Handling Prayer Requests

Posted At : February 23, 2007 4:18 PM | Posted By : Greg Nilsen
Related Categories: site features,questions

With everything my family and I been dealing with regarding my mother the past few weeks, I've spent a lot of time sending out prayer requests and e-mails, as well as time on the phone, to keep everyone up to date. Normally, I'm not a big prayer request kind of person (I may ask friends to pray for certain things, but not too many "public" requests), so this experience has made me think more about the process of receiving and distriuting prayer requests.

In my church, we have a special e-mail address for incoming prayer requests that one volunteer checks, and then they send out requests to a distribution list for the congregation. It works fairly well, but does involve some manual intervention to get the requests out. If that volunteer forgets, a prayer request may not go out soon enough.

So, I guess I've had the following thoughts and questions regarding prayer requests:

  • How does your church handle prayer requests?
  • What's the most effective way to reach a large percentage of your congregation in a short amount of time? Typical options include e-mails, a website announcement and phone-chains.
  • Should someone moderate/filter prayer requests (so that requests like "I just burned my toast and I know it's going to be a long day because of it, so please pray for me today" don't need get through), do you just let everything through, or do you trust your members to use their best judgement?
  • Would you feel comforable having your prayer requests posted in a church forum or on the website for all to see, or do you keep them to an "inner circle"?
  • I think that if prayer requests are very public, some people may be less likely to ask for prayer because they are more private people.
  • However, this greater transparency allows congregation members to get to know one another (strengths and weaknesses) at a deeper level, which should be good for the church as a whole.
I'd be interested to hear from you all on this subject if you have the time...

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Q&A: Developing Inspiration

Posted At : September 15, 2006 3:14 PM | Posted By : Greg Nilsen
Related Categories: questions,design,information,tools

It's been a contemplative week for me, as I've been taking a step back out of my little programming world and taking a look at how others do their work.

Today, I wanted to ask where you get your ideas and inspirations in your designs and site development. We all have our tried and true resources, but oftentimes there isn't too much in common from one developer/designer to another. Sometimes, it's good to come together and share our resources, and maybe see things a bit differently.

Here's a quick list of some of my inspirations:

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Q&A: Content Management Systems

Posted At : September 8, 2006 3:14 PM | Posted By : Greg Nilsen
Related Categories: questions,tools

Checking in today, I find myself with more questions than I do knowledge to share. Therefore, I have decided to post a set of open questions to you all:

  • Do you have any experience using Content Management Systems (CMS, like PHPNuke or Joomla) or Church Management Systems (ChMS, like the Web Empowered Church)? If so, which one(s)?
  • Do you have any experience installing and/or maintaining a CMS or ChMS? If so, which one(s)?
  • What are your overall opinions of CMS and ChMS setups? What are the advantages and disadvantages of them?

I've just been thinking a lot about these types of systems recently. I have experience with both PHPNuke and PostNuke in the past on other projects, but I've never been fully satisfied with the results. Being a developer myself, that's why I wrote the blog software for this site. I wanted more control over things than any CMS could give me.

I have yet to try any of the ChMS systems currently out there because I figure I'll run into the same kind of situation.

I look forward to hearing from all of you about your experiences.

EDIT: Wednesday, Ruben over at BlogMinistry added his thoughts on Drupal and Joomla.

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4 Questions About Online Church Education

Posted At : February 10, 2006 3:55 PM | Posted By : Greg Nilsen
Related Categories: questions

A few weeks ago I made a post on the message board over at Great Church Websites concerning the place of educational materials on church websites. While this is an endeavour not embarked on by many churches today, I believe this is one of the opportunities for spiritual growth that is most often overlooked on church websites. Let's do a little Q&A to see why.

1) Why should we do this? We already have bible studies and classes.

In today's society (especially in the United States), many people have such hectic schedules that is difficult to find times for all people who are interested to participate in these activities. However, most people do have a certain amount of "down time" at home where they can do what they'd like. If you have someone who wants to be part of a class or bible study and you coordinate it online, then they will have an opportunity to be involved as they have time. They can then also use e-mail or forums to get involved in discussions and ask questions.

 

2) Who's in charge of these online courses?
Just because the venue changes doesn't mean that the structure of the courses needs to change. As always, you'll still have a leader or teacher who is responsible for directing the group.

 

3) How much will it cost to set up?
If your web host supports any kind of scripting language, then you can find a free forum or bulletin board package that you can use on your site. Most of these are relatively easy to set up and should provide you with what you need to get started.

If your web host does not support scripting languages, then you should be able to find a website that offers free or cheap forums for you to use. The free forums may be cluttered with advertising which pay for the free service, so be warned. It's probably worth the few extra bucks to avoid that nuisance.

 

4) What do we do when the course is completed?
Part of the beauty of this setup is that it provides flexibility. Once you complete a course, you can either keep it, archive it or delete it. In some formats, it may be ideal to keep the information active and allow others to come in and review the materials and comments on their own time. In others, you may want to focus on the discussion and save the ideas for the next time around. It's up to you!

For example, my church offers a series of Christian Life Courses once each year, and the first one is required for membership. With the current setup, if you can't make it at that time, then you're kinda out of luck. However, if the materials were available for review online, this course could be an ongoing thing, with e-mails being used for questions. However, if you were doing a structured book study, you'd probably want to pull down or archive the materials shortly after the completion because the the more structured format.

 

I hope that I've shown you some of the benefits of using your church website in your church's educational cirriculum. By no means do I believe that it should completely replace the personal interaction of bible studies and classes, but can instead be used as an extension so that more people can become involved in the materials. It's just one more way to reach out to those who are searching for truth!

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