The Table Project began in 2007, aiming to become an online extension of the local church. It offers customizable features like the prayer wall, real-time service opportunities, social media integration and more.

Several years ago, the leaders at Gateway began researching ways to merge spiritual learning, active pastoring and community with technology—around the same time The Table began working toward church community building. Now, the two are joining forces, each bringing unique strengths, to see the dream for church congregations to make connections and learn more about the Bible through The Table.

Table Announcement from The Table Project on Vimeo.

Paul Bertelson, President and CEO of Real Resources (The Table’s parent company), said, “It’s exciting that a resource created to serve the church is now going to be offered by a church. This transition is part of the greater vision to exponentially increase The Table’s impact in the world.”

Gateway brings a unique perspective to the table. With more than 25,000 active members, Gateway looks to connect its own congregation through The Table—just like the more than 700 other churches currently involved. And with the global influence they’ve garnered over the past 13 years, Gateway looks to use their platform to give The Table an even bigger stage.

What LifeChurch.tv did for the mobile Bible with the YouVersion app, we hope to do for spiritual learning and community through The Table in this next decade,” Shawn Ring, Gateway’s Executive Pastor of Spiritual Life Technology, said.

As The Table’s talented team joins the Gateway Staff, their expertise on this cutting-edge technology will allow The Table to continue to operate at its current level of excellence and thrive even more in the future as new features are added. As it grows and improves, The Table will continue to be a free ministry tool to churches around the world.

Gateway is very passionate about this project. We’re thrilled to join their organization and begin working together,” said Ken Finsaas, former Executive Director of The Table and current Director of Spiritual Life Technology at Gateway.

About Gateway Church
Gateway Church is in the top 25 fastest growing churches in the country. The multi-campus, evangelistic, Spirit-empowered church in Dallas/Fort Worth began in 2000. The church has since grown to more than 25,000 active members. Robert Morris is the Founding Senior Pastor and is featured on the weekly television program, The Blessed Life, available in more than 90 million homes in the United States and approximately 200 countries around the world. For more information, visit gatewaypeople.com.

But social networks presented a new kind of data that was less scientific and objective and more personal and objective. But this personal data that we give out on social media sites is no less valuable. In fact, in some brief moments in the months and years, it can be the first news before it ever hits any website blog. And opinions many times can be a better resource than some single fact that we find on a website.

<<To download the ebook for free, visit this page>>

The Network’s Persona

Google+ is the new social network on the block. They wanted users to know that they were not another Facebook clone because they wanted to do it differently, even going so far as to say that they are not a social network (though they are). Yet, the implications of Google+ are far reaching and powerful.

In this social media town, Google+’s place is in the business district. It is not just a place to post your opinion or network, though you can do both of those too. It is a place for personal and professional people and content as well as a site for churches to get their message out to current and future visitors.

Because of the short lifespan of Google+ to this point, there is a lot of shaping still happening. We do not know how much more maturing there will be before it begins to plateau. Every social network to this point has impacted the social media world for the better and Google+ is in the midst of its revolutionary moments.

The Network’s Lingo

• Status – the question “Share what’s new…” prompts for you to post content onto your profile
• Circles – organized lists of the people you want to follow and the people who follow you
• Reshare – sharing another user’s single status post to your followers
• +Mention – (styled with the @ symbol) citing a specific user in a status post that automatically links to their account
• #Hashtag – (styled with the # symbol) used to mark a phrase that will allow for marketing or searching
• +1 – a way to give positive feedback and connect with things you care about as well as affect SEO through AuthorRank
• Chat – private message to only someone that follows you
• Hangout – private video chatting with between 1 and 9 other users
• Hangout On Air – public hangout that records to YouTube

The Network’s Downside

Because Google+ is relatively new, the active user base is small compared to what the future could be. The dichotomy of the user base is that people are either hyperactive and vigilant for the network (Google+ can do no wrong and all other social networks are worthless) or have not bought into the network at all and do not engage or post.

Unfortunately, while we will share a lot of great things about the network, it was very late to the game. In some regards, they have to “play by the social media rules” to garner and attract new users instead of have already defined them. At this point, they are fighting an uphill battle (though doing it rather well).

Google+ Is Full Of Active People

Social networks are full of all sorts of people. Facebook has grown the stigma of being the “old people’s” network because of the wide age range of adoption from 13 to 99 year olds. It started out as a place for college students on individual campus to connect and evolved from there. Twitter has maintained a networking ideology within its development from the early years as an SMS substitute, but with only 140 characters, it has become more of a place to initiate conversations that have long, drawn out ones.

Then Google+ pops into the social networking world, some would say late to the game, and offers something for the working person. Unlike any other platform out there, Google+ has an array of web applications available to it that other social networks can only dream of. Remember that Google’s model is to integrate everything, including Gmail, YouTube, Google Search, Google Docs, and more so that every part of the Google experience is enriched. With the unveil of Google+, it was announced that it would be intended as the central hub for everything Google.

Because of this integrated and wide variety of resources and it being new to the social media work where only early adopters had been present for a long time, the percentage of active users has been amazing. Unlike Facebook with the constant barrage of game invites, photos pressuring you to reshare if you love Jesus or hate the war, and spam from all ends, Google+ has developed a short-term identity of people that want to engage with you as well as encourage you to engage with them. Imagine a church getting onto this social network with a daily blog post about some theological issue that will be discussed that next Sunday, receiving a great amount of engagement, and connecting with other like-minded groups, all within just a couple of weeks. You can build your own communities, offer sermon ideas, ask great questions, and share your burdens when struggles come, knowing that they will be reading this and actively praying for you.

How To Use The Network Effectively

Churches have a unique opportunity to put themselves in front of a lot of people and use Google+ unlike many other businesses. With Google’s normal search, they use a search of complex rules, web bots, and algorithms called PageRank. With Google+, they have a new source of information unlike anything they have tapped into before and have developed AuthorRank. The idea is that people who are seen as important, credible, and respecting on Google+ will be given higher search ranks. Therefore, the more comments, +1’s, and reshares you receive, the higher your AuthorRank will be.

Along with the digital version of AuthorRank, you can use the Local feature in Google to receive reviews of your church, have people rate the physical, face-to-face part of your ministry that will also speak into your AuthorRank. Therefore, your social network influence can reach every single person that uses Google.

Finally, many churches have found that they can use Google+’s Hangout On Air for many different video options. Pastors can use it to record video blog posts or network with other ministry partners that may be hundreds or thousands of miles away. Churches can invite missionaries they support from all over the world to speak to their congregations or individual Bible studies. And the most innovate feature is that churches have begun to use it to live stream and podcast different parts of their church, including Sunday sermons, for those that are in some way unable to attend.

This article is part of a longer ebook called “Social Media Quick Guide: Google+.”

<<To download the ebook for free, visit this page>>

Push Notifications Help You Connect

Push Notifications allow you to contact your app users on their mobile devices without having to keep a long database of all their personal information. If someone downloads your app on their device and enables push notification, you’re guaranteed to reach them 100% of the time with a quick and simple message. Push notifications are much different than email newsletters which are hardly ever (never) read. If used properly, push notifications prove more effective than spending extra money on a texting service.

Roar has designed hundreds of church apps with success and continues to improve apps for churches and nonprofits at a price point that won’t break the bank.

Does your church have an app yet?

Worship Tech, Sound Tech, Media Ministry

The conference is free, did I say that once already? All you have to do is handle your travel arrangements and lodging, but everything at the conference itself if of no cost.

All the juicy details can be found at the Gurus of Tech website. The conference runs May 21-22, 2013 at the Willow Creek Church campus.

Leadership sessions span from console prep and workflow, to live streaming, to lighting 101, to video editing, and more. No matter what your role, the conference looks like it’s packs a punch.

Learn more about Gurus 13 and register today.

Churches employ a variety of systems designed to help them carry out their mission. The assimilation engine will help move people toward full engagement in the mission and ministries of the church. The assimilation engine includes four basic processes:

1. Hospitality
2. Information Gathering
3. Follow-Up
4. Connection

To uncover more tools to help you with the assimilation process, click the image above or follow this link to download the free ebook from ChurchCommunityBuilder.

• CMS Wishlist
• Church Software Trends
• CMS Tools Under One Roof
• Must Haves for CMS Users

Click on the image below to read this free church software guide on Issue.com. Kudos to CTT sponsors Elexio and By The Book who gave insightful input for several of the articles in this magazine!

Communication is no less important in the life of a church. Church leaders and staffers need to keep people informed about important updates, special challenges, scheduling changes, joys and tragedies in the church family.

As a church grows, new ministry opportunities develop:  small groups, outreach programs, missions, church plants, cooperation with other churches and organizations. It can get a lot harder to keep a church together as a close-knit, informed family.

Your church management software can help. IconCMO (Church Management Online) is a web-based church management solution. The first ever fully web-based church management and accounting system, CMO helps churches manage their membership, track contributions, handle their accounting and communicate effectively with members.

Implementing effective communication tools can help your church face the growing challenge of keeping everyone connected.

Tools to Revamp Communication

1. Store multiple email addresses and phone numbers for each person.

Organize the congregation by households and individual members. You can store multiple email addresses and cell phones for each household and member. IconCMO also gives you the freedom to set up your own email types (e.g. “email 1”, “work email”).

2. Send group emails to member and household groups.

You can set up groups either by household or by member. If you have a household group, you can send a group email to all the household email addresses for that group. If you have a member group, you can send it to the household emails of the group members or to their individual emails. There’s even an option to send it to their individual emails and then send it to the household email if they don’t have an individual one. It’s quick and easy to set up a member group for the church board members, and then you can easily send them all a reminder of a rescheduled meeting.

3. Create groups based on status codes to create mailing lists.

Members and households have statuses in IconCMO (e.g. “Active”, “Visitor”). You can use these statuses to quickly create groups – say, a group made up of all visitor households – and send mass emails to them. You could send notes to welcome visitors, or special thank yous to donors from out of the area.

4. Attach a file.

Easily attach newsletters or greetings to your emails with the click of a button. Every file is scanned for a virus before processing to keep your members safe.

5. Get reports to see who did and who did not receive an email.

These reports come in especially handy for emails sent to large numbers of people so you can see right away if someone did not get the message. Maybe they canceled the email account, or maybe their email address is recorded wrong in the system. You can get to the bottom of the problem right away.

6. Easily see who does not have an email address recorded in the system.

Get reports before you send emails so you can quickly tell for each group if a member doesn’t have an email address listed. Then you can either add their email or contact them some other way.

7. Send group text messages.

If you have recorded cell phone numbers with the service carrier (e.g. Verizon), you can text your groups. This is a quick way to notify members of last-minute changes (e.g. if a Bible study is canceled due to bad weather.)

These are just some of the ways church management software can reduce the administrative hassles so you can do what really matters – minister to people.

Sign up for a FREE 10-day trial of IconCMO

Thus, the list below is no ordinary Top 10 list, but a specific 10 iOS apps that you should consider downloading so that you can minister better. Each suggestion comes with a link to the product, its cost, and a brief description of why it will help you do better ministry. This last part is what separates it from all other lists. Enjoy this list of 10 iOS apps to do better youth ministry.

1) Starbucks (Free)

I do not know a single youth worker who lives near a Starbucks and has not somehow utilized it for one-on-one meetings with students, volunteers, or other ministry people. Perfect for you to get a card from the church and then have those deep conversations while sipping an Iced Vanilla Latte.

2) WaveUth Network (Free)

This app is designed specifically for the youth worker. It has everything that the youth worker or small group leader of teens who needs an extra creative idea for ministry. It comes with sermon and game ideas, perfect for those on-the-go, last minute change of plans moments and something you need on your iOS device.

3) Cards (Free)

This app allows you to use a photo on your iOS device, create a postcard with your own custom text, and send it anywhere you want. The cost to print and send it is high, but for relational ministry to tell a volunteer “Thanks for serving!” or capturing a student leader serving well and showing parents this may be the best thing to happen to your ministry!

4) Game Show Soundboard (Free)

Make up front games a little flashier and much more entertaining for the teens. Comes with beeps, buzzes, boos, crickets, and crowds cheering.

5) Rory’s Story Cubes ($1.99)

Ever been stuck with only a couple of students at small group and not want to give the lesson? This app is perfect for you to hook up to a projector in front of a large crowd or pass around a small group of teenagers to keep the fun going.

6) Wunderlist (Free)

This app is perfect for your organization and comes highly recommended (more so than Things or the iOS default Notes) and something a youth worker needs to have. We are constantly fighting the bad rap of being too relational and forgetting deadlines for senior pastors and board members. No more with this app.

7) Evernote (Free)

While I myself and not an Evernote junkie, I know SO MANY youth workers who use this app three or four hours a day. They write their sermons on here, collect illustrations and games, and even write blog articles with this. The must have for anyone needing one central location for their writing and creative thinking needs.

8) Bufferapp (Free)

Of all the social media iOS apps out there, this one is the best. Use this to schedule posts at the ideal time so that you can network with other youth workers or post events that are coming up on your ministry’s Facebook page. Set it and forget it!

9) Daily Light ($1.99)

While I always promote to youth workers to not use electronics with the Bible (that’s a whole other blog post!), I do love the idea of a daily devotional on your phone. Not many people walk around with a devotional book in their hands at all times, but we do have our phones and when we are waiting for a late appointment or showed up early to a meeting (what?! it could happen!), you may want to simply rest your soul with a quick devo.

10) iMovie ($4.99)

Youth workers are always taking videos and photos from their phone, so why not harness that power during some off time, make a quick video and show it at the next youth group or church service and wow people?!

This is my top ten list. What would you add to this list specifically to help a youth worker do better ministry?

Jeremy Smith is a 27 year old youth worker at the Air Force Academy chapel, working for Club Beyond, and attending Denver Seminary for his Master’s of Counseling in Mental Health. His bachelors degree is in Computer Engineering and Master’s in Family Ministry. He has been involved in Youth for Christ for eight years and absolutely loves sharing the life of Jesus with teens. He is also married to Ashley, his wonderful wife of 3 years.

1. USB Flash Memory

Many churches I know work on computers 10 and 15 years old. For them technology needs to be cheap because all they are doing is sending emails, writing up documents, Excel sheets, and PowerPoints, and looking through their Logos software. Nothing more is needed and their capacity for memory is very low compared to other staff in different roles. A quick, portable solution for them may be to simply backup their computer every night onto a thumb drive that they keep with them at all times. You have some wonderful options out there that are extremely inexpensive.

Patriot Supersonic Boost XT 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive | Cost: $32.99
Team X101 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive | Cost: $44.99

2. Small Cloud Storage

Some pastors simply have the inability to keep track of thumb drives. Other church teams want/need to have access to each other’s data for better collaboration. Again, the content is not super large and so small cloud solutions are the perfect way for them to not only constantly upload everything as backup, but share them whenever necessary. This seems the way things are headed, but note that you have to have the Internet connection to update and that is not always possible.

Dropbox | Cost: Free (18 GB)
Google Drive | Cost: $2.50/month (25 GB)

3. External Hard Drives

Many staff within the church have big backup needs, including photographers, videographers, and the techies. At the same time, backing up whole computers with 250GB upto 1TB drives requires more than a thumb drive or free Dropbox account. Hard drives have been the traditional route to backing up and there are great options out there for different people. Originally, people have simply used external hard drives with Time Machine or a PC comparable backup software, but my new favorite HHD docking station makes backing up and data transfer from multiple drives so easy. Here are some suggestions for hardware.

Thermaltake BlacX Duet 2.5″ & 3.5″ USB2.0 & eSATA Dual Hard Drives Docking Station | Cost: $53.99
Rosewill 3.5″ USB2.0 & eSATA External Enclosure | Cost: $16.99
Western Digital 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive | Cost: $94.99
Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive | Cost: $134.99

4. Large Cloud Storage

Just as external hard drives are the great traditional option, online cloud storage is perfect for backing up whole computers as they run at night. This is the future of computer storage, yet you are not in control of the hardware (which should be a good thing) While there are many great options out there, I feel that there is only one amazing solution for churches.

Carbonite | $5/month (unlimited space, one computer)

If your church still uses traditional desktop church management software, it’s critical to have a plan in place to backup this data. If you church uses web-based church management software, check with your provider to see what security and safety measures they have in place to backup data on their end. The last thing you want to have to deal with is lost data, which equals lost time, and productivity. By having a plan in place, you can rest assured that your church’s information will be kept secure and easily accessible.

What is solutions does your church use for backup?

1) Make Your Own Church Hashtags

Hashtags are designed to network people together, so why not come up with your own hashtag for your church and maybe even a special one for an upcoming event. Some ideas for this could start with #1stPresChicago or #UMCNYC and include service times and a sermon video promotional or maybe a link to your church’s blog post about the upcoming sermon. If you are doing a special event, use the previous hashtag you came up with for your church along with a special event hashtag like #AfricaMissions or #ChristmasService. Be creative with what you come up with but know that a hashtag has to be crystal clear on what you are communicating yet super short because you are so limited on characters for the message that goes with the hashtag. When you come up with one, be consistent and frequent about how you use it.

<<Click to Download Our Twitter for Churches Quick Guide as a PDF>>

2) Live Tweet Verses and Quotes

Sermons were meant for both worship and evangelism and Twitter offers an instantaneous opportunity for congregation members to tweet out verses and sermons while preaching is going on. You may want to encourage them from time to time to sign on to their accounts, use the hashtags listed above, type in a quote from the sermon or Bible verse, and send out a tweet to the world. This simple act may get a few people in your service to begin to have conversations with friends and family about their faith and even an invite into your church doors. It certainly is not difficult and in just a few seconds, a couple hundred tweets could be floating out there about the Word of God.

3) Tweet Vine Video Teasers

Vine was just recently acquired by Twitter and allows users to make a quick six-second video for you to then post on Twitter. This may be the perfect time to use your iPhone or iPad and take a quick video of a promotional or web series you are doing for the church. If you are doing reconstruction on part of the church give them a six-second view of the place. Maybe you want to give a six-second invite to the next Sunday or Wednesday night services. Whatever it is, make it count.

4) Tweets In A Bulletin

We have shared a large selection of topics to tweet about which is great for engaging with people already connected. To make this even more broad reaching and connecting with people in your community more, encourage your congregation members to send out tweets too, whether it is posting an already written tweet on a powerpoint slide during your Sunday sermon and having people live tweet it from the pews or putting it in the bulletin with the hashtags. The idea is a boilerplate where you simply write out a 140-character tweet and have everyone else send it for you. This encourages people who have an account to get the message out there without worrying what they would have to write.

5) Live Tweet Pollings

There are several great applications out there that allow you to collect tweets from various specified accounts or hashtags and run a loop of them on presentation software. Before a Sunday service or youth group begins while congregation members and visitors are coming in and sitting in their pews, take unofficial polls on different things for your church. Some days they can be funny and goofy trivia games about random stuff, other times you can actually survey the crowd about which charity should receive tithing money next month or what web seminar they would like to have done at your church next quarter. The results will automatically be updated on the screen as tweets come in for people to see on the projection screen.

Hopefully these five tips can get you up and going with your own church’s Twitter account right away.

<<Click to Download Our Twitter for Churches Quick Guide as a PDF>>

What would you add to the list?