Here’s the link to a brand new Fellowship Technologies tool called Retun on Ministry.

As always, Fellowship Tech turns out valuable and beautiful products to help your church facilitate ministry.   How can you improve what you can’t measure?

More on measuring ministry over the next 10 days but for now type in the name of any church – and check out what happens next on your whiteboard!

HT – Curtis Simmons

Actually, maybe there is a better alternative than Twitter for intra-staff instant communications. Yammer is something to consider if you believe the TechCrunch Top 50 folks know their stuff.  But first a bit of history.

It was somewhere back about 15 years ago that I was on a church staff where the top dozen or so staff members were given cell phones to keep in better touch.  State of the art technology at that time involved walk talkie capabilities.  This feature proved incredibly effective for us since the campus was spread out over quite a few acres.   Furthermore, there were another 15 or 20 additional staff members in the mix so constant communication was necessary to co-ordinate services, events, etc. with up to the minute information.  We didn’t want everyone in on our conversations.  We didn’t want the church listening.  But we did want each of us listening and we wanted instant access to each other.

Fast forward to today.  What’s the most efficient way to accomplish the same thing?  You think I’m gonna say Twitter right?  Actually no, unless everyone locks their profiles and stays off the public timeline.  The newest winner on the “apps to dazzle you” list is Yammer.

Yammer is similar to Twitter; it is an online status updating service.   But Yammer’s distinctive is that it’s intra-organizational.  If you have an email address for any particular business organization (in this case a church) a communication hub can easily be developed around those who share company addresses.  Yes, it’s like a closed circle.  But sometimes, communication should be private.

Plus Yammer can perform tricks.  Can’t remember your youth pastor’s birthday?  It’s in his/her profile, along with other important info that co-workers often need handy access to (like spouse’s names, etc.)   And you can work on projects on Yammer together.  Hashtags (tags for short) are used to signify project names, etc.

I haven’t used Yammer but I do know a couple of early adopting organizations that do.  Fellowship Technologies is using it and Curtis Simmons, Senior VP of Operations, told me he loves the interface.  Additionally, LifeChurch.tv started using it and their Online Community Pastor, Tony Steward, relayed to me they had 50 people using it within the first couple of days of implementation.

If you think such a service might be good for your church, you can watch this simple video clip to preview Yammer.

                                                 image: socialmedia.biz

Kem Meyer, Communications Director at Granger Community Church has been having ongoing conversations with her team about improving the online experience their church delivers.  Recently, Kem posted What we like… a brief list of the things Granger's staff enjoy when visiting a website.

Kem, an insightful communicator and active user of new media, noted that when the staff stepped away from their own church website to discuss what they liked about the websites they visit on a regular basis, they came up with 5 things they like (aka – what they value):

  *  I get to choose what information comes to me and how. (personalization)

  *  I can interact if I WANT to, but I'm not forced to. (interactivity)

  *  I can access it from any computer; public or private. (mobility)

  *  I like the "insider scoop" on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. (user generated)

  *  It's instant. (instantaneous)

I was curious to see if their list paralleled the list I created late last year for the Dynamic Church Conference '08 – Social Media – 10 New Media Values Your Ministry Needs.  Sure enough, of my ten, they listed the five found above.  You can down my list here Download Presentation (PDF).

Although your church website should be well-designed and easy to use, what's as important is that the values it reflects embrace a new communication mindset.  

You can also comment, twitter, ichat or facebook me for more exploration of new media values.

Finally have time to blog my great experience from the Dynamic Church Conference in Dallas recently.  I loved meeting all the Fellowship Technologies staff and was impressed by their mission and strategy to serve churches.  A couple of highlights include hearing the breakout sessions by Terry Storch, Digerati Pastor at LifeChurch.tv and Joe Suh, founder of MyChurch.org. 

Terry spoke on the future of LifeChurch's bleeding edge ministry to the next generation amongst other things which I could hardly wrap my head around. He breezed through pioneer works like internet campuses, metaverse church, YouVersion and OnePrayer and then got into his real passion "what if…"  Absolute inspiration to those of us who envision tomorrow's Church.

And Joe Suh gave an excellent overview of all things social media related.  It was particularly helpful to see the evolution of social media sites and view how rapidly they are establishing new expressions of community.

What a privilege it was for me to speak alongside these experts.  You can get some of our material as PDF downloads at the Dynamic Church Conference site.

And lastly, we got to hear a closing session by Randy Draper whose resources can be found at HeartSpring Media.  Randy is a member of Ed Young's Fellowship Church and is both an excellent story-teller and a passionate communicator.  

Following my time with Fellowship, I got to visit my friends at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship.  But that's another post.

Fellowship Technologies is hosting it's 2nd annual Dynamic Church Conference in about a month.  If you are a church leader who wants to know more about ChMS, learn more about leveraging the power of the internet, networking with partners, etc., please join us in Dallas, May 15 – 17. 

Because there are two Leadership Network Digital contributors on the speaker list, I thought you'd like to know we'll be at the Frisco Convention Center.  We'd love to meet you.  Here's more of what's offered:

    * An pre-conference called 'Power Start' with six different, personalized training classes 
    * 60% more sessions across six different tracks, both Beginner & Advanced user levels
    * Guest speakers include:

            Terry Storch, Digerati Pastor, LifeChurch.tv and YouVersion.com

            Joe Suh, Founder, MyChurch.org

            Cynthia Ware, Pastor, Writer, Blogger, The Digital Sanctuary

    * 50% more hands-on training labs, both Beginner & Advanced
    * Dedicated Q & A – 'Ask the Experts' with Fellowship Technologies staff
    * Free wireless Internet throughout the conference facilities   
    * Free 2 hour live worship concert featuring Lincoln Brewster   
    * And much, much more!