Faith and Web

I am delighted to introduce Dean Goddette, who will be guest posting on Faith and Web. Dean is webmaster at Chalice Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Escondido, California.

We’ve never met, but he came to my attention first blogging about technology and churches at Share the knowledge.

Then when I saw what he’d done with the members-only section of his church’s site, my jaw dropped. And I begged him to write more. He said yes, and you will soon see a post by him on this very topic. Pay close attention. He knows his stuff.

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Adding extra domain names isn’t something I’d ever done – until this past weekend. Typically domains are given to me or they come with the host. But my church wanted a name that was easier to read on a bumper sticker than firstuunashville.org. Plus they’re cheap, on the order of $9.00 each.

People had told me it was simple, but I knew enough about the complexity of the Domain Name System (DNS) to be skeptical. Turns out I was wrong. It’s dead easy. Here’s how.

Step 1. Choose a registrar. You want an ICANN-Accredited one. Geeky friends whom I trust seem to mostly use GoDaddy, so that’s where my co-chair of Communications and I went, with church credit card in hand.

Step 2. Choose the domain names you want. Chances are you’re not going to get your first choice, but the system spits back some alternatives. From that list we found a couple that were acceptable, if not ideal. We chose “fuunweb.com” and “fuunweb.org” because they are shorter, faster to type and easier to remember than the alternatives.

Step 3. Buy your extra domains. Preferably do this with the church credit card (assuming you are getting them for your church).

Step 4. Manage your new domains. We had to recover a bit after the ordeal of buying, but we returned, recharged by coffee. At this point if you’re like us, you will be overwhelmed by GoDaddy’s very busy screen. We signed in with our username and password, no problem. But then what? Eventually we figured out you should click on Domain Names / Manage Domains at far left of the horizontal menu above “Welcome.” This brings you to a list of your domains. Click on the domain name links (in our case fuunweb.com and fuunweb.org) and you have all kinds of possibilities.

Step 5. Set them up to forward. Assuming this is what you want to do with your new domains, just click on the forwarding link. Then “Enable” forwarding, enter where to forward it to and choose the type of redirect. You can also “Mask” your domain at this point.

Masking makes your new domain name act just like the domain it’s pointing to. So, if we had masked fuunweb.com, then www. fuunweb.com/about/ would look just like www.firstuunashville.org/about/. Unless you really need it, I’d advise against masking. It can hurt your search engine rankings.

Just click “OK,” and it’s done. However, given the way the DNS works you won’t see the results for probably about a day. If it’s not working in 3 days you’ve got a problem, but chances are all will be fine. The delay has to do with how the new name propagates (in a loose interpretation of the DNS) to computers around the world.

But that’s all there is to it. We’ve got our new domain names for bumper stickers and more. And if we can do it, so can you.

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Blogger-extraordinaire Philocrites recently ran a workshop on Blogging for Beginners. He reports that, “During the Q&A period, many congregational webmasters asked about blogs as part of congregational websites.”

That’s great news. Webmasters thinking about congregational blogging are my kind of webmasters. So to answer their question, here are my top ten tips.

1. Start Your Own Blog

It doesn’t really matter what it’s about, though if you can find a topic you’re passionate about, that’s the best. The goal here is to learn blog basics, not to join one of the many crazy blog popularity contests or to make money. Just enjoy yourself. I’d recommend trying at least two types of blogs. Blogger is astonishingly easy, and even if you don’t end up using it yourself, it’s good to learn its strengths and weaknesses first-hand so you know when it’s the best tool for the job. WordPress and TypePad are my two top recommendations. And keep your eyes on Movable Type. It’s making a comeback.

2. Read The Blogging Church or Clear Blogging

These two books are my current favorites, but of course feel free to read whatever appeals to you. The point is to get a broad overview. If you do buy a book, a nice side benefit is that when you’re through with it, you can pass it on to someone else in your congregation who you think will make good use it. Then once you have the big picture, you would also do well to subscribe to a few of the many blogs on blogging, so you can stay on top of the latest.

3. Be an Unabashed Blog (or Tech) Evangelist

Enthusiasm is catching, and if you can build your own in the course of creating your blog, it’s going to rub off on the congregation. One way to do this is to comment regularly on other blogs you like. Do people in your congregation have personal blogs? Subscribe and comment on them. You’ll be amazed at the communities you’ll find, which in turn will give you a sense of ways to build your congregation’s blogs

4. Focus On the User

A congregational blog by definition isn’t a personal blog. It’s about what your congregation needs and will make good use of. In the end, this is always what it comes down to, and if you take just one thing away from this post, let it be this. Talk to people in the congregation. Look at site statistics. Find out what in particular they would like to have on the website. Some of it may be a match for a blog or two or three. Once you’ve started a blog, pay attention some more. Find out what’s working and what’s not, and adjust accordingly.

5. Find a Catalytic Voice to Seed the Blog

If you have the time and ability to contribute content to the blog, that’s great. But if, like most webmasters I know, it’s all you can do to keep up with the tech demands being placed on you, then the key is to find a person who will take charge of the blog once it’s in place. Likely suspects are the people who suggest that you start a congregational blog, plus tech-savvy staff members or leaders.

6. Prepare and Build Momentum

Once you have some good ideas, get buy-in from the leadership. Then have a meeting to flesh plans out. Of course, pay close attention to what they want.

7. Start Slowly

There’s rarely a need to hurry the start of a blog. Take time to plan, listen to potential users and experiment with various technologies. It’s an investment that will pay off.

8. Make Use of the Power of RSS

RSS feeds are built into all the major blog applications now. RSS is a phenomenally simple XML standard, and in its simplicity and standardization lie its power. It can be repurposed in all kinds of ways. If you have a geek-streak, go for it. Mix and match those RSS feeds, and make them earn their keep. You might even do an aggregator for your congregation like John Cooley’s UUpdates.

9. Have a Blogging Class for Your Church

You’ll have fun and so will those who come. Piggyback on Philocrites’ workshop. It’s a great way to continue building momentum and focusing on your users. If your church doesn’t have wireless, find some place like a coffee shop that does, and get those who can to bring their laptops.

10. Clarify Your Goals

It’s critical that you understand what the goals are for your blog. Don’t just have a blog for having a blog’s sake. That’s unlikely to work. Different types of congregational blogs have different needs. Ask yourself, “What do we plan to accomplish with this blog?” Once you can answer this, that in turn will answer any number of other questions, such as should it be password-protected, should commenting be turned off, and who is in charge of the content.

Here’s an assortment of possible goals. Hopefully some will be a good match for your congregation.

• An announcement board, with commenting turned off, and authorship privileges given to all church leaders. We have a blog like that at my church. You can see where we’ve pulled its RSS feed on our home page.
• A sermon blog, with an editor in charge of posting a podcast or text version of the sermon and commenting turned on. Needless to say, this requires the minister’s support.
• A Children’s Religious Education blog. That’s next on our plate, and I can’t wait. More to the point, our Director of Religious Education can’t wait either. She is building momentum even as I type this, talking it up and finding people who are eager to participate.
• A password-protected techies’ blog, where those who tend to the congregation’s hard and software can keep quick notes about licenses, platforms, wiring, manuals, cost estimates for major upgrades, and so on.
• A ministry blog, where senior staff can speak with an authentic voice and nurture the dialog so many of us hunger for. Many ministers aren’t ready to do this, but if you notice your minister is thinking along these lines, jump for joy and do what you can to support him or her.

In the end, the future of church blogging is in your hands. Grow blogs and I believe you will grow your congregation and yourself.

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“To worship is to work with dedication and with skill;
it is to pause from work and listen to a strain of music.”
– Jacob Trapp

These words leapt off the page during a service this morning. It was such a lovely reminder — a chance to back up and see what all the hustle and bustle of creating a website is really all about.

They are the third verse of a beautiful poem, which begins:

“To worship is to stand in awe under a heaven of stars,
Before a flower, a leaf in sunlight, or a grain of sand.”

Read more….

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OK. That’s a slight exaggeration, but it’s the greatest web team I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. It’s the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly Web Workers. They are at it again this year, and how I wish I could be with them. You can read more about the faces I miss so much here: About General Assembly 2007 Online. And here’s a bit of on-site news from Sharing the knowledge

In 2002, the first year I was one of the GA Web Workers, I was asked to tell my story at church shortly afterwards. I expect things remain much the same, so here it is:

In 1993, I started to email the denomination’s leadership. I did it mostly because it was cheaper than long-distance. But back then email was a novelty around the UUA and thus I came to the attention of Deb Weiner, their Head of Electronic Communications. Deb is now a dear friend, and this year, to my great delight, she asked me to help their very talented webmaster, Julie Albanese. I was one of a team of 17 volunteers and 4 staff. We were reporters, editors, photographers, videographers, technicians and webmasters, working elbow-to-elbow long into the night. Our tables, strewn with an astonishing variety of equipment and connected by a sea of wires, were in a circle. I don’t know if it was intentional, but the circle reminded me of our chalice, plus having the more practical result that we all faced each other, and communication flowed freely across and around the room.

The highpoint for me came Sunday morning. This was our first year to do live webcasting, and it was supposed to begin with “The Service of the Living Tradition” at 10:00 a.m. We were flying by the seat of our pants, and back in the web workers room, we discovered at the last minute that the rental machines couldn’t handle streaming video. 10:00 came and machines around the room were giving error messages. My laptop showed no broadcast. Then there was a frantic call from the convention center floor, some technological wonder was wrought in seconds flat, and suddenly, on my laptop, there was a gorgeous live video stream of the Service. A big cheer went up around the room and everyone clustered around my machine. Then emails started coming in from around the continent as grateful UUs let us know that even though they couldn’t be in Quebec, they were with us.

Today, this continues to be one of my favorite parts of the vast and rich website we produced. The videos (15 all told) are still there. So are over 75 stories, hundreds of photographs and countless handouts. There is something there for all UUs, including coverage of things others are talking about today. All you have to do is go to www.uua.org.

Here’s hoping for General Assembly 2008.

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At long last, our church has launched a “Members Only” area of the site.

Why we’ve wanted one is simple: for our membership directory. It contains all that critical, but often private, information like phone numbers and email addresses. The idea first came up in 1996, believe it or not. But things generally move slowly in the church web world. Particularly with potentially touchy areas like this, it’s good to take it slowly and wait for the right time.

So the right time is here, we’ve got it going, and suddenly I wonder, now what? Is there anything else we can use this password-protected area for? It’s basically one folder locked down with an .htaccess file that requires you to sign in with the secret password.

Here are some other ideas:

• The budget. A while back we posted a proposed budget on our main site before a congregational meeting. It saved paper, since we didn’t have to mail it to all members, but somehow I just wasn’t comfortable with it being so visible to the larger world. A members’ only area seems a better place.
• Old newsletters. They are chock-full of information that members don’t want Google remembering ad nauseam.
• Maybe, just maybe, an announcement board. Members frequently suggest that we have an area of the site where they can post information about their businesses, needs, etc. Basically they hope for an online church classifieds section. What usually happens is they say to me, “I think you should set up an area where I can post X.” It’s the pronoun that gets me every time. Actually the verb bothers me some too. Yes, I can set one up, but the issue is who will maintain it? The thinking is usually that it will take care of itself, but that’s just not so. So, if we can find someone eager to tend to such an online board, I’m all for it.

Do you have other things you use a Members Only area for? I would love to know if others have tried this and what you have learned from it.

Update July 4: For more on this topic, see guest blogger Dean Goddette’s post: Members Only: A Wiki in Sheep’s Clothing.

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One of my church’s most successful forms of communication is our weekly email. It started around 2000, when the minister and church administrator quickly and easily threw together an email that included a few upcoming events and a ministerial thought or poem sent to the church-wide distribution list. It was an instant hit.

Since those easy, carefree days, however, I think we’ve made every mistake in the book, so here are my top tips for a weekly email:

• Commit to one time every week that it goes out and stick with it. Our designated time is Tuesday afternoon, since dinner and Adult Religious Education are on Wednesday – and we want to give people adequate time to plan.
• Have an editor, who reviews content, spelling and grammar, and reformats into a consistent layout.
• Minimize the number of cooks in the kitchen. We’ve discovered the hard way that when more than three people are involved, the points of potential failure increase. People miss deadlines, the format goes haywire, etc. Our three are the minister, who provides a weekly pastoral message, the editor, who reviews and pulls the content together, and the church administrator, who is in charge of distribution. If you can keep the number to two, combining editing and distribution, that will streamline things even more.
• Double check to be sure people have received the email. Sometimes it looks to the administrator as if it’s gone out, but there’s a glitch in the system and no one receives it. You might have a fourth person designated to look for it every week who alerts the administrator once it’s received.
• Don’t use the church-wide email distribution list for much else. If you want credibility and to keep members on the list, it’s very important to have a high signal-to-noise ratio. About once a month, something else worthy of the church-wide list comes up, but that’s it.
• Use a stable platform. This has been our single biggest problem. Eventually we settled on UUism.net for maintaining the email address list and for distribution, and since then, our woes have decreased significantly.
• Just like a good blog, be sure to have great content. Include things people want to read, and don’t go overboard. Every week we have links to an online version of our print newsletter and the calendar, menus for upcoming dinners, a list of current classes, a few featured announcements (e.g. who is doing pastoral coverage while the minister is away) and, my favorite, the Minister’s Message.

I’ll close with a quote from our most recent Minister’s Message, which began a reflection on our church’s involvement in the civil rights movement:

“And I’m gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
And touching each other natural as dew”
(from “Daybreak in Alabama by Langston Hughes)

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Not all churches have websites. Those of us who have them tend to take them for granted and assume that everyone else has them too. But the more I explore this area, the more I learn that’s just not so.

These are wonderful, vibrant churches, with people who understand the importance of the digital age. Once they know of my interest in websites for churches, they’ll say, “We don’t have a website. What should we do?”

I got an email like this about a week ago. The person said she plans to start with a meeting. In my opinion that’s the single smartest thing she can do, but it’s not a guarantee. There are no silver bullets for creating a good church website – not even a meeting, much as I love meetings.

She doesn’t live close to me, so I can’t do what I’m used to – that is, help in a hands-on kind of way. So to try to answer her question, I imagined what I’d do if I were running the meeting, but was only allowed to delegate and not permitted to do any of the technical work.

Here’s my strategy:

1. Plan for the meeting

• Ask the best people you can think of, including likely prospects to be writers, editors, photographers and coders, to attend. It’s especially important to get leadership buy-in. So if you can find a minister, senior staff or lay leader who is interested, by all means include them.
• Set it up at a time most of them can come.
• Plan for an informal, comfortable setting – for maybe a couple of hours, with snacks. If it has wireless and people bring laptops, that’s great, but not required.

2. Organize your ideas for the meeting. Things to consider include:

• What content is most needed. Research this on the web, particularly looking for church content that’s simple but effective. If you can, get a sense of what’s easier and what’s harder to do.
• Your best options for a host and software to run the site. This is probably going to be the most challenging and important decision and I intend to blog on it in Part 2. Options range from WordPress to hiring a web company.
• Possible domain names.

3. Run a very focused meeting.

• If someone can take minutes, that will be very helpful.
• Be clear about your goals. My primary goals at this stage would be to identify talents, garner support and further refine the wish list for the site. Once you know what people can do and what they want from the site, it’s going to be easier to pick a solution.
• Develop an action plan – who will be doing what and when. This doesn’t have to be comprehensive – just concrete things you know need to be done to get the process moving.

4. Follow-up.

• Distribute the minutes as soon as you can.
• Develop a schedule based on the action plan, and follow up with the appropriate people at the appropriate times if you haven’t heard from them.
• Make plans to reconvene at least a core group. Depending on how big the congregation is and how lofty your goals are, it could be a large group or it could be as small as just two of you over lunch.

Remember: the most important thing is to enjoy this. It could be an opportunity for you to learn new skills, deepen connections in your church or broaden your circle. In the end, the process is every bit as important as the product. After all, it’s church we’re talking about.

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JosiahRoad.com was released this week in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Southern Baptists. It’s a web community built by their Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), featuring threaded discussion, a wiki and a popular concerns area.

The design is handsome and the code is clean. Even the favicon is a treat to look at.

What puzzles me is why it isn’t being used more. Of course, it’s very new.  And perhaps it hasn’t been officially launched or marketed to its target audience. It’s got some great ingredients to be a resource “to reach believers who might otherwise not relate to the organization’s work.”

For more information, see ERLC launches Web community.

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