This Article is printed in the October/November 2011 edition of the Adventist Messenger.

This month we are going to look at tips and tools for building an effective Internet ministry team. To address these topics, I recently spoke with Lonny Nelson, support staff for Adventist Church and School Connect (ACC). He shared some important things you should know about Internet ministry.

A misconception about Internet ministry is that you have to know a website programming language, such as HTML or PHP, to be involved. That is not the case at all. New website technology available to churches today, such as the ACC content management system, allows for quick and easy publishing with very little technical experience. If you can send an email or type a letter on the computer, you already have the knowledge needed to update your local church website.

Nelson says the first step in starting a local Internet ministry at your church is to identify a committed lead person-who is also a good listener-to direct your team.

The youth of your church are a great resource and asset to this type of ministry. Often they are tech savvy and able to commit the time and energy to do a great job.

Your team could include photography enthusiasts to capture great photos for the website, writers and text editors to produce great content, as well as graphic designers, an audio/visual team to add media, and many others. Your audio/visual team, for instance, will be instrumental in hosting videos online. Nelson says the best tool for this is Vimeo because it allows you to embed videos right in the church’s website.

The next thing to consider when you have one or more people involved in an Internet ministry at your local church is the audience you are connecting with. Nelson suggests that there are three important audiences to keep in mind.

The first and most obvious audience is your local church members. Nelson says an Internet ministry team can “supply the members with dates and information online to help the church programs run more smoothly.”

The second audience is the surrounding local community, which your church should, no doubt, be praying and working to reach. “Anything that we can do that can be opened up to the community should be on the website,” says Nelson. He suggests that the home page of your church website be used to display the latest information and upcoming events because it is the first contact many will have with your church: “If you can put something in front of them that is news and interesting to them, they might bite at it.” He also suggests that each website have an up-to-date, well-organized and displayed visitor page that details information about your church environment and culture.

The third audience to be mindful of are the people around the world who may stumble upon your website in the quest for truth. Search engines have bridged the gap between you and any location on the globe, making it easier for people to find God.

Nelson also says, “everyone on the Internet ministry team needs to be thinking about how to get the information out.” Remember that people may not necessarily be visiting the church website; they may be going to the church’s Facebook page, Twitter account or other online source instead. Your local ACC website has integrated a system that allows for a quick and easy way to push out the latest website content to a Facebook page or Twitter feed. Displaying familiar social media icons – such as “visit us on Facebook” and “follow us on Twitter” – on your home page visually grabs people’s attention and provides multiple opportunities to connect.

I want to leave you with this thought: “You will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world” (Acts 1:8, The Message). May God bless you as you continue to discover avenues to reach souls for Christ.

This Article is printed in the September 2011 edition of the Adventist Messenger.

It started when word got out that the Japanese government was planning a huge science experiment that involved killing 50 humpback whales in the Southern Ocean, studying them and then selling their meat. When Greenpeace heard about this, they were irate and decided to hold a poll to name a specific humpback whale and raise awareness of this predicament.

Social media giants such as Digg, Reddit and Facebook got hold of this story and started promoting it on their websites, which literally spread the news from one end of the globe to the other.  In turn traditional news agencies started airing the story on local TV stations worldwide.  People responded to the Greenpeace name poll, and after receiving over 150,000 responses, the name “Mister Splashy Pants” was the winner.

The slogan, “Save Mister Splashy Pants” rang out as people displayed signs and logos, wore printed t-shirts and created website flash videos that put a face to the name and created a very famous whale.

The worldwide publicity regarding the future for “Mister Splashy Pants” got the attention of the Japanese government and they decided to scrap their previous plans, which in turn allowed for the safe journey of “Mister Splashy Pants” and his friends across the Ocean.

What a great story and one that demonstrates the power of the internet.

A quick search on Google will confirm my previous prediction about the Internet and reveal that you and I and approximately 2 billion other people have caught on.  Even more, experts are predicting approximately 3 to 4 billion active Internet users worldwide in 2 to 3 more years.

Did you know that approximately 80% of the population in Canada and the United States are active users of the Internet?  We have gotten so use to the always connected, always available attributes of the Internet that it has become an extension of our brains.  More and more people are experiencing what I call Internet Withdrawal Anxiety when they are not able to connect online.

I want to share with you a quotation I found recently, “”More of us are using the web regularly, most especially the over-45 set. Email is far from dead, and the top search on-line is for health info…” May 2010, Professor Matrix (Queen’s University, Ontario).

It’s interesting that the above statement mentions the top internet search being health related information.  People want to know how to live healthier live styles – how to eat healthier, how to live longer – and they are going to the Internet to find answers to their questions.  Do you have a health related ministry in your church?  If so, is that information on a website so it can be found by those searching in your local community?

Let me tell you a well-known fact; if your church or ministry does not have an active, up to date website, to the rest of the world it is as if you don’t exist.  That’s the digital mobile reality we live in.  No other option to get off the digital train; in fact, it is not going to be slowing down anytime soon, so we must make the best of it.

I am reminded of a bible text that says, 1 Chronicles 12:32 that says, “from Issachar, men who understood the times and know what Israel should do…”  I think this bible text is very relevant to us today because the more we can understand about the digital reality we live in, the more effective we can be today and the more prepared we are for the future.

There are many reasons for an internet ministry in your local church, and next month I will share with you, from a conversation I had with Lonny Nelson, support staff for ACC, some useful tips on how to start an effective internet ministry and some online tools for connecting with your local community.   For past articles, check out my website, http://www.mcquesview.com.

This Article is printed in the JulyAugust 2011 edition of the Adventist Messenger.

The Seventh-day Adventist church has always been on the cutting edge of technology.  When radio began in the early 1900’s, the Adventist church was there producing religious programing with H.M.S. Richards on the Voice of Prophecy. When TV began in the 1940′s, the Adventist church was there producing the first religious programing in color with William Fagal on “Faith for Today”.  Back during the Milleriate movement, Joshua Himes used technology in the form of charts and print media so effectively that people begin calling him “the Napoleon of the press”.

While attending Camp Meeting this July in the BC Conference, I had the privilege of talking with a pastor who, just like Joshua Himes, is on the cutting edge of technology.  Michael Campbell, lead pastor of the Wichita Seventh-day Adventist Church, uses many forms of technology to communicate, share and interact with the congregation on a daily basis.  He describes technology as a tool that multiplies his efforts to build community.

“I made a commitment to the church on my first Sabbath to communicate”, says Campbell, and he is aggressively following through with that commitment.  On that first Sabbath, he asked members for their name, phone number and email address. Within a month, he collected approximately 90% of the congregations emails.

With that newly created list of emails, Campbell started sending out a weekly email newsletter that He describes as “one of the easiest, simplest ways to communicate”.

Campbell says one of the challenges he faces is how to meet the needs of the younger generation.  He found that one of the best ways to do that is to engage them through another technology; texting.  He regularly sends out text messages to individuals he did not see in church telling them that he missed them and hopes everything is going well.  “It makes people feel more connected,” says Campbell.

During a sermon about Zacchaeus, the Tax Collector, he asked the congregation, “what would you do if Jesus came to your house today?”  He put his cell phone number up on the screen and asked people to respond by texting their answers.  He received about 30 responses including one from a 13 year old who said he would clean up his room and then bring Jesus in, make a root beer float and sit down to talk with Jesus about his spiritual life.  On the way out of church he gave Campbell a high five.

“It was amazing to see people sitting forward, engaged and listening intently because they had contributed something to the sermon”, says Campbell.

Another cutting edge technology that Campbell has used during his sermon is a live poll.   He displayed a question with multiple answers on the screen and had people text in their votes. “Texting provides a dynamic environment to engage the congregation with the church service,” he says.

The Wichita South Church actively uses social media.  In fact, they have a church position called, Facebook Coordinator.  Campbell says Facebook is a communication tool that his church regularly uses to send out notices of events and invites.  He says it serves as a gentle reminder of what is going on and gives people an opportunity to respond to the invitation.  Also, it gives you an idea of how many people are planning to attend the event.  “We also use Facebook to post sermon topics, ask a question or get feedback from people,” he says.

The Wichita South Church also uses the social medium called Foursquare for members to check in at church.  It acts as an online attendance tracker.  People can check in at the keyaus in the lobby or on a mobile phone.  The names of those who took the time to check in go into a draw for a price at the end of the service.

Campbell tells me they are currently working on a new design for the church website as well as an iphone app in the near future.

“God has used technology in the past, I’ve seen it. And He will continue to use it in the future,” says Campbell.

For more information about the Wichita South Seventh-day Adventist Church or to contact Pastor Campbell, visit their website at http://www.wichitaadventist.org.

This Article is printed in the MayJune 2011 edition of the Adventist Messenger.

Did you know, approximately 925 million people on planet earth will go to bed hungry tonight?  And, every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That’s one child every five seconds!

Wikipedia describes poverty as, “the lack of basic human needs, such as clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter, because of the inability to afford them.”

Poverty is a rising concern that prevents many people from having the basic needs for life that you and I living in Canada, everyday take for granted.

Instead of just talking about poverty, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), the worldwide agency of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for humanitarian outreach, relief and development, is hard at work to help combat its deadly effects on our society.

The story of ADRA begins shortly after the Second World War when the Church established the Seventh-day Adventist Welfare Service (SAWS).  To reflect its worldwide involvement, in 1973 its name changed to the Seventh-day Adventist World Service and then in the early 1980’s the familiar name ADRA was adopted.

Pastor James Astleford, Donor Relations Director for ADRA Canada, told me that in the early 1980’s the Adventist church realized they needed to do more then just hand out “fish to the hungry”, they needed to be teaching people how to “fish so that they could feed themselves for a life time”.  This concept led not only to a name change in 1984, but also to a philosophy change focused on helping people beyond the immediate needs of the day.

The ADRA mission is to “work with people in poverty and distress to create just and positive change through empowering partnerships and responsible action.” In 1985, a year after the reorganization of ADRA International, ADRA Canada was formed and it is currently part of the network improving lives in 120 countries.

In its day–to-day operations, ADRA Canada uses many types of technology to connect and share with people the needs of a world in poverty.

For the past 22 years, ADRA Canada has been sending out video presentations to every church in the Canadian Union.  Originally, these were sent out on VHS tapes, and currently are sent out on DVD, two to three times a year.  These video presentations are an excellent tool for educating each congregation to the life-changing stories of ADRA’s development and relief efforts.  Besides being available on DVD, the video presentations are also made available online through YouTube and the ADRA Canada website at http://www.adra.ca.    James Astleford told me that ADRA Canada is working on integrating a dedicated video platform with their current website that will allow for HD content and an overall enhanced video viewing experience.

Also, in utilizing the technology of video, It is Written Canada recently aired three programs with interviews of Pastor Ronald Kuhn, Executive Director for ADRA Canada and Pastor James Astleford.  And, to aid awareness of the work of ADRA Canada, a short video clip was regularly aired on CTV during the Japan disaster.

Alicia Sawyer, Donor Relations Assistant for ADRA Canada, said that ADRA Canada is currently connecting with people through the online technology of social media including Facebook (ADRA Canada) and Twitter (@adracanada).  “Social media are great ways to get immediate information and inspirational stories out to people”, said Alicia, who is hoping for many new connections to build a greater awareness of ADRA Canada.

ADRA Canada’s eNews (email newsletter), generates many responses from the approximately 6,000 subscribers.  James Astleford said,  “people are quick to respond to requests for immediate financial aide from the eNews stories relating to current disasters such as the Japan Earthquake”.   A growing number of ADRA Canada’s supporters are now donating online rather then through their local church. (Provided donors identify their membership, such contributions still count towards the local church goal.)

As ADRA Canada continues to stay on the cutting edge of technology, it is currently exploring some very exciting technological initiatives for the future.  I am told that text donations may soon be an option for donors and the idea of mobile apps is being explored for iPhone and android devices.

For those who want to learn first hand how ADRA Canada is transforming lives, ADRA Canada has launched a new initiative called, ADRA Connections that Pastor James Astleford describes as, “putting Canadians in direct touch with the activities of ADRA Canada”.   Elizabeth Horniachek, ADRA Connections Coordinator, told me that people are positive about the program and are very excited about getting “hands-on” with ADRA Canada.

I look forward to the day Jesus talked about in Revelation 7, “They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore;… and God will wipe every tear from their eyes”.  Please continue to do your part in the battle against poverty so that Jesus can say, “Well done good and faithful servant.  Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me”.  Help ADRA Canada save lives.

This Article is printed in the April 2011 edition of the Adventist Messenger.

Online Technology has not only transformed the way we interact, it has become a vital link to a connection we take for granted.    So much of what we do today is dependent on the internet.

In 2002, the North American Division launched an online membership management tool called eAdventist.net.  It was first made available for testing by the conferences of the North Pacific Union.  Shortly after, eAdventist demo accounts were made available to all conferences throughout the North American Division.

During this time, the British Columbia Conference was the first in Canada to come on board with this new technology.  Since 2008, all 58 conferences in North America have transitioned their membership records to eAdventist, and there are now 6000 users, including church clerks and pastors.

To find out more about this online technology, I recently spoke with Brian Ford, Assistant director for IT in the North American Division and Director for the eAdventist team of three individuals, including Rob Garvin and Sherri Ingram-Hudgins.

Brian told me that eAdventist is not only an online membership management tool that can be accessed from anywhere there is an internet connection, but is also a social network type of support system for clerks that has “bridged gaps from the division right down to the church level”.

The conference clerk can answer questions and mentor local church clerks online without having to travel to their district.  “A Phone call and an internet connection and you’re good”, Brian said.

eAdventist provides many different reports for the local church clerk and pastor to view, such as: current membership, family groups or even a birthday list.  Available to the public without accounts is a tool called, “eAdventist Search”.   It is a complete organizational directory of all the conferences, churches and schools of the North America Division and can be embedded into any website.

Esther Kuppers, the clerk for the British Columbia Conference, said, “eAdventist gives us much more accurate information to report throughout the conference.  It assists us with decision making as well.”  Esther also likes how this system is virtually paperless and that many local church clerks treat this as an important ministry.

Brian says the majority of the church clerks are very positive about eAdventist and have a willingness to learn.   One example he shared was about an 80 year old clerk who bought herself a computer for the first time in her life and hooked it up to the internet for the eAdventist system.

She said, “this sounds really good, what kind of computer can I get?”  eAdventist told her that she did not necessarily have to do this herself.  She could mentor a young assistant and have them take care of the online management.  She responded by saying, “Oh No, I want to try this”.

Brian shared an interesting story about a clerk in Savoonga Alaska, located on an island in the Bering Sea.  The clerk was very excited about eAdventist because the postal service to them was very slow and this would speed up the transfer process.  “Remote clerks were suddenly feeling connected and able to move things much faster then before.”, said Brian.

The eAdvenist database of membership information is being used by many conferences throughout North America to print their directories.  Also, every Union Conference in North America, with the exception of the Canadian Union, now mails their paper off the eAdventist membership list.  Crystal Steeves, the editor for the Canadian Union magizine told me the eAdventist list is being seriously considered for their future mailings.

You may wonder about the security and privacy of having this type of information online. To address this concern, Brian said the North American Division takes the security and privacy of the membership very seriously.  All personal information is password protected and eAdventist is using the same online security that banks use. “Security is our number one priority”, Brian said.

In fact, the membership information is more secure and private now then when it was stored in file folders and personal computer systems at someone’s home.  Since everything is backed up on the eAdventist server, “there is continuity in a way that there never was before”, said Brian, preventing hard drive crashes or the loss of file folders and information.

I asked Brian about future plans for eAdventist and he told me that they want to raise pastor awareness and are working on adding tools that pastors and churches can use.  A mobile app for pastors and the public is in the works for the near future.  “You might see it before the year is over”, he said.

4QAL11 The First Christmas Song from Sabbath School on Vimeo.

4QAL10 The First Christmas from Sabbath School on Vimeo.

4QAL09 The Big, Big, Tree from Sabbath School on Vimeo.

4QAL08 The Naughty Son from Sabbath School on Vimeo.

4QAL06 The Lost Sheep from Sabbath School on Vimeo.

Putting Love Into Action
- Part 2

Putting Love Into Action
- Part 3

This Article is printed in the March 2011 edition of the Adventist Messenger.

In the last issue (click to view Five Free Online Tools for Ministry Part 1), I began sharing five extremely useful and powerful online tools that can help you more effectively manage your work, church, ministry and life in 2011.  And, the best part about these online resources is that they are all absolutely free.  In Part One of this article, I featured two of the five tools: Google Docs and Dropbox.  Here are the remaining three: Facebook, Bible Gateway and Picnik.

Facebook:

I am confident that most of you have heard of the social networking website called Facebook (http://www.facebook.com).  What you may not know is that as of February 2011, Facebook has approximately 600 million active users, more than 6 million page views per minute (37.4 trillion per year), 2.5 billion images uploaded every month, and 46.2 years of YouTube videos watched on Facebook each day.

Personally I am not a huge fan of a few things about Facebook, one being the many hours of time people waste on it.  However, it is obvious that Facebook is very popular.   And it does provide an excellent resource for connecting with people and sharing information online.

One of Facebook’s features is the ability to create “pages” and “groups”.  In order to create a page or group, you first need to be a registered Facebook user.

The finer details of pages and groups are beyond the scope of this article, but I will say that they both provide the ability to connect, share and even collaborate on a topic or idea with other Facebook users.   Overall each allow the administrator to send mass emails and publish news/information to it’s connected members.  Groups provide a few options that pages don’t: event inbox messaging and the ability to restrict access.

By creating Facebook groups and pages, churches can do things like send out event reminders, share photos, present and answer questions about God, share related websites or video links, or respond to prayer requests, just to mention a few.

BibleGateway.com

BibleGateway.com (http://www.biblegateway.com) is currently owned by Zondervan and is a free online service for reading and researching Scripture.

Whether you want to look up a Bible passage, search a keyword or topic, Bible Gateway makes it easy and quick.  With a searchable online Bible in over 100 versions and 50 languages, there are plenty of translations to choose from and compare.  Also available online are multiple bible reading plans that send a daily email with a link to your daily Scripture reading, six English versions of the Bible in audio, Bible dictionaries and devotional content.

I use Bible Gateway to read and compare texts when preparing sermons or devotionals each week.  Another thing I enjoy about Bible Gateway is the mobile Bible Gateway version which provides a mobile-friendly web experience on my iphone.

Picnik

A question that many people ask me is, “How do I crop and resize my photos for email?” Well, the first thing I ask in response is, “What operating system are you using?” Their answer to that question has a lot to do with my response.

On Microsoft Windows you could use ImageResizer or Paint, on Mac OS X, you could use Preview or iphoto.  And of course there is the over priced and extremely complicated Adobe Photoshop.

Well, last on our list of great free online tools will solve the problem of image editing and what operating system you do or don’t have.  Picnik (http://www.picnik.com) is a free online photo editing service purchased last year by Google.  No registration or download is required to start using it.  Picnik works through your computers web browser on any operating system (Mac, Windows, and Linux).

Picnik allows you to grab your photos from many online photo storage sites like Flickr and Facebook or upload directly from your computer.   Once a photo is loaded into the online system, you can crop, resize, and rotate your photos in real-time.  Also, fix blemishes and change colour with the help of special effects and advanced controls.

Picnik is a great service to resize photos for your church website or to do some touch-ups and adjustments for the church newsletter.

There are, of course, many other online tools that are both very useful and free.  Don’t be afraid to explore them and discover how they might benefit you.  And always be prepared that new, better resources may arise overnight and change how we do things hopefully with even greater efficiency and ease.