I Am A Church Member App Available

May 16, 2013 — Leave a comment

As you already know I am a big fan of the book I Am A Church Member by Thom Rainer. I have reviewed the book here and have written posts on our Sunday School discussions of each chapter. Now the concept has gone digital. The book now has its own iOS application available free in the App Store.

This new application for you iOS device is designed to help you put the book into practice. The application contains notable quotes from each of the six chapters in the book. Once you click on one of these quotes, you are able to post the quote directly to your Twitter or Facebook account, email, or even text the quote to a friend. All from within the application.

But quoting the book is only one way that you can put the book into action. The app also contains the pledges from the book and allows you to electronically sign each pledge. While reading the book, you are presented with a pledge at the end of each chapter designed to make you accountable for putting the chapter into action.

In Apps Apple, application, apps, I Am A Church Member, ios, Thom Rainer

And Why They Are Wrong!

There are many different reasons that churches are hesitant to create their own mobile application, however, here are the five most common ~~excuses~~ reasons.

1. My members won’t use a mobile application.

I have actually heard this put several different ways, see if any of these sound familiar to you.

My people are not tech savvy enough to use a mobile application.

Most of my members don’t even have a smartphone.

My congregation really doesn’t care about these kind of things.

If you have heard statements about your congregation, or maybe even made them yourself, then take a look at the facts. According to research, over 50% of Americans now own a smartphone. And the mobile phone/tablet market is the largest growing segment in computers today. If you don’t get on board with the mobile revolution, you are going to be left behind. You may not think that your members aren’t that tech savvy but you might want to give them a little credit. Most smartphone users do understand how to download and use applications and by the end of this year more people are going to be accessing information via their phone or tablet than with their desktop computers.

Twenty years ago, your church would not have hesitated to place an ad in the Yellow Pages. The mobile application is today’s Yellow Pages. For the cost of a Yellow Page advertisement you can have your own mobile application delivering much more information to your members for an entire year.

Let me ask you another question? What segment of the population does your church have the hardest time attracting today? If your church is like all of the others in the world, then the answer is the 18 – 30 aged group. Now let me pose another question? When you spot a member of this hard to attract group, what do they all have in common? You got it, they are all walking around holding their smart phone. The smart phone for this aged group is like the American Express card for my generation. They don’t leave home without it!

Consider the mobile application a recruiting tool as well as an information hub for your current members. Someone in the Generation Y aged range will be much more willing to give your church a chance if you are on the cutting edge of technology. They want information, they want it now, and they want it in their hands on their smart phone. If you are truly interested in sharing your message to this generation, you must have a mobile strategy.

ChurchLink: The Mobile App

March 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

On Monday I told you about ChurchLink App, a new mobile solution for churches and ministries. Yesterday, we took a look at the easy to use Dashboard that you use to create your mobile content. Today, we are going to take a look at the mobile application itself and the experience that your members will enjoy when you enroll your church in the ChurchLink App.

One of the things that makes ChurchLink unique among the mobile solutions for ministries is that they use one application, already available in the iOS and Android stores. This allows you to publish your content immediately without having to wait for a mobile application to be designed and approved. So once you have published your mobile application the next step is for your members to download the mobile application to their phones. You can find the ChurchLink App in the Apple Store or the Google Play Store.

For the purposes of this review, I will be using the iOS version of the software. The Android version has a very similar look and feel to the application with slight differences in the interface due to the differences in the two operating systems.

Once your member downloads and installs the application to their mobile device they are presented with a screen to select the church or ministry that they would like to see. There are a couple of ways that one can search for your ministry, first by typing in part of the name and performing a search or secondly by simply allowing the device to find the church or ministry that is closest to their gps coordinates. This makes it very easy for your members to find your church on the application. And when they find the church that they would like to see, the application will prompt them to make this their home church, thus allowing them to avoid having to search in the future.

In Apps, Technology android, application, ChurchLink, ios, mobile

ChurchLink is a mobile solution for churches

The ChurchLink Dashboard

March 12, 2013 — Leave a comment

Yesterday, I told you about a new mobile solution for churches that provides an economical way to give your ministry its own mobile application without having to spend a fortune in development. I have spent the last few days exploring the ChurchLink App Dashboard and mobile app, discovering just how easy it really is to get your church up and running with the system. So today we are going to take a look at the ChurchLink Dashboard.

The first thing that you will notice when you log in to the ChurchLink Dashboard is how simple and intuitive it is to set up your application. The system will walk you through step by step until you are ready to publish your church or ministry live on the application. The entire process can be completed in less than 10 minutes.

If you have signed your church up for ChurchLink and are ready to start customizing your application, I suggest that you download one of the mobile applications first and spend some time getting to know the features of the mobile app. This will give you a much better idea of the information that you are going to need when setting up your application and you will understand what information to fill in the blanks.

In Technology android, application, church, ChurchLink, ios, mobile

Make Your Ministry Mobile In Minutes

March 11, 2013 — 1 Comment

According to recent global research over 1 Billion people now own a smartphone and that number is growing each and every day. Not only do these individuals own a smartphone but they are using them to access information at an ever increasing rate. Over 45% of these smartphone owners download and use applications to access the information that they need. In today’s mobile society, your ministry will be missing a large part of the population if you don’t take advantage of this segment of the population.

When determining how you will take your ministry mobile, you have two basic options to choose from. First, you can insure that your website is mobile compatible, that is, your website can format itself to be viewed on the smaller screen. This is much more than just shrinking your content to fit the space but rather a good mobile website will completely change itself to adapt to the mobile platform, offering a single column of content along with menus and options that are specifically designed for the mobile device.

The second option, and the one that I think is the best option for any ministry or business, is to create your own mobile application. The mobile application is a program that your member can download directly to their phone to provide them with content and information from your ministry. This is the largest growing segment of the industry with millions of applications now available in the respective mobile application stores. The only problem with this method is that in the past it has required knowledge of mobile programming or a large investment to have your application professionally designed.

Introducing ChurchLink App

ChurchLink has set out to eliminate these obstacles to creating your own mobile application. With ChurchLink you can have your own mobile application up in running and available on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store and for a fraction of the cost that you would spend on designing your own application. The ChurchLink App difference is that you take advantage of their own mobile application that is already available in the mobile application stores and the application pulls your content straight from their servers. By utilizing this method you avoid the cost of programming the application and you also avoid the process of having your application approved in the app stores.

In Technology android, church, ChurchLink, ios, mobile, technology