I was in my bosses office today (that would be Kem Meyer) for an impromptu meeting when I came to the stunning realization that the planets were in alignment and everything felt right in the universe.

So what are we doing with our websites and our web strategy to keep from enabling a love-hate relationship with those that visit us?

I won't lie, we can't please all the people all the time. But for the most part, do we give people a sense of "zen" when they visit? Or do we so frustrate them, that the good our sites do end up being hated at the same time?

Well, it has officially begun here at Granger. Our Executive Pastor, Tim Stevens was the first of many to move his blog to WordPress. And there are at least 5 more in line to do the same.

I've been in a number of meetings with my boss Kem Meyer over the past few weeks and for some reason we keep coming back to this concept:

Do we have each others backs?

I love the word picture created when you think of it in terms of an older brother sticking up for his little sister, or a wingman protecting the lead jet. In both scenarios the one being protected is weak in some way. The little sister just because of her age and size and the lead jet because of blind spots and limited firepower.

Similarly, we all have weaknesses and blind spots. If you question this, your blind spot is most likely pride and arrogance.

This is why "team" is so powerful. At Granger, we often hear the phrase:

The team outperforms the individual every time.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Do we "have the backs" of those on our immediate teams? For me that's the Communications and Tech Ops teams.
• Do we "have the backs" of those on the greater team? For me this would include the staff members from every department at the church.
• Do we "have the backs" of those serving along side us? For me this refers to volunteers on our teams and those serving in every other area of the church.

Big questions. But necessary for growth, progress and success.

One of the most frequent questions I receive is about how we address copyright issues at Granger.

Here is my summary: Read answer #4

But for more specific answers you should really check out this Webinar being offered by Church Copyright Solutions. They are able to explain it all in plain English.

Date & Time: December 3, from 2-3 p.m. CST.

And the sweet part of it is that you could WIN ONE FREE YEAR of the WorshipCast License for you, your church or organization!

If you've been meaning to look into copyright stuff - there is no better time than tomorrow.

It may appear that I've dropped off the face of the planet, but it's only so I could focus on some cool projects - one of which just launched this past weekend.

The Online Campus is now available at gccwired.com!

Specifics:

• you can get to it a few ways: idochurchonline.com / live.gccwired.com or by simply going to gccwired.com and clicking on the countdown clock at the top of the page.
• Enter as a visitor (anonymous for the most part) or create an account for a full service experience including the ability to give online and register for things offered on the site.
• Lobby gives interesting information regarding the current series and links to the Online Campus Blog so people can stay connected during the week.
• Once inside the auditorium, you find the service agenda on the left sidebar and next step opportunities on the right sidebar.
• Real time chat (including private chat) on the starting tab.
• Granger notes: you can follow along or take notes of your own. Print them off or email them to a friend.
  
• Audience view: See a visual representation of who is in the service (individuals and groups).
• Who's Here tab: Find a person and connect with them via Facebook, Twitter or an email.
• Map: See where in the world people are participating in the online experience.
• Write on your Facebook wall or Tweet directly from the auditorium. Default message is to invite someone to the experience.

Of course I can't talk about the Online Campus without giving a shout out to our creative strategists and partner in all things web - AspireOne.

AspireOne worked with us for months to brainstorm, dream, create and develop this online experience. It was more than a project that just needed to get done. It was the birth of an idea to expand the realm of online church possibilities. Our intent is to take the social networking tools embedded in the site and allow the vision of our Online Campus Director (Mark Meyer) to explode in the virtual world.

We're at the start of an incredible journey. If you get time, stop by the campus (currently offered twice on Sunday evenings) and check things out.

I'd love to hear feedback on your experience so give me a shout if you have ideas. Email: dmcmullen@gccwired.com

Innovate09 came and went, but left a lasting impression on me.

I'm going to divide this post into two sections: My Role and My Experience.

My Role
This year I was part of a few teams looking into and implementing the following:

1. Live streaming: A first for Innovate. It went off without a hitch and was definitely a big hit. We partnered with LightCast to provide the stream. Setup was a snap and the stream was steady and consistent. People were able to watch all main sessions along with the Innovate Film Festival. We averaged 260 viewers over the 6 sessions.

2. Twitter Feed: We used ParaTweet to pull a feed from the hash tag #innovate09 and presented it on the big screens during breaks and as sessions began and ended. Simple web interface for account creation and tweet moderation along with an Adobe AIR application for presenting on the screens. Worked like a charm.

3. Text Voting: During the Innovate Film Festival we partnered with Jarbyco to offer text in voting for the films (medias) entered in the festival. Worked like a charm as well. People are getting more used to texting every day so the number of people participating was even more significant than it was last year.

A special thanks to those that worked on these projects with me and helped make them a success during the conference. You know who you are :)

My Experience
The great thing is that even though I was nervous and "on call" throughout the conference related to the three projects above, I was also able to fully engage and enjoy the conference as it unfolded.

This year took me places I didn't think I'd go. Collaboration was the name of the game. Never before has there been such synergy between our teams and those attending the conference. The Arts Mashup and the Storyteller sessions brought an exciting new flair to the conference and infused it with the blood, sweat and tears of other churches.

I left feeling part of something bigger - a brotherhood of churches all pulling hard for the Kingdom.

There is definitely momentum building behind this type of collaboration and I can't wait to see where it takes the church.

It was good seeing all of you at Innovate09 - we should do this again sometime...

Don't forget to check out the main sessions on the Innovate09 site if you missed the conference or even if you just want to relive the experience!

This past weekend we spent a few days at the lake. When we returned home, we were greeted with something out of the ordinary - our neighbor's lawn looked like it had been scalped and there were piles of grass clippings all over the place.

This may mean nothing to you, but to us it meant something was terribly wrong with the world. You see our neighbor is militant about the status of his lawn. He edges regularly, keeps it trimmed nicely and always sweeps up the clippings when done.

Come to find out they were on vacation and a distant relative was helping them out by doing the lawn care. If you can call it that...

You see it is painfully obvious to us that our neighbor and his cousin are NOT on the same page. The cousin thinks it is okay to burn the lawn by cutting it too low and that clippings all over the place apparently spruce up the neighborhood.

Bring It Back To Your Team
Seems like something we should be aware of in our teams and departments. Are we operating on the same page? Do we all aspire to the same level of excellence and defend that standard?

Our team has evolved into this reality. In the past we dealt with issues related to the harmony of the team, but recently things have started to click along pretty well. Everyone is pulling hard in the same direction. We all understand the value of excellence and strive to maintain it.

Of course we don't always hit the mark but at least we're aiming for it and helping each other when we're a little off target.

I love the team I do life with at Granger!

Our annual conference at Granger Community Church is fast approaching.

Each year we look forward to meeting with hundreds of churches and over a thousand leaders in the church world to share innovative new ways to reach people for Christ.

This has been a hard year for everyone. Because of this, "Exposed" is the backdrop in front of which we'll discuss the failing economy and how it has impacted us at Granger.

Enjoy great teaching and incredible arts along with targeted Breakout Sessions and Casual Q&A sessions where you can sit down with Granger staffers and ask your questions.

If you're as excited as I am you'll want to keep up with the buzz by subscribing to the Countdown2Innovate Video Podcast. Tim Stevens and Kem Meyer will keep you in the loop and will keep you rolling at the same time with their short video interviews about the conference.

Other fun stuff: Visit the Who's In? page to see churches that have already signed up. Grab badges to put on your site or blog. And find the links to our Twitter and Facebook accounts.

See you all there!

The past few months have been wild and crazy. But we made it through and now we're getting back to more run-of-the-mill stuff.

So, "What were you up to?" You ask. Well - here are a few of the big ones:


1. WiredChurches.com
For the past year or so we've been working toward a new eCommerce reality for WiredChurches.com. And on Friday, June 12, we flipped the switch. We went from using a HUGE industry standard (Netsuite) to an open source platform with a more simple and straightforward approach to eCommerce (Drupal/Ubercart).

Netsuite was a beast that attempted to be all things to all people while missing the simple things that make the day-to-day bearable. Not to mention that it was expensive...

Ubercart is highly customizable and makes product/event management a breeze.

Added: New look/feel, home page flash that allows video, community section with blog/Twitter integration and streamlined event registration.

It took a lot of work on the front end, but we'll reap the benefits for years to come.

Great job team!



2. InnovateConference.com
The same day innovateconference.com went live to promote our annual conference at Granger Community Church.

Highly driven by the photo shoot for the conference trailer, the site begins with a short video and then allows the user pick from the menu items. Secondary pages are laid out on transparent backgrounds over the backdrop used in the video.

This project stretched my mind which is typically very traditional and symmetrical in design concepts. But I love the new look, the things I learned and the feel of the site in general.

Sign up now. I'm looking forward to seeing all of you in September.

3. Community Center Database
The next one isn't very flashy, but was a huge win for our church and for data integrity in general. We purchased a new FellowshipOne account just for our Community Center.

Here are just a few of the benefits from moving the Community Center data out of our church database and into a new one:

• Keeps things clean since people attending the Community Center are technically not members of Granger Community Church
• Allowed volunteers at the Community Center to continue using an application they were trained on and comfortable with
• Allows for the tracking of food and personal care items during Food Pantry
• Allows for check-in during events that occur at the Community Center
• Keeps reporting and queries clean since they are in different databases now

Most excellent - good work on the data clean up Jeanna Miller!

4. Something Coming...
Yes - the last thing is still in production - but very cool and I can't wait to share it. Look for the unveil in August of September.

It's been a great run of ministry. Now for a week or so of rest...

It's that time again.

WiredChurches.com workshops are being held June 25th and 26th.

There are many options to choose from but those reading this blog would probably be interested in the Less Clutter. Less Noise. workshop which will help you develop a cutting edge Communication Strategy. Come on Day 1 for the meat of it and then stay for Day 2 where you'll get hands on training and work through questions specific to your setting.

Look forward to seeing you there!

For much of my life I have viewed the phrase "out of context" as a negative thing. I mean only bad can come from taking something out of context right?

Here are a few examples: A preacher takes a verse of the Bible out of context and builds an entire religion based on it - ignoring numerous other verses that say the opposite thing. Or an image is taken out of context and great harm is done to a person when it's spread over the Internet.

But this morning I came to the conclusion that some things taken out of context are not only positive, but can change people's lives for the better.

It's been right under my nose the entire time I've attended Granger Community Church but I never looked at it this way.

At Granger, pop culture is used to illustrate themes and concepts for people that might be attending church for the first time. And it occurred to me today that every time we do this we pull the element out of context. A secular song is played outside of its pop radio station context. A movie clip is outside the overall context of the movie etc.

But it is NOT a bad thing!

In essence, it is the very act of taking it out of context that allows it to impact people the way it does.

Why?

Because you have people's undivided attention and the ability to do the following:

1. Set it up: You can explain a concept and then use the song, drama or clip to illustrate.
2. Explain it out: You can use the song, drama or clip and then explain the significance after the fact.

Either way, the element tends to have a greater impact that it may have had in it's original context.

The next time you hear someone say, "That was taken out of context." Don't assume it's a bad thing...

Before coming to work at the church I worked in the mental health field. And unfortunately I learned some bad habits. Everything from watching my back, to hoarding knowledge to paying someone as little as possible to do a job without thinking how it might impact future interactions with the person or company.

It was about keeping your job and trying to live up to unrealistic expectations - typically to pad the companies bottom line and allow the CEO to feel good about himself on his next exotic vacation.

But the church has taught me new habits. Trust, sharing your ideas, collaborating with teams and partnering with people.

It's that last part that I want to stress - partnering with people and vendors. I've seen it over and over again. Instead of contracting the cheapest solution and then dropping them the next time if something cheaper is found, the church develops strategic partnerships. These relationships begin like any other but over time become a sharing and collaborative interaction that helps strengthen both entities.

For years now we've had this partnership with AspireOne. They help us maintain the foundation of our website - allowing us to manage the daily/weekly updates and dream about future revisions. They push us on our decisions and we hopefully keep them on the cutting edge by asking for the next crazy thing out there.

Little by little it all made sense - to the point where last week I formed a partnership with a company in the community. It's starting over a specific project, but I hope it continues for years to come.

Isn't growth a wonderful thing?

The other day my team was locked in a conference room doing data entry for an upcoming project. We were working hard trying to stay positive when the door opened and in walked the Senior Pastor.

He said something like, "Just checking in...making sure everyone is doing alright."

We laughed, said hi and then got back to work. But the small gesture wasn't lost on us. In a church this size the tendency is for the Leadership Team (what we call SMT) to retreat to large offices behind solid oak doors and administrative assistants that serve to deflect and redirect. But not at Granger.

Not only is SMT approachable and an integrated part of how we do ministry. But they make themselves available to other churches as well. They open themselves up to criticism by discussing things we do well and not so well. Many churches put locks on their doors and hold onto what they do well. But the SMT at Granger are always looking for ways to resource other churches and give away their knowledge through things like WiredChurches.com Workshops and the recently added Leadership Live Event.

I look at other large churches and there seems to be one significant personality at the top. One person that everyone looks up to and yet has little to no access to. But not at Granger.

That doesn't mean there isn't respect for the SMT. If anything, their approachability and humility makes our respect that much more sincere.

I'm SO glad I'm part of some"thing" and not some"one" at Granger

First off. Yes. That is the Palm Pre.

Second. No. I don't actually have one. Never even touched one. You can thank Photoshop for the visual...

But don't be distracted by the phone. This post is about mobile websites - or the lack thereof.

This week we launched our mobile site (gccwired.com) after going years without one. In the past it either wasn't necessary due to the small number of mobile browsers hitting the site, or we simply focused on other projects that pushed mobile to the bottom of the list.

In my limited knowledge of the mobile explosion it seems like there are at least three ways to do mobile websites:

• Accessible/Integrated: By creating your html/css pages following strict standards of accessibility your pages should "degrade" gracefully depending on the browser viewing it. Not only older browsers, but mobile browsers too. Adding separate stylesheets for other devices can also help with this. Summary: No new pages. You website is both full and mobile in one.
• Completely Separate: The other extreme is to develop a mobile site just for phones/PDA's. If the device hits the main site you can check the browser type and funnel them to the mobile site. Summary: Truth be told you have two separate sites. The mobile site is often renamed m.yoursite.com :: yoursite.com/m :: yoursite.com/mobile for example.
• Hybrid (our solution): We have a dynamic backend that uses a limited number of templates to present data from a database. Because of this it made sense to try and integrate the mobile site into our weekly processes in our administration console. We created a few static pages that use a mobile template. This rounds out our navigation and static pages. Pages that require daily or weekly changes, are dynamic in that what we create for our main website can be pulled into the "mobile site" but presented on a mobile template. Summary: Best of both worlds...

Another project off the task list - even though there are some sweet enhancements to be made in the future (come on Fellowship Technologies - where's the mobile version of WebLink complete with online giving for mobile?)

But for now I feel we have achieved a much needed sense of mHarmony...

I was listening to the latest album from the All American Rejects on the way home from lunch today and finally had a chance to listen to some of the words.

The song "Believe" came on, and all I could hear and focus on was this:

I don’t ever wanna believe
I don’t ever wanna believe yeah
That when we die
That we all leave

I realize the song is highly relational. He's wishing that death would not separate love - obvious by the lines:

I don’t ever wanna let go
I hope that you see yeah
That there’s a part of you that’s left inside of me

But the chorus is a haunting reminder to me that many people out there are running around with their heads cut off as if to say, "I don't want to believe that when we die we all leave."

Finding the Hook
However, we know the truth - that when we die - we all do leave. We also understand the eternal ramifications of that statement. So how do we tell them this without scaring them? How do we let them know that there is amazingly good news among the bad?


Sex For Sale
In keeping with the topics that people are talking about, the next series will be on sex.

There probably isn't an easier series to invite people to and an easier topic to sit through than a sex series. It affects every person in the world - regardless what their spiritual persuasion.

And the cool thing about the sex series...

Once they're here - they'll hear about Jesus.

And just maybe, instead of leaving the service singing, "I don't wanna believe..." They'll be singing, "I might wanna believe..."

I know it's dangerous - putting the word "sex" in the title of my post. I wonder how many people won't get it because their filters blocked it - assuming it's objectionable content.

At any rate. That's the problem with sex. On the one hand it's something God made - so it's good. But on the other hand - it's one of the things the world has corrupted big time - making it bad.

What a dilemma.

That's why our church tries to do a series on sex every few years. We talk about it because, like money, it's one of those things that impacts everyone. And it's something everyone is talking about.

Sex for Sale is going to be a great series at Granger Community Church, full of incredible arts and relevant teaching on the topic of sex.

Hope to see you there.

For many of you out there, Less Clutter. Less Noise. is nothing more than a cool new book on how to communicate successfully in today's climate. But for us (at Granger Community Church) it isn't just a book - it is our standard operating procedure.

Less Clutter. Less Noise. is the strategy we employ regarding the majority of things we do in our department - from print pieces to web sites.

So how did it start? Well, a few years ago Kem Meyer was asked to join the team at Granger to build a website. She came in, did a quick assessment and instead of building a website, set up the communication strategy that would help guide the church into a future of bigger and better things.

As Web Director at the church I am deeply in her debt. It's like getting a job as a contractor. You drive to the work site and find the foundation already poured and the materials sitting there waiting for you. Sure there is a lot to do to finish off the house, but you are light years ahead of guy still drawing up his blue prints.

I can't tell you how great it is to work inside the framework that is Less Clutter. Less Noise. There is a freedom to do the next big thing without the baggage and entanglements a traditional church website would face.

Thanks Kem for all you do for us. May your book make it to everyone that so desperately needs to hear its message.

First service down. Heading into the second. Things running smoothly.

What a cool way to get people involved.


How does it work?

• People allowed to text questions before and during service.
• All (approved) texts displayed on screen during intro so people make the connection that the texts are being received in real time. An online flash movie is displayed on the large screen to display the questions and transition nicely between them (Text to Screen feature).
  
• Out of all entries random ones are picked and three at a time are "approved" for display on the screen. As these go by, the speaking pastor (Mark Beeson in this case) asks for the audience to pick the question they want by clapping for it. Once chosen the Spyder operator "freezes" the main screen on that question (online flash movie doesn't stop).
• The speaking pastor then answers the question while the "approved" questions are scrapped for the next three.
• This continues until there is no time left in the message portion of the service.
  

Looking into a similar application for your church or business? If so, check out Jarbyco. They are a successful startup with awesome customer service and a highly versatile product.

This weekend we're getting to put Jarbyco through its paces.

If Jarbyco sounds familiar to you it might be because we used it during Innovate08 to allow voting by text during the Film Festival.

Since then we've found a variety of ways to use the texting service. But this is probably our most visible use.

Concept
Create a weekend service where the audience can participate by texting in questions they want immediately addressed by the speaking pastor (Mark Beeson in this case). Obviously all questions won't be answered, but they will still scroll on the screen (if appropriate) so the interactivity is there. A couple random questions are chosen for the audience to pick from. Once the question is picked the speaking pastor answers the question and then the process starts over with another round of questions to choose from.

Solution
Jarbyco Text to Screen. As people enter the auditorium and as the service progresses people can text in questions that go to the big screen. A flash interface not only gives the instructions but also cycles through the questions with nice text effects.

You can also set up an auto response text so the person knows their submission went through.

Here we go...

More details on how it went on the other side...