Archives For technology

Simple Giver

SimpleGiver

April 10, 2013 — Leave a comment

Simple GiverYesterday, we took a look at some of the things to look for when choosing an electronic donation processor. During my research for this article, I came across a newly formed service that checked most of the boxes that I mentioned in my article. So today I would like to take the time to introduce you to SimpleGiver.com, a simple mobile solution that allows your church or ministry to accept electronic donations.

Simple Giver is an easy to use solution. Once you join, all you have to do is upload your logo and your mobile payment site is built for you automatically. Once you create a project or fundraiser, you are ready to begin accepting donations. In just a matter of minutes your church can put a complete electronic payment solution in place and be up and running.

The first thing that caught my attention when researching Simple Giver is their pricing structure. There are no set-up fees, no monthly or annual fees, your ministry pays just 5% of every transaction to process the donation. Since credit card companies will charge you 2 to 3% per transaction to process credit card payments, the Simple Giver fees are extremely reasonable.

Simple Giver Features

  • Free to join and all you pay is 5% per transaction. Period.
  • Analytics and reports that allow you to see who is giving and how much. Every cent can be traced.
  • Anyone can give to your organization 24/7 by simply visiting your Simple Giver website on their smartphone.
  • Nothing to download
  • No hidden fees.
  • Free resources to help you make the most of Simple Giver, such as, PowerPoint slides, bulletin inserts, etc.

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Baseball Field

If You Build It … They Will Listen

March 28, 2013 — Leave a comment
Baseball Crowd

Photo Credit: laffy4k via Compfight cc

With the recent hiring of a new pastor at my church and our implementation of the ChurchLink App, there has been more interest than ever before in finding ways to share our message online. We have had a website, although not always up to date, but in the past we have never tried to share our sermons online in any manner. The excuse has always been that no one would ever listen online. After all, my church is a small country church in Eastern North Carolina, far removed from silicon valley and the centers of cutting edge technology.

However, I am reminded of the famous movie phrase, “If you build it, they will come.” And I have come to realize over the past couple of days that this does not just apply to baseball fields but can also be applied to the use of technology in our churches today.

I was approached by our pastor last weekend and asked if I could start putting the sermons online for people to listen to them at their leisure. I immediately answered with an enthusiastic yes, after all, I have a pastor who wants to embrace technology to help spread the message of the Gospel, this stuff just gets me excited. I also explained that with the ChurchLink App that we were introducing to the congregation the following morning that our members would also have the ability to stream these sermons directly to their smartphone or download them and listen to them while traveling, sitting at home, or where ever they wanted all from the palm of their hand.

Like many churches, we already record all of our morning messages to be distributed to the shut-ins and to make available for anyone who might miss a service. These messages are currently being distributed on a cd, so making them available online should not be that much of a problem. I proceeded to pick up copies of the last 5 compact discs and took them home to get to work.

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Mobile applications are important for churches

5 Reasons You Should Not Create A Mobile App For Your Church

March 20, 2013 — Leave a comment

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.

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ChurchLink is a mobile solution for churches

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.

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NIV available on eBible

NIV Now On eBible

January 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

eBible for Android, iOS, and on the web

The New International Version of the Holy Scriptures has finally arrived at my favorite online Bible site, eBible.com. The NIV joins the 9 other English translations that are available on eBible.com, giving eBible at total of 44 translations of God’s Word.

Due to publisher licensing restrictions, the NIV Bible is only available via Supporter subscriptions at this time. This subscription gives you access to all that eBible has to offer for a small yearly fee. Normally $30 per year, for the next few days, eBible is offering a 40% discount for all subscribers. You get a full year of premium content for only $18. Supporters get premium content and features including but not limited to:

  • NIV Bible translation
  • Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
  • Critical Commentary and Expository
  • Easton’s Bible Dictionary
  • Nave’s Topical Bible
  • Smith’s Bible Dictionary
  • Torrey’s New Topical Textbook
  • Strong’s Concordance
  • Bible translation download for quick offline mobile reading
  • Ad-free reading experience
  • Up to 70% discount in future commercial titles
  • and more!

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