Before You Create Your Webpage
Nov 11, 2009 Uncategorized
“Do you want people to spend time visiting your church website or visiting your church?” This is the question a wise person asked me when I was talking about upgrading our church website. The question caused me to rethink some of the things I was planning for our site. I am not arguing against having a quality website, however I think there are some questions to be asked, and things to seriously be considered when you are starting a website for your church or non profit organization. Here is a list of questions I came up with:
1. What is your goal? You need to decide what your website will provide. Maybe it will have basic information like dates, times and forms. What ever your reason make sure that you are using the appropriate tool, or site, for the job.
2. How much are you going to spend- You can easily spend $2500 or more to have a beautiful website designed for your group or church. You need to ask yourself whether that money should be spent on your web presence or if it could be put to use in your organization in a better way.
3. What do you need to get your message across? Wait.. first figure out what your message is. Then what do you need to get that message out. Will flash slideshow with pictures be the best format? Would video updates be effective? Do you need to be able to create podcasts?
4. Who is your audience and how do they like to be reached? Don’t just think about who you are communicating with but also consider what ways they communicate. I recently had a member of our church tell me she does not go to our website. When I asked why, she said that she gets our email updates and facebook messages and they all came to her phone. She has no idea what the website looks like, how many hours I spent choosing the right photo or how much money we spent designing it. She gets the information she wants in the best format for her. That’s what’s important.
5. Consider other forms of communication- In this artcile by Fred Zimny he proposes that with services like facebook and twitter, that websites are becoming less important and are being forced to change:
“Over the next few years, we’re going to see official institutional websites become less important. They will cease functioning as the only point of web interaction between businesses and customers and will become merely the official storefront. The main “conversion goal” of these retooled portal sites will be to drive interactions onto the third-party social networking sites.”
It used to be that your goal was to get people to come to your website for interaction with your company. It seems more and more that websites are directing their visitors to their presence on social networking sites like facebook and twitter. Consider the thought that a website cannot be the only online presence your organization has.
6. Will your web presence be mobile?- Look at the number of iphones, blackberry’s, droids and other smartphones that are out there. More and more we access the web on the go. Are you considering how your site will be accessed by these devices?
What questions do you think should be considered before starting a website for your organization?
Tags: Church, Communication, email, facebook, people, photo, Pictures, podcast, question, Service, sing, twitter, video, websites, work
My Mistake and Our Big News
Oct 15, 2009 Uncategorized
Yesterday I posted something on facebook that at the time was a huge mistake. I didn’t realize it of course, but as the day wore on, and comments started coming in I saw the error of my ways. What was it?
Big news for the Martin household. More details later.
I saw nothing wrong. We had big news happening with us. It made sense to me. What I failed to keep in mind is that out of my facebook friends and followers there are many women who were all of the sudden drawing their own conclusions and speculations as to what our big news was. You can guess what they were thinking. Sorry to disappointed but the letter “B” has nothing to do with this announcement.
The news is that we have found and begun the process to purchase a house. It’s a nice starting home here in Texarkana. I’ll post pictures once everything is final. This is a big step for us and a huge commitment. We would definitely appreciate and covet your prayers as we go forward.
I apologize again for being so open ended and allowing for so much speculation my status update. I will try not to do that again.
Tags: announcement, Appreciate, facebook, facebook friends, followers, house, late, Pictures, Prayer, Sorry, Texarkana, Win
Ways Our Church Uses Twitter #1
Apr 10, 2009 Media and Technology
Yes, just last week I put up a post entitled Why Not to Use Twitter, The truth is I think twitter can be a great tool to use for your church. Here is the first of several examples of how we are using twitter.
Our youth director recently set up a twitter account for the youth group. We then embedded the feed into our website using the badges twitter provides. When our group took a trip to St. Louis recently our youth director posted updates and pictures during the trip. Our members were then able to go to the website and follow the youth on their journey.
This had several benefits:
1. Church members could feel like they were connected to the trip.
2. Several members began using twitter and now follow the youth group and the church, and other members, expanding our connections
3. We embedded the twitter feed into our website. This exposed new people to our website, not only to the twitter updates, but to the rest of the site.
Follow us
Williams Memorial UMC
Williams Youth
Russ Bowlin-Youth Director
Russell Martin- Me
What are some of the ways you are using or could use twitter?
How to- Make Your Own Worship Backgrounds
Aug 6, 2008 Free Stuff, How To
Everyone is searching for worship background slides. Instead of buying photos on CD or from a download site I would encourage you to make your own. Really all you need is a digital camera and some photo editing software. I take my camera wherever I go and take tons of pictures. Remember that on a digital camera there is no cost for film so take as many pictures as you like. I will take pictures of people, pets and places, but I also go crazy and take pictures I think might make a good background. I have captured brick, water in a swimming pool, really up close shots of leaves, and other strange things. Once you get your photo you can do many things in your editing software. If you have a picture that is out of focus, maybe adding even a little more blur would make a good background. You can also take a good picture and add a solid or semi-transparent box that you can later use to put lyrics. Be creative and be persistent. You will probably come up with many pictures that don’t quite work, but then you will also create the perfect slide for your slide.
Here are some other suggestions of things that might make a good background slide depending on your need: candles, Christmas lights, Christmas tree ornaments, clouds, sun sky, plants, close up of a wicker chair, close up of old lumber or boards, bible, crosses.
Here are some pictures I took on a recent trip to my grandparents house. These pictures are either left alone or have some effects added. Some also include the text box to add your own text. Please feel free to use them for your own purposes. Also I’d love for you to share your creations with others. If you have some original backgrounds email them or a link to Russell@forkintheroadmusic.org and I will put them up here for others to use. Oh and you’ll get a huge thanks and a link to your site or blog.
Tags: Background, band, CD, Christmas, Free, How To, Photoshop, Pictures, work, Worship
Media: Where to Find Graphics
Jul 23, 2008 How To
I remember 10 years ago going to a mid winter camp for our conference and the worship leader was leading music and the words were on transparencies being “projected” onto a sheet. A few years later I was at the same event where the white words were projected onto a black background. It seems today though that a slide isn’t a slide without countless number of background graphics. While I sometimes wonder if we may have gone overboard, putting a different picture with every slide, not staying with a theme etc, I do realize the value of a well chosen graphic to go behind the words that we are singing, or for a sermon, announcements and other uses.
There are several websites where you can go to find free graphics for you to use. Here are some of my favorites:
Stock Exchange- http://www.sxc.hu/ – This is a photo exchange where thousands of photos exist for your use. All the photos are huge, big enough to print, but can be easily compressed down for use on screens. Most of them are covered under the normal licenses which allows you to use the photo for free unless you are using it to make money by selling it in a design set or something like that. Some photos require you to notify the artist when you use the photo in public.
Creative MYK- http://www.creativemyk.com/ Creative MYK adds a different twist on the traditional photo site. It allows people to upload not only photos but also Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator Files. Most of them upload in layers so if you see something you like you can edit it for your uses. I actually have a gallery here with a few photos.
There are a ton of other sites out there. These are the ones I use the most.
Where do you find your graphics?
Tags: Background, camp, Free, How To, Media Shout, Photoshop, Pictures, Powerpoint, websites, Worship, Worship Leader
Lessons from Camp- Part 2
Jul 2, 2008 Uncategorized
We are just now on the last full day of camp. I have been leading for the 6th and 7th graders this week and I have really enjoyed it. There are a few more things I have learned and Ideas that I have seen I’d like to pass on.
First… I was kind of worried on Sunday night because they didn’t really interact, they didn’t sing much etc. Today it was hard to get them to stop. I had to be reminded that it takes time for them to be comfortable, and in some cases remember the songs. I also found that if I do a familiar song, then an unfamiliar one, then a familiar one again.. they really sing the last one really loud. And then I’ll pick the unfamiliar one up later in the week.
Second… The deans did a great job on cabin inspections. They went around and took pictures and made a slide show for each day showing the best.. and worst.. of each cabin. The kids loved cheering and oohing depending on what they saw. It took some time and was great fun
Third… Don’t do Mail Call.. While it is fun to have your name called out and come get letters from home I was reminded today of some reasons not to do it. Today we had 10,000 letters… well not really but there were a bunch. They’ve even started receiving emails that the camp staff prints out and sends to each camp. It was chaos calling everyones name out and having them come up.
A better idea I think is to take the letters, sort them by cabin and deliver them at night. Although nothing solves the issue of a kid who doesn’t get mail. Solution…write them a letter
Well.. It’s time to run to worship… Maybe I’ll be back with some more tips later.
Oh.. coming soon.. Youth Worship Gathering.. We will have a time for youth bands to get together and learn, play, and worship with other youth bands.. look for it soon
Tags: band, camp, lessons, Pictures, Songs, summer, Sunday, survival, Worship, youth, Youth Band, Youth Worship
Backgrounds Part #2
Jun 2, 2008 Uncategorized
A few weeks ago I attended a UM ARMY camp for the college students. While there I took these pictures and we ended up using some as worship backgrounds. I thought I would share some with you.
Tags: Background, camp, Media Shout, Pictures, Powerpoint, Worship
Backgrounds
Mar 31, 2008 Free Stuff, Photos and Backgrounds
Have you taken or found a cool picture and wondered how you can turn it into a powerpoint background, but you don’t have a program like adobe photoshop or macromedia flashworks. What if all you had was Powerpoint?
Well it just might be easier than you think. While you may not be able to do all the slick effects possible with some of the other photo programs you can still come up with a usable worship background from one of your photos. Here I have taken a picture that I took at our recent Palm Sunday service. Let’s turn it into a background slide you can use for Power Point or Media shout or even other publications.
First I opened up Microsoft powerpoint. Then I clicked insert > file > palm.jpg.
Second I selected the photo and then found my photo toolbar. I choose brighten and brought up the brightness of the photo. Depending on your photo you may also want to reduce the contrast of the picture or if you wanted to eventually use lighter text on top of the slide then reduce the brightness.
Third I added a text box, I chose the papyrus font and typed in the Text “Hosanna”. I changed the text size to 117pt, then I rotated the text and placed it on the left hand side.
Fourth I created a rounded corner rectangle auto shape from the auto shape menu. I wanted to use the auto shape as a place to eventually put text so I drew a fairly large square on the right hand side of the slide. I went to format auto shape, chose to fill it with white and then set the transparency to 45 percent.
I think that slide would do great as a title slide or for some small announcement but what about a slide to use for song lyrics. With just a few changes I found a way to make a slide for such a purpose.
First I selected the slide and clicked ctrl+d which duplicated the slide.
Second I selected the large rectangle auto shape and dragged it over to fill the entire slide.
Third I selected the “Hosanna” text, rotated it back to horizontal, shrunk the size to 60pt and placed it in the bottom right hand corner
Fourth I chose the text box, right clicked chose order>bring to front. This placed the text box in front of the text so you can see the text faintly behind the box.
This created a slide that I would use for a song background or maybe a scripture background.
Finally to save the slide as a photo choose file>save as> jpeg and named my file palmbkg. When the box comes up that says “do you want to export every slide” I chose every slide. This creates a folder on my computer with each slide saved as a jpg image in the folder.
As you can see this is an easy way to create background files. However you are somewhat limited to the photo effects you can use. If you do have adobe photoshop then please check out this easy to follow photoshop tutorial posted on life in student ministry. Adobe Photoshop has also just launched Adobe Photoshop Express, which is free and can be used to crop, change colors, add cool effects like blur, sharpen, and more.
Tags: Background, Free, Media Shout, Photoshop, Pictures, Powerpoint, Sunday, work, Worship
