Many consider SXSW to be the best interactive media conference in the world. You learn from minds like Guy Kawasaki and the people at Facebook and Google. Unfortunately, SXSW has had little if any church oriented content in the past.

You can change that.

You can vote for SXSW Interactive to have several church oriented sessions in 2010. Why should you have to choose between SXSW and a church media conference? Let’s merge them together! If enough of us vote, then we have a good chance of getting these church panels.

FIRST STEP
Create a free profile for voting at http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/users/register
(an email confirmation will be sent)

SECOND STEP
Vote today for the church panels by clicking the “thumbs up” icon located near the top left of the following four pages:

#1 :: Creating Authentic Online Community
>> Tony Steward, Carlos Whittaker, John Saddington, & Cynthia Ware (moderator)

#2 :: Technology For Results Not Profits
>> Bobby Gruenewald, Brad Abare, Kent Shaffer, & Terry Storch (moderator)

#3 :: LifeChurch.tv - Reaching 2 Million+ With Technology
>> Terry Storch, Tony Steward, Bobby Gruenewald, & Kent Shaffer (moderator)

#4 :: Pushing Technological Change Without Alienating Your Co-Workers
>> Kem Meyer & mystery experts

Please spread the word and help us rock the vote!

When Clover launched their church website company in May 2008, I appreciated their immediate sponsorship of Church Relevance. But more than that, I was intrigued by their premade church websites that did not look like premade websites. They were clean and beautiful.

Now 14 months later, I am simply impressed.

I see more and more church websites sporting a “Made by Clover” icon. Their content management system is outstandingly simple yet powerful. And Clover has become an active supporter of many of my favorite church blogs, conferences, and magazines.

THE PROS

• Very Low Cost
  Every Clover website costs a one-time fee of $1,000 plus $20 per month for hosting and support.
• Quick Turnaround
  Rather than waiting months for a custom developed site, a Clover website is available the same day as purchase.
• Easy to Use
  The content management system is one of the easiest to use (if not the easiest) I’ve seen.
• Robust Features
  You can have online calendars, sermons, videos, and more.
• Search Engine Optimized (SEO)
  Despite being Flash websites, they are optimized for search engines.
• Beautiful Aesthetics
  As you can see below, the websites look good.

THE CONS

• So Easy It Is Dangerous
  Clover’s content management system is so easy to use that it risks empowering aesthetically-challenged users to turn a beautiful premade site into an ugly site through poor color choices and media uploads. However, in fairness all content management systems risk to some extent empowering people who should not design.
• Flash-Based
  I am not a fan of all Flash websites, primarily because of visitor inconveniences such as the inability to copy and paste useful info like a church address or event details. But Flash does look cool.
  *UPDATE* - Clover informed me that their sites actually do provide for the ability for visitors to copy and paste content.
• Premade vs 100% Custom  Tailored
  Theoretically, a 100% custom tailored website is better than a premade site. Ideally, a church website will be custom designed by a very talented designer that understands how to create desired responses and communicate the church’s unique DNA through the smallest online details. However, this is very, very expensive and difficult. And sometimes the beauty of a premade design can do a better job communicating your brand than the custom design of a designer still learning the ropes.

Visit CloverSites.com to see a video of their content management system and actually demo it yourself.

To continue our discussion about why VideoTeaching.com is the next big church model, let’s take a look at what the video teaching church model is not.

It is not sermons on TV.
It is not a sermon vodcast.
It is not online archived sermon videos.

These forms of “preaching” have no community aspect, but the video teaching church model has pastors and/or elders and fellow believers to help you grow and keep you accountable. A church model is more than just Christian content.

Obviously, some people might replace attending church with watching VideoTeaching.com directly, but those same people may just as likely replace attending church with Christian television, podcasts, the Bible, a C.S. Lewis book, or even nothing at all.

We do need to cautiously ask questions before we dive into a new way of doing church. Video teaching is not for every church’s calling. To help us ask better questions, let us resolve one myth.

MYTH - Video teaching replaces human interaction.

Truth: The DNA of a church determines the quality of its community. While having an in-the-flesh preacher is one of hundreds of factors that can make a church more likely to have strong community, it is no guarantee.

Standard Church: Not every church with a live in-the-flesh preacher has good community. In fact, some preachers rarely interact with their congregations. And some preachers that do more harm than good when they interact with their congregation. Having an in-the-flesh preacher does guarantee a strong, healthy community. Unfortunately, some of the loneliest places are churches (particularly megachurches) without a culture of relationships.

Video Teaching: Just because a church uses video teaching does not mean that church can’t have incredibly relational pastors and elders that engage, counsel, and lead the congregation outside of teaching. A video teaching church is just as capable of a standard church in having good small groups and a culture of community.

Yesterday LifeChurch.tv’s Digerati team officially launched VideoTeaching.com. Consequently, the world may never be the same.

Much like the One Prayer initiative, VideoTeaching.com allows churches to hear guest speakers via free sermon video downloads. The idea behind it is that churches can have a free resource to expand their teaching team, give the pastor occasional breaks, share the load with church planters and bi-vocational pastors, and even serve as an interim “pastor” during a leadership transition.

VIDEO TEACHING AS A CHURCH MODEL
But reality is the scope of how VideoTeaching.com can be used is far deeper and versatile. In fact, a church could use video sermons all the time. Many churches have likely not been planted because the church planter believes he is not eloquent enough, theologically deep enough, or seminary certified to preach. However, when free video sermons from some of the world’s best preachers are available, obviously this excuse is gone.

4 Possible Video Teaching Church Models

1. Central Organization
   Similar to a multi-site church, this model has central leadership that oversees all locations and determines video teaching content that is the same for all campuses. Locations could either be planted by the central organization like most multi-site church campuses or passionate followers could start a location similar to LifeChurch.tv’s Church Online watch parties.
2. Central Admin
   Similar to a denomination, this model has central leadership that oversees all locations administratively, but a campus pastor or elders determine the Video Sermon content for each location based on what that congregation’s spiritual needs are. For example, a New England location may struggle with greed while a location in Oklahoma may struggle with gluttony. While all sermon topics are important, this model allows for each campus to focus on what is most important to their spiritual walk.
3. Central Distributor
   Similar to a standard church, this model has a central distributor of sermon content such as VideoTeaching.com, but each church is independent, self-governing, and determines its own video teaching content.
4. Extra Church
   Similar to Sunday school and small groups, this model uses video teaching as extra doses of “church” in addition to weekend church services.

WHY CONSIDER VIDEO TEACHING?
Church conferences, authors, and blogs have been rallying for years for the Church to be like the early Church. We talk about organic explosive church growth that produces authentic disciples, but then we do little to change our methods. If we hardly change how we do church, then we can hardly expect to revolutionize the results we get.

So why don’t we change how we do church? I think it is because we are scared. We are scared of failing, and we are scared of doing something theologically wrong. Christians are notorious for boycotting anything new, including church organs and church choirs when they were first introduced. This is not to say that we should all jump on the Video Teaching band wagon like a bunch of lemmings. But I think we should ask questions.

Thinking rationally and theologically, why or why shouldn’t churches pursue the Video Teaching model of church?

I will be addressing some questions about video teaching in the weeks to come, including:

• What size should a video teaching church be?
• How can video teaching churches be kept spiritually accountable?
• How does the video medium affect the message?
• What about the development of future preachers?
• What are the advantages of video teaching versus one or a few preachers?
• What about video teaching children’s ministry?
• Will video teaching create more celebrity pastors?
• What does a multi-site video teaching house gigachurch look like?

For Discussion:
- Share your thoughts about video teaching in the comments and join in the unraveling discussion in the weeks to come.

More and more churches are making their sermons available as free MP3 downloads.

It makes sense. If a pastor spends 10 hours preparing a sermon for his congregation, why wouldn’t he want to extend its reach past those who showed up that weekend to hear it. In a church of 500, why settle for reaching 500 people once when a free MP3 download could reach 700 people over and over again.

It does not cost much to create or distribute an MP3, so why do some churches charge $3 to $5 to download a sermon MP3?

It seems counterintuitive. If preaching the gospel is one of the primary purposes of a church, why hinder people from hearing the gospel by charging for MP3s? It is understandable to charge money for cassettes, VHS, CDs, and DVDs. The physical nature of those media requires money to produce them. But why charge for digital media?

Blame Tradition?
I expect the biggest reason why some churches charge for sermon MP3s is tradition. After decades of needing to charge money for sermons because of cassette and CD duplication costs, it likely seemed odd or even wrong to give away sermon audio for free. After all, free might devalue the perceived quality of the sermon that the preacher worked so hard to preach.

Blame Trends?
Other churches might say, “The big megachurch down the road charges for MP3s, so we should, too!”

Blame Capitalism?
Perhaps some churches see charging for MP3s as a great way to supplement donations. If money can be made, why not?

So what is right?
I am not writing this to condemn one method and praise another. I am not saying it is a sin to charge for an MP3. I am, however, giving some food for thought. The people who need a sermon the most are probably those least likely to pay for one.

If a church says it exists to reach people for Christ and disciple them, why let a few dollars keep it from more effectively fulfilling its purpose?

Do they really need the money that badly?

Churches spend 100s of thousands of dollars on buildings, 10s of thousands of dollars on A/V equipment, thousands of dollars on advertising, and hundreds of dollars on free coffee and donuts just to get people to come hear the sermon. Why not make the sermon a free MP3 download?

Imagine if the Apostle Paul said his letter to the church at Ephesus was free for the Ephesians to read but the church at Corinth had to pay to learn from it. It seems counterintuitive.

What is your opinion?

Drew Goodmanson of Ekklesia 360 gave me a tour of their new community network product - Cobblestone. Its community management capabilities nicely complement Ekklesia 360’s website management system. It is one step closer to a total online church management solution.

Features include:

• Member Management
• Small Group/Church Club Management
• Volunteer Management
• Event Management
• Online Donations
• Prayer & Need Modules
• Assimilation System
• Neighborhood Management
• Messaging
• Mass Targeted Messaging
• Discussion Capabilities
• Photo Galleries
• File Sharing
• Classifieds
• Facebook, Twitter, and Social Media Integration
• Custom Aesthetic Design (to match your church brand)

It is powerful and robust, but I think Cobblestone’s greatest strength is its ease of use. For more details, of how it all works visit Cobblestonecn.com.

Recently, I had the opportunity to discuss the future of church websites over a video conference with Cleve Persinger and the team at The Chapel (Libertyville, IL). I spent some time sharing my thoughts on effective SEO church marketing, and Cleve was kind enough to archive the talk for your enjoyment.
[pardon the rocky audio]

To sum it up, optimize your church website content by using the keywords that are most often searched by the people your are called to reach. You can research these keywords with Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

For Discussion:
- What is your church marketing SEO strategy?

One of the most intriguing and challenging books for me in recent years is Shane Hipps’ Flickering Pixels. It takes a fascinating look at how media affect content and faith. It is a bit of a big concept, so I will use some of Shane’s words to give you a glimpse of what is all about.

It is commonly assumed that as long as we protect the unchanging message of the gospel, the method of communicating doesn’t much matter.

The logic is pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it true.

If the first truth is that our methods necessarily change, the second truth is whenever our methods change, the message automatically changes along with them. You can’t change methods without changing your methods - they’re inseparable.

Throughout the book, Shane discusses the complexities of how the medium affects the content and the audience. For example, Shane writes:

Images focus our attention on the realm of cosmetics. Often, it is for the sake of showcasing beauty and talent.

The radio returned our culture to the experience of the tribal campfire with its shared stories, songs, and banter.

The Internet has a natural bias towards exhibitionism and thus the erosion of real intimacy.

Printing put the left hemisphere of the brain on steroids.

If you communicate with people through any medium, you need to understand the pros and cons of that medium and how it influences your communication. You are just as much responsible for the medium you choose as you are for the words you use (or whatever content you communicate).