I have been a youth pastor for nearly 10 years now and a great advocate of utilizing IT to maximize ones effectiveness in ministry.

With the huge popularity of Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter it is most important that ministry practitioners familiarize themselves with the potentials and the dangers of social networking sites.  They can be powerful tools of communication but also powerful tools of distraction.  I have put together a list of suggestions & thoughts (in no particular order) for  using these resources which I hope will help you in your ministry:

1. Make them serve you, not the other way round. You can farm, comment on photos, check your personality, chat, private message, and much more, but is it worth it? Ask yourself this question, “Is this the best use of my time; can I be more productive elsewhere?”
2. Don’t comment on others unless you really need to. I know it sounds harsh, but it can really be a waste of time commenting on the status updates and wall posts that people make.  Use them thoughtfully and sparingly.
3. Don’t bother with Applications – It really is a time waster. There is nothing to gain from throwing a snowball, farming, or SUPER walling.  Some of the utility applications are good, but don’t waste your time with games.  I’ll post a recommended list of must have applications and utilities at another time for both facebook and your computer.
4. Use personal status updates with care. Don’t fall into the trap of sharing your deep personal life on facebook (especially if you minister regularly with youth).  I know a number of youth pastors who seem to forget that all their youth have added them as a friend and share about dumb things which only make them & their ministry look stupid.  It is most important to show that we are human, but keep the dirt to a minimum.  Share your life as well as the gospel.
5. Address facebook etiquette/behavior with your youth & young adults. Why is it that so many of our young people seem to live an alternative life online? THEY FORGET WE’RE WATCHING! You really start to see the true character or the character they WANT to be through their social networking comments and photos.  Use it to develop their character and deepen their discipleship.  That may well mean rebuke!
6. Bulk messages in Social Networking Sites – I generally try to use Nspire to bulk message my youth & young adults. Why? Because I can track the correspondence individually.  I will always post a link to the facebook page or our website.  If it’s really urgent, I SMS them.
7. Groups & Events- Probably the most utilised facebook tool by me.  Give them a connection point with a group and then make sure you have your upcoming events in there.  Always try and create an image for your group and event to spice up your page just a bit and cross link it to your group’s or church website with more details etc.
8. Use a third party tool for status updates – If you have multiple accounts then using a third party application to update your status saves a bucket load of time. I quite like the Yoono add-on for firefox which updates Twitter, Facebook, AIM, Messenger, and more.  It sits on the side of my browser and let’s me update my status in one place and feeds me my friend’s status updates.  On my iPhone I use StatusTIC to update Twitter and Facebook status’ quickly and with only a couple of keystrokes.
9. Don’t put all your eggs in the one basket – Try and utilise multiple connection mediums (email, social networking, SMS, webpage, personal contact, phone call, snail mail, etc).  A young person will need at least 3 contacts each week to maximize their discipleship (ie Small group + Email + Phone call, OR Small group + Facebook + Visit, etc).
10. Find someone else to champion your online presence – Let’s face it, we didn’t get into ministry to update websites.  We were created to dream, plan, develop, train, recruit, seed, and grow ministries for the gospel.  If we get caught up with maintaining a facebook page or a website, we are being distracted from what we have been called to do.  Always be looking for the champion to promote your ministry etc.  Guide them, grow them, and then let them do it while you keep the main thing the main thing.

What are your sucesses and insights into social networking and your online presence?

Dan

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We had a unique situation crop up this week and Nspire came to the rescue, this time for the benefit of our church custodian. It seems there is an outside group, a community college, that is having their commencement ceremony in our new Life Center this Friday evening. He had to set up 500+ chairs for the event, set the stage and make sure everything was ready for this group. This was a LARGE job for one man and we realized he needed a little help. Since I already had my regularly scheduled midweek Student Ministry worship service scheduled, we ended early and about 20 of us made our way over and helped him get the room set up in about 20 minutes. (I failed to mention that he had already spent an hour setting up 120 chairs. Had he continued at that pace the job would have taken him 5 hours).

Here’s where Nspire made a happy custodian: Some of our staff realized that he was going to have to put 500+ chairs away on Saturday. We decided we would shoot a quick email out to the adults in our congregation. The result? We sent over 300 emails out to the adults in our congregation this morning (using the mail-merge feature). We inserted some tokens to make it personal, and asked them to come and help put everything away at 9am this Saturday. He had no idea we had done this, but was SO EXCITED to hear that we had a crew that was going to be here to help him get the job done!

In 2 minutes we put together an email that took 10 minutes to send out, we got about a dozen responses and saved HOURS of work! Beyond that, we have a very, VERY happy custodian who often does a very thankless job. Our people were made aware of a need and they responded! Nspire saved the day again!

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In my ministry I have resources that get borrowed a lot. I’m sure anyone out there in the trenches like me has the same scenario. The problem I had for quite some time was finding a system that worked. I did card files, lists, and a whole bunch of other methods, but none really worked for me — I couldn’t follow-up easily. Then, about 7-8 years ago, I had a student enter all of my resources into the Nspire library.

We now track board games, recreation equipment and Cd’s, as well as books and magazines from my personal library. For the last 12 years, I have been a subscriber to Interlinc. They send a shipment of music to my church once a quarter (usually there are a dozen Cd’s in each shipment). We literally have HUNDREDS of Cd’s in our music library, students are constantly wanting to borrow them.

The library function works very well for us and allows us to track our resources. As soon as I get a new shipment, I give the box to a volunteer who writes a call number on the Cd and Jacket with a permanent marker. She does the same for new board games, or other resources we acquire. If a student wants to borrow a Cd, they simply find one of my volunteers and we check it out for them.

I also used to have problems with students getting board games out, but they would often “forget” to put them away. (Anyone else out there share this problem? Can I get a witness?!?) There is now some accountability built into borrowing a game — if it is left out, all we have to do is check who signed out the game! All of a sudden, this “problem” went away! The same scenario has played out with cue sticks, ping-pong paddles and any other loose items (like video game control paddles, game disks or cartridges, etc.).

How did we do it? We created several categories: Recreation Equipment, Music, Books, Magazines. Then we gave each item a call number, Cd’s currently have a 5 digit number starting with Cd (ex: CD001), we can easily look up the item, then click on check out, find the student’s name and viola! It’s done! Their name shows up in a column to the right of the resource, along with their phone number.

We don’t have nearly as many problems with missing resources — all we need to do is make a phone call, or send an email and our resources find their way back home! When we notice that a bunch of resources are out, we’ll do a contact blitz and ask that our resources come back home to our Teen Center. I’ve been very pleased with this system because it allows me to share our resources with our students without the worry of them never coming back. Yes, occasionally something will get lost or damaged, but with the ability to follow-up, we don’t lose nearly as many resources as we did prior to initiating this system. My limited ministry dollars are no longer spent on replacing missing items!

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You can download the .PDF of this article by clicking here

How to Use www.batchgeocode.com

Geocoding is the term used for converting a street address to a latitude and longitude value. Once you have these values for an address you can plot the information on maps.

One tool for doing this is www.batchgeocode.com. Following their instructions you can use an exported set of addresses from Nspire to create a map that shows multiple addresses mapped together. What follows are instructions for using www.batchgeocode.com to create a map showing where all your households are located.

Note: There is a limit to the number of addresses you can geocode per day. The current maximum is 5000 per day per ip address. The site recommends that you not do more than 500 at a time. We have done more in testing but it does take time. Expect to take about 10min per 500 addresses or so. Time may also depend on your internet speed.

Step #1 – Create an export file containing the addresses you want to map.

Open Nspire and go to View Households. In the Household window you can use a query to limit your list of addresses. Next you need to click the Print button in the top right corner of the screen. In the Reports window Click the Export button to create a text file containing the addresses.

In the Export Template window, click the insert button to create a new export template.

In the update window we will create a new export file template for our geocode file.

Name: Name the template Batchgeocode

Description: Whatever you want here. You can leave it blank.

Check the Use Header record check box so you can identify your columns on the geocode web site

Next you need to select your tokens. Click the Modify List button.

In the Find control type Address. Select the Household Home Address in the list. Then in the Token Format list, you can double click Address, City, State, and Zip Code tokens. Your list should look like the one above. After you have your tokens, click the Ok button.

Now we are ready to export. Click the export button and chose to save your file to your desktop. If you take the defaults, the file should be named export.csv. You can change this if you want.

Step #2 – Get you data into the www.batchgeocode.com website

Next you need to open your file in Excel. If you have Windows Excel installed, the export file should already be associated with Excel. All you have to do is double click the export.csv file located on your desktop to open the file in Excel.

Once you have opened the file, select the first cell and click Ctrl-A. Just hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard then click “A”. This will make Excel select your entire data set. Next click Ctrl-C to copy the data to your clipboard.

Now, point your web browser to http://www.batchgeocode.com.

Under step #2, click the text field and then click ctrl-a to highlight all the data already in the text control. Next press Ctrl-V to paste your data into the text control. Once your data is in the text control click the validate source button to test your data.

You should see information about the number of columns and rows you have in your list.

Step #3 – Select your columns and create your Map

Under Step 4 on the batchgeocode.com web site you need to match your columns up to the correct fields. In Address, select your address column, then set your City, State, and Zip code. The other fields can be used to create more descriptive maps if you choose to import more data.

Under step 5 on the web site, click the Run Geocoder button. A processing message will appear as you step through your records. Once complete your map will appear in Step 6.

You can save a link to your map that you can share. However, note that it will save your address data on their site and it is visible on the page with the map.

There you go. You have now created a map that shows where all your households are located.

Have fun making your own.

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Hard drives… we all use them every day and we all expect them to just work. But, as I recently have been reminded of, they can fail… sometimes more than once.

In the last three weeks I’ve gone through 3 hard drives. It all started when I heard “the click of death”. I had just upgraded my laptop hard drive to a new 500GB drive, since the previous drive was showing signs of imminent failure.

I was so excited I went out and purchased a couple precision multi tools to get the job done. I even purchase some kind of precision tool that looks like the equivalent of a miniature ice pick with a handle… why? I don’t know, but you never know when you might need a precision ice pick tool; I might have to fend off some hard drive demon or computer bug. Being the boy scout I am I had to live up to the motto of “be prepared”.

With the help of my precision tools and the assurance of my precision wanna be ice pick I was able to tackle the task of replacing my hard drive and installing the greatest operating system known to man… OS X Leopard.

Then it happened. I heard it as clear as day… it was the “click of death”.

Now the click of death is the tale-tell sign that your new hard drive is about to kick the bucket. It happens when your computer tries to write to the hard drive (example: saving a document) but then freezes and you can hear a faint but repetitive click. Sometimes it only lasts for a minute and then goes away, other times it clicks until you have no choice other than to force the computer to shut down and hope it starts again.

Being the geek I am I knew what was about to happen. So I quickly had a replacement drive shipped to me, backed up my clicking drive one last time and installed the new one. Problem solved. At least I thought so.

It wasn’t but about a week after installing my 2nd drive that it crashed completely. No clicking, no faint coughs, fever… nothing… it just skipped all that and went straight to the “kicking the bucket” part of it’s life cycle. Maybe it was afraid I would go and buy more tools and try to “fix” it and it just couldn’t bear the thought of going through all that. I guess I’ll never know.

Moving on, I ordered my 3rd replacement drive and going through all the same processes as before I reinstalled all my information from a backup I had made earlier. I’m happy to say that I’m using that very drive now to type this blog post. Hopefully it will stick around.

What can you learn from my hard drive saga? Backing up needs to be a habit. Most people would think they could easily get a few years out of a new hard drive before experiencing any problems. In my case, I only got a few days each time. The point, 100% of all hard drives will fail at some point… it’s just a matter of when.

So what can you do?

Start backing up. I recommend a 2 stage backup plan.

1. Backup to an external hard drive or server drive on the network. (This drive should be off-site or remotely backed up)

2. Use an Online Backup solution that implements daily backups with version control for files.

If you are looking for a good Online Backup tool I recommend taking a look at our Nspire Online Backup (NOB) software. You will get the best security in the business, version controlled backups, error prevention monitoring, and much more. You can sign up or learn more by going to www.nspiresoftware.com/onlinebackup

We offer plans for just backing up your Nspire Software product up to backing up your entire computer. Check it out. Let us know if you have questions 1-888-297-6495

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VBS is right around the corner. For many of you it has already come running around the corner, tackled you head on and made it’s stamp on your Google Calendar (or in other words, you are in the middle of it).

Vacation Bible School is one of the best times of the year. Kids come from all over and as much work as it is I think most VBS workers would agree the work is worth the reward.

This week I wanted to take the opportunity to share a few ideas on making the most out of your VBS by focusing on Post-VBS follow-up.

Now it is easy to get consumed with the preparation of VBS and completion of your VBS program and miss the giant opportunity laid before you. I’ve seen so many church organizations spend large amounts of money, resources, and volunteer time into the VBS program, year after year, but never actively pursue participant follow-up.

Each year, during VBS, you are given an opportunity to minister into the lives of children of various ages. The opportunity to teach and show these children the love of Christ is a rewarding and encouraging experience. What is even more rewarding is to take the opportunity to teach and show the love of Christ to the children attending and go one step further and do the same for the child’s family. What if your 1 week, 1 weekend or 1 day VBS looked further down the road and became a ministry tool to affect the families of each one of the children attending? What if VBS took the form of a children’s and family ministry opportunity?

I’m sure many of you reading are already doing this, if so, leave a comment below with your tips and advise.

Now, no matter how small or how big your annual VBS is, one thing is for certain if you want to follow-up effectively; you will need very good records of the children attending and their parents names and contact information. Most of you already gather this information but I would also venture to guess that many of you have it stored on paper sheets or in excel. Both work, but effective correspondence is about consistency and timeliness.

So, leads Nspire’s List of VBS follow-up ideas:

1. Plan your registration ahead of time.

Registration planning can be one of the toughest jobs to plan and get volunteers for. But, don’t skimp on this one, especially if you are a small organization and feel you already know who is attending. Accurate registration will not only give you contact details to use for later ministry opportunities but it will also be worth it’s weight in gold if an emergency arises where the parents need to be contacted.

You have put a lot of work into planning and preparing this years VBS so plan for new visitors and parents. Make sure that when they arrive they feel like they are leaving their children in a safe place that takes the necessary procedures to ensure, as a parent, they can be contacted if needed.

You also might want to consider making Pre-registration available. Many VBS curriculum’s now make online registration sites available for a small fee or for FREE! Here are a few options:

• If you are using Group VBS Curriculum, they have a free resource for making online registration available along with a free promotion website. You can register and setup you website by clicking on the following link:

https://www.groupvbs.com/webtoybox/director/login.aspx?partner=auto

• If you are using another VBS Curriculum that does not provide online registration you could consider making your own online registration form using one of the many services available. I personally like Wufoo.com. They will allow you to create a online form that will have up to 10 fields store 100 users per month for FREE. If you need more than that you can go one step up and pay $9.95 per month for Unlimited Fields and up to 500 stored users.

The benefit of a service like this is you can export your registrants out and import them into a ministry database like Nspire or Children’s Assistant… wink, wink. Here is the link:

http://wufoo.com/

2. Plan your Correspondence

After you gather your registration information either from an online form or paper form in the back. Make sure to enter this information into your church/ministry management database under a group/event of your VBS. Don’t have a ministry management software? Take a look at Children’s Assistant or Nspire (We offer non-advertised special pricing for small ministries and church organizations, call 1-888-297-6495 to see if you qualify).

At this point you are ready to develop your correspondence plan. This is your opportunity to thank the parents for bringing their children to your VBS and invite them to join you again. Consider the following (in no particular order):

• A thank you email sent to all parents and attendees sent the day of registration or after the event is over. If you are using a program like Children’s Assistant or Nspire you can personalize the email by mail-merging the parents names into each one automatically.
• Send a post-card to all the children who attended inviting them to attend your weekly children’s meeting (with parent’s permission). Postcards can be printed directly out of your management software or you can have them pre-printed from a place like www.gotprint.com (they have a online postcard software which will guide you through making your own custom postcard for this event).
• Make a phone call. The power of a simple phone call is often under-appreciated. It only takes a minute and gives you an opportunity to make a one-to-one connection with the parents who brought their children. This is something you just can’t accomplish with emails and postcards.
• Consider holding another event to meet and greet with the parents and families who attended. This could be done after VBS is over or even on the last day of VBS. Think cook-out. Just something to give you and the families an opportunity to get to know one another and share all the great stories from VBS.

3. Be Creative!

I know the very mentioning of the “C” word sends shivers down many of your spines. But no matter how uncreative you think you are I bet digging down you have an untapped well of creativity; you just need to unlock it. Try thinking like your kids think. What would they like… how do they want to learn… what are other people and organizations doing… Yes, look at what others are doing. Remember that old saying in Ecclesiastes “there is nothing new under the sun”, well it’s true. Much of the most creative stuff we see is just a rehash of something someone else did just with a new twist.

If your still having problems get a group of your friends and volunteers together for a creativity round-table. Give everyone a pack of post-it notes and for 10 min have everyone write down any ideas they have. Not idea is too small or too big. Anything goes, even the silly ideas. Have them centered around a question like, “How do we minister to the kids better than we have before” or  “What would make this years VBS the best and most influential in a child’s life than any VBS before”. For that matter you can even make it more specific like, “How do we make (this point, lesson, illustration) better than ever before”.

Everyone writes for 10 min, one idea per note. After the 10 min have everyone stick their ideas in the center of the table or on a nearby wall speaking them as they go through each one. Next, start discussing the ideas and watch the magic happen. Remember, no idea is too off-the-wall, what you might find is the off-the-wall ideas are the ones that spark the very best and most creative ideas you get. Try it out.

Well, I hope this article has been helpful. I’m sure many of you have a slew of other great ideas. Let me urge you to share them. Post a comment below and tell us what you think.

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The List:

1. Accuracy

Tracking Attendance can be tough sometimes. Depending on your method of capturing attendance information it could potentially run into many different problems. What we have seen in the past with many churches and organizations who first come to us with their attendance woe’s is that most of them had stopped tracking attendance due to the difficulty of getting the information easily and accurately.

Biometric Fingerprint Scanning tracking lends itself to being a quick easy solution to tracking attendance. By tracking attendance using a simple fingerprint you eliminate the need to keep up with any type of card, list or the such. Fingerprint scanning is also very accurate and quick. The fingerprint system we sell actually has artificial inteligence built in that allows for it to learn from bad scans so it does not repeat the same mistake the next week.

2. Speed

Since fingerprint attendance tracking doesn’t require anyone to keep up with anything other than their thumb, it makes the attendance entry quicker than ever. With a simple touch of a finger the individual will be logged into the attendance event and be on their way.

3. On the fly visitor tracking

When new visitors show up for your events, biometric attendance scanning makes it easy to gather their information and mark them as present.

Taking their core information (name, phone, etc) and capturing their fingerprint can all be done from the scanning console. Making it easy to track visitors on their first visit and any visit after.

For more information about fingerprint attendance tracking or for a quote, contact us at 1-888-297-6495 or email information@tcshome.com

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Tip #1: Bring a backpack

Youth Specialties has always been great about helping attendees with a backpack or something similar to hold all those brochures and giveaways you get from exhibitors. Though sometimes you just need a backup, so I have made it a habit to always bring an extra backpack or one that I enjoy wearing for a few hours during the day to hold all the stuff I pick up while I’m there.

Tip #2: Print out Labels for yourself

If you have ever been to a National Youth Workers Convention before you know that if you didn’t know your church address before the conference then you definitely did afterward. The best solution we have seen is to pre-print labels with all your contact info on them. Then when you sign up for any drawing or for more information from vendors you can simply peel off a new label and your done.

If you do happen to forget your labels at the conference, don’t worry. We will be printing free labels for anyone who stops by our booth (that’s booth 705 for Youth Assistant)

Tip #3: Get to your seat early

Many times at the National Youth Workers Convention key speakers or vendors will provide great resources for free on the chairs during a general session. I have gotten everything from books to videos during these sessions. So get to your seat early.

Tip #4: Don’t miss the Exhibit Hall

One of the greatest things about the National Youth Workers Convention is the mass of vendors and resources that are made available. Vendors from all over the country come to attend this show, so you are sure to find the latest and greatest in youth ministry resources. Also, it never hurts to sign up for any giveaways or drawings from vendors. One of my best friends, a few years ago, came in late to a break-out session, registered for the giveaway anyway, and still came out winning a brand new video ipod.

Tip #5: Let the vendors know about your needs

Even though vendors show up to the conference to make their products available many vendors are also in ministry just like you. You might be surprised by how much knowledge many of the vendors have about ministry and solutions that work. Most vendors get the opportunity to speak with thousands of youth workers each year about their products and the customers needs. From experience, a vendor generally picks up a great amount of ministry ideas and a few friends along the way. So, don’t hesitate to ask questions, you just might make a new friend and learn some new tricks.

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Here is a great website for all of you who wish you were a little more polished on your graphic design skills. This company provides good looking stock layouts that you can purchase and use for a wide array of projects. I have a ministry friend who just used this company to purchase a template for the Sunday Morning Bulletin. If you are interested you can go to www.stocklayouts.com to find out more.

Tags: bulletins, newsletters, church graphics, church graphic design

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I wrote a blog a while back about a service called logmein, you can read it here. Well this wonderful little web tool also has a PDA website. Now, if you are not familiar with logmein, it is a web based tool that will let you access any computer you have over the internet… the best part is they have a totally… no strings attached FREE version.

If you go to logmein.com on your PDA, you will go to the logmein PDA site that will allow you to access your listed computers from the palm of your hand… pretty cool. The possibilities of this service are endless, it’s not just for accessing your church software. If you forgot a file, or paper, you can log into your computer with your PDA and then email the file to yourself. I have posted some screen shots below that one of our handy dandy programmers took for me of Nspire running on a PDA.

If you have other ways you have used logmein or a similar service, feel free to post them here for everyone else to see by leaving a comment.

www.flickr.com

nspiresoft’s logmein photoset

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