As a horseback riding instructor, I sometimes ask my students to do a "body check" - mentally go over there entire body position to see if everything is where it should be. How does this apply to you? I think it's time for all of us to take a few minutes and go over the whole website, newsletter, bulletin, and anything else you might publish regularly to check for inconsistencies.
I'm very guilty of updating something, but not catching every place I need to fix it. This "sin" of communication lost a congregation some offering dollars this weekend (don't worry, it wasn't around here!). While visiting friends, we were going to visit a congregation. We looked at websites of potential candidates and found one we liked - nice site, appealing upcoming events, looked like they had good priorities in their community. The "Sundays" tab listed their worship at 8:30 and 10:00. We show up at 9:50 and the sign says 10:45. Our plans changed and when we got home we checked the site again. On the homepage the correct worship times were listed, but we hadn't noticed them on the homepage.
This fall, now that we've returned to a different worship schedule, a different collection of programs (including Sunday School), or whatever other changes may have happened, let's take a minute to check our information and make sure it's all in good order.
At our recent meeting on using PowerPoint in worship, the question was raised, "What is the best way to switch between presentations?" If you don't want to have the whole congregation watching you as you close your announcements and open up the worship service, check out these tips from Rev. Dave Berg, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Rochester, Minn.:
"Black screen is an option, and most remotes for projectors will be able to 'freeze' the slide that is on the screen and go real time when you are ready.
"For something quick you can hit 'alt tab' to toggle between shows… or merge the shows together. If you have multiple feeds (additional pc’s, dvd players, cameras, etc) you can use a 'switcher box' which will set you out about 30 bucks at Best Buy.
"Ultimately, I think churches need to start using Media Shout and other software designed more for this sort of thing. What we do with PowerPoint is try to adapt it to the worship situation where these issues happen, rather than something like Media Shout, where it is designed specifically for churchy stuff."
I was reminded yesterday - by experience and directly - that we're not all at the same place in our skills. While the following may be very basic for many of you, I just saw this error in a newsletter the other day.
Don't leave orphans! In publishing, this means that you shouldn't let your computer break the page or column in an bad place, leaving just a phrase, word or few words, or even a few lines on the next page. Unless there is substantial content, a reader shouldn't have to flip to read the end of the story.
The example I saw had a number of short, single paragraph announcements throughout. Often three lines would be on one page, two on the next. Bad idea!
If you're designing in Word and it's all continuous text, you can insert a page or column break (Insert > Break > choose which one you want) rather than hitting all the enters if you want. This also gives some added protection against creating a bigger mess if you go back and add things prior to the break.
Basic rule - If it doesn't make sense to read at a quick glance, you did something wrong!
In the last post I talked about the ELCA arrangement with Constant Contact, but didn't give you the link to the partnership page. If you're interested in that partnership go to elca.constantcontact.com.
If you were at the recent Synod Communicators' Workshop or if you've ever looked at the bottom of one of my mass e-mails, you've probably heard of Constant Contact, an e-mail marketing service. I don't usually want to use this as an ad space - and since I'm not getting paid to talk about them, it's not really an ad anyway - but I did want to share the benefits of an e-mail marketing service and some additional ones that apply specifically to Constant Contact.
These services allow you to send to as many people as you want at one time. Many e-mail providers limit how many you can send (so spammers don't use their service).
They do the work to help you not get marked as junk mail.
Most provide easy ways to manage your lists and let the subscribers subscribe, unsubscribe, and change their information all on their own.
You usually get very helpful statistics. The ones I like from Constant contact include open rates, which links people click on (and how frequently), bounce information, number of times forwarded, etc.
You can jazz up your e-mails from their templates and also include your own photos/images to make their stuff your own.
Pricing varies enough that you don't pay the same amount as someone sending to tens of thousands of subscribers. Pricing structures do vary by service, so find one that's right for you.
The service can be accessed from anywhere, any time, by anyone - not tied to one computer.
You can set up e-mails to send at any time, not only "right now."
You can create different lists so not everyone gets every message. They can even subscribe themselves to which ones they want.
And the list goes on...
And an added benefit to Constant Contact exclusively...
The ELCA has entered into a partnership with them and is just now coming out with an e-mail template (it looks similar to the new design of ELCA.org) and will eventually grow the offerings to include things like pre-inserted content. There is no price break, but you do get these extras at no additional cost.
