MondayMorningInsight.com > Web-based Ministry: Are You Taking Full Advantage of the Opportunities?

HOME | CONTRIBUTE A STORY! | ABOUT MMI | CATEGORIES OF INTEREST | CONTACT ME

Web-based Ministry: Are You Taking Full Advantage of the Opportunities?

Orginally published on Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 7:25 AM
by Greg Atkinson

Greg Atkinson writes, "Recently I met with my new friend, Boyd, from ChurchTeams.com (a great resource for your church - I encourage you to check them out). We were talking about the future of the Church, technology and ministry and we talked about the reality that in the not too distant future, churches may not need internal servers.

I was sharing my thoughts on the Church IT world and how quickly it’s changing. How most IT departments are not keeping up with the rapidly changing world around them and how I believe that we’re just on the edge of all the change coming to our Church tech and IT worlds.

I talked about how North Point doesn’t use Microsoft Exchange - they’re all Google. Many churches are following in their footsteps. Think about it: North Point is a huge church with a large staff - if they can do it, you can, too.

I talked about how churches are using resources like Unifyer, 360Hubs, Arena, Fellowship One, Planning Center Online, ChurchTeams.com, etc., etc. - all web-based resources.

Last week I had lunch with the Emerging Media professor at the University of Texas Dallas. He started talking about this very reality without knowing I had already written most of this post. He talked about the new reality of sharing information via the cloud. I already collaborate with many people and writing partners via Google docs...

Some of you may think I’m crazy and disagree with me strongly, but I’ve always been an early adopter and I believe you’ll look back on this post 3 years from now and think differently. In your own church world, how many programs that you use are web-based? How big of a stretch would it be to think of doing away with servers in your situation?

©2009 – Greg Atkinson (GregAtkinson.com)
Greg Atkinson lives in Dallas with his wife and their three small children. Greg most recently served as the Director of Technical Arts at Bent Tree and before that as the Director of WorshipHouse Media, after having served as a worship pastor for 11 years. Greg is now an innovation consultant and continues to consult, teach and write about innovation, technology, leadership and social justice. You can connect with him through his daily blog at GregAtkinson.com.

This post has been viewed 273 times so far.

There are 3 Comments:

Posted by Randy Miller

Saturday, May 23, 2009 at 10:41 AM

I am a pastor of a church that worships 105 with 2 services. I primarily use google docs with my leadership team and with my shepherds (aka elders) to communicate by asking questions, checking up on progress on action items, and brainstorming sessions. Google docs has helped us become more efficient because we don’t have to worry about email attachments and people having the latest attachment. They access the doc and can read the latest version of it. Plus, we have a secretary in the meeting type up our conversation in real-time so that we can go back and see what we’ve talked about and agreed on. But as with any technology, it’s only good and effective if people access it and use it. Our next move it to purchase co- mapping @ http://www.comapping.com
Posted by runescape gold

Monday, May 25, 2009 at 3:23 AM

When you play games, you really thought about the Department of your equipment well enough, your account than others, your gold enough ... There are better! What you want to have here.come on..Let’s go!
Posted by Milton Stanley

Monday, May 25, 2009 at 8:39 AM

Several years ago I met a group of Plymouth Brethren who thought computers were sinful and didn’t use them at all. Here’s my prediction: three years from now I’ll look back and agree with them.

Page 1 of 1 pages

Post Your Comments:

Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.