A Disturbing Trend

I am sorry to report a disturbing trend that I am seeing in blogs, facebook, twitter and other social media and I wondered if it troubles you? It seems to me that more and more people are voicing opinions through new posts, status updates and comments that are filled with bitterness, envy, criticism, anger, and self-pity.

Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters.sIf you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. James 4:11 NLT

The bible is clear on this issue of criticizing and judging others. That is why I believe that using any social media platforms such as twitter, blogging or facebook to criticize others is a sin. So why do people do it? I think some do it for the traffic it generates to their blog. I also think that it is much easier to criticize someone online. We don’t often get into yelling matches in the hallways of our local churches. We don’t criticize or humiliate our neighbors or friends when we invite them over for dinner or small group in our homes. Because in social media online we don’t have to look the person(s) in the eyes, we can pretend that they don’t hurt.

I continue to wonder why other Christians look on and even support those who behave this way and don’t say anything. Do we not have the nerve to speak up? Maybe it’s that we don’t recognize what is happening, or that it is just happening so much. I just doubt very much that we would just stand by as a brother or sisters property was being vandalized? Why is it that we stay silent as someone vandalizes the sites and esteems of others?

“In the Epistle of James, the author says no one can tame the tongue because it is a restless evil (James 3:8). In our day and age, we could say the same for our fingers as we write blog posts and leave comments online. Fingers can tap out to their fair share of destruction, effectively tossing Jesus’ Golden Rule into the desktop recycle bin.” -Ed Cyzewski We each have a choice to make. Will we continue to attack one another online or will the next time we witness an act of e-vandalism we will respond by trying to bring peace, clarity, and inspire meaningful conversation, or keep our flamethrowers ready?

-Portions of this post were inspired & taken by reading Collide Magazine’s January/February issue.

Google Browser Size- A Useful tool!

For those of you out there who are designing websites or are just curious what your own website or favorite website looks like to the rest of the world Google has released a fun tool called “Browser Size”. Google Browser Size is a visualization of browser window sizes for people who visit Google. For example, the “90%” contour means that 90% of people visiting Google have their browser window open to at least this size or larger. This is useful for ensuring that important parts of a page’s user interface are visible by a wide audience.

So if your wondering why a certain link or button is not being clicked in comparison to others it might be because a majority of users are unable to even see the button or link. Googles example webpage shows how a good percentage of people can’t even see the “donate now” button. It’s a simple tool, but a great resource! Click here to give it a try.

New website design for nccchurch.com

Just a few weeks back, I launched a brand new website for New Covenant Community Church. NCC Church is located in York County Pennsylvania. Using wordpress as the backbone I was able to provide a complete web solution. NCC had a previous website that was limiting in features, space, and design. The new site is far more robust and offers a fresh design with a new logo design, sermon audio, photos through flickr, and blog updates. Each time I work on a project like this I am encouraged with the positive response of churches being able to take into their own hands the maintenance and updates of a website that fits them. You can visit the website by clicking here.

tablechurch.com New Design!

A few weeks back I finished helping The Table Community Church launch a brand new website design. Using wordpress as the content management solution they are now freed to update and customize content without the need of an outside designer. The new site is faster loading, better designed, easier to navigate, and a fit for the congregation. They are just about ready to start a new message series where they will be encouraging interaction on the blog with the various message topics. For the first time The Table is able to publish each weeks messages online for instant playback online and for download. The Table is a church plant started 5 years ago and they meet around tables each Saturday night. Check out the new design by clicking here!

Marketing Church on Wednesday? – Think Different

When Pequea Church decided to launch a service on Wednesday night we knew we had to get peoples attention by thinking differently. In our community Church on Wednesday was not something new. In fact we had even had a fall program for children. When deciding upon a marketing campaign it is essential to do research and understand your audience. You need to determine the appeal factor. For example we don’t market a weekend youth conference as a time for you to grow spiritually, pray daily, and have times of communion. — While all that stuff might happen, which is great, it is not what today’s teenagers are appealed to. If you ran an ad for that type of conference you are going to get the same types of kids over and over, not the ones that really need to come to a weekend conference. To get the fringe kids you promote that it will be a weekend away, games, friends, water slides etc. When the kids are already in the environment they will be more open to praying, communion, and growing spiritually. – I think you get the idea.

With Church on Wednesday we determined that the largest appeal factor is the day “Wednesday”. We know that people in our area are busy, or work on Sunday mornings. We know that no other churches in our immediate area are holding services other then Sunday mornings. This affirmed that “Wednesday” was the sweet spot. The word Wednesday is not something new, it’s not hard to pronounce like our name (Pequea), but it is ordinary. What is not ordinary is churches holding “church” on Wednesday. Now I should note for readers unfamiliar with our community we are located in what many call a “bible belt”. They are used to having children’s clubs on Wednesday nights, and familiar with the word Church.

All that to say in order to keep it simple we created a campaign centered around a website. We purchased the domain names churchonwednesday.com and wednesdaychurch.com. Our primary thrust was towards www.WednesdayChurch.com but we wanted to take out the possibility that people would forget the domain name and purchased them both. The website is a landing page for information specific to church on Wednesday. It’s simple, easy to understand, and connected to our main church website. Everything we designed for this campaign was simple, asking the question “Church on Wednesday?” and promoting the website www.WednesdayChurch.com.

I will give you a taste of our other marketing ideas in my next post!