Author Archive
ChMS of the Top 10 Largest Churches
Posted by: |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.
Software that Helps Church Members Find Jobs Online
Posted by: |
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.
Differences Between Websites, Blogs & Social Media
Posted by: |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.
Second.org Wins Houston Gold Addy Award
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On February 13, the Houston chapter of the American Advertising Federation awarded Origin Design a Gold Medal Addy Award in Interactive Media for their design of Second.org. We are very excited about this recognition of our website.
As a gold medal winner, our website will now be submitted for a district award and hopefully then a national award. The Addy awards are a very prestigious honor in the advertising industry.
So join me in recognizing our in-house project team who worked tirelessly with me on our website. They share in the the reward of this great honor:
Chris Castle, Senior Applications Developer
Barbara Durand, Director of Marketing & Communications
Heather Halaska, Art Director
Brian Milinski, Volunteer Ministry Coordinator
Cindy Raymond, Communications Account Manager
Dave Riggle, Associate Pastor and Executive Sponsor
Cliff Young, Pastor and Director of Creative Media and SecondFilms
Great job gang! To see a list of all winners, go here.
More About Second.org:
- Video Overview
- Key Features: Online Prayer Room; Class/Group Websites; Streaming Media; Events Calendar; ShareThis; mySBC Life; e-Newsletters; Event and Media RSS Feeds, Completely integrated with Church Membership System
- Features of Group Websites: Events, Evites, File Sharing, Photo Albums, Class Roster, Small Groups, Email Personalization, Leadership Positions, Data Exports.
- Average Monthly Website Traffic/Usage:
- 60,349 Average Visits per Month
- 2,021,790 Average Page Views per Month
- Over 50% of our website’s traffic is attributed to use of group websites
- Average Monthly Emails Sent via Group Websites: 65,955
- 144 of 162 (90%) of Adult Bible Study Classes are using group websites
- Monthly Average Media Consumption:
- 19,684 Videos (Watched Online)
- 12,699 MP3 Down loads
- 4,164 MP4 Video Downloads
- 3,039 Photos Viewed
- 34,138 Podcasts Views
- 4,076 Registered Users
Project Partners: Origin Design (Design, CSS/HTML); RoundedCube (Sitecore CMS Implementation; Google Mini and Social Media Integrations)
