I have been working really hard these past few weeks to develop some websites for http://HarrahChurch.com. We will use these sites to resource  and educate our people as well as providing me an outlet for casting our vision. I have used Wordpress.org as the CMS for these sites and really like what we have ended up with. The themes for the sites came from Elegant Themes who is a great place to find good themes at a very affordable price of $20 per year for access to all of their themes.

These sites are still a work in progress but we are going live with them as I continue to introduce myself to our volunteer and leadership teams and as a hub for learning about each ministry’s strategies and goals. Here is the list.

http://harrahkids.org

http://harrahgroups.org

http://renovatestudents.org

http://harrahchurchproduction.org

http://harrahchristian.org

I like that I was able to tie the sites together and still provide each with their own personalized theme. Though I have spent many hours on the sites and their configuration the theme subscriptions only cost me $20 and I am using the lowest 1and1 hosting package at ~$4.99 per month. I think we have a pretty great set of sites.

How is your church using multiple sites to leverage your reach? Is it necessarily a bad thing to spread your ministries out over several sites? I don’t think so. I don’t think people will have any problems searching us out and think that each site will lend itself well to a saturation strategy designed to help us dominate search.

     I spent the last 10 days digging into SBC churches and websites trying to discover how many SBC churches in several Oklahoma associations have web sites. My results from two of these associations show that less than 50% of the churches in these associations have a web site. WHAT! That totally blew me away. I can think of many reasons why a church would not have a reason, but the main reason would be the lack of a volunteer or staff member with the knowledge to put one in place. I am hoping to help remove this hurdle.

      After discovering these stats I have decided to help as many churches get into a website as possible this year. How am I going to do that? I have grabbed some domains and set up a site at http://tmabcwired.com to show people the system. I spoke with my pastor, Bob Green, today about my idea and he was really excited about helping more churches get online. Besides helping connect churches with people I am really interested in seeing how simply adding a very simple, well design website affects the growth of a church. I am hoping to be able to see more than 100 churches participate in this program. I am scheduling some meeting with associational directors and mission leaders to obtain some support to see this project kick off in a big way. I hope to handle domain registry, initial site set up, email, and a few other services for each church in a centralized way. Just like the SBC in a way for churches to pool their money to reach others in incredible ways I hope that http://tmabcwired.com will transition in a similar way that allows churches do more together than they could do on their own. Not every church can afford to hire a Media and Marketing Director like Arrow Heights, but many churches can pool their resources to create an organization that will provide them the same services. I want to lead out in this field, because I believe that the Gospel can be spread through the internet and that the web is the well of today.

So let me ask you a few questions:

• Do you think people are more likely to visit a church that has a web site?
• Do you consider a church web site a must have?
• How do you use your church’s web site and why do you go there?

I was doodling around the web today since I was off work and ran across a website called http://www.Netvibes.com. I have been looking for a service that will allow me to manage multiple Twitter accounts from one page and this was one of the suggestions. I manage twitter feeds for

• http://www.twitter.com/intimidavidson
• http://www.twitter.com/arrowheights
• http://www.twitter.com/ahbcstudents
• http://www.twitter.com/upfromunder

Not only am a I able to have multiple twitter account open on the same page, but I also have my Facebook, Gmail, MySpace, Google Calendar, and some of my favorite blog feeds. I now have 10 homepages that open up when I open FireFox, but I have moved NetVibes to my primary position and may even get to narrow the list down since they will show up on my NetVibes page.

I am digging this new service because it brings so many of the place that I usually go into one place. I love that. Simply my life please. Check out the service and leave a comment here about what you think of this service.

I was just reading an article on the Advertising Age web site that said for the second straight quarter text use has eclipsed talk use. An average teen 13-17 will send more than 1,742 texts per months and make only 231 calls in that same period. BTW, if you haven’t gotten your kids the text package make sure you get the unlimited text plan. With the rise of services like Twitter texting has become an important social tool and with the new site Yammer it may soon become more important to the office. We are using a service called TextMarks here at Arrow Heights to build text message groups that allow us to send a message to large groups of people without getting charged for every message. Our Upward recreation directors really enjoy the freedom to be able to update their coaches and players about weather updates and cancellations. I am planning on setting up several twitter feeds for a scavenger hunt in the future. Stay tuned for details.

I have read about several churches that broadcast their twitter feed onto the wall in the sanctuary so that people can interact with the service in real time across the church. These tools can used to build community with your church or small group. It would be great to have a twitter prayer group for your church that sends a text to your prayer warrior followers who get the update in real time and can respond with other requests or say that they are praying.

How often do you text? How important has texting become to you and/or your kids?

I had our first design meeting today with the project manager and designers with Element Fusion for the redesign and development of the Arrow Heights Baptist Church web site.  Many thanks to Kris Hadley for hosting the meeting and being a part of the web team.  I am so excited about what the new site can do for the church and how we will use it.  I want this site to do more than inform.  I want it to be a place where people can go to develop as disciples of Jesus.  I want to be a place where people find tools and resources that will grow them and grow the Kingdom.  I will try to keep you updated on how things are going and will let you know when we get a launch date together.  Stay tuned.

I just found a new favorite web site.  Check out http://www.hulu.com/.  You’ll find quality versions of some of my favorite TV show and can even watch movies with limited commercial interruption.  Did I mention that you can watch The Office there?