ccmag2011_02

2February 2011Christian Computing® Magazine

Founder & Editor-in-ChiefSteve Hewitt - [email protected]

VP of OperationsMichael Hewitt - [email protected]

Contributing EditorsDr. J.D. “Doc” Watson Lauren HunterTerry Wilhite Yvon Prehn Nick Nicholaou Kevin A. Purcell C. Brian SmithRuss McGuireDrew GoodmansonBradley MillerMichael Curylo

Copy EditorGina Hewitt

Corporate Home OfficeMailing address: PO Box 319 Belton MO 64012Delivery address: 311 Manor Dr. Belton, MO 64012Phone: (816) 331-8142 FAX: 800-456-1868

© Copyright 2010 by Christian Computing®, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

Christian Computing® is a registered trademark of Christian Computing, Inc. Written materials submitted to Christian Computing® Magazine be-come the property of Christian Com-puting®, Inc. upon receipt and may not necessarily be returned. Christian Computing® Magazine reserves the right to make any changes to materi-als submitted for publication that are deemed necessary for editorial pur-poses. The content of this publication may not be copied in any way, shape or form without the express permis-sion of Christian Computing®, Inc. Views expressed in the articles and re-views printed within are not necessar-ily the views of the editor, publisher, or employees of Christian Comput-ing® Magazine, or Christian Comput-ing, Inc.

Articles that are highlighed are provided by our partnerswww.ccmag.com/2007_03/2007_03editorial.pdf

Applying Tomorrow’s Technology to Today’s MinistryVolume 23 February 2011 No. 2

7 cover storyBellevue Church Management System Provides Free and Open Web-Based Software Option to Churches

By Lauren Hunter

3 editorial

CCMag’s Online Community Coming Soon!Steve Hewitt - [email protected]

4 press releases

10 acs ideas to impact

How Online Giving can Help Your Ministryfrom ACS Technologies

12 accelerating the dynamic church

Measuring Horizontally and Verticallyfrom Fellowship Technologies

13 special feature

Fellowship Technologies Joins Active Network!Steve Hewitt - [email protected]

16 special feature

Move Over Farmville Here Comes Lenten EggsYvon Prehn - [email protected]

19 higher power with kevin

BibleWorks 8 Kevin A. Purcell - [email protected]

25 nick at church

Security Vulnerabilities!Nick Nicholaou - [email protected]

27 big ministry - small resources

Multimedia Home InvasionBradley Miller - [email protected]

29 tablet time

Connected TabletsBy Russ McGuire - [email protected]

31 ministry communication

Strategic Planning for Easter Why it is Essential Now More than EverYvon Prehn - [email protected]

February 2011Christian Computing® Magazine 3

Christian Computing Magazine was the first Christian publication that put their entire content on the Internet. Christian Computing Magazine was the first Christian publication to move their magazine delivery from print to digital distribution. And, Christian Computing Magazine was the first Christian publication to provide their entire content on an iPhone App. At every junction, when we stepped out into new territory, there were those that believed in us – and those that thought we were crazy (even some of them worked for CCMag!) It is now time for us to take one of those steps into new territory!

We are working with Faith Interactive to launch our new CCMag Online Community! It is hard to describe all that we will be able to offer, but it will be much more than just a cool library with our articles and other resources, or a place where people can blog about churches using technology. We will be able to provide real communities where people can discuss topics of specific interest to them. And, the best part, you will really be able to connect with other readers of CCMag, and create your own friend list. The new online community will be a mixture of features offered on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.

And, while we have an iPhone app that allows you to access our articles, our new online community will provide mobile apps for the iPhone, Blackberry and Android phones, allowing you to access our issues and other resources, but also connect with your friends and receive digests of communications from the communities you have joined!

There is a substantial cost in getting all of this launched, and we sought help from some of our sponsors. We asked for three partners to help us with our costs. They were willing to believe that this is the direction for CCMag, and that it will be beneficial to advance our ministry and purpose (that of helping Christians and churches learn to better use technology to enhance their ministry). I wish to take this opportunity to thank them for their support, their backing and their faith in CCMag and this new endeavor! The three companies are ACSTechnologies, Fellowship Technologies and Elexio. There support is just one more ex-ample of why many companies chose to sponsor CCMag, enabling us to send our publication out to 50,000 readers each month for free. We are thankful to these three companies for joining us and providing financial support as we go through this imple-mentation stage of launching our new online community.

Finally, we are looking for volunteers who would be interested and qualified to set up blogs or communities when we launch. We are also looking for those who would be willing to do some beta testing when we get closer to launch. There are so many people who read CCMag that also could help contribute their knowledge to help others. We are looking for those who would be willing to facilitate an area of interest on a variety of subjects. So, if you would be willing to be a beta tester and/or would be interested in helping to lead one of our new communities centered on a specific area of interest, drop me an email ([email protected]).

Together We Serve Him,

Steve [email protected]

Steve Hewitt - [email protected]

CCMag’s Online Community Coming Soon!

editorial


LOGOS Management Software, Inc. Launches the Small Church SuiteFund Accounting and Church Management Soft-ware

LOGOS Management Software, Inc. a developer of leading church management software, today announced that it has launched LOGOS Small Church Suite which is comprised of two indi-vidually purchased or bundled products: LOGOS Fund Accounting and LOGOS II Database.

The development of LOGOS Small Church Suite was driven by the understanding that differ-ent churches have different needs. Every church starts small and Logos is committed to bringing large church solutions to the small church envi-ronment. Churches with 100 families or less can now take advantage of LOGOS software, with the same features/ functions of a larger church, but at a smaller price, and still backed by the benefits LOGOS Management Software, Inc. offers.

Small Church Edition for Fund AccountingLOGOS meets Non-Profit GAAP and •FASB 116 and 117 standardsFollows secure accounting practices•General Ledger and Accounts Payable•Managerial Accounting Report options •with “drill-down” featuresBudget Entry/ Import routine plus multiple •Budget reportsUnlimited number of Charts of Accounts•Allows up to 50 “active” vendors•Unlimited “inactive” vendors•3 options for printing checks•Access for up to 3 users•

Small Church Edition for Logos II Church Management Software

Highly flexible profiles for individuals or •families

Easy child check-in•Skill and talent tracking•Fast attendance check-in•Small group management•Extensive reports on individuals, families •and groupsEasy to use mail and email routines•Contact tracking of visitors, absentees, etc.•Allows up to 100 “active” families or or-•ganizationsUnlimited number of “inactive” families•

“Logos Small Church Suite allows us the unique opportunity to serve smaller churches with our full feature and function set,” says Tony Ferraro, Chief Visionary Officer for Logos Management Software, Inc., “We were committed to provide the same stewardship tools that some of the larg-est churches in America enjoy while keeping the price point affordable for a church with less than 100 families.” Check out the demos for the LO-GOS Small Church Suite here! http://logoscms.com/Demos/LOGOS-Small-Church-Suite/

Effective Church Communica-tions providing premium content in ready-to-print publication, e-books, and training videos for site Membership

Effective Church Communications has launched a Membership option on the website: www.effec-tivechurchcom.com to provide premium content that is ready-to-print and use, to make e-books immediately available for download at bargain prices, and to fund the creation of educational On-Demand Webinars for training. Membership starts at $9.99 a month or $99 a year for individu-als and smaller churches. The Premium Content for members consists of:

P r e s s Re leases

http://logoscms.com/Demos/LOGOS-Small-Church-Suite/

http://logoscms.com/Demos/LOGOS-Small-Church-Suite/

http://www.effectivechurchcom.com



Ready-to-print church communications Church communicators don’t always have time to create the many publications they need—bulletin inserts, flyers, invitations, door-hangers and postcards. Though companies sell some ready to use, a church often wants to be able to per-sonalize the materials and the finished products make it difficult. The premium content on the site recently provided members with 40 pages of ready-to-print PDFs for Easter that included bul-letin inserts to motivate church members to invite friends to church, materials for a church to print to encourage visitors to come back, lots of chil-dren’s ministry materials including the Jelly Bean Prayer and Resurrection Cookie handouts. Simi-lar collections are available for other holidays and church events.

Immediate download of E-books Downloading e-books is a great way to get the content church communicators need to help them in their tasks. Though Effective Church Commu-nications has had a popular e-book store at www.lulu.com/yvonprehn for many years where books on church communication can be ordered in paperback and ebook form, the new membership option gives members FREE downloads of many of the popular e-books. Along with the e-book download option, members have permission to make as many copies as they want for staff and volunteers who work in communications at their church.

Educational On-Demand Webinars To be able to create effective communications takes more than reading about how to do them. You need to SEE it demonstrated. The On-De-mand Webinars demonstrate topics such as “How to find free clipart and images online” “How to modify images with a free program that gives you Photoshop quality results” “How to use Con-nection Cards to grow your church and pastor your people” “How to get people to come back to church after Easter and other Special Events.”

With membership, all these online videos are free to view 24/7 and you have permission to show them to training or staff or local church commu-nication training meetings.

Membership and product sales are the only income sources for this site To maintain a totally objective viewpoint in the use of products (numerous ones are demonstrat-ed) and church creation techniques, the site does not take any outside advertising or accept review copies of any books, software or other materials. For more information go to www.effectivechurch-com.com/membership/If you have any questions about membership or would like to discuss a price for group member-ships, please contact [email protected].

Logos Management Software, Inc. Launches Mobile App, m.Church, Using jQuery Mobile Technology Use the free mobile web access, m.Church, to quickly and securely search people data from your LOGOS software anytime, anywhere with your mobile device.

Logos Management Software, Inc. a developer of leading fund accounting and church management software, today announced it has launched mobile app, m.Church, using jQuery technology. This free mobile web addition will allow users with Ministry Connection software to quickly and securely look up individual and family information easily using a mobile device with internet capabilities.

The Quick Search form allows users to •quickly access people in the database by search for: First Name, Last Name, Ad-dress, City, State, Zip Code, Phone Num-ber, or Email.

P r e s s Re leases

http://www.lulu.com/yvonprehn

http://www.lulu.com/yvonprehn

http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/membership/

http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/membership/

mailto:[email protected]


http://logoscms.com/Products/Logos-Fund-Accounting/

http://logoscms.com/Products/Logos-II-Church-Management/

http://logoscms.com/Products/Logos-II-Church-Management/

http://jquery.com


Press Re leasesFor more complex search queries, text can •be entered into any of the available fields accessed through the Advanced Search link.

To facilitate quick access to recent valu-•able information, the 10 most recent search queries by the user remain acces-sible on the home search page.

The search results page loads the Person •Page, with access to the personal and family information that is housed within your LOGOS software with the most often needed personal information easily view-able at the top.

On many mobile devices, phone numbers •and email addresses are clickable and initiates the applicable function on the device.

Using jQuery’s cutting edge technology has allowed Logos to quickly adapt to the quickly changing technological landscape. According to jQuery’s website, “ jQuery is a fast and

concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. It allows website developers to create beautiful projects relatively easily.”

“m.Church by Logos will change the way our users access people related information. We understand people need the right information right now. With m.Church, Logos users will be able to get just that, people related information from any mobile web browser. It doesn’t stop there,” says Tony Ferraro, Chief Visionary Officer for Logos Management Software, Inc. “ We will soon be launching a version 2 of the m.Church product that will be even more feature rich. We are excited to bring the power and flexibility of LOGOS to the mobile environment.”

About Logos Management Software, Inc.

Logos delivers solid church data management, a fully featured fund accounting system, and community software solutions to churches, non-profits and schools. Discover the efficiency of

a well-designed office system with features like: easy child check-in, individual and visitor information, highly flexible profiles (skills and roles), confidential contribution records, and groups & attendance tracking. Easily customize features to fit your operation. For additional information, visit http://www.logoscms.com.

http://www.logoscms.com

http://www.logoscms.com

http://www.ccmag.com/view/pdf_ad.php?recordID=110


This month, we’re going to take a closer look at newcomer to the church man-agement system market, Bellevue Church Management System (BVCMS). One of the only systems on the market that is completely open source, BVC-

MS has many of the same robust features available in private software systems, but for less cost, and with more community input. I’ve interviewed David Carroll, BVC-MS developer and company founder, to delve into the foundation of the company and detail its offerings:

Bellevue Church Management

By Laurn Hunter

System Provides Free and Open Web-Based Software Option to Churches

How did BVCMS get its start? “Bellevue Baptist Church (http://www.bellevue.org) experienced a dilemma in 2007. Bellevue found that the com-mercial and proprietary church management system they had been utilizing to manage the church was no longer meeting its needs. In November of 2007, Bellevue initiated the BVCMS project, an endeavor to write a new ChMS from the ground up. In May of 2008, BVCMS was introduced to the Bellevue staff for read-only access. The legacy system continued to be utilized for all data entry, but BVCMS became the option of choice for searching and reporting. In August of the same year, Bellevue extended access to BVCMS to the Bible fellowship teachers and lay leaders so that they could better manage and track their groups. Then just two months later, in October, the old system was unplugged. The entire legacy system had been retired in less than one year. By April 2009, five hundred active users were working with BVCMS,” explains Carroll. “BVCMS was such a success (including rave reviews from Bellevue’s in-house user base) that it made sense to share this innovation with other churches. It did not make sense to add yet another commercial and proprietary solution to the marketplace. So instead Bellevue made the source code

available to the public under an Open Source license and the particular license chosen disallows any commercial venture to incorporate any part of the code into their own commercial products. This guaranteed that the source code for BVCMS would forever be free and open to the world. On April 19, 2009, the first public release of the code was made available on CodePlex, an open source project repository. Today, BVCMS is utilized by churches across the country and around the world.” “I decided to start a separate company, (http://bvcms.com) completely separate from Bellevue, to host, support, and continue to develop BVCMS for other churches as a service-based commercial business. Bellevue has graciously offered to allow the use of their Internet connection and server room to house BVCMS.com servers, adds Carroll.”

Why is BVCMS open source? “I sincerely believe that the open source nature of the project has numerous benefits:

1) For the benefit of the kingdom of Christ at large2) To make it affordable for small churches and startups3) The idea of open source is all about community, does not

cover story

http://bvcms.com

http://bvcms.com

http://bvcms.com


Press Re leases



the church represent what community should be all about? Who better than the church to embrace open source.”

Carroll adds, “Open source software is computer soft-ware code that is made available to the public under a soft-ware license agreement that permits users to use, change and improve the software and redistribute it under the terms of the license agreement. While open source software is free, (there is no purchase price) it does have obligations to users. BVCMS is licensed under the GNU General Public License which re-quires any derived works to be made available under the same license. This guarantees that the project will be forever free to users and developers.

What are some of the benefits of open source for BVCMS and for churches?“That’s a great question, one worth answering in detail:

There are several ways Bellevue benefits from making its software available under an open source license:

Bellevue is able to cooperate with other churches to 1. keep the project alive and continuously improving.Bellevue shares future development costs with other 2. contributing churches.Bellevue gets the joy of giving to the Christian commu-3. nity at large.Other churches will contribute ideas that Bellevue has 4. not considered but will no doubt benefit from in the future.

Churches are able to benefit in a number of additional ways:Churches receive the ability to control the future devel-1. opment of the church management system (ChMS). No longer is a church dependent upon a proprietary vendor whose decisions are oftentimes motivated primarily by financial gain.The system is designed by users for users.2. The danger of being abandoned by a company due to 3. any number of reasons is mitigated by having the source code to the system. Should the original developers dis-continue the project anyone can continue to improve the project with the available source code.

How many churches are currently using BVCMS? “We currently have over 30 churches using our software, with even more signing up every day,” notes Carroll. “The response has been overwhelming and people seem to be eager to be a part of the community.” (Visit http://www.bvcms.com/testimonials for more quotes.)

Can you share a user comment that has meant a lot to you? “We have been using bvcms as a church for approaching two years now – and cannot say enough about it! In the past

we have used a few different database systems, some that were quite expensive, but none that gave us the simple, user-friendly functionality of bvcms. It handles our attendance tracking for worship, Sunday School, small groups and special events – all quick and easy. It allows for convenient, personal communica-tion through email. Whenever we’ve had questions, we’ve got-ten prompt attention, and often a step by step, screen-sharing walk-through solution! This open source software is an incred-ible gift to the church!” – Darin Anderson, BVCMS user

What specific features does BVCMS offer? “BVCMS offers (http://www.bvcms.com/features) built-in advanced reporting tools, access via the internet or web-enabled mobile device, touch screen check-in and event registration, customizable HTML e-mails, contribution and pledge management, volunteer management, volunteer man-agement and information exports to Excel. We are also adding new features monthly,” Carroll notes.

Lastly, why does a church need a church management system?

It captures the person in the pew.1. It offers a way to measure ministry progress outside 2. “pastoral privilege.”It uncovers what’s going right and what’s not.3. It provides a way to communicate with everyone.4. It tracks habits and behaviors which trumps perception.5. It provides accountability to ministry leadership with 6. respect to results, impact, and progress.Reporting to ensure people are moving to deeper levels 7. of engagement through the programs the church is in investing in and uncovers people who are on their way who may or may not know it.Offers a window into unspoken ministry opportunities. 8. (Significant variance in giving; leadership positions; Bible study attendance, etc.)

Our thanks to David Carroll and BVCMS for taking the time for this interview. If your church is interested in learn-ing more about what BVCMS has to offer, visit http://www.bvcms.com to read and listen to interviews from other church-es, subscribe to their e-newsletter to stay up-to-date with new developments, learn more about hosting and support options, and sign up for a free, self-driven test drive.

Lauren Hunter is a contributing editor for CCMag, owner of Lauren Hunter Public Relations (http://www.laurenhunter.net), and blogger at http://churchtechtoday.com.

http://www.bvcms.com/testimonials

http://www.bvcms.com/testimonials

http://www.bvcms.com/features

http://www.bvcms.com

http://www.bvcms.com

http://www.laurenhunter.net

http://www.laurenhunter.net

http://churchtechtoday.com


from ACS Technologies

How can online giving can help your ministry grow? Read below to dis-cover how one church has kept pace with this quickly changing world – and improved their financial strength — by offering online giving.

How Online Giving can Help Your Ministry

More than just a way to encourage your con-gregants to give more and to give more consistently, online giving can relieve your staff of the burdens of payment processing. And if you use an integrated solu-tion, you save your staff the trouble of double-entering payments. A few years back, The Church at Battle Creek in Tulsa, Okla., was a happily growing church, and stew-ardship trends at the church were OK. In addition to of-fering churchgoers the opportunity to give by check, the church used “virtual terminal” envelopes for offerings, which allowed members and visitors to make offerings by writing their credit card information on the back of the envelopes. “We did a lot of credit cards that way,” said finance manager Regina Bloom. But the information had to be entered manually by staff — twice. First the church staff had to run the card, and then they had to enter the same transaction into the church’s financial recordkeep-ing system. “It was taking longer all the time,” Regina said. Multiple staff members had to put in multiple hours every week entering all the data. “ At the same time, members were asking about on-line giving. “So many people do most of their banking online,” said Gordon Christopher, Chief Operating Officer at the church. “So we started researching and looking at it.” It didn’t take too long for the church to decide to offer an online giving solution on their website. The solution integrated easily into the church’s financial

management software, and the congregation responded immediately. “Once we put it on our Web page, it just started go-ing gangbusters,” Gordon said. “They bank that way already,” Regina added. “It was just one more thing they could do online.” Now, online giving is an integral part of the grow-ing church – which sees nearly 4,000 people at its services every week. “It’s been a very big stimulant to our giving pro-cess,” Gordon said. He said he’s read about how many churches are struggling financially as the nation’s econ-omy slowly recovers from the Great Recession. Not The Church at Battle Creek. Gordon said he believes that online giving has been the biggest factor contribut-ing to his church’s ongoing success with stewardship. The Church at Battle Creek isn’t the only church that’s been blown away by the response to online giv-ing. Some churches have said that online giving brings in so much that it’s like having a fifth Sunday of giving every month. “Just like any process, you have to walk through it slowly at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a piece of cake,” Gordon said. He said adding online giv-ing turned out to be a great investment. “I think churches are missing the boat if they don’t offer online giving.” According to financial expert Brian Kluth, 95 per-cent of church offerings were received in cash less than 100 years ago, and the remaining 5 percent was given by check. Today another financial transition is taking

ACSACS ideas to impact

http://apps.acstechnologies.com/solutions/contact/default.asp?id=22&s=22&l=CCMagenews_Online_Giving_WP




place—nearly three out of five people in the U.S. handle at least part of their financial lives through electronic transactions such as direct deposits, electronic fund transfers, or online payments. As society begins to deal less with cash and more with credit cards, the use of these electronic methods is expected to continue growing in the coming years. Some recent studies by Network for Good have discovered some sur-prising insights about online donors:

• Online donors are generous. While the causes aren’t entirely clear, online donors give significantly more than offline donors.

• Online donors tend to be younger than offline donors. The median age of online donors is 38; median age of offline donors is 60. If you don’t offer online giving, you may be missing out on the contributions of an essential segment of your church.

• The majority (52 percent) of on-line donors are female. This follows closely in line with findings that show that women make 84 percent of all charitable donations.

• Some churches report that 15-30 per-cent of their total giving now comes from online giving methods.

You’ve heard how The Church at Battle Creek has used online giving to keep giving going strong, and you’ve seen some of the facts. Read more about how online giving can help your ministry by downloading “Five Sun-days: the Power of Online Giving” – a paper that outlines how online giv-ing can help you feel like you have a fifth Sunday of giving each and every month.





from Fellowship Technologies

There seem to be two differing schools of thought floating around in churches today regarding metrics:

Measuring Horizontally and Vertically

Measure discipleship growth, as a life devoted to Jesus is 1. paramount;

Measure attendance, because each number is a life in 2. need of Christ.

We at Fellowship Technologies believe this doesn’t have to be an either/or choice. If a church will count vertically (attendance) and mea-sure people’s progress horizontally (how many people are serving and exhibiting change in their lives), then church leadership will have a holistic approach to measuring growth. Churches should be careful in implementing this process. A leader could unintentionally begin judging those around them on what they deem “enough growth”. Yet, with a solid leadership infrastructure and a commitment of group leaders, capturing both anecdotal as well as tangible data is very do-able. In the end, it’s not necessary to look for a hard and fast number for the horizontal growth, but maybe more of a barometer that gives an honest and accurate sampling of the result. For example, a ministry leader may notice a trend in attendance for a weekly class and decide to check-in personally and see why the attendance is declining. Or, a pastor may run a report of the latest notes entered into our 100% web-based church management software, Fellowship One, to see how the staff is responding to needs. In both cases, there’s not a set target number to achieve, but rather a method is employed to take the spiritual pulse of a person, ministry area or even the entire organization. With Fellowship One, accessing attendance and activity data is very straightforward. However, lead-ers need to also look at trends over time and dive deeper into the notes added by staff to discern what kind of growth is evidenced in the individuals. Each

person has to be reviewed independently, as “growth” looks different from person to person. The point isn’t to create a quantitative result, but instead to simply be intentional about looking at the data and trends to get a feel for how horizontal growth is happening. In both measurements, the goal is to be paying attention to the information so that ministry decisions can be made. We encourage the measurement of attendance, event registrations, children’s check-in and volunteering, but we also support the sharing of information across ministries through notes and reports so that each church can make informed ministry decisions and evaluate growth. Make sure your church is measuring horizontallyand vertically.

accelerating the dynamic church



As the Editor of Christian Computing Magazine, I have the chance to talk with many leaders in the church technology market. I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Jeff Hook, CEO of Fellowship Technolo-

gies. Over the years, he and the staff of Fellowship Technologies have been great contributors to and champions of this magazine. Recently when we talked, Jeff shared with me big news that Fellowship Technologies was joining Active Net-work. Immediately, I began compiling a list of questions not only for myself but also for the readers of CCM.

Fellowship Technologies Joins Active Network!

By Steve Hewitt

special feature

The conversation that followed was one of specific information and candid revelation re-garding both the business decisions and the personal investment involved when the leadership of a successful, ChMS company considers being acquired by a very fast growing Internet con-glomerate.

Steve: Although many are familiar with Fel-lowship Technologies, could you provide a brief recap of where you are today?

Jeff: When we came to market in 2004 with our premier product, Fellowship One, Software as a Service was a relatively new concept and we were able to offer our church partners capabilities that were not available in other solutions. This past year we added 465 churches and are now serving over 1,700 ministries from new church plants to mega-sized, multi-site churches.

Steve: Tell me a little about Active Network.

Jeff: Active Network is the largest network of activities, organizations and people linked by

world-class technology. They currently serve over 75,000 community, non-profit and business cli-ents worldwide with activity registration, online donations, website content management, member-ship management, league management and more.

Steve: Why did Active want to partner with Fellowship Technologies?

Jeff: The decision to acquire a church manage-ment software solution was a natural progression of their strategy to offer a wide range of products and services that connect people with the various activities they love, want and need to do. Their focus is on community engagement and activity and, of course, churches are a vital part of any community.

Steve: Tell me about the decisions that led you and the leadership of Fellowship Technologies to consider an acquisition.

Jeff: Being acquired was never part of our plan; we have said no to several other opportunities. But like many churches, we have a God-sized vision, and like everyone, limited resources.


Active Network’s expertise in web technologies and development resources will position us to further expand our product offerings and create even stronger solutions for churches. The process from the initial “no” to the final “yes” took over three years. I wanted to make sure it was a good strategic step for both companies. This decision was made so that churches can operate using the best software available from a truly world-class organization.

Steve: We have all become familiar with the current staff and the leadership of Fellowship Technologies. How will the acquisition affect the team at Fellowship Technologies?

Jeff: The existing Fellowship Technologies team will remain intact. Active wants to make sure our leadership continues to be a leading force in the church market. We believe we have assembled the best team possible to create, support and grow our product, Fellowship One. When you buy a successful company, the team that made it possible is a big part of the equation. One of the things we talked about extensively was our Chris-tian culture and how we cherished it to the point

that if we could not retain it, we would not being doing any deal.

Steve: Can your customers count on continu-ing to receive the same great level of service from the Fellowship Technologies team?

Jeff: Absolutely! We are as committed as we always have been to provide the same level of passionate and professional support services to all Fellowship One partners.

Steve: How does this acquisition benefit your current and future church partners?

Jeff: Becoming a part of Active Network will bring a higher level of sophistication and stabil-ity in key functional areas such as online payment processing, email deliverability and data center support than any company our size could af-ford. These technology advances, combined with increased efficiencies, will bring more value for your ministry dollar, or put another way, allowing for a greater Return on Ministry.



Steve: How will joining Active Network ben-efit churches outside the United States?

Jeff: Active Network is a global company with data center presence across the globe. Active also has a specific international strategy that will result in better global and local services. We look forward to leveraging all the resources of Active Network on behalf of churches worldwide.

Steve: Was there concern that Fellowship Technologies was partnering with a secular corporation?

Jeff: Like all corporate entities, Active Network is, in fact, secular in nature. It is the people and their behavior that make a company Christian or not. At Fellowship Technologies, we do not hang our hat on the fact that we are Christians, thus you should do business with us. Instead, we want to provide our customers with the best value as a software service that enables them to do their jobs and fulfill their missions effectively and effi-ciently. Even if we were selling widgets, I believe we’d function the same way as we do now, in a Christian manner.

One of the things I do know about Active is they want each of its divisions to be passionate about the market in which it serves. Here at Fellow-ship Technologies, we are passionate about the Church, its mission and its role in serving people to help grow their faith. The executive manage-ment of Active Network is not only all right with that; they would not have it any other way! It is one of Active goals that the people serving in its business units be authentically passionate about the organizations they serve. We hit that target directly!

Steve: How soon will your church partners see any changes?

Jeff: While the news of the acquisition is fresh and fast-paced right now, the alliance Fellowship Technologies is building with Active Network is a long-term relationship with long-range goals and objectives. We will roll out changes methodi-cally so that the impact on our customers is just part of the normal flow of business.

Steve: What impact will this acquisition have on the ChMS marketplace?

Jeff: I’m extremely excited about the impact this acquisition will have on the marketplace. This is an unprecedented partnership between a leading ChMS vendor and a world-class Internet compa-ny not currently competing in this market. What this tells me, and the ChMS marketplace, is that church technology is a growing market that needs to be taken seriously.

Steve: What are you most excited about as you look 3-5 years down the road for Fellowship Technologies and Active Network?

Active Network has a remarkable reputation for quickly growing and expanding healthy compa-nies. Their resources, solutions and infrastructure are poised to help take Fellowship Technologies to the next level of development and support.

By partnering with Active Network, we believe we can accelerate the vision and add infrastruc-ture faster so that all of the churches in the Fel-lowship Technologies community are better served.

Steve: Where can your current church part-ners find out more information about the acquisition?

Jeff: This will be a significant topic of discus-sion and celebration at the Dynamic Church Conference May 11-13, 2011, at Prestonwood Baptist Church, Plano, Texas. We hope to see all our church partners represented. For the latest updates you can visit our blog at https://experi-ence.fellowshipone.com/blogs. We will also be sending out periodic communications as plans are finalized so that everyone is well informed.

And as always, people are welcome to contact me directly by email at [email protected] or on my cell phone at 214-668-9807.

https://experience.fellowshipone.com/blogs

https://experience.fellowshipone.com/blogs



In response to a newsletter I sent out about Lent, I received an email from a church communications teacher and website creator. She shared a project she was working on that I found fascinating—she is working to create a Christian

game about Lenten Eggs for Facebook!

Move Over Farmville,

By Yvon Prehn

Here Comes Lenten Eggs

special feature

I was fascinated—I had no idea that could be done—I thought big companies had to do that sort of thing. But she has a vision and idea that could reach tens of thousands of people using one of the most popular social media sites in the world. I wanted to find out more and so I interviewed her. Her responses are below and I hope you’ll find them as fascinating as I did.

Yvon: What gave you the idea to develop the game?

Jane: While up in northern Michigan over Christ-mas break I was thinking about how fun advent calendars were and how they can reinforce the Christmas message. Realizing I didn’t have time to develop an advent game, I started thinking about Lent. I then remembered the resurrection eggs activity my son had done in Sunday School when he was younger. It seemed natural to take that idea and move it to a social network platform. Thus the idea of “Lenten Eggs” was born. I figured if the style of the eggs and interactiv-ity of the game were fun enough, kids (and adults) would want share the eggs with their friends. Soon the idea became a game. Each egg will contain an item from the Easter story, its meaning and a Scripture puzzle game allowing players to have fun while learning about (or reinforcing) the sacrifice our Lord Jesus made for us.

Yvon: What do you hope to do with it? Jane: My hope is the game will remind people of the reason for Easter and the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for each of us. I want to try and compete with amount of time commercialism steals from Christian Holidays. I also hope Lenten Eggs will reach people who may not have considered entering a church or someone who may have wondered about Chris-tianity. For example, what does bread have to do with Easter? Perhaps someone will learn about the last supper and the reason Christians use bread and wine for communion.

Yvon: How difficult is it to do this?

Jane: Creativity has not been a problem. The problem has been finding the graphic talent, com-municating the intent and flavor of the design but most challenging has been finding the develop-ment funds. I am committed to this project. If I have to fund it myself I will but I will have to sell ad-vertising. The development cost is approximate $10,000. My hope is to have fellow Christians join me in this outreach endeavor so minimal or no advertising would have to be viewed while playing the game. That is why I thought ‘egg sponsorship’ would be appealing. For $800 a church or organization


would receive their logo and link to their website on a series of egg pages (definition page and scrip-ture puzzle). Facebook estimates more than 1.9 million users under the age of 30 living in the United States who are interested in Christianity. An average Facebook user has approx-imately 80 friends. If this game reaches 5% of this group who share it with 10% of their friends, more than 75,000 people will learn about the true meaning of Easter! I think that’s a pretty good investment.

Yvon: Is a team doing this?

Jane: Since the goal is to release Lenten Eggs on Ash Wednesday (March 9), it was important to get development going as quick as pos-sible. I contacted, Adrian Tschu-barov, a graphic designer who I had met online through a profession social network. Adrian had devel-oped an animated video to promote a ministry exchange website I developed last year for the Synod of the Covenant (www.covenantmissionexchange.org). Another project he worked on is Blubble, a Firefox plugin to make the web experience safer and funnier to the kids and families. He’s a stay at home father of two so we commiserate some days. We work through Skype chat and Google Docs. He’s got an international view on design and has some wonderful ideas as you can see from the screen shots at our website www.jadri-angames.com. My company Key-Web Solutions, LLC is the parent company. Jadrian is a combina-tion of our first names.

Yvon: What does it take? Programming? Art-work? Writing?

Jane: We are both out of the box thinkers and have a lot of fun tossing ideas back and forth. I spent time researching a variety of resur-rection egg activities as well as looking at other themes that could work into this framework. The seal of the Presbyterian Church (USA) makes

a good dozen eggs as well. We also located the One Great Hour of Sharing tips for Lent and have incorporated some of these into the game as well.

According to Adrian, this is the structure we are following.

Brainstorming - Find the idea - Identify the •audienceAdapt the idea to the audience•Decide on the look and feel•Spot the problems and find the resources to •overcome themDo the artwork•Create the animations•Program and write•Test the game, the usability•PLAY!!!!!•

Adrian agreed to work on this project because: a) the general idea involving a tradition brought to a game context sounded like fun b) the idea is expandable, we can add more and more fun and games on it c) the game can be an excuse to say “I care” to

http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/wp-admin/www.covenantmissionexchange.org

http://www.jadriangames.com/




people who are close and to those who may not be as close as we’d like them to be. d) it is a good tool outreach for the church to contact people and bring to them a message of love and salvation

Yvon: How do you work out the relationship with Facebook?

Jane: Adrian has written interactive games for FB. Facebook provides code to allow you to play your game on their platform. Just part of the ‘magic’ of the Internet.

Yvon: How can Christians support you in this?

Jane: Prayer! If anyone knows someone with resources to help finance the development, please refer them to www.jadriangames.com. Send sug-gestions on how I could additionally promote the game. Adrian has developed a bunny character who shares tips on how to remain focused during lent. Perhaps we could have “a name the bunny con-test”. He’s really cute and I think he’d be great

on a t-shirt. Maybe we could sell t-shirts to help offset development cost - we’d need to sell a lot of t-shirts!

Jane McGookey has over 20 years experience in the computer field. She and her husband Jeff will celebrate their 24th anniversary this year. Her son, Mike is a sophomore in High School. She graduated from Hope College with a BS in Com-puter Science and recently completed her Masters at Grand Valley State University. Jane has over 14 years of web development experience for small businesses and non-profit organizations. She is the sole-proprietor of Key-Web Solutions, special-izing in communications for congregations. Jane is currently working with several middle govern-ing bodies for the Presbyterian Church (USA) and for Cornerstone Church in Caledonia, MI. Jane feels her spiritual gift is the ability to teach “non-computer” people the technology they need to communicate in ever changing electronic world.




BibleWorks 8

Kevin A. Purcell - [email protected]

BibleWorks 8 is a powerful and complex piece of software. It is not a comprehensive Christian li-brary like some other programs. But what it tries to

do, it does very well. So what does it try to do? From their own web site (http://www.bibleworks.com), BibleWorks (BW) is an “...original languages Bible software program for Biblical exegesis and research.” And like previous versions, the new version 8 continues this powerful tradition.

higher power with kevin

I want to make it clear from the outset that I am a BW user and have been since my seminary days. The first time I saw a friend in Hebrew class “cheating” as the professor asked us questions about our vocabulary, I was hooked. Unfortunately this ruined me for being motivated to learn Hebrew as well as I should have. Fortunately BW can help people like me as it comes with a number of Hebrew and Greek grammars as part of the base package. More are available to add on. You might find your text book either in the included list or on the web site if you are taking a Hebrew or even Greek class. And if you were a great stu-dent, BW will help you use all you learned. By the way, my friend wasn’t really cheating; I just accused him of it and the professor agreed he was smart to use it and even suggested we use similar tools. When I first installed this new version of BW and fired it up, I was a little disappointed that the program requires what they call “activation.” Due to software piracy many providers are going this way. What this does is the opposite of what it is intended to do. The pirates work to crack the programs while honest users suffer the consequences. For-tunately, BW activation is not that difficult to do and they do allow you to install it on multiple machines so long as you own them and only one person will be using the program at a time. So, no sharing with your friends, which probably

shouldn’t need to be said, but it does. After activating or choosing a trial period, you will be met with a registration screen and then a getting started screen. There are a few videos that help introduce you to the BW interface. In version 8 things are not very different from 7. But if you have never used the program it is a good idea to watch all of them. BW can be complicated and intimidat-ing to first time users. There are so many buttons and boxes. But like a 747 jumbo jet is more complicated than an old bi-plane, two-seater, it is also much more powerful. Similarly, BW does original language study and Bible text searching and research like a 747 flies passengers. Powerfully! Another thing I like about BW is the more advanced help. I have mentioned this in a previous article with regards to version 7. BW 8 continues this. From the Getting Started screen or from the Help Menu, click on BibleWorks Study Guides. There are too many links here to explain them all. If you buy the program, do yourself a favor and spend a good amount of time each day for the first few weeks and work through these helps. The BW Study Guides are like having a course in basic exegesis and Bible study. While teaching you to use BW, they will also teach you to do good study of both English and original language resources. After working through the helps in the getting started guide, you will see a devotional screen. My first thought

http://www.bibleworks.com


was how simple it was. No, that is not a compliment. I wanted to say ugly, but looking at it again it is not so much ugly as it is plain. For some that will be good. The devotions open to today’s date. The content is “Bagster’s Daily Light” which is two Bible readings for each day; one is for morning and the other for evening. You have a calendar that takes you to the different dated entries. The version button selects which Bible version to use including Greek, Hebrew or Latin. As the Help system says, you can use it not only as a daily devotion but as a way to keep yourself sharp in your original language study which can be helpful to advanced Greek and Hebrew students. After closing the Daily Light, you finally find yourself at the main window of BW 8. I it is split into three basic parts includ-ing the Search Window on the left, the Browse Window in the middle, and the Analysis Window on the right. You can change this layout slightly by going to the View Menu and selecting Stack Analysis/Browse Window. Above the three windows is a Button Bar and Menu Bar. The Buttons are customizable; so after you have used BW for awhile you can make it look the way you want putting the most used functions right there. Like most software, hover over a button to learn its function. In BW, you usually start by searching or entering text references. BW has a unique method of doing searches. Simple searches by entering text by itself will not work in BW. You have to enter extra characters to tell it what kind of search you are doing. For example, if a simple search for the word grace is entered without any other characters, it will produce an error window telling you how to properly do the search. You have to enter a period before it telling BW you want to do an “and” search. Unfortunately, you are doing an AND each time you search for just a single word. If you want to search for Grace and Love, then you type

“.grace love” without the quotes. This is a little hard to get used to at first. But you will get the hang of it. Similarly, if you want to do a PHRASE search you use an apostro-phe. You would type “ ‘in the beginning” again without the quotes. And for an OR search you use the forward slash. Type “ /grace love” without quotes. I’m not sure why BW doesn’t allow you to do a simple search without the period, apostrophe or forward slash. It would be easier if you could just enter the text or quotation marks around phrases like almost every other program and like the one does in Google. But while BW is complicated, it is also very powerful. An example of this is the Graphi-cal Search Engine. If you are a visual kind of person or want to do very complicated searches, then GSE is for you. I do not have the space to explain it here, but suffice it to



say that it does some pretty interesting things using boxes and lines connect-ing search words and phrases. As you can see from the picture, this gets quite complicated. This example of a GSE is from the help files and is also included on installation. You can open this search. What it does is helps you find two dif-ferent kinds of verses in one search. The first kind of verse will have the words “man” or “*ites”, and “anger”, “wrath”, “temper”, or “fury”. The asterisk next to “ites” means that any word that ends in “ites”, like Hittites or Amorites, will be found so long as it has the other words as well. But thanks to the power of the GSE it will not only find those verses, but this search will also find verses that include the words “fear” and “Lord” or “God”. This is just one example; there are many more. The GSE will let you save searches and then later open them. BW has a number of these installed. Go to SEARCH and the click GRAPHICAL SEARCH ENGINE and then once in the GSE click FILE and then OPEN. So if you wanted to find the verses that had a certain Greek word, like “αγαπε”, and then also had the word “love” in the KJV, then the GSE will help you do this. In middle of the BW window you find the Browse Window where you can read or browse the Bible. It has its own mini button bar that lets you select texts to study and how they are displayed. You can display verses in multiple versions or a single version showing the passage context. You choose between the two modes by clicking the Toggle Browse Mode Button, which is the pair of feet on the mini button bar. If you are in the mode that displays multiple ver-sions and want to add other versions, you can either type the three letter shortcut in the Search Window or go to the View Menu. Select Choose Display Version(s). In that menu you can also customize other aspects of the user interface. Like many programs, BW 8 uses the right click exten-sively. In the Browse Window, you can right click on the various parts of the displayed text to do things like search the Bible, look up words in lexicons and dictionaries, copy text, etc. There are a huge number of things you can do all from the right click menu. Also without even clicking anything a popup window will display information depending on what you are hovering over with the mouse. For example in the KJV and NASB (NASB’s three letter identifier is either NAS for the original or NAU for the updated 1995 version)

you will see entries from corresponding Strong’s entries. If it is Hebrew or Greek, then you will get a simple morphol-ogy with the translation. Morphology is a comprehensive explanation of the Greek or Hebrew word’s definition and grammatical information like tense, etc. As you move your mouse over the words in the Browse Window, you will also notice that the third window is changing. This is the Analysis Window and it changes based on what your mouse cursor is hovering over. For example, if you have the cursor over any part of John 3:16 in the Holman Christian Standard Bible (CSB), then it will give you the translation notes for that verse. If you move down to the KJV then you get not only the Strong’s entry for that word, but also the Matthew Henry Commentary entry for that verse. Right click in the Analysis window and you can either customize the view or copy the contents among other things. In the Analysis Window there are a number of tabs each with very useful contents. The 2nd tab is a labeled Re-sources and is a summary of all the resources for the verse showing in the Browse Window. For example, with John 3:16 it lists all the words in all the Greek Lexicons that are included in BW. They are highlighted in blue. Below that, highlighted in pink, are the Grammars that have information about that verse. And below that are other references high-



lighted again in blue. You can view these in a single sum-mary. Click on the entries and the resource window opens showing that entry in the Lexicon or Dictionary. You will notice more tabs labeled Summary, Lexicons, Grammars, References, and Options. Click the other tabs next to the summary tab and you get check boxes that let you change which resources are shown in the Summary tab. If you have read my other reviews of Bible Study Software, you will know that I have been critical of Notes features. BW gets it right. A couple of other programs do it better, but none with the range or scope of features that BW offers. For that reason, of all the programs I have used and reviewed, I choose to keep my own study notes in BW. I use other programs in addition to BW to do digital Bible Study. I have many programs that let you keep notes, but I have found that BW Notes are simple and reliable. They are also easy to backup and can be read in Microsoft Word or other word processors since they are basically just Rich Text Format files. You will find the Notes feature in the Analysis Win-dow next to the Resources tab. You can either keep chapter specific notes or verse specific notes. You can keep both, but that requires you to toggle the Chapter check box at the top of the Window or you can double click a portion of the status bar at the bottom.

The Notes window is a powerful word processor. It also lets you save notes that can later be displayed each time you open the verse or chapter in the Browse Window and have the Notes tab displayed in the Analysis Window. There are a few features that I especially like. You can save your notes and they will be displayed regardless of which trans-lation you are viewing. Some programs make your notes specific only to a certain translation. If you put a note on John 3:16 in the KJV, in BW it will also show up in the NIV. My notes are seldom translation specific. When they are, I just state it in the note itself. BW8 lets you customize where the notes are kept. I change this so that they will show up in my Documents folder. I want to be able to quickly find them because they are stored in a directory structure that matches the books of the Bible. You will have a Gen folder for Genesis with one file for each note whether it is a chapter or a verse note. Next to the Notes tab is the Editor tab where you can edit topical documents like sermons or devotions. They will be stored in the same place as your notes. If you want, you can also open these in a word processor. That way you can write your sermon in BW8 and then open it later in Word and format it so that it looks the way you want. From the Notes or Editor Tab, you can manipulate text and paragraphs just like a word processor. You can also



insert verses with the click of a button. And you can add a hypertext link to a verse that pops up when your mouse cursor hovers of it. If you type John 3:16, then click on the Add/Modify Hyperlink Text button (a small chain link) and a dialogue box pops up to let you configure the selected text as a hyperlink to that verse. If I could improve the BW Notes and Editor features I would make this hyperlink automatic. Other programs have the capability to recognize that you are typing a verse reference and automatically turn it into a hyperlink. Other tabs are for cross references, statistics, words lists, and context. These are useful new tools in version 8 which help users find out information about the text or quickly looking up cross references for the given text. The second to last tab shows information about the currently selected translation. A new feature in the Analysis Window is the last tab which gives you a second Browse Window. This way you can open two different texts in one program window. Be-fore, you had to open a separate window via the menu. This is handy to have the main Browse Window in the Single Verse interlinear mode with this secondary Browse Window in the Multiple Verse mode showing the verse’s context. And then open a “floating” notes window so you can have all three on screen at the same time. I will use this quite often. Each time BibleWorks releases a new version they do something that not many other vendors do. They take many of the resources that were extra cost add-ons in the previous version and make them part of the base package in the new versions. Version 8 follows that with dozens of new re-sources. They also have a lot of new optional modules you can buy. Unfortunately, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. In version 8 there are a few modules taken away, including one of my favorites, Robertson’s Word Pictures. With ERMIE (see below for an explanation) I will have to link to it in another software program. A few months ago I wrote an article wishing for a new STEP, which was a standard book format that vendors could use to distribute their books so that they could be used on other vendor’s book readers. The very next month, Craig Rairdin of Laridian gave a thoughtful explanation of why this is not likely going to happen. But the next best thing is for one vendor to make their program play nice with oth-ers’. BW does that with the External Resources Manager

(AKA ERMIE). ERMIE is a tool that lets you open other programs to find content related to the verse or word you have selected in BW. For example, if you own a great com-mentary in Logos, you could set up a link from within BW to open Logos to the verse you are studying. Other options are opening web sites or other software. This is a huge plus. I have just begun to learn to use this, but I plan to work with it as BW does not try to include a lot of extra commentaries. Another new feature in version 8 is the ability to read your text aloud if you have Vista. Choose Tools menu and then select Viewing the Text and then Read Text. A dialogue box opens. You can enter the verse or range of verses you want read and which translation. You can even have it read to wav which is an audio file format that you can either burn to CD, listen to on your computer, or convert to MP3 for listening to on an MP3 player. Two great tools to help study the text and original languages are the Vocabulary Flashcard Module and the Diagramming Tool. Diagramming is a great way to “see” the text. BW has a powerful diagramming tool. Along with it comes the Leedy Greek NT Diagrams. These are a set of diagrams of every Greek verse. You can use these as they are to study the relationships of words and phrases in a text. Sometimes this helps you find the outline of the text that you might not see when just reading in the Browse Window. But better than using the Leedy diagrams, do the work yourself. BW even teaches you how with a nice Tutorial Help file. I like to diagram my sermon text in English, but you can do it in Greek as well. The Vocabulary Flashcard Module is what it sounds like – a digital flash card system for learning vocabulary in the original languages. It even comes with word lists from the included grammar books. If you are learning Greek or Hebrew, or just want to brush up, load it up from the Tools Menu. Go to the Language Tools menu under Tools and select it. The module will show the word, pronounce it for you, and then show the meaning in English. To show the mean-ing you simply use your arrow keys or the arrow buttons on

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the toolbar. This module will also let you create your own verse list and record pronunciation files. One feature I consider a must in Bible study software is the ability to author your own works that will easily show up in the program when you are studying. I’ve already mentioned the notes and editor features. But BW also gives you the tools to create your own translation or a commentary that can be displayed in the Browse Window. This is not simple but anyone can learn how using the compre-hensive descriptions in the Help system. BW maps are attractive and informative. There are plenty of other tools in BW 8 as well. If you want to see what is new, the check out the list at their home page at http://www.bibleworks.com/content/new.html. The big question when discussing a Bible Software update like BW 8 is this: is it worth upgrading or not? I would say it definitely is. The new Analysis window alone makes it worthwhile. If you are trying to learn the languages then the new grammars and vocabulary module are useful as well. There are plenty of new features. Check out the link above to see if any of them would be of use to you. But the new modules listed at the above link alone will make it worth the cost. If you have version 7, it will only cost $149 to upgrade. From version 6 the cost is $175. If you have version 5 or earlier you will have to pay the full price of $349. Students should look out as some campuses will have special deals available to students and faculty. That is how I got my first version. If you, like me, used the CD version, having the entire program on a single DVD is nice. You have that option with this upgrade. The other big question is should I pick BW over another program if I am in the market for my first professional quality Bible study program. That depends mainly on your needs. If you primarily want to read the Bible in English, have access to a number of books like commentaries or other works unrelated to language study, then probably not. But if you are a serious student of the word and like to study the Bible in the original lan-guages, then BW 8 is one of the best available. And with ERMIE it plays well with others. I use it along with a few other programs to do comprehensive study and writing. My only real complaints are the requirement to activate the software, the inability of the Notes and Editor to automati-cally hyperlink Bible references, and the very plain looking Daily Light window. But I love the new Analysis Window and the powerful External Resources Manager or ERMIE. And one thing I have not mentioned is that BW is one of the fastest programs. It opens quickly making it great to quickly find a reference without having to have an extra system tray resource running all the time. Instead BW8 has the Popup Verse Copy window, a little window that you can use to copy text into a word processor. Find it under Tools, Importing/Exporting Information. That way you can be in your word processor and copy verses into a document without going back to BW and navigating to the reference, selecting it and then copying. BW8 also does its searches extremely fast – if they are simple. Even complex searches are pretty quick. And Bible-Works is great at searching in original languages as well as complicated or simple English language searches. I have not even mentioned all the things you can do in the Search Window. If it you get lost in the complexity of BibleWorks – and it is complex – just open the Help files or watch the Getting Started videos. BW8 has some of the best help features in the industry. If you need further help with BibleWorks or want to discuss this review, come over to www.Christ-Tech.com, a great resource for Christian Technology on the web. We post a lot of useful information about new technology, give helpful “howto” articles, and discuss the latest in Christian Technology. The forum has places to interact with others. We are just getting started so please register and then post some questions, ideas, thoughts or even tell me what you think of BibleWorks 8 if you are using it already. If not, what do you want to know about it? I will try to give you some help. And I’m also looking for others to help me make this site a really great resource for the Christian Technology world.

http://www.bibleworks.com/content/new.html



While at a conference recently I met a specialist in system security. He works in that role for one of the largest enterprise-class computer manu-

facturers. As we talked about security issues, I was sur-prised to learn how vulnerable many systems are! We met

again by phone and video conference, and he shared some specifics with me.

Nick Nicholaou - [email protected]

Security Vulnerabilities!

nick at church

Why Should We Care? Most malware today is spread via websites— many even by legitimate websites! The Finjan Malicious Code Research Center’s Cybercrime Intelligence Re-port, Issue #3, 2009 states it this way:

“…It doesn’t take much for today’s cybercriminals to infect website visitors with a Trojan. Using com-mercial software (crimeware toolkit) available for $100-$300 on hacking forums, the cybercriminal can easily launch a massive attack. It allows him to insert exploiting code to vulnerable websites (legitimate or fake ones). Once a visitor visits one of the infected websites, an exploit code, served by the crimeware toolkit, installs a Trojan on the PC in use.”

Websites that aren’t secure can become distributers of malicious code that hurts many. When Steve Hewitt, CCMag Editor-in-Chief was researching church web-sites a couple of years ago, his computer got infected by malware from a ministry website!

Some Common Vulnerabilities Does securing your website cost a lot of money? Does it require contracting with a black ops unit? For-tunately not! Here are some common vulnerabilities to talk about with your web designer.

• SQL Statements. Many websites can process SQL (Structured Query Language) query state-ments. These are statements that can download your site’s data or can insert malicious code or change your website! The easiest way to run a query statement is in your search fieldand other input fields. A simple way to protect your web-site is to limit the length of your search field. You may want to consider limiting your search field to twenty characters and making sure your other input fields are not longer than they need to be.

Another good friend, Ross Gile with www.digical.com, recommends that if your website uses a SQL database, the database should be locked down behind a firewall.

• Webserver Path. When viewing a web page in a browser, an option in most browsers makes it possible to lift the hood and look at the engine, so to speak, by simply viewing the page source code. Make certain your website paths are not fully listed in the page source, because doing so makes your website more vulnerable. Any paths lists should be relative and not give the full tree or folder structure.


• Security Algorithm. Also while viewing your page source, make certain the security algorithm used to encrypt usernames and passwords is not named. Doing so makes breaking your website security much easier than you want it to be.

• Website Login. Any online login page should be secure. Two ways to tell if it is are:1. Look at the website address, or URL. If it

begins with https://, that means it’s connecting to a secure server, and that’s good.

2. Look for your browser’s secure page icon; usually a lock. If the lock is open or broken, it is not a secure page; if the lock is locked or closed, it is a secure page. I sometimes check the owner of the security certificate on the page if the organization is one with which I am unfamiliar to be certain the certificate is owned by who I think it should be—the organization whose site I’m visiting. Clicking on the lock will link you to the security certificate.

3. You might also want to use a Captcha, which is a type of challenge response to make sure the person attempting to login is human.

• Website Admin Login. Avoid default login page addresses like www.yourwebsite.com/admin.html and default login names like admin. Avoiding them helps to frustrate hackers and automated hacker programs.

• Website Server Security. Inexpensive and free websites given to churches are often hosted on out-of-date systems, which makes them more vulnerable to crimeware toolkits. Have a conversation with your webhost about your concern in this area and find out if your server is up-to-date.

Password Strength We like short and easy-to-remember pass-words. My security friend shared with me a chart showing the time it

takes to break a password, and it really surprised me! From www.lockdown.co.uk, here are some sample password ‘recovery’ times using a brute force method (btw… this is a site worth checking out):• Any 4 digit combination: instant!• 8 digits, numeric: instant!• 8 digits, upper & lowercase alphabetic: 35 min-

utes• 8 digits, upper & lowercase alphanumeric: 25¼

days• 8 digits, upper & lowercase alphanumeric w/

common symbol: 2¼ years

A quote by Bruce Schnier, internationally renowned security technologist and author, that’s linked on their website says, “As computers have become faster, the guessers have got better, some-times being able to test hundreds of thousands of passwords per second.” An additional step you can take to protect your systems is to lock an account for a period of time after a reasonable number of failed login attempts. My security friend said that about 40% of church websites are vulnerable! The items in this article can go a long ways towards securing your website and even your data network.



Multimedia Home Invasion

Bradley Miller - [email protected]

Small group, community group, accountability group, fellowship group, there are a multitude of different names for home based Bible or theme based com-

munities of believers. In our particular church (Heartland Church - Blue Springs, MO) we call them our Care Groups and they are home based. Our church uses an overhead pro-jector for worship lyrics, various videos, and the main teach-ing points during the worship service, so it was a natural

big ministry - small resources

progression for us to consider doing the same for our Care Group. It occurred to me that just as there are multiple names for the groups there are a wide variety of ways to recreate the same experience with the latest technology available. I’m going to detail our particular setup and then some other alternatives depending on costs and equip-ment. Our setup consists of a TV set hooked to a 50 foot RCA cable to the back of an iMac computer with the Apple S-Video/Composite converter for the mini-DVI connector. For the audio side we have another double Y cable that is 75 feet in length and goes with the video to the back of the home theater setup. We can mirror the screen or some applications will output directly to the second monitor setup. We use Powerpoint for slides, and stream music videos from YouTube or other places. For controlling the slides and videos we use a Griffin Air Click USB which is great because you can control Powerpoint, iTunes, and even the VLC player. Aside: Our setup is far from ideal. The TV set used to be a 27” model from the 1990’s era and ghosting of text was not an issue. The latest setup with an LCD now shows the flaws with the absurdly long and inadequate

cabling. A much better solution would be some coax cable with F-connectors (RCA) to bridge the distance. Ulti-mately we are thinking about using HDMI cabling or an AppleTV box to get the best signal possible to our living room set. If you have access to a laptop you might already have a second video output available. Newer TV sets have VGA connectors, but even older TV sets can be used with the appropriate composite or S-video connectors. If you have a S-video connector but a composite (RCA) connec-tor available, there are adapters to take the mini-din plug to a coax signal. If your TV doesn’t have composite capabil-ity (seriously? Think about another TV!) you can use a viideo converter box or VCR (oh my!). Do you want to be even more tech savvy but not tied to your computer? Many of the new TV’s, Blue Ray, and DVD players have USB plugs to allow you use a flash drive. If you export slides or media from your application as JPG images you can use those pictures on your flash/thumb drive to have Bible verses or other info. Some players will even accommodate various movie playback formats, so with the right file format you can have video as well. A media streaming box is also a possibility, ranging


from the generic media player devices all the way to the new devices from Boxee, Google, and Apple. Even TV’s them-selves are making a leap and allowing web applications that can connect to your local wired or wireless network.

1 Thessalonians 2: 7-9 (NIV)Instead, we were like young children among you. Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hard-ship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.

No matter the media, the message should be the same. Adapting to the technology and culture of our day is what the disciples modeled and furthered in sharing the gospel message. With a little creativity this adaptation can make one of the most often scorned devices (the TV set) into a way to share in our homes with one another.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/M9321G/B - Mini DVI Adapterhttp://www.griffintechnology.com/prod-ucts/airclickusb - Air Clickhttp://www.google.com/tv/ - Google TVhttp://www.sonystyle.com/SonyInter-netTVhttp:// - Sony featuring Google TVhttp://www.dlink.com/boxee - Boxee System

http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fstore.apple.com%2Fus%2Fproduct%2FM9321G%2FB&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFkSGn2Pj6VABabygELw2s39a50Ug

















http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.griffintechnology.com%2Fproducts%2Fairclickusb&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGc_fFsdbYe8yEyqzwrjVvRARHJeA












http://www.google.com/tv/










http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonystyle.com%2FSonyInternetTV&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEpoZOfCLud6_vEJdkNpoHyIeaKzA










http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dlink.com%2Fboxee&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNHah-GEDkjqx55HV50bg_F38OyEIA












Last month I talked about software for the iPad, in-cluding a quick review of Bible software I had tried. Some of the software worked great, as long as I had

WiFi connectivity, which I indicated wasn’t always a simple thing.

Connected Tablets

By Russ McGuire - [email protected]

tablet time

WiFi Isn’t Ubiquitous, Is It? When I bought my iPad, I opted for the WiFi model instead of the 3G model. It was $130 cheaper and didn’t require me to pay another $25 per month just to connect my iPad. Much of the time, this isn’t a problem. When I’m home, I easily connect to my home WiFi. I meet for Bible studies in coffee shops that also have free WiFi, so no problem there. But, our IT department at work doesn’t make it easy to use the company’s WiFi to connect an iPad, and since our church meets in a rented facility, there’s no WiFi available at a key time for using Bible software. So, WiFi network connectivity can be a challenge at times. However, a couple of months ago I upgraded my phone to the Samsung Epic from Sprint. Among many other features, this device (calling it a phone is a major un-derstatement) has 4G connectivity and a personal hotspot feature. The 4G service has proven to be pretty good. In my house, it’s not quite as fast as my cable modem service, but still faster than what I used to get with DSL. I really notice the difference compared to 3G when browsing the web and downloading applications from the Android Mar-

ket. Around town, most places I go seem to have decent 4G performance. When I travel, 4G service is a bit spottier. Sprint has launched 4G in 71 markets covering about a third of the U.S. population, but it’s certainly not available every-where. But even when 4G isn’t available, my Epic falls back to 3G connectivity, which is better than nothing. But what does that have to do with my iPad? That’s where the hotspot feature comes in. For an ex-tra $30 a month, I can turn my Epic into my own personal WiFi hotspot. That means everywhere I go I can not only connect my iPad, but up to another four WiFi devices – such as my laptop and my camera with an EyeFi card (and my son’s netbook and my wife’s laptop when we’re travel-ing together). Especially for my iPad, this is an awesome feature. Since I always have my phone with me—that means my iPad is always connected.

Integrated Connectivity For Christmas, I got a new gadget – the Samsung Galaxy S Tab. The model I received runs on Sprint’s 3G network. Unlike the iPad, a 3G Galaxy Tab actually costs less than a WiFi-only model because the wireless carrier subsidizes the price in exchange for signing a 2-year con-


tract. The device costs $299 and then $29.99 per month for data service. Since it’s not a 4G device, I find that I use the Galaxy Tab in WiFi mode when I’m at home for faster performance, but 3G mode at work and when I’m on the go. I’ll talk more about Bible software on the Tab in next month’s column, but the device has replaced my paper notebook at work. The Galaxy Tab is smaller and lighter than the iPad, so it is much more convenient to carry around. The smaller size also makes it easier to thumb type, especially when holding it in portrait mode. Better than thumb typing, the Tab comes with “Swype” – a unique way to input text. You simply drag your finger across the key-board, for example, sliding my finger from “r” to “i” to “s” to “e” to “n” would spell the word “risen” in one smooth motion. The Tab easily synchronizes with my Exchange e-mail, contacts, and calendar. As an Android device, it also synchronizes well with Google services including Gmail and Google Calendar, as well as other on-line services. Android also supports Flash, so the brows-ing experience is even better than that on the iPad. Unlike the iPad, the Tab also includes not just one camera – but two – one on the back of the device and the other on the front for video conferencing. The Qik video conferencing application is pre-loaded which seems to work pretty well. The Tab also comes with ThinkFree Office, a Micro-soft Office compatible productivity suite including word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation modules. I’ve used it to view files sent to me in e-mail and to create word processing files for note taking while on the go. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to do any heavy duty work using the package. The Android Marketplace doesn’t quite have as many applications as the Apple App Store, but it still provides plenty of variety. Most of the popular iPhone/iPad apps are also available for Android. In addition to Bible soft-ware and a few games, the other application I’ve down-loaded that I really enjoy using is the Kindle app. Amazon has done it right, synchronizing the book I’m reading across all of my devices. I can read the first 10 pages on my dedicated Kindle. When I switch to the iPad and open the same book in the Kindle app, it takes me right to page 11, and then when I switch to the Galaxy

S Tab, my progress on the iPad is also recorded, making it easy to pick up where I left off, so I can have my library with me on the go, no matter which device I’m carrying. It’s “on the go” where the Galaxy S Tab really shines. I can easily get through a full day on one battery charge and I take it to all my meetings. I haven’t had any prob-lems with network connectivity anywhere I’ve taken the Tab, so I don’t even have to think about it, I can just assume I have an Internet connection. I purchased a cover that makes the Tab look like a small “padfolio” notebook, so it easy travels with me and it doesn’t stand out as a high tech gadget – at least not until I open it up and start using it. And having it with me all the time means that I have easy access to all my notes, my calendar, my e-mail, my reading material, and my Bible. Next month I’ll provide an overview of Bible software I use on the Galaxy S Tab.

Russ McGuire is an executive for a Fortune 100 company and the founder/co-founder of three technology start-ups. His latest entrepreneurial venture is Hschooler.net (http://hschooler.net), a social network for Christian families (especially homeschoolers) which is being built and run by four homeschooled students under Russ’ direction.



Strategic Planning for Easter

Yvon Prehn - [email protected]

You don’t have to be an astute analyst of the culture to understand that we live in a far different world than Baby Boomers grew up in. Many Boomer church lead-

ers may be aware of the changes in life, technology, and culture (“You can show that on TV now?”), while at the same time plan-ning for Easter church celebrations the same way they did when Ozzie, Harriet and family was the target audience. If you want

share the power of our risen Lord in ways that will change people today and forever, you need a new strategy read on for suggestions.

Why it is Essential Now More than Ever

ministry communication

This isn’t about Boomer bashing, any age group can make the same incorrect and ineffective assumptions The mindset that needs a new strategy isn’t confined to any one age group, though many leaders in the Boomer generation seem to be stuck in it. I’m not bashing Boomers, this is my generation (born 1949) and many of my peers in ministry provided the inspiration for this article. The mindset that I see with Boomer friends and church leader’s various ages, but similar mindset, assumes:

People outside the church know the basics about the 1. Christian faith and what’s in the Bible.

Your community members know the story of Easter and 2. are looking for a place to celebrate it.

All we have to do to get them to get saved and be part of 3. our church is to have the biggest, loudest, most colorful Easter service in town, complete with a petting zoo for kids and brunch served on the premises.

To assure we have a successful Easter (defined in 4. numbers attending) we need to put our money into an expensive direct mail advertising campaign and get the most expensive postcards, banners, and maybe even a TV spot that money can buy.

These assumptions range from totally incorrect to ineffective. The shift in our world that makes these assumptions incorrect is that North America (and much of the world) is no longer Christian in its mindset. The world has shifted away from not only a Biblical conscience, but from basic Bible knowledge. This is not the place to repeat the various studies, statis-tics, and books that confirm this situation. For an excellent overview, go to: http://www.theologicalstudies.org/page/page/1573625.htm. As we plan Easter outreach and celebration, we need to realize that contrary to the assumptions above:

http://www.theologicalstudies.org/page/page/1573625.htm

http://www.theologicalstudies.org/page/page/1573625.htm


We need to start with our congregation. We need to review in sermons, Sunday School Les-sons, and in small groups why we celebrate Easter. We need to discover anew the incredible miracle of the Resur-rection and its central place in the Christian church. The observation of Lent, even for non-liturgical churches can be an excellent practice to focus on the traditions of the church, self-denial, and the importance of the coming of Easter. For the article: “Why it’s important to remind our congregations about Lent” that also has bulletin inserts that answer the question, click on this link: http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2011/02/why-remind-our-congre-gations-about-lent/

We need to instill in our people the reality of the fate of those who do not know Jesus as Savior. If our people believe that friends, who don’t come to church on Easter, miss out on nothing more than free chocolate and brunch, it isn’t a very big deal. But if they truly believe that friends who die without knowing Christ will spend an eternity in darkness and conscious suffering and regret, they may take inviting their friends to hear the Easter message more seriously. This is not a fun reality to remind people about, but it is our duty to do it. To explain this more and for a free

Most people do not know the facts about the Christian faith, and that includes many people in your church. If, as numerous reports in the article cited above show, most people don’t know who the disciples are, or what the books of the Bible are, or their contents and it follows that there is little chance they know much about what is in the Bible itself. Unless your church has an intentional program of Bible teaching for all ages, the people in your church will be little different than the community at large in their knowledge of the Bible. In the past, the Bible was frequently required reading in school, the classics of litera-ture were filled with Biblical references, families read the Bible together because they had few other books or types of entertainment before radio and television—this is largely gone. Because of this lack of Biblical knowledge, few people in your community will come to your Easter celebrations for strictly spiritual reasons. They will come for a number of reasons, depending upon how you advertise, that include:

fun for the kids•free food•great music•that’s what you are supposed to do •vague childhood memories of Easter •

If your advertising feeds into this perception of Easter, emphasizing fluffy fun or vague guilt, people will not be at-tending to celebrate Christ’s victory from the grave, but for what the advertising promised.

We probably can’t change the culture before Easter, but there are some things we can do With the situation being what it is, how can we formulate a strategy that will be effective at Easter in not only bringing in a large number of people into our church services, but that will enable them to meet the Risen Christ they are celebrating and to begin a journey towards a personal relationship with Him?

http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2011/02/why-remind-our-congregations-about-lent/





bulletin insert that you can use to moti-vate your people, go to the article: “Why it matters if you invite friends to church for Easter, and a FREE bulletin insert to help you do it” It is available at this link:http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2011/02/why-it-matters-if-you-invite-friends-to-church-for-easter/

We need to equip our people to be inviters Rather than buying advertising from a company that promises to bring you people on Easter, which means in reality sending the same postcard out from a number of churches in the same com-munity to every household in the area, equip your people with invitation cards, postcards, door-hangers that YOU create in the church that reflect your church and how you are going to uniquely celebrate Easter. Set up a free website (www.word-press.com is my favorite and on my website, www.effectivechurchcom.com, I tell you how to do it) and do a site about how Jesus is the reason for the Easter Season; set up a Facebook page about Easter, Tweet, or whatever social media you are using now and coach your people on how to use them as outreach. Teach your people that they are responsible to invite in person, with paper business cards and invitations and digitally. For it to have lasting impact, outreach for Easter is not something the church purchases, it is an activity that involves the whole church.

Create communication on paper and digitally that fol-low up after the Easter service If you really want to use Easter to reach people for Jesus, be VERY INTENTIONAL about using the Easter service as a time to connect with people and get them to return, to become involved with your church or to explore a relationship with Jesus. You should do this with printed materials you give out at the service, that explain what your church is about, as well as providing resources on the web and in print for those who want to know more. A lengthy article with examples that will help you do this, is available here: http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2009/03/help-easter-guests-understand-why-jesus-is-the-reason-for-the-easter-seacon/

There is much to do, but much help is available I pray this article has helped you think and challenged you to pray in new ways about how you approach your Easter celebrations this year. I know what I am suggesting here and on my website is a lot of additional work for church staffs already stretched to the limit, and I honestly don’t know how we will do all we want and need to for our church. But I do know that what we do is vitally important if we want to introduce our communities to Jesus in an eternal relationship instead entertaining them for one Sunday.

Many more materials (articles, videos, samples, and publications) to help your church be effective in your Easter celebrations are available at: http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/category/seasonal/easter-seasonal-communications/ Quite a few new ones will be added in the coming month—be sure to sign up to receive my newsletter so you will be notified of them. The sign up box is on the home page of www.effectivechurchcom.com . PLEASE email me ([email protected]) if you have additional questions or if you have unique ways or publications your church has used for the Easter Season.

http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2011/02/why-it-matters-if-you-invite-friends-to-church-for-easter/



http://www.wordpress.com

http://www.wordpress.com


http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2009/03/help-easter-guests-understand-why-jesus-is-the-reason-for-the-easter-seacon/



http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/category/seasonal/easter-seasonal-communications/

http://www.effectivechurchcom.com/category/seasonal/easter-seasonal-communications/


