Did you know?

That in 1995 there were approximately 18,000 websites available online and today there are approximately 206,675,000? (statistics from netcraft.com.)

In today’s technically connected society of social networks, blogging sites, video posts, cyber chat, more and more people are relying on the information highway to connect, to find, and to share.

It reminds me of a bible text:

Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

The Internet has become a place to bond and belong.

If that’s where today’s society is at, if that’s where people are going to Ask, Seek and Knock, then we must find ways to connect and provide the information that will Lead them to Jesus.

It’s true that if your church or business is not on the internet, to most people you don’t exist.

That is why, amongst those 200 million websites online today, there is one for your Adventist church and school provided free from the North American Division?

Adventist Church and School Connect

Let me introduce you to the Adventist Church and School Connect content management system.  It is a powerful website management tool that the North American Division is providing free to every Seventh-day Adventist church and school in Bermuda, Canada, and the United States.

The North American Division has contracted AdventSource to provide customer training, support, and marketing for Adventist Church and School Connect for the approximately 3600 church and school websites.

Many people are intimidated by the word “website” because it has gained a reputation from the past as being a complicated and highly technical procedure.  Well, that is not the case anymore.

With ACC’s content management system, you don’t have to know a website programming language like html or php to add content and photos to your website.  You can edit pages as you would in a word processor similar to Microsoft Word.

Denis Prescott, a member of the Merritt Seventh-day Adventist Church, has been maintaining his church’s ACC website for four years.  I recently spoke to Denis about his experience and thoughts regarding the ACC platform and this is what he said, “The ease of adding and or editing information makes for an awesome tool”.

Adventist Church Connect Features

There are many useful features available with ACC websites such as:

• Built-in member, author, editor and administrator user levels.
• Prayer request feature allows site visitors to submit prayer requests.
• Dynamic RSS content such as daily devotionals.
• Calendar allows departments to enter and categorize their own events.
• Adventist Church News from the North American Division, Adventist News Network, and Adventist Review.

Next month, I will go into more detail regarding my opinion of the most useful ACC features and share with you some examples.

With the rapid increase of mobile Internet devices, it is important that these devices can process and display your church website content.  That is why all ACC websites are now mobile device friendly.  When a mobile device accesses an ACC website, a custom mobile template is activated with the content and sent to the mobile display.

Signing up for an Adventist Church Connect Website

To sign your church up for an ACC website, visit http://www.adventistchurchconnect.org/signup.php and for school’s visit http://www.adventistschoolconnect.org/signup.php.

Adventist Church Connect Support

Remember, you are not alone when it comes to maintaining an ACC website. AdventSource provides training and support free of charge.

There are many helpful resources available on the ACC help website such as: live online video training, archived video tutorials, information about local training events, e-mail support, and step-by-step how to guides.   The help website is located at http://help.adventistchurchconnect.com.

More Information

For more information about Adventist Church Connect visit http://adventistchurchconnect.com.