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.

“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.

“How do I get more budget for technology we need?” is a question I get from church tech arts leaders. My answer includes ways to budget but also shines a light onto an area most haven’t considered as being part of the budgeting equation: cleanliness.

Maybe this scenario will hit close to home:

White sugar donut powder coats EQ knobs. Coffee cup rings leave sticky circles next to equipment. Cables are left strewn on any nearby horizontal surface. Labels are mysteriously missing from most connectors. Dust is layered on top of equipment and clogs the filters and fans of electronics. In short: it’s a mess.

Maybe it’s because media people would rather plug in cables than label them, or maybe it’s that we have a tendency to do things quickly to “make it work” but don’t take the time to “make it right”. I’m not sure there’s a singular reason, but many churches tech areas are very messy.

I can tell you what not to do because I, too, have been guilty of letting the tyranny of the urgent keep me from taking the time to organize and clean. I also want to share what has worked and how you can learn from those experiences as well.

You have not because you clean not

OK, that’s not exactly what John 16:24 says, but I’m convinced that tech arts sometimes don’t get new equipment because the leadership doesn’t see them taking care of what they currently own.

When I first started at my third church staff position, I inherited a young assistant named Daniel. This quiet young man and I had spent less than a week together before I had to leave and teach at a conference. Before departing, I had toured the entire campus and looked at everything (Audio/Video/Lighting) that we were responsible for and had made the announcement that we were going to clean up and organize those areas. My rationale was for three reasons:

1) I was new to the church and wanted to have a complete inventory list of every piece of equipment;
2) I wanted each tech area to be organized so we could easily operate and repair the equipment;
3) I knew that the business administrator and executive pastor would appreciate our new list for both insurance purposes and for a fresh start towards excellence in our ministry.

Daniel took the lead and pulled together staff and volunteers to do some major cleaning, organization and labeling. When I returned four days later, he and his team had it completed!

Now beyond the moral of the story (get it done and do it right) is a great ending: when I was able to show the church leadership what equipment we could re-use and what needed replacing (instead of expensive repair for outdated items), getting a P.O. signed for needed upgrades was a piece of cake!

Your leadership wants you to have the right tools

I know some of you wont believe that statement, but I submit that if you show that you’re using what you have to the best of your ability and you research and document the cost for replacement vs. repair, the money will show up.

People don’t give money to need – they give money to vision.

When you show that you’re taking responsibility for what you do have and you create a vision for what should be, people and resources will show up. Every time.

Get it right. Keep it right.

There are plenty of reasons to not spend time cleaning, organizing and documenting:

• It’s a daunting task to chase cables (hundreds of them), test them and label them. All of them.
• It’s not quick or easy to create start-up and shutdown checklists for every position in every venue.
• It’s hard to change sloppy habits.
• It’s hard to take time to do the detail work when “urgent” things are keeping you busy.
• It’s not fun (at least to me) to clean.

However, we’re not being honest with our leadership when we ask for upgrades or new equipment if we’re not being good stewards of what we currently oversee.

There is a Biblical principle behind this helpful admonishment:

Luke 16:10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

I hope you are encouraged to look at all of the technical systems you oversee. Will you be trustworthy with what you have so you can be trusted with more?

For further encouragement, check out the before and after pictures from Mike Sessler and read his blog post about this project.

From the Winter 2011 issue of MinistryToday Magazine, pp 88

Ministry and community are a huge part of what the local church is and should be about. But in the age of the multicampus megachurch, how can the pastors, church staff and members realistically maintain authentic community and effectively minister to thousands of members?

If you’re in a church of 200 to 500 people and John Doe (one of 15 volunteers on Sunday morning) doesn’t show up for his shift of handing out bulletins and welcoming people, chances are that someone knows why he isn’t there. This is because in smaller congregations, personal connections happen organically due to family ties, long-standing friendships and social interaction inside and outside the church.

Now, if the same situation arises in a church of 1,500 or 15,000 attendees, it becomes much more difficult to maintain that personal level of ministry. If John Doe (now one of 200 volunteers on Sunday morning) doesn’t show up for his shift, it becomes much less likely that his absence will be noticed – and knowing the reason for his absence becomes even less likely.

A personal level of ministry is just as important to Christians attending megachurches as it is to those who go to smaller churches. The challenge is attaining essential information in order to be able to effectively implement personal ministry. With such high volumes of attendance, it’s imperative to be extremely intentional about making personal connections.

This is where church management software, such as Fellowship One comes into play. It is possible to have the same level of personal ministry in large churches as it is in small ones. As membership numbers grow, this ministry-facilitating software allows church staff to know who in their congregation needs help and how to help them.

Something as simple as each of our ministries keeping current information about their connections with people translates into key moments of ministry. Essentially, a small amount of organizational effort yields vast opportunities to serve people, create community and provide personal ministry.

For example, with good church management software, you can use digital check-in for children and adult activities, so tracking attendance is automated, allowing staff to provide follow-up for those who attended and for those who didn’t. This intentionality allows your leaders to know how someone is involved within your church and proactively reach out to those who may have missed as a way to make sure everything is OK. This data gives staff the ability to identify trends that may be early indicators of trouble and reach out to a family and try to meet a need.

I’m sure some readers will bristle as the mere mention of “software” in churches. Because after all, you’re a church, not a corporation, right? Your goal is helping people; not spending money on computer programs.

But think of this: A program such as Fellowship One allows church leadership to access real-time reports that provide detailed analysis of how each ministry interacts with their volunteers and people in their span of care. The numbers and data you get aren’t numbers for the sake of numbers. Each number and piece of data represents a ministry opportunity.

“What pastors need to see past is the idea that this cold piece of software is standing between them and doing ministry,” says Allan Kelsey, pastor of staff development at Gateway Church. “A program like Fellowship One is a partner who, when you include it in what you’re doing, will feed you what you need to effectively do ministry.”

From targeted email communication to volunteer management and following up with first-time visitors, you can place a premium on having as many touch-points as possible in an effort to connect with people and provide timely, pertinent information and personalized care.

This kind of sophisticated software will keep you from missing ministry opportunities and give you the ability within your church to make sure you can give a name to each “John Doe” as well as ensure that he feels at home, valued and care for.

(Disclaimer: I wrote this article at the request of Gateway Church, where I attend and serve, for MinistryToday Magazine. Also, I work for Fellowship Technologies, makers of Fellowship One, which Gateway Church uses as their church management software.)

When did being state-of-the-art become a priority for churches? It’s something I’ve wondered when I receive questions like the one below from church techies:

“The Lord has placed me in a church that is starting a new building with 300 seats. I’m a self-taught tech guy and am all they have. Pastor and I share a vision for state-of-the-art. Help!?”

You know, this is actually not an uncommon question for me to get from churches that see other (usually large) churches doing “state-of-the-art” and want to follow suit. It’s natural to want to use the best technology to achieve amazing results. That being the case, I thought I’d tackle this question with relevant, practical advice.

Before you go state-of-the-art, know the state-of-your-art.

Sound cryptic? It shouldn’t. You should be doing more than spinning knobs, pushing buttons and schelping cords. You should be creating art. Art is not dependent upon tools.

To answer the question a bit more directly, look at what you have and what you can re-purpose in the new 300 seat room. What can you take with you that integrates well with new equipment? What equipment needs replacing? How well are you training volunteers to use what you have now before you expect more volunteers in the new facility?

I think the question might actually be a little off-target. Don’t worry about state-of-the-art technology. Instead, think about what the expectations will be for the new space (follow a vision, but be practical, too). Then weigh those expectations against the budget (where budget = time, people and money). If the expectation is higher than the budget, then you have a choice to make: Either raise the budget or lower the expectation.

Either way, you need to maximize what you have and do state-of-your-art with what you have and what your vision and finances can agree upon.

I’ll be making this available in a class I’m teaching at Worship Facilities Expo (WFX) this week, and thought it’d be helpful for any church wanting to have a standard set of video director commands, terms and definitions to equip their camera teams for success!

Short, simple and shareable: Video Director’s Quick Guide

Enjoy!

Having worked with technology in churches for just under two decades, I’ve come to understand that churches have the potential to use technology in three ways. Independently, they’re all good, but together, they’re exponentially greater. Generally speaking, I believe that church technology really can be brought together under the mantle of support, efficiency and impact.

Here’s how I define each one:

• Support: providing the necessary resources to enable a ministry or event to function
• Efficiency: a high result to effort ratio based on the scalability of the technology and process
• Impact: have a strong effect upon the recipient/user

I believe that, applied on their own, they end up missing the mark.

KINDA LIKE THE LONE RANGER

It’s very common for churches to leverage a single aspect of technology; sort of like trying to do it all as the Lone Ranger. For example, a church might decide to support every ministry event with technology. Unto itself, this is probably a good idea. However, if efficiency was part of the plan (cost savings, personnel time savings, etc.) and impact was part of the goal (was technology transparent to the delivery of the message; how was technology leveraged to produce action after the event), the result could be maximized.

Think of it this way: how often has your technical arts team been responsible for setting up and manning an event, but never asked to participate in the planning, coordination or communication of the event? I’d imagine that happens more often than not, mainly because when media & tech are viewed as support only, the greater opportunity is missed.

However, if each event leveraged technology and the planning process and follow-up activity of being efficient (cost savings, personnel time savings, etc.) and impactful (was technology transparent to the delivery of the message; how was technology leveraged to produce action after the event).

GET ON THE RADAR

Quite often, ministry leaders are simply unaware of the opportunity and ability your team can bring to the table. Get on their radar! Tech arts leaders need to have friendly conversation with ministry heads to help look at the calendar of upcoming events, services and communications. By taking an interest in what they’re doing, you stand a very good chance of helping them leverage all of your team’s strengths. Remember, people generally don’t understand the time commitment involved with much of our world. Bluntly, that’s not their job or concern; it’s yours. But when we help them by providing options, plain-language understanding and a helpful attitude, they’ll respond by giving you more heads-up, more time and even more support on their end.

There are other adverbs that can be used to describe the activities and value of church technology, but when we focus on the big three (support, efficiency & impact), we can bring greater value to our churches.

What say you? How does your church leverage technology to maximize ministry?

I wish I had the ear of more pastors. If I did, they would have known by now that the Federal Communications Commission has enacted law that orders all users of the 700MHz band to move frequencies. That may sound like techno-nonsense, but I assure you it will affect a great many churches because older (and often less expensive) wireless mics, in-ear systems and assisted listening systems use the 700 MHz frequency.

As of June 12, 2010, churches must cease using any 700 MHz gear or be subject to prosecution. Here’s the legal mumbo-jumbo:

FCC 08-188 (NPRM&O), Paragraph 14:

“As discussed above, the Commission and various affected parties, such as SBE and Shure, have contemplated that low power broadcast auxiliary devices would lose their secondary status, and would need to vacate the band, upon completion of the DTV transition. We therefore tentatively conclude to revise our rules to make clear that low power auxiliary stations authorized under Part 74 of our rules – including wireless microphones – will not be permitted to operate in the 700 MHz band after the DTV transition.”

My friend Mike Sessler (churchtecharts.org) created a nifty chart (for those who want to dial their inner geek up to 11) showing how this will pan out : Download the PDF chart here.

Fortunately for churches, many of the manufacturers went to battle on The Hill for you (in particular, Shure, Inc. and Sennheiser – thanks, fellas). They lost, but they have since regrouped and made trade-in offers to make this mandatory transition less costly. Check out Shure’s rebate and Sennheiser’s rebate.

So, pastors, follow me on Twitter and have a tech dude speaking into your life. @anthonycoppedge. Oh, not sure about Twitter? Well, here’s a big, shameless plug for my e-book “The Reason Your Church Must Twitter”. $5. Get it.

I have a problem: the Internet is ginormous and gleaning slivers of insight is hard.

Given the extreme availability provided by blogs, videos and Twitter, it’s not hard to find people who share about topics that interest me. The problem, of course, is that managing the volume of content on the Internet is like drinking from a fire hydrant – nix that – from Niagara Falls. Searching has never been easier, but the sheer quantity of results from Google/Yahoo/Bing can often keep us from taking the time to sort the data. Instead, I find myself starting my searches in two different ways: Blogrolls & Twitter.

Where to Look

I already have a large number of blogs that I follow (thank you, Bloglines for making this easy), so starting my searches on blogs of people who I know have similar affinity is a pretty good way of finding other people who I may not know. Quite often, I’ll find what I’m looking for in a matter of minutes.

But my favorite way to search for people (more accurately: experts) is by making the ask on Twitter. I’m AMAZED at how quickly and how accurately my Twitter crowd sends links to the people I need to find/follow.

How I Sift, Sort & Soak Up Expertise

When I find someone that’s really compelling and has great knowledge coupled with tremendous insight, I’m a sucker for soaking up anything and everything I can find about them. Once I have good information, I’ve had to learn to not be overwhelmed by the amount of information I find.

Sifting

When I find a site or blog that has great information, I’ll search that site using the Google site search “site:domain.com” and then put in the words or phrases that I want to find within this site. For example, I could search like this: site:withoutwax.tv leadership will search pastor Pete Wilson’s blog for the term “leadership”).

Though it may seem ludicrously obvious, I use the COMMAND + F (CTRL + F for Windows) – the ever-useful “Find” feature” – in my browser to search through a page for keywords or phrases.

Sorting

There are plenty of ways to capture data, but my favorite is Mindjet’s MindManager. It’s mind-mapping software that allows me to type in anything (useful for brainstorming, too) and drag-and-drop images, links, URL’s, etc.) right into the mind map. Obviously, this can be as simple as a TextEdit or Word document, or even XMind (a less robust but free mind mapping tool).

Soaking

Because research can be a time-sink, I have taught myself to focus on no more than one main topic at a time. Again, using MindManager, I will capture content that I need. Anything extra gets saved into a different “drawer” on the mind map, ready for me to look at later on.

Once I have my research, I will continue to check for new updates from the blogger and, more often than not, follow them on Twitter and add them to a search group (list). In this way, I can continue to learn from their insight over time. This is the key. A single point of data is good, but a consistent stream almost always provides better context, deeper understanding and more practical application for me.

By taking their ideas, insgights and experiences and writing out how I can apply the information – in my own context – helps me to “own” the information. I don’t think we really soak up anything until we can teach what we’ve learned to someone else, using our own context.

Do you have other ways of “soaking”? Feel free to share them in the comments.