Why Mobile Technologies Will Force Churches to Change

There have only been a handful of technologies that fundamentally changed how churches function on a day-to-day basis: Electricity, Central A/C & Heat, Telephones, the Internet, Email and, most recently, mobile technologies. I believe that mobile technologies will eventually force churches to change from a “come to us on our terms and our location” mindset to one that says “we’re available to meet you wherever you are”. In order to help churches embrace this change, I’ve outlined some of the reasons why I believe this change is coming – and coming faster than most realize.

More Than a Phone

Some would argue that mobile- and smart-phones are merely an extension of the telephone, but I believe the familiarity of the phone aspects cloud the bigger, and inherently better, value of mobile technology. A telephone was only ever a phone, though it did act as a transport medium for faxes and dial-up Internet connections.

Mobile devices, on the other hand, have redefined nearly every communication and transactional interaction of our lives.

The research firm comScore released their 2010 Mobile Year in Review report and revealed some very interesting and telling trends that, I believe, will bring a tidal wave of change upon nearly every local church. The report highlighted the increasing functionality in mobile phones. One of the fastest-growing uses of mobile devices? Online banking & online giving. “The U.S. mobile market displayed the most mature mobile banking market reaching 11.4% of mobile users,” cited the report. In addition, mobile wallet capabilities – using mobile phones in place of debit or credit cards for in-person purchases – are beginning to come onto the scene. The report cited the example of Starbucks, which, in early 2011, announced that “customers in thousands of locations can pay for items with their phones via an application that can be scanned across a reader at check out.”

People are using the near-constant availability of their mobile devices to connect and share instantly; a facet of digital life that the local church must embrace.

For example, 24.7% of U.S. mobile users access social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device, showing the continued rise of online connectivity. With 93% penetration in the U.S., mobile reach has connected the vast majority of Americans, with 2.26 trillion (yep, with a ‘t’) minutes of cell phone calls logged and 1.81 trillion text messages sent in 2010 alone. Further, 24.5% of U.S. households are now wireless-only.

This kind of saturation leads to one obvious conclusion: we have the ability to find, connect, communicate, share and purchase from anywhere at anytime.

Mobile Usage Intersects with Life in Churches

As mobile devices continue to sell at unprecedented rates, the increasing usage to an ever-widening user group has certain categories showing massive double-digit growth.

In the not-too-distant past, churches could pretty much get by with a “build-it-and-they-will-come” mentality. Today, churches can’t assume their venues, activities and events will be the hub of people’s spiritual lives. Remember when:

• New to town & looking for a church? Go to the street with all the church signs & try one.
• Want to share life with those who share your belief? Join a church Bible study class or small group.
• Need to tithe? Drop it in the offering plate at church.
• Desire to be in a mid-week discipleship class? Go to church.
• Need to share a prayer request? Go to church & post it on the prayer wall or meet with a pastor.
• Want to serve in a community outreach event? Go to church and sign up (on a piece of paper).

Today, every single one of those can be done through online technologies, all of which can be accessed on a mobile device. It is because of this near-limitless functionality, and the fact that it’s almost always on their body, that people are finding so many ways to use their mobile devices. Take a look at the top mobile activities over just a three month average:

What’s more, social media continues to expand into a larger audience, fueled by the handy accessibility of their connected mobile devices. The number of U.S. users accessing the Facebook site via mobile reached roughly 44 million as of December 2010, while YouTube and Twitter held the second and third position in the U.S., growing 74% and 71%, respectively.

Mobile is Now, Churches

In much the same way that building a website was a critical component for churches in the 1990′s, developing and using mobile applications will be one of the biggest needs (and challenges) for local churches. In fact, starting with a new website design today is probably a great starting point, as a mobile version of the site not only makes viewing it on a mobile device easier to read, the site navigation decisions that drive mobile design are excellent ways to trim the fat off of church websites.

Other mobile applications are readily available, many of them free, for churches to equip their staff & members. Some of my favorites include:

• YouVersion
• TruthCasting
• Planning Center Online
• F1Touch (iPhone version)
• Foursquare
• Facebook
• Twitter

Mobile will continue to grow and make church attendees more acutely aware of how much your churches does NOT have available (or at least visible). In time, I believe that mobile technology will be leveraged to make some percent of a church’s experience location independent. Anytime, anywhere is where people’s lives are moving and church should be an active, mobile part of life.

Do you think churches will change because they want to or because they’ll have to?

* Sources include CITA & comScore

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Predicting Church Trends: Pastor of Social & Digital Communications

I don’t normally make predictions, but this is one I see coming like the light of a freight train in a tunnel. I believe that there will be a need (and eventually a demand) for a Pastor of Social & Digital Communications.

I’m not putting any bets on when churches will make this move, but when church leaders realize that social media isn’t a fad but instead a fundamental shift in interpersonal communications, the need for such a position will become apparent. Ironically, I believe that churches have a significant leg-up on just about every other social media market due to the fact that there have been the core makeup of social media segments in churches for thousands of years. Said another way, churches already have multiple small groups of people with similar or same affinities, needs and goals. The church social network existed long before it was made real-time anytime, anywhere by digital technologies.

What Defines A Pastor of Social & Digital Communications?

In my opinion, it’s more than a job description (though that’s helpful to a point), the position is a reflection of the unique DNA and needs of a church in context to their local and glocal (globally local; time and venue are almost entirely irrelevant on the Internet) communities.

Update: I don’t believe this will be the same as the current role of an Internet Pastor, which I believe is more similar to today’s multi-site campus pastor. Also, after additional consideration, I don’t think this will be a position at small or possibly even medium sized churches. To take a guess towards the future, I’d say this position might be more oriented towards the Communication team with a pastoral bent.

If a church is a focused on outreach through projects, social justice and equipping, I believe the role of an SDC pastor (Social & Digital Communications) will largely be around coordinating online event registration, making community connections and helping organizing logistics.

I also believe the same position at a church that’s more discipleship focused will most likely have more of their time coordinating between ministry leaders to ensure the left hand knows what the right hand is doing and working with a robust database of church members, attendees and community leaders & organizations to help raise awareness, make personal connections to the right leaders and managing multiple channels of information dissemination and communication.

Understanding Channels & Communication Mediums

Because this role has an emphasis on social media and Internet technologies, it most likely prove necessary for this staff position to have a strong communications background, leveraging social monitoring tools and clearly understanding demographics. Though the term “targeted demographics” sounds like pure marketing speak, what it represents is a truth in every church and organization:

The need to get the right information to the right people at the right time in the right way or ways.

Churches deal with this week in and week out today…

• Making phone calls to senior adults
• Sending postcards to first-time visitors
• Sending HTML-rich emails to Gen X’ers
• Sending SMS text messages to Gen Y’ers
• Sending a combination of emails, postcards and personal phone calls for people who miss serving or attending (such as children’s classes)

The Matrix of Social & Digital

These channels of communication must be managed through a matrix of frequency, demographic, medium and priority.

Frequency is how often a need, activity, event or opportunity occurs. It also must represent the number of times the message is communicated across different mediums with different content.

Demographic is the target group, from church wide all the way down to an individual. Sub-demographics are the methods for slicing up a target group (young adults) into other, more specific parameters (single, married, attends X-often, has not attended since Y, has or has not served in a similar activity in the past or has signaled an interest that is saved to their profile (an attribute such as “like volunteering with other kids” or “wants to serve with other single mothers”).

Medium is the kind of content and the distribution channel for the medium. From video to email to text message to Facebook to Twitter to phone calls, defining the technology/vehicle options that best reach a certain people group(s), the content can be customized and delivered at the right time to the right people.

Priority defines the urgency of the information and the authority to remove, replace or reschedule other communication and/or engagement.

Is This Really A Dedicated Person?

Why I think this will become a common new position is the combination of talents, technology integration, leadership and interpersonal relationship capacity. While I do believe certain staff members may be able to “double up” on some of these roles today, I also believe that the velocity of change in technology combined with the need for near real-time communication will require a dedicated person who can meet the unique requirements of this role.

So, what do you think? Am I too early on this prediction? Are most churches so far behind the culture and technology curves to make this any kind of near-term need? Share your thoughts and speak into my prognostication.

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A Vision for Technical Arts

“How much budget do we need for ‘X’?” or “We have ‘X’ budget, what technology do you recommend?” or, my least favorite, “We need to set a budget for our Tech Arts. What’s a good amount?”

I hear these question from well-meaning people who are looking for a solution. Their hearts are in the right place, but their thinking needs some adjustment. Here’s my answer for all of those questions:

Vision drives Need. Need drives Technology. Technology drives budget.

Said another way, when you know what you are called to do, then the need of what it takes to accomplish that vision is defined. Accomplishing it means that a certain level of technology and methodology is required. That technology will have a price tag. Those prices will then determine the overall cost.

That’s called budgeting. When we flip this upside-down and come with a certain amount of money in hand, we can never know if we’re over- or under-budget because the vision has not been cast.

Budgeting Without A Vision

Creatives, techies and artists sometimes have an idea that we think will fit into the overall mission of the church, but our pastor has not expressed an interest in it. Or, it could mean that a tech director is in a church where the vision for tech is limited to supporting other ministries or only executing the technology for weekend services. Either way, the desire to do more or better is real, but the funds are not. So, how do you get budget to be more effective?

First, don’t start with the assumption that you need more equipment. Being a good steward of what you currently have is a clear indicator of someone who will maximize before they spend. While there’s nothing wrong with adding equipment as needed, the danger of more is that it never stops. Different is often a better solution than simply adding more.

The Proposal

Part of your job is to find ways to solve problems, create efficiencies and increase consistency. You can accomplish this most effectively when you document issues. When you do, you’ll be able to write up a non-technical scope of work (a.k.a. – the ‘Proposal’). Here’s what the proposal should include:

• Define the opportunity.
• Explain (briefly) the value and set the budget options (and always include more than one option!).
• Write this up in a proposal format that is easy to read and quick to identify value without ANY technical knowledge.
• Your job is to present ideas, concepts and, most importantly, solutions to the leadership so they see you adding value and not just spending money.

Helping to shape the vision is OK; hijacking your church leaderships’ vision to get gear is not OK.

Carve out a few hours each week to document needs, find creative solutions and pour ideas into thought-buckets, saving it for use later on. One day, your time will pay off as you pull together your ideas and create proposals for making incremental, consistent changes. Of course, staying true to the church culture and honoring your leaders is also part of the process.

There’s actually much more to be said about the value and rewards of being a faithful steward; often these slow momentum-builders are the fuel you need to spark a new idea and earn credibility with your leadership.

Casting vision, catching vision and executing on vision is an important role for every church Tech Arts leader. If you’ve got a story to share about your experience with vision (or a lack thereof), feel free to comment below.

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