Archive for November, 2008
Children’s Ministry Online maintenance
Posted on 30. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
So, I’m in blog maintenance hell.
Over the summer I upgraded to a new version of wordpress. Somehow in the middle of it, I deleted all of my categories. Normally that wouldn’t have been a huge deal, but the way I have my permalink structure set up, the actual URL address for each post has the category in it. It basically renamed all my categories to 15 digit numbers… it was a mess. I started to make the correction to all my posts but then forgot. So I basically had several hundred blog posts with funked out categories and strange URLs.
A few weeks ago I came across a website called Website Grader. Basically it analyzes your website and tells you what sucks about it.… Read the rest
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I officially dedicate this post to Johnathan Cliff
Posted on 20. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
The videos say it all.
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A new generation takes power: Generation We
Posted on 18. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
Absolutely fascinating video. In some ways it excites me and in other ways it scares me to death. What is this country really going to look like in 15 to 20 years? I’m hopeful though. I’m not exactly sure things are going to be better or worse, just different. Should be exciting though.
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My collaboration team
Posted on 17. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
Both Matt and Jonathan already linked to Sam’s video. Here it is in case you haven’t seen it already. Sam created this video for his Pipeline Conference last week. What a great video, and I’m not just saying that becasue I was in it. 
I think some of these guys were were talking some already, but it was last May that I sent an email to Sam, Matt and Jonathan for some help on an article I was writing for K Magazine. It was kind of a shot in the dark, but I got great feedback from everyone and in the few days that followed, all of us kept emailing each other back with other ideas, thoughts and everything in-between. From my perspective it wasn’t really that intentional, it just kind of happened….… Read the rest
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Maybe blogging isn’t quite dead yet
Posted on 15. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
I just found this blog post that was linked from ProBlogger’s twitter feed.
A few weeks ago I wrote this post in response to “the death of blogging.”
I enjoyed the article. Although I believe that the social networking has changed the web since blogging made it’s debut many years ago, I’m not convinced we’ve seen the end of blogging. The article made some good points. Personally I get a lot out of reading blogs written by other church leaders as I know many other do as well. I follow their tweets as well, but it’s not the same as the blog posts. I really don’t think the next platform has arrived that is going to usher blogging out. We’ll just have to see.… Read the rest
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First six months: Automated communication
Posted on 14. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
I didn’t forget about stage three for my communication process. I’m including it last because I’m not done developing it here at Gateway.
The weekly email and blog posts are separate forms of communication I have to write every week. However, there is a substantial amount of communication that does (and needs) to happen every week that I really don’t need to be involved with. Every week we get questions about infant baptism, questions about our programs and opportunities to serve. In addition, we get many visitors who may come back if we follow-up with them. A lot of times, these are the communication pieces that fall through the cracks. If done well, our parents will feel valued and informed.
We have several pre-written emails to respond to our most popular questions.… Read the rest
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Predicting Christmas and Easter crowds
Posted on 13. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
Okay everyone. I need some ideas and suggestions.
This year, we are having five Christmas Eve services. Two on the 23rd and 3 on the 24th. In years past, we’ve had some services fill up more than others, but none of them packed to the gills. We’re providing programming for kids up to Kindergarten.
As a church we’ve been throwing out the idea of ticketing the services. Families will have to pick up tickets before the service to “reserve” space. We will open the doors to the auditorium 30 minutes before the service for people with tickets and it is open seating 15 minutes before the service begins. From what I’ve heard, Gateway has experimented with ticketing before. Some people on my Kids staff have indicated that they planned on more kids than actually showed up.… Read the rest
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First six months: Results
Posted on 13. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
I don’t love that only 1/3 of my parents are opening my emails. Why can’t it be half or 2/3? However, I’m getting 300-400 people open my email every week. That’s still a lot of people.
As soon as I started doing this, I was barraged by emails of parents thanking me for keeping them in the loop. I don’t get nearly as many emails with general questions anymore. Even when I have silent weeks where no one emails me back or sends a question, I’ll overhear people talking about things I wrote while in the check-in line on Sunday. Or a parent I hardly know will ask a specific question about something I blogged. I love it!
Sure, only 1/3 of people are opening the email every week, but these are the people who when you don’t communicate are the ones who will beg for information.… Read the rest
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Twitter Tricks: Friend or Follow
Posted on 12. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
Yesterday was supposed to be my last Twitter Trick post, but I came across another one. FriendOrFollow will help you organize and clean out the list of people who you are following or who are following you. Go to the website and type in yoru twitter name. It will show you three options:
- People you are following and not following you back
- People that follow you and you don’t follow back
- People you follow and follow you back
I know there are times where people start following me and for some reason I didn’t realize it or neglected to sign up to follow them. So, this little tool will help you organize and clean house.… Read the rest
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First six months: Blog and Constant Contact
Posted on 12. Nov, 2008 by Kenny.
I’ve been writing this week about my first six months at Gateway and how intentionally communicating with parents has been a huge deal.
I was building a process for communication and I needed something that was efficient and something that would scale well. Sending emails from my inbox wasn’t a good long term solution. How would we add new emails? How would we remove emails? Who would manage this every changing list? If my parents are constantly getting a long email from me every week, are they going to be more or less likely to read or respond to other emails.
So, I implemented stage two of the communication strategy. I launched a blog for Kids Quest. Now I set up a domain on a server, but that’s only because I’m partially OCD and a big geek.… Read the rest
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