For the past two years I have been supporting the “Nothing But Nets” campaign. The campaign raises money to provide mosquito nets that protect from Malaria with the goal of wiping out the disease on the continent of Africa.

Between now and Christmas I want to raise enough money to buy 1000 nets. At $10 each that makes a total of $10,000

Wow, you might say that’s a lot of money but think of it this way.

Between now and Christmas is around 45 days. That means if you saved 22 cents per day between now and then you would have $10 for a net.

I figure that I have about 2000 people I am connected to between facebook personal page, fan page and twitter. If only half participated we would reach the goal.

How you can help:

1. Donate: I have created a netraiser team called Fork In the Road. You can help support me by making a secure online donation. Click here to donate.

2. Forward, Retweet, Repost: Send this on to your friends in your social networks. Get them to help.. who knows we could pass 1000 nets easily.

3. Start Your Own Team: Why not start your own effort with your church, youth group, or among your social media friends. It doesn’t matter who raises the money, just that they get raised.
For more information on how YOU can participate in Nothing But Nets, please visit www.NothingButNets.net

Thanks for your support!

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“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?

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Each week I receive posts from over fifty different blogs. I collect and read them on Google Reader and thought you might benefit from some of the things I am reading. So here are some of my favorites from this week.

In Happy Hallow…. Harvest Festival, Michael Buckingham talks about ways to use Halloween as an opportunity, not a stumbling block. Yes I know it’s a little late, but file it for next year.

One of my favorite new blogs to follow is Michael Hyatt’s Blog. On 10/30 he shared a guest post from Margaret McSweeny on 12 Strategies for Leadership Success.

And finally TechCrunch, Pandora now offers integration with Twitter and Facebook

If you like, you can subscribe directly to my shared items on google reader.

Also if you have a blog to suggest, please put it in the comments below.

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Basically this is how it works. I found a web cam I had bought a few years ago. Then I set up my keyboard, ran it into a small mixer and then into my computer. I then signed up for a ustream account and set up a show called “At the Piano.” From there I just sit down, invite some friends and just play.

Today I asked my friends to give me several notes in a random order. I took the notes in the order given and gave myself the challenge of creating a melody and chords based on the give notes.

Want to know when I play next? Follow me on Twitter and Facebook

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Tonight I was watching the weather channel and when the asked for feedback they did not give an email address to send a response to or a number to send a text to. Instead they asked viewers to twitter their responses in. So that got me to thinking. Would twitter replace email? What about text messages?

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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?

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For the past week I have heard all the advantages of using twitter and facebook in your church. Here is an interesting post from the folks at Church Marketing Sucks with some warnings about this. I agree with them. Here is an excerpt from the closing.
“Your church will never be great because you figure out how to use Facebook and Evites. Your church will be great because you commit yourself to living the gospel in a radical way,”
Thoughts? Comments?

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There are many ways to let your worship team know you appreciate them. Some of these include sharing a meal together, or even giving a CD as a gift. One more I way I thought of today is to use social media.

The beauty, and sometimes curse, of social media is that whatever you put up, most anyone can see. Services like twitter and facebook are a great way to get a message out to alot of people at one time. Why not use this means to show your appreciation to your worship team. This morning our youth band led worship and did a great job. As I was getting in my car I just posted a short twitter that said “Couldn’t be more proud of the youth band, they did a great job.” My goal was that when this posted to my facebook account that some of the youth band members would see it. What happened was that other church members who were there also chimed in and left comments like “Yeah they were great.” So my simple twitter/facebook update actually prompted others to show their appreciation too.

Is this the only way to show appreciation… no. But here are some of the benifits I have seen:

1. It is immediate- A handwritten card may be more personal, but by the time you write it, mail it, and they receive it, 3 days could pass by. I was able to send out this message immediately.

2. It is global- Write a note to one person showing your appreciation and that one person will see it. Write it on something public like twitter or facebook and many people can see it, and chime in too.

3. It encourages others- When you share your appreciation on a public site like facebook then it prompts others to share their appreciation too.

4. It’s easy- No pens, envelopes, stationary, or desk was involved.

5. It gets to the point- When I write a letter alot of times I end up rambling not knowing what to say. Using a text or twitter makes me say what I want to quickly and concisely.

If you like this article then consider subscribing to Fork In the Road music by email or using your rss reader. Visit my contact page for more ways to stay in touch. Follow me on twitter.

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When we started rehearsing today, my thoughts were that this was not going to be a good morning. If you follow me on twitter or facebook you know what I am talking about.  On Wednesday we had installed four brand new wireless Sure microphones and when installed there were a few cracks and buzzes but I thought we had worked them out. Sunday morning, as we began rehearsal, the gremlins reared their ugly head and the microphones again were cracking. Luckily we had the old microphones, reinstalled them and we were good to go. 

When things don’t work well I start worrying. I know I shouldn’t but we also had a guest singing with us this morning and I wanted everything to work well, you know, so she didn’t think that this is how it always was. So I really spent my morning worrying about pleasing people and not God. I think there is a verse about that. Thankfully God worked even inspite of me and the morning was great. The band sounded awesome, and the vocals did a great job. And yes.. the microphones worked great.  It turned out to be one of the best Sundays that we have had so far.

So with all of that here was our Songlist

Wade in the Water- (Based on Eva Cassidy Version) Our service this week was on the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.  Having the voices of Shelly and Kerri this song was a natural choice for us to use to kick off the service.

Cover us- (The Sonflowerz) We heard this on the Song Discovery 72 CD. We actually will be working 6 or so songs from this CD in the next few weeks.

Stir In Me (Todd Proctor) They were doing this song even before I got here and it has made it through the years. I think it’s because it’s easy to sing and the band loves to play it.

Did You Know? and Thank You For Loving Me- (Shelly Wilson) The band loved playing this song off of Shelly’s latest CD and the best part was that she was here to sing them live with us. 

You Never Let Go-(Matt and Beth Redman)- Our pastor ended his sermon talking about the fact that no matter how we feel God is always there no matter what. I didn’t know really how his sermon was going to end but this song fit perfectly.

To view what other churches did this week visit Fred McKinnon’s Sunday Setlist.

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Working at any job I used to think the worst days were Mondays. But I have learned that Wednesdays are the days I tend to dread more. Yesterday my friend Russ Bowlin sent the entire staff this video. Apparently his goal was to inspire, and encourage us all this tough point of the week. I can tell you, I was inspired.

Hopefully Wednesday videos will become a weekly tradition.  To read some of Russ’s slightly more serious thoughts you can follow his blog at http://russbowlin.blogspot.com/ or catch him on twitter @russbo

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