Your organization is a living thing. And like all living things, it needs to continually develop and grow. It needs to become smarter, stronger and more versatile. Just as a shark has to keep moving in order to breathe, your organization has to maintain consistent momentum. When you stop working or become complacent, like the shark, you’re dead in the water. Here’s how you can keep your organization swimming strong for years to come
Excellent List of Web Tools for Church Creatives
At the Texas Ministry Conference, I was asked to provide a number of web site resources to help creatives working for churches. This is a good list to get started. Use these tools to intentional design great websites that generate positive web experiences.
Review resources for stock designs, fonts, colors and web examples -
Top 3 Church Websites in America
After hundreds of hours reviewing and testing church websites, I present to you the Top 3 Church Websites in America. What makes these websites the best? First, they present an experience. Secondly, they deliver value added content to users in seconds. Thirdly, they do a great job of engaging the user via social media and life-change stories. Fourthly, they present content in a simple but effective design.
Simplistic design, captivating graphics, ease-of-use with detailed drop-down menus, relevant content via blogs and videos, consistent and clear messaging.
Ease-of-use with detailed drop-down menus, captivating life-change stories via video and written story, brilliant site architecture, succinct and informative New Here? section, highly accessible sermon media, effective use of video communications.
Clear emotional communication via images, excellent use of videos to communicate stories and important details, vector graphics/icons to illustrate content, consistent and clear content, instructive and detailed pages with no wasted space or language.
What other church websites would you place in the Top 3 in America?
How To Be A Social Media Leader
lead·er noun:
- The person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country.
- A person followed by others.
Being a leader means setting a precedent. It’s standing in the front of the line and guiding people in the right direction. If there’s one area where leadership has been lacking in businesses and organizations, it’s social media. In fact, many leaders have taken a hands-off approach to online communication. Today, I’ll tell you how to step up to the plate and become a social media leader.
Here are four ways you can work to become a social media leader:
Texas Ministry Conference Notes
I had a fantastic time presenting to organizational leaders at Texas Ministry Conference. The experience was very satisfying in knowing we helped Texas Ministry Conference reach an all time attendance record through Internet Marketing Campaigns. Additionally, the conference was very enjoyable knowing many people were impacted by receiving relevant content on ministry best practices.
Below you will find my handouts, notes and presentation decks for all three sessions -
Create a Web Experience, Not a Website – Maximizing Your Digital Front Door
After word-of-mouth, your website is your most powerful marketing tool. In 2011, your “new front door” starts with Google and ends with a click of the mouse. Are you capitalizing on the opportunities technology provides? Do you tell an online story or simply provide a PDF brochure online? Do you present people with an experience or an “every day” website? Learn compelling statistics and practical ways and tips to create a memorable website.
Vision in Action – Vision Beyond the Whiteboard
Does your organization have a vision statement? How about a mission statement? You probably do. If you do not have these two vital statements, or if you have them but are not using them to guide your organization’s work, you are missing out on the most effective ways to create movement in your church. This movement requires action driven by vision and mission. Without an action, the vision and mission will never leave the whiteboard. Learn practical ways to identify and integrate vision and mission within your church and ministry.
Healthy Leaders Lead Healthy Organizations – 10 Keys to Being a Healthy Leader
Being a pastor is a demanding and at times, a chaotic role. It is difficult to find restoration. Restoration is a key ingredient to being healthy. The mind, body, and soul need restoration…daily restoration. In this workshop, you will learn 10 principles that will change the way you do ministry. These principles penetrate every area of life, from spiritual to growth to marriage to physical exercise. Concluding the presentation, each attendee will be equipped to take the next steps to full health.
I am available to speak and train your organization and leadership on these topics and more. Connect with me to start a conversation.
How Is Your Church Responding?
We (Resolute Creative) developed an informational video. The video addresses the overwhelming opportunity to spread the Gospel via the Internet. We know Internet stats. We know the power of the Internet. We know the Internet is not a fade. We know that Internet stats represent people.
The Great Commission does not exclude the Internet, it includes it. How is your church responding?
Internet: A Mission Field from Jacob Abshire on Vimeo.
4 Traits of Horrendous Leaders
“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness is largely a matter of conscious, choice and discipline.” –Jim Collins
Leaders come in all shapes, sizes and styles. Autocratic and participative. Task-oriented and people-oriented. Wonderful and horrendous. All of them can teach us something. Even the horrendous ones. By recognizing the faults and missteps of bad leaders, we learn to become better leaders. To that end, let’s take a look at four attributes of horrendous leaders.
My time spent working in corporate America, and with churches, small businesses and startups, has allowed me to experience the full spectrum of leadership – from wonderful to horrendous. What I’ve found is most people don’t set out to become bad leaders. Rather it happens over time as a result of flawed decision-making, ethical lapses, or misguided motivations. To be great leaders, we must work to avoid these pitfalls of poor leadership.
Four characteristics of a horrendous leader:
How To Create A Positive Web Experience In 30 Seconds
Thirty seconds is a short span, and yet so much can be communicated in that time. This past Super Bowl opened my eyes to the power of communicating a message in 30 seconds. Although I was not overly impressed with this year’s commercials, I did take away some key lessons that translate to the Web. Today, I’m going to briefly answer how you can:
- Draw people into your website in less than a minute
- Quickly and effectively convey a memorable message
- Create a positive web experience for visitors
The Power Of Rapid Cognition
In his book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell covers the topic of “rapid cognition” which he defines as, “the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience.” He explains how too much information can cloud an individual’s ability to accurately analyze a situation and how “in good decision making, frugality matters.” Although you never get a second chance to make a first impression, you do get many chances to make the next impression.
Now, let’s look at three ways you can create a positive website experience in 30 seconds or less -
7 Practical Ways Pastors Can Use Social Media
One in every nine people on Earth is on Facebook. Twitter is adding nearly 500,000 users a day. YouTube has 490 million unique visitors every month.
What those numbers mean in a nutshell: A LOT of people use social media. So why is it most pastors do not? Maybe it’s lack of time. Or lack of education. Maybe it’s fear of the unknown. Ultimately, there’s no good reason. Every pastor interested in keeping their church vital and getting their message out to the community should be using social media.
Social media is an exceptional and easy way to connect with members outside the normal Sunday morning experiences. It’s also a great way to reach younger audiences by meeting them on “their turf”. Additionally, engaging people in social media demonstrates you care about the ones you lead enough to be a part of their daily lives.
Here are seven practical ways pastors can use social media:
Why All Great Leaders Need a “Truth Teller”
As leaders, it can be difficult to find people who will give it to us straight. People who will help us address our “blind spots”. Like most cars, most leaders have blind spots – areas where we have trouble seeing clearly. Either we are too busy to identify our blind spots or pride stands in the way of us recognizing them. That’s why all great leaders need a truth teller.
A truth teller is a person who will communicate the last 10%. A person who will tell us the truth even when we don’t want to hear it. Do you have a truth teller you can turn to for feedback? If not, it’s important to know what to look for when selecting one.
Here are five traits of a reliable truth teller:
