taking a variety of things we already and making their proprietary website a forum for distributing them.
Why are we letting a gutenberg-based (500 year old technology) medium, for instance, dictate how we do church communications?  Why all the disjunct technologies and modes put together in such a contrived fashion???  How do we think completely out-of-the-box to redefine how our church communicates both on-line and internally?
I have a couple of thoughts, but, to be fair, I need to work on them here in Normal before I say anymore here online!  Put on your thinking caps and let’s get outside of the box.  Let’s transform church communications.
Here is to Creative and Effective Communicating!

Re-Thinking Communications at Church

Scott Carnes Communicating Christ , , , , , , , , , , ,
Re-Thinking Communications at Church

In the church we are pretty good at one thing:  continuing to do what we’ve always done without asking ourselves “why?”  Now, I’ll give you one thing:  we do often ask, “how do I do this better?” But we’re often operating under the delusion that the newsletter or mailing formula we’ve used is the only way to do it.  Usually we are looking at a newsletter or bulletin or congregational letter and we are saying, “This is okay but I want it to look better or be more effective.”

That is simply the wrong approach.

Lately, I’ve been looking at church newsletters and bulletins (not just the ones from my churches) and I’ve asked myself that first question a lot over the past few months.  I’ve considered some re-designs.  I’ve thought about whitespace, flow, and consistency.  I’ve looked at these documents from every perspective of design and communication that I can think of…

…but I had failed to ask the really pertinent questions.  I had failed to think fully outside of the box.

This week I took some time to contemplate questions like, “What are we trying to accomplish,” and “what media (and format) would work best to do that?”

I made several realizations that I hope to share with you in the near future, once I put them into practice.

In the meantime, I beg all pastors and church leaders interested in effective communications in their church to do as I’ve done this week:  set aside your current publications and think bigger:

  1. What are you trying to accomplish with your church?
  2. What audiences do you need to communicate with?
    (worshipers, inactive members, active leaders, outsiders)
  3. What do you want to communicate to each of these audiences?
  4. What is the most effective means to use?
blessings,

Reboot

Scott Carnes Finding My Way , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Reboot

What does it mean to start over?  When it comes to a cake, you have to trash the whole burnt mess and start with all new ingredients.  Luckily starting fresh in life doesn’t have to be so violent (or messy), but it can be.  Sometimes we have to lose our lives in order to start over.  Jesus said something about that in the Bible, in fact….

For me, starting over wasn’t an obvious thing.  I didn’t even realize it was happening nor did I have that intent.  Yet, over the last few weeks I’ve come to realize that I look at certain things differently.  My worldview has shifted ever-so slightly.

I notice it in things as simple as my sleep schedule.  Over the last few months I’ve been going to bed earlier and getting my day started sooner.  Is it because I look forward to what tomorrow holds?

I notice it in my attentiveness to my wife.  I don’t know if she notices, but I’m a little more aware of what is happening for her, although a new church appointment has kept me from investing more time in my marriage.

I notice it in my outlook on issues and, even, moments of “crisis” around me.  I think the experiences of a brain tumor, two neuro-surgeries, and a near-death experience in my hospital bed have changed my world in ways I didn’t even realize…  somehow for the better.

I don’t think you will notice the changes I have experienced.  I don’t think it is in overt ways, necessarily, but it happened all the same.  As a pastor, I look around at the world and wonder…is that what faith does?  When we begin to see that there is hope and love in this world, does it change us?  I think so.  We don’t always notice the change right away, but when we see the world through the lens of possibility instead of impossibility…when we see that this world is more filled with love than hate…when we recognize that God can give us hope for a brighter tomorrow…I think it changes our world and us a little at a time.

Well, enough rambling for now!