Congregational
Communication
ZionBuffalo.org
June
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June
October
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September
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September

Podcast
Facebook
News Blog
Twitter
Calendar
Contact Information
Feed Widgets
Online Publication
Issuu
http://issuu.com
Wordpress
http://wordpress.com
tour of Zion's website
lessons learned along the way
tools & resources used
8 Benefits of Having a Nonprofit Blog:
http://havefundogood.blogspot.com/2009/02/8-benefits-of-having-nonprofit-blog.html
Zion's Wordpress blog site:
http://news.zionbuffalo.org/
Connect Daily Calendar from MHSoftware:
http://www.mhsoftware.com/index.html
Zion's Online Calendar:
http://www.zionbuffalo.org/calendar
Google Calendar on a web page:
http://www.zionbuffalo.org/mow
Podbean:
http://podbean.com
Zion's Podbean site:
http://zionbuffalo.podbean.com
Yahoo Media Player:
http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/
Zion's Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/ZionBuffalo
Zion's Twitter: http://twitter.com/ZionBuffalo
Zion's Contact page:
http://www.zionbuffalo.org/contact
Mt Bethel UMC Contact page:
http://www.mtbethel.org/staffalpha.php
Marketing Profs articles:
http://www.marketingprofs.com/topic/all/facebook
Church Crunch articles:
http://churchcrunch.com/web-tools/facebook/
Facebook Best Practices for Nonprofit Organizations:
http://www.diosacommunications.com/facebookbestpractices.htm
300+ Examples of Wordpress driven church websites:
http://livingos.com/wp/churches/
The Reason Your Church Must Twitter ($10 EBook):
http://www.twitterforchurches.com/
Non-fanatical beginner's guide to Twitter:
http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/02/26/a-non-fanatical-beginners-guide-to-twitter/
Payments
Mal's e-commerce
(Free shopping cart that works with Paypal)
http://www.mals-e.com/
Mal's demo store:
http://www.mals-e.com/featuresDemo.php
PDF995 (Sets up like a printer)
http://www.pdf995.com/

Blogs
Online Forums
Good News Web Designers: http://gnwda.org/index-join.html
Learning Code
HTML quick list at: http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/
Tutorials
Lynda.com online software training (some free): http://www.lynda.com/home/ViewCourses.aspx?
ELCA Communicators Online: http://www.ecunet.org/topic/ELCA_communicators_online
Steve Fogg: http://stevefogg.typepad.com/blog/
Central Presbyterian Church Website Ministry FAQ: http://www.centralpc.org/admin/webminfaq.htm
United Methodist Church Web Ministry Planning Guide: http://archives.umc.org/interior.asp?ptid=1&mid=11331
Church Marketing Sucks: http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/
Kem Meyer: http://www.kemmeyer.typepad.com/
Church Marketing Lab: http://www.flickr.com/groups/cfcc/discuss/
HTML tutorial at:  http://www.w3schools.com/html/
HTML validator: http://validator.w3.org/
Feed validator: http://www.feedvalidator.org/
Firefox with Firebug Add-on:  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843
October
Newsletter
do have
aptitude for computers
eye for layout
hunger for information
passion for communicating
don't have
college degree
related education
related experience
Zion Lutheran Church (ELCA):
Founded 1866 by Swedish immigrants
1 hour west of Minneapolis
4000 baptized members
1800 households
10 weekday staff
Email Newsletter
Blastcasta
Google Dynamic 
Feed Control Wizard
FeedWind
Feedburner 
Headline Animator
Zion on Issuu:
http://issuu.com/zionbuffalo/docs
Email
Newsletter
Send Facebook Page Updates Twitter:
http://www.facebook.com/twitter/
About me
member since 1991
employee since 2001
office support
membership
communications
Including ancestors of my mother-in-law AND my father-in-law
Buffalo was once a small town that has become home to many commuters over the last 20 years.
Population is now around 15,000. 
We are on the far west edge of the Minneapolis metropolitan area and the Minneapolis Area Synod of the ELCA.
2 Pastors (full-time)
Youth Director (full-time)
2 Children's Ministry Directors (part-time)
Shared Ministry Director (part-time
3 Office Support Staff (1 full-time / 2 part-time)
1 Building Manager
Fairly typical church website at that time :)
Like many websites at that time, difficult to update :(
3 years later ...  not much has changed ...
We knew we needed to make some changes.
We attended a website seminar sponsored by our synod.
We ended up signing on with the company that had presented at the seminar.
The company provided a template site and web based editor.
Cost was about $60/month
Understand what the site is doing
Use code snippets
Push the limits of editor
Tweak formatting
Find problems
10 pastors in 10 years, none interested in blogging.
Include the Pastor's letter from the monthly newsletter.
A news blog has some of the same benefits as a pastor blog (loyalty, traffic, etc).
Easy way to regularly add current content.
$10 per year to map domain.
Deleted the standard right column of modules that made our site look just like every other site with the same provider
Built in menu was clumsy, so I experimented withdrop down links
Another staff person was working on the printed newsletter

Start with a template
Use layout guides and text styles to keep layout consistent
LPI sells ads to members and other local businesses that covers the cost of printing
Podcast costs about $50 per year.
Sound technician records and uploads sermon.
Yahoo media player is great for playing single audio files on a regular web page.
Low-cost workable solution pieced together with PayPal and Mals ECommerce.
Used mostly for children's and youth event registration fees.
Take updated content from one website and use to keep another fresh
Use categories and tags to pull selected content from a Wordpress blog
Add "/feed" to the end of a Wordpress address to find the feed page
Validate feed to find any problems
At this time, with only a handful of members actively using Twitter, it is not worth spending a lot of time on
Automatically pulling Facebook updates gives us an active presence with little extra effort
New solution included email marketing solution similar to Constant Contact
Both the newsletter webpage and email link to articles in various places and include the option to download an entire PDF
We started using facebook in the fall of 2007 when a youth from the congregation went ot Europe on exchange 

Google calendar is a good free option
We still use Google calendar for a volunteer calendar
With a large busy building we needed something to prevent double booking
Our previous schedulling software had a very expensive web option
Current calendar replaces both schedulling software and web calendar.
Cost about $325 per year
Deleted the standard right column of modules that made our site look just like every other site with the same provider
Built in menu was clumsy, so I experimented withdrop down links
Online version of the newsletter with page turning feature
Free version
Ability to embed in a website 
Added graphic link to newsletter
Added Facebook fan box
CSS for Google Feed & simplified.
Added static graphic links to youth and children's sections.
Removed standard login box.
Added links in the template to Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Our provider gave us 6 weeks notice that their servers would be going black
We switched to a new provider that they recommended, taking advantage of a discount for migrating
Shortened the welcome text
Started using RSS feeds
Text links on the home page replaced drop down options.
Started to layout featured content in a more organized way.
Pastor added "welcome" text
Liturgical Publications Inc (printer & B3 seminars) http://4lpi.com
Blastcasta: 
http://www.blastcasta.com/add-news-to-your-website.aspx
FeedWind: http://feed.mikle.com/en/
Dynamic Feed Control Wizard:
http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/wizards/dynamicfeed.html
Headline Animator:
http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=78986
'Inherit Styles from the Web Page's Styles' option
Paste in the URL of the feed
Fill out cusomization options
Paste the provided code into your web page
Useful where space is limited
Rotates feed items in the top box
List of titles below
Can stack multiple feeds
Takes a bit more homework to figure out how to customize
Facebook for Lutherans Class:
http://mnplatypus.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/facebook-for-lutherans-class-handout.pdf
Use many of the same design principles as scrapbooking
Wanting to know how things like website features work
Wanting to know what is going on in the congregation

Dad is the real geek :)
I didn't know that when I started
1/2 day per week
photocopying, collating, filing
what fun!
A co-worder retired, and I was the one who understood how the database worked
Gradually took on the website, newsletter, design of printed materials, email, and social media
Variety of schools and courses that added up to not much
Unless you count learning to type :)
Visitor Page
Mobile
Weeding
Upcoming Events
Rototill
Granger Community Church:
http://www.gccwired.com/mobileMenuPage.asp 
New Hope: 
http://m.enewhope.org/
Minehead Baptist Church:
http://m.minehead-baptist.com/
Henderson Hills Baptist Church:
http://www.hhbc.com/mobile
Hosanna Lutheran Church:
http://www.hosannachurch.mobi/
Zion Lutheran Church (in progress):
http://zionbuffalo.org/m
?
LifeChurch.tv
http://www.lifechurch.tv/welcome
Edmond's First Baptist Church
http://www.fbcedmond.org/what-do-i-wear
Were you there?
Links from discussion etc ... let me know if I missed something :)
My Twitter: http://twitter.com/mnplatypus
Our current website provider: http://infusioncorp.com/
Places to find images (general): http://mashable.com/2009/08/04/free-blog-media/
Places to find images (ministry specific): http://churchrelevance.com/free-church-graphics-and-resources-toolbox/