http://godvertiser.com Church Marketing Ideas, Experiments, Lessons and Pitfalls For Right Now (yes, now!) and the Future. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:03:35 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en As of now, there are 48 fully online churches that exist in the world like www.liquidchurch.com and www.lifechurch.tv. Full-fledged online communities complete with pastoral leadership and ministry leaders specifically attending to the online participants around the world.  "Online Church Pastor" is new title for many people to find out about. CNN apparently ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/03/12/cnn-discovers-church-online/ So thanks to Rev. Canon Dr. Jon Ignatius Lumanog for tweeting me regarding my original blog post that Legal Sea Foods wasn't the first to focus their national marketing on Lent and the meatless habits of Catholics in our country. I should have known that good ol' American institution -- McDonald's ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/03/10/something-fishy-about-lent/ As we continue through Lent season, Easter is around the corner. So what types of consumer marketed products comes to mind in our commercialized secular culture with this Holy religious season? Cadbury Easter Eggs? Marshmellow Peeps? Go on, keep thinking. . . How about LOBSTERS? I just got an email from a merchant with suggestions for ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/03/10/what-do-lobsters-lent-have-in-common/ Sometimes the ministries can become consumed with who comes in through the front door of the church. Our churches build out extensive outreach campaigns, coordinate home visits for new comers, employ direct mail and other church marketing tactics. But there's another door that goes unguarded and it's becoming a big problem.  In ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/03/10/the-3-top-reasons-why-people-are-leaving-the-church/ Perhaps the Protestants *do* have something learn from the Vatican even after breaking away a long time ago. First Pope Benedict XVI said to his troops, go ahead and blog away! Next he launched his own YouTube channel - called Pope2You (gotta love that!) If you're a Pope that's hip with YouTube, you're ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/03/06/faith-has-no-boundaries-290000-go-to-viritual-pilgrimage/ I have no idea who is behind this product I came across on Amazon today, but IMHO, their product marketing guys need a little help. Christian themed book, music and other products are big business these days. . . Christian themed toys are a big business these days. . . But for some ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/03/05/introducing-jesus-deluxe/ This one left me without words to describe it. Never would have thought about this one: Gospel Aerobics. If you like this method of 'praising Him' you'll like the Sanctified Slide There's 56 other Gospel Aerobics workout videos available where this one came from.  That's more than a year's worth if you work ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/24/gospel-aerobics/ If you're involved with ministry on a daily basis, you know that sometimes you need a breath of fresh air once in awhile. This is what the AHA! web conference look like it is going to be. It is a free conference that is webcast just like The Nines, recently put on ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/24/40-doses-of-inspiration-for-pastors-and-ministry-leaders/ There's tons of stuff that you should be doing with your church website. But at the base of it all, one of the most important things that matter are the 3 C's for church websites: CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT Pastors and church webmasters are always struggling on how to churn out relevant content that will pull ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/23/how-to-keep-your-community-members-keep-coming-back-to-your-church-website/ This year, I launched a simple 1-step Bible look-up web app, http://wordof.gd/ This neat little shortcut service allows you to go straight to any Bible text and the specific translation you want right from the browser URL line. It also allows you to confidently create shortcut url links to any specific passage ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/23/1-step-bible-link-tool-does-hebrew/ Tonight I teleported over to the 1st Presbyterian Church of Second Life and joined a prayer gathering in the virtual world. I've done church online, video chats, tokbox multi-user web conf prayer meetings, I've even been to LifeChurch.tv in Second Life before. But this Second Life virtual reality prayer meeting was a ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/21/the-reality-of-prayer-in-virtual-reality/ Right now, I'm in the midst of sermon prep, so this one caught my eye. It serves as a nice little reminder that sermon series planning isn't for everyone. Perhaps you should stick to the lectionary unless you are really called to go it on your own: http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/21/church-sermon-series-planning-isnt-for-everyone/ The 2010 Winter Olympics are here! As our family sat down to watch the opening ceremonies, we noticed a difference with these games. The organizers chose to bring in the procession of nation teams early in the ceremonies, instead of the usual last spot in the evening's program.  Typically, the athletes from ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/13/olympic-sized-dreaming/ America's favorite pastor and his church is now officially mobile. One side effect of having this megachurch adopting the iPhone app platform for live online mobile worship is that this also basically legitimizes this medium of "doing church." The Saddleback Church iPhone app has links to Twitter and Facebook to keep you ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/11/the-iphone-church-has-been-legitimized/ Valentine's Day is upon us which is when you have the opportunity to display your LOVE. Here's one way to share your love of God, love of others and love of Twitter all in one place -- your Twitter background. Go ahead, follow the instructions below to get the latest free Twitter ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/10/display-trinity-of-love-in-the-background/ As technology advances the Church continues to evolve with it. There is a small but growing contingency setting out to define the frontier for the Church in the virtual world. Church online has moved beyond live online interactive broadcast worship. It now includes full church communities within ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/10/virtually-reformed-and-reality-of-church/ Most Christians haven't had the chance to hang out in the local Jewish synagogue or travel to Israel extensively. Thus, you may not have ever seen an original handwritten Torah scroll up close and in person, fully unfurled. Notice the handling of the scroll itself so no fingers ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/09/the-bible-10/ I can't believe my eyes. My PC is now a MACINTOSH computer. Seriously. And all I did was follow the installation directions that came with the Accordance for PC I recently received from Oak Tree Software to review. Basically, whenever I want to run Accordance, all I have to do now is ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/06/accordance-has-given-my-pc-a-split-personality/ Mosaic Church has made the finalists in this year's television commercial showdown sponsored by Doritos: The church, led by Erwin McManus, has already won $25,000 for becoming one of the 6 finalists. The masses were invited to vote for their favorite over at www.crashthesuperbowl.com. And the winning tv commercial ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/06/mosaic-church-superbowl-ad/ Today, I had the pleasure of doing something which I believe hasn't ever been done! It was a first. A first for me, and most probably a first for the world: I bet that no one has every pursued seriously theological ponderings in the world of Chuck E. It was one of ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/05/chuck-e-theology/ Today, I'm sharing a public service announcement here on Godvertiser.com Look what I found around town recently... Sometimes "Mom knows best". So much so that they make a sign to remind everyone - including you and me! http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/02/sign-of-the-times/ If you have a PC and want to dive deep into the Scriptures, you'll likely come across Bibleworks Bible Study software. It's a robust package that aims to help you with Biblical exegesis work. There are tons of bells and whistles to keep you occupied when doing research ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/02/02/the-late-great-bibleworks-8/ Last year, we packed our bags and headed to Virginia Beach for Wave Conference. It was a great time for me to learn from some great ministry leaders, meet one of my fav pastors, spend some great family time together on the beach and really recharge my soul. The worship ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/01/31/lets-do-the-wave-conference/ If I walked into your church today, just how many people do you think would have said "Hello" to me? Most churches think evangelism and visitor retention is a big deal. Churches create tactical plans, committees, strategy and more. But the big secret is that it all starts with "Hello!" -- ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/01/31/would-you-have-me-at-hello/ For those of you that feel a little dizzy after opening up Bibleworks the first couple of times from the plethora of features available, there is an upcoming BibleWorks Training Workshop in the Northeast region. These training workshops are being aimed at Westminster Theological Seminary students and faculty, but ... http://godvertiser.com/2010/01/28/the-best-30-you-can-spend-this-month/