This week I met with our Student Ministry staff to layout next steps for our website including the roll out of WordPress MU. We will be using WordPress MU as the foundation of our social media strategy. I gave them the following planning  exercise to help facilitate a strategic social media framework for their ministry.

1. Where do you want each student to be spiritually before they leave JHigh or High School? How does your programming facilitate the movement of your students from where they are now to where you want them to be? Place your programs, events, and activities along the spiritual formation time line below. Activities designed for attracting new comers would appear on the left. Activities designed to grow existing Christians deeper in their Christian walk would be placed more along the right.
2. Make a list of all of the places on the web where your ministry is represented. Include the church’s website, blogs, facebook, twitter accounts, etc. Indicate how you are using each site and its intended audience.

Each site in your web presence should fall into one of two categories (courtesy of Chris Brogan and adapted by John Dale):

Home Base: This is a digital property you own and control. It is where you direct all internet traffic. Why? Because this is the place where you can best promote your ministry and those next steps for those in your ministry.

Embassies: These are microsites on social networks where you are actively engaged. Just like a country does business in embassies located in other countries, you will fully engage in conversations in your embassies on other networks. The most obvious example of an embassy is a Facebook fan page.

3. Using the list you made above, determine which sites are part of your home base and which are embassies within your web presence.




4. What sites (if any) do you need to discontinue? What sites (if any) do you need to add to optimize your web presence for moving your students through the spiritual formation timeline?




5. What role does each of your sites play in communicating that ‘next step’ in the spiritual formation timeline?
   • How much overlap exists between each site? Is the overlap beneficial?
   • If someone is a newcomer, which of these sites do you direct a person to first?
   • What ‘action’ do you want each person to take at each site?




6. What role does of each your sites play in supporting your leadership and parents? What ‘action’ do you want each leader or parent to take?




7. Considering the differences between websites, blogs, and social networks (shown below), what changes (if any) are needed to maximize the relevance of each site?

Though the ChMS (church management software) market is small, comparing the solutions available can take some time. If you are looking for a comparison chart of features, take a look at the following:

1. Nick Nicholaou with Ministry Business Services, Inc. publishes an annual comparison chart. (34 Solutions Compared; Date: 11/13/2009 )
2. Christian Computing Magazine: Note original chart appears to be no longer available, but this cached version is preserved on Digital @ Leadership Network’s blog. (27 Solutions Compared; Date: 12/15/2008)
3. CCIS publishes a comparison guide between its software and other ChMS providers. Though biased, it may give you some insight by looking at each of their comparisons together. (10 Solutions Compared; Date: Unknown)
4. Capterra doesn’t provide a comparison chart per se, but they do have a directory of ChMS solutions that can be filtered based on platform, features, and other criteria. It is a great tool to narrow down solutions based on your specific needs. (180 Solutions Listed; Date: Unknown).

Here are some of my recommendations before you start shopping:

1. Ask someone from senior leadership to sponsor the project…ensuring buy in from the very top and preparing the way for maximum involvement of all church staff.
2. Meet with key staff from every department/ministry and document their ‘business processes‘. Invest in a LiveScribe Pulse smart pen to capture both your notes and the audio of your meetings (you won’t regret it!). Keep a separate list for (1) reports, (2) processes that are inefficient and need to change, (3) issues or decisions requiring resolution or approval from senior leadership. (Here is a sample doc to provide staff in prep for your meetings).
3. Compile your notes into one master document, organized by department and then by task.
4. Have each department review their section to ensure that you documented their processes and needs accurately.
5. Recruit the legitimizers within your church staff to assist you with product selection.
6. Begin shopping, pick your top 2 solutions and get very thorough demos….evaluating each product based on how well it will accomplish the needs of your staff. Keep in mind, everyone will say, “Yes, our software does that!” However, the real question is how efficient does their software handle your needs (i.e. one step or ten?).
7. As you meet with each vendor, make a list of gap items…items that the software does not handle.
8. Weigh your options carefully and involve both senior leadership and key legitimizers in the final decision.

1. Technology is Not Always the Answer
Many times, I encounter those that believe if we purchase or develop software that it will make everyone’s life better. Bill Gates once said, “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”  Gates is right. Sometimes a reordering and combining of steps will result in great efficiency gains. Before throwing technology at a problem, scrutinize the processes first and reevaluate them regularly as the organization changes and grows.

By the way, a computerized child check-in solution is a great example. Every solution providers touts that its check-in system improves the security of your facility. I laugh when I read this…because the security of your facility is not in its technology, but in its processes. By processes, I mean those steps that you require to check-in children, whether by paper or by computer. If computerized check-in increases the security of your facility it is because your processes have changed, not because it is computerized.

2. Don’t Get Wooed by the Wow
We all get a case of gadget envy from time to time, but if technology decisions are driven by the ‘wow’ factor, your church will pay greatly for it. Good technology decisions should not be driven by what other churches have, but by the specific needs of your church. Diverting time and money to create an iPhone App when you need a new ChMS may not be a wise choice.

3. Don’t Take a Trinitarian View of the Project Triangle
Fully Featured, Cheap and Quick cannot coexist in one project. If a senior pastor or IT leader wants a project and its team to succeed, they should choose two and provide executive sponsorship for the project…ensuring buy-in from all levels of staff.

4. Standardizing Hardware and Software is Good Stewardship
Standardization of hardware allows for quick replacement or substitution of failed hardware. It also provides predictability and stability for how specific software will perform. Likewise, standardization of software reduces training costs and compatibility of files shared among staff. By standardizing on both, churches are able to leverage greater discounts though bulk purchasing. All of these reasons are why donated computer equipment can actually cost the church more money.

5. Standardizing Ministry Processes is Good Leadership
Ministry processes is the church equivalent to business processes. A ministry process is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service for a particular member or prospect. It often can be visualized with a flowchart as a sequence of activities. Examples of a ministry process would include: follow-up with a church prospect, staff’s response to an emergency hospitalization, process for joining the church. I have known many churches who have not defined these processes. As a result, new church employees are inadequately trained for their job and usually change the process to fit their skills or personality. In the case of a multi-site church, this problem is made much worse when each location’s processes don’t mirror each other.  Inconsistent processes result in inconsistent reporting, data quality, and inadequate use of the technologies the church has invested in.

A few weeks ago at the national meeting of the Church IT Roundtable at Saddleback, Rick Warren made the following statement, “The purpose of technology is to make the church more personal.” He is right, that is indeed one of the purposes of technology in the church. Unfortunately, churches often misuse the technology they have or fail to use it altogether. Here are a few technologies, most of which we have used at Second Baptist Church, that can enhance and preserve the personal and pastoral care of a large church:

1. Prayer Pagers: We have a supply of prayer pagers for those in the midst of a health crisis. We publish the names and the numbers of the pagers on our church intranet and our church website. One of our first recipients of a prayer pager, Rebekah Tauber, received such a following that the chain emails detailing her situation became an urban legend and earned an entry on snopes.com. Her prayer pager was a highly personalized reminder that people were praying for her. The pagers we use are through USA Mobility.
2. Social Security Death Index: We occasionally receive late death notices of church members or regular attenders. As part of our pastoral care, our senior pastor sends personal letters to family members on the 1 year anniversary of the loss of their loved one. It is important that we have correct information if it was not included in the death notice to the church. To verify our church records, we have used the Social Security Administration’s death index. If you need to verify a large number of records, I recommend CDYNE who provides a tool to search against a list of names. Otherwise, Ancestry.com underwrites the cost of a free search tool for single searches at RootsWeb.com. It is impressive how much information is returned in this simple search tool.
3. Task Centre by Orbis Software: Task Centre is a great 3rd party tool to use with any ChMS that monitors changes in your database and kicks off any defined stored procedure, task, or notification. Using this tool, you can setup email or SMS reminders to staff at the anniversary date of a birth or  loss in your church family, or a follow-up notification after a church member has not attended after a certain number of weeks, or schedule a weekly hospitalization report to be auto-generated and sent to your senior leadership. For us, it has been a very valuable tool!
4. Google Voice: Before you setup a designated prayer line, consider using Google Voice to give you even greater flexibility in managing calls for prayer. With Google Voice, you can have your prayer line ring several phone numbers concurrently ensuring that you don’t miss a call. You can also have the voice mails transcribed and sent to you by email or text. You can even forward calls on a schedule…allowing calls at night or on weekends to be routed to an alternate number.
5. Care Calendar: CareCalendar is a web based system to organize meals and other help for families during a time of illness or life changing event, such as the birth of a baby or death of a family member. Although it is cannot be integrated with your church’s membership database, it is still very much a worthwhile tool to recommend to your church family.
6. Caring Bridge: CaringBridge.org provides free websites that connect family and friends during a serious health event, care and recovery. It is similar to a blog but more defined in function and easier to use for the non-technical. There are other sites similar to Caring Bridge such as CareFlash and CarePages. Each of these organizations are very open to creating a branded account with your church as a service to your church members. I have not seen a comparison chart for these, so do your homework before deciding on the preferred provider for your church family.
7. The Funeral Negotiator: This isn’t a necessarily a technology or a software, but a great online resource. As a pastor, I have used the funeral negotiator before and he is the real deal. If you have someone in your church family that is overwhelmed with funeral costs (and who isn’t??), then I definitely recommend they contact the Funeral negotiator. He will save a grieving family a lot of money.
8. iPrayerWorks: iPrayerWorks.com is a hosted prayer management software that helps track and disseminate prayer requests, hospitalizations, and homebounds. It is a very much needed software and is one of very few that even exist.
9. Prepare-Enrich Marriage Preparation: Prepare-Enrich is a marriage prep program that includes an online couple assessment. Pastors can login to retrieve the assessment scores and access any number of relationship building exercises to include in the marriage preparation process. We have used this tool as a part of our Marriage Prep ministry for several years. While it is not a Bible based or Christian based tool, it is a very valuable tool and can be used well when facilitated by a pastor.
10. Legacy.com: Legacy.com provides tools for families to create websites in memory of lost loved ones. It also provides a service to post obituaries with an optional guest book for people to sign. It does cost money and probably could be just as easily accomplished through a free blog software, but I thought it worthy of mention.

Several years ago, I posted about the tension between policies and people. Two years later, the balancing act remains. Policies and standards are set to control costs and to maximize efficiency in the technical support of an organization. However, in reality there are always exceptions and one size doesn’t fit all. Some IT professionals I know are bent towards policies and as a result they rule with a heavy hand. They are rules driven, black and white, and often misunderstand the consequences of their own rules on the mission of the organization. There is often a disconnect between senior leadership and IT staff. However, as IT professionals, we want to empower our pastors and staff. We exist to support them in being efficient and effective in the ministry of the church. So how do we maintain the balance? Here are a few principles to keep in mind:

1. Rules without a Relationship Leads to Rebellion- If you have rules or policies, but little relational investment in the people you support, you are headed for trouble. Develop relationships with the people you serve. Befriend them. In those relationships, you will have a better understanding of their needs and goals. This helps you be proactive and find solutions for problems before they are even communicated to you or your team. Once you have built up a few ‘wins’, you can then afford to take a relational hit when you have to stand by your rules.
2. No is Never the First Response- Buy time and find alternative solutions if you are unable to accommodate one’s request or need.
3. Error on the Side of Empowerment- Wow! The corporate world would say just the opposite. But this is the difference between a corporation and a church. When you are confronted with an issue that poses equal amount of liabilities with the benefits of empowerment. Go with empowerment. God will bless it. If you discover later that you made a bad decision, then look at it as an opportunity to establish and educate the need for boundaries and policies.
4. Accept Exceptions – It in inevitable, but make sure you can explain why. Here are some of the reasons for exceptions that I have used: staff position (executive staff, etc.), training (has a person been trained), job descriptions, employment status (full time, part time, contract, etc).
5. In Person not InBox – If policies and people are at odds, deal with it in person. Don’t use email! Remember, you’re about relationships not rules.

After looking at several social media policies of other organizations, we finally drafted a social media policy for our church staff. The purpose of this policy is to give our staff some best practices in their personal use of social media during their employment at Second Baptist Church, Houston. For the reasons I referenced in my earlier blog post, this policy will not only empower our staff to use social media well, but also protect the church.

Second Baptist’s Social Media Policy – DOC | PDF

If you are developing a social media policy for your church or organization, be sure and check out SocialMediaGovernance.com which has an online library of 100+ social media policies from various companies and non-profits. Of all of the policies I reviewed, Kodak’s policy was extremely helpful…the best one I have found to date.

Social Media certainly poses its share of gotchas. For individuals, it’s identity theft. For corporations, it’s managing public relations nightmares (such as those experienced by Domino’s and Comcast). For churches and non-profits, we share these risks and more.

Three risks that churches and non-profits should plan for are:

Misrepresentation: There is a legal term called ‘Agency‘. Agency implies that an individual is authorized to act or to make statements on behalf of the church. While that may be true for spiritual and pastoral matters, there is probably very few who are authorized to operate as agents of the church or act on behalf of the church in issues pertaining to public/media relations, position statements, contractual agreements, legal engagements or any other agreements on which third parties rely. Therefore, staff will want to protect themselves and their church by making a distinction between what they say in their personal conversations online and statements made by the church.

Noise: Your church will have a presence in social media whether you like it or not. For most churches, the youth ministry staff is likely the first to have created pages/groups on Facebook or channels on YouTube in your church’s name. However, what happens when each ministry wants their own blog, Facebook page/group, YouTube channel, or Twitter feed? How easy is it to distinguish between those setup by the church versus those setup by members or even those setup by staff for personal use. What happens if you have a disgruntled employee leave? Does someone else have access to those accounts? If your church doesn’t have a clear and coordinated web strategy where your website, social media, and/or blogs are working together to send a unified message, then your church will lose its singular ‘voice’. It will succumb to the noise of a disjointed web presence leaving your audience confused as to where they should get the latest news and events of your church.

Taxation: The church, which falls under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, cannot participate or intervene in any political activity or campaign  (i.e. give any hint of favoring one candidate over another).  According to Revenue Ruling 2007-41, 2007-25 I.R.B. 1421 (June 18,2007) (page 10-11), participation or intervention may include but is not limited to  linking to other websites containing political content that you may or may not have any control over. As churches expand their web presence to include third party social networking sites, they should take caution in how they handle 3rd party content for which they have no control. Examples of uncontrolled content include ads and similarly related content, like what you may see on Facebook (related groups) or YouTube (related videos).

Here are some best practices to minimize the risks to your church or organization:

1. Make a Distinction Between Official and Unofficial When Defining Your Web Presence. Ask your staff to include a disclaimer where needed on their personal blogs or social network accounts. Similarly, the church should include a disclaimer on any 3^rd party sites (such as Facebook, YouTube, etc) that disclaims any association with uncontrolled content (i.e. ads and related content). Include the church logo or at least the mark within your logo in all of the profile pictures on social networking sites to let your audience know who represents the church and who does not.
2. Protect Your Logo! Prevent your logo from unauthorized use by staff or members since it is an official and visual representation of the church.
3. Coordinate your Social Media Initiatives. Get organized and develop a process for each ministry to coordinate their social media goals with the overall church. I recommend using Jeremiah Owyang’s “Hub and Spoke” model for getting organized and designating the Communications and/or IT Team as the ‘hub’ (but not gatekeepers) for coordinating the social media initiatives.
4. Monitor Your Web Presence Daily. Google Alerts and HootSuite are great tools to keep an ear out for chatter about your church. Mashable.com also has a great list of recommended tools. These will not only help you react to any problems, but more importantly they will equip you to proactively engage visitors or individuals who are talking about your church.
5. Develop Social Media Policies for Church Staff. Include it with the required paperwork for new employees. Post it on your church intranet for existing employees.
6. Remove Related Content Where Possible. By default, Facebook includes a list of related groups on your Groups page. This can be removed. Likewise, you can also remove related video from YouTube’s video embed code.

Last October, Joel Lingenfelter had an interesting post titled, “ChMS,- What do the big guys use?” He listed the church management software used by each of the top 10 largest churches are reported by Outreach magazine.

For convenience, I will reprint his list below:

3 Churches use FellowshipOne (Lakewood Church, Lifechurch.tv, and Fellowship Church)
3 Churches use Arena (Willow Creek, North Point Community Church, and Southeast Christian Church)
1 Church uses iMIS from Advanced Solutions International (Second Baptist Houston)
1 Church uses ACS (Woodlands Church)
1 Church wrote their own database. (Saddleback)
1 Church still uses Shelby V5 with a lot of custom code on top, but is evaluating other solutions (Calvary Chapel Ft. Lauderdale)

As a disclaimer, this list was compiled in early fall, 2009 so I am not sure if this list is still current. Nevertheless, Joel makes this comment, “you should think twice before writing your own system, no matter how much better you think it will be. The work involved and the money that you will spend is huge.”  While I agree that building your own ChMS is a daunting and costly task, there is a third option here that is worth consideration….buy and build! It is not until recently that some of the ChMS providers have begin releasing APIs which gives churches the ability to extend the software for their own specific needs. Fellowship One released their API in June, 2009. I think buy and build is the best way to go. This is the approach Second Baptist Church took after writing their own ChMS (and not just once, but twice). Their latest ChMS (iMIS by Advanced Solutions Internation) includes a very mature API that has allowed SBC to develop several modules specific to their ministry processes.

Larger churches should definitely give priority to those solutions that offer APIs when choosing a ChMS.

Recently, our church added a FREE job posting web service to our website that we call “Career Connections.” The purpose is to connect businesses with qualified job candidates within our church family. Employers may post job openings, search resumes, and view applicants. Job seekers may post resumes and search for job openings in the Houston area.

If your church has not done something like this, let me highly encourage it. We found a great partner in Tim Krauss at NeedsMet. NeedMet is a customized web application that connects employers and job seekers inside your church. It is a valuable tool to help church members find meaningful employment, connect church employers with job seekers, and help churches reduce unemployment.

They did a great job customizing our instance of their software to match our website (see before and after). They also back filled our account with job openings from Houston area companies…giving our church family immediate opportunities to pursue. I highly recommend them. Best of all, they are priced right for churches and deliver a great product in a short amount of time.

Recently, we have been discussing the role of blogs in our web strategy. We have several staff who already blog (view list). We encourage that, but we also wanted to begin incorporating blogs into our church’s web presence. These blogs are different from our staff’s personal blogs. They are more refined in scope and will add another layer of rich content for our church family that our website does not offer. In preparation for that roll-out, it was important for us to understand the differences in these mediums so we know best how to utilize them. I created a helpful chart to guide our staff.

As you can see, websites, blogs, and social media each have their respective functions. By confusing their place in social media, we endanger our relevance and effectiveness with our intended audience. As for our church (Second Baptist Church, Houston), blogs will be used for spiritual formation by providing ministry resources, Biblical perspectives, encouragement, leadership development and/or ministry best practices. Each blog will have a defined audience whether it is for SBC members and visitors, SBC leaders, or Christians and church leaders worldwide.

We also have used blogs for special events such as our annual Beach Retreat (read more). We limit event based blogs to mission trips, Beach Retreat, etc. where the event occurs out-of-town and over the span of several days.

On a technical note, we are using WordPress MU and hosting them internally on our servers. Thanks to Clifton Griffin, we also integrated the WordPress MU  login with Active Directory to give our staff a single sign-on experience.