Take a few minutes and walk around your office and without any set up, just ask five people: "If you were to explain who we are to someone outside the organization, what would you say?"
You might be interested to find out what each of them have to say...I know I am.
Communication is a two-way street right? Well, maybe. But there's lots of times when communication becomes entirely one-sided. It occurs when one person really wants to communicate something but the other has no interest in hearing it. Companies with garbage products do this a lot...and fail. Lots of them use tactics of repetition (read annoyance) in order to make sales happen, but that doesn't build brand loyalty and as such, it's an unsustainable model.
So it's important to ask yourself: “is my audience interested in the message I'm sending?” If not, then what? Well, at that point, it's time to stop and take stock of what it is that your audience does value and reconsider how to approach them with your message. It will feel a lot like being responsible for both speaking and listening...and that's perfectly ok...right where a good communicator needs to be.
We get asked on fairly regular basis if we can provide a complete list of everything that AdvancedMinistry has to offer. Typically we point people to the Pricing page which gives a list of everything, however, it doesn't provide a detailed account of each module does.
As of today you can now find a complete list of features along with a screenshot of each one. Click here to view them now.
For years now, we've been asked by many of our customers as to whether or not we have a corporate version of AdvancedMinistry. Our response up to this point has been, “No, unfortunately not... but maybe one day.”
Well, that day has finally arrived; the corporate version of AdvancedMinistry is finally here. The name of our new product along with its pricing model will be announced next week.
Here is another fulfilled request for an Xpiritmental reader. One of our readers suggested that we do a wallpaper for John 3:16. This is probably the most well known verse in the New Testament. It is one that had been on my mind for a while and I had to this point been avoiding doing something for this verse for that very reason. Because it is so well known I was having a hard time visualizing something that I thought would be appropriate or inspiring. So after some exploring I did something that I feel is simple and puts a lot of emphasis on the words. Then I surrounded the verse with a piercing, glorious light that could be interpreted as God's presence. The mission I gave myself going into this one was to create an image that made the word's look as important as they read. I think I was successful. I hope everyone enjoys using it as much as I enjoyed making it!
I can't remember if I've ever shared this before on Xpiritmental, so I'd better start today's post by explaining that I'm one of five band leaders involved in leading worship at my church. As a result, it falls to me to spend time picking sets of music that will set up the sermon and allow the congregation to respond to it through music.
I had the opportunity to lead this past weekend in church and had a really cool experience that I'd like to share with you all that really applies to what we so often talk about on this blog. To give it some context though, I'll have to let you in on some of the details of the process I take in leading worship.
The process starts about three weeks out from the actual Sunday I'm leading. The very first step is to find out who is speaking, what the topic is and get the sermon notes into my hands to help with song selection. Most often, detailed sermon notes aren't floating around for a sermon that's three weeks out, but highlight notes of the main points, Scripture references and takeaways often are. This past time though, no such notes existed and so I had a chat with our pastor and got a great idea for the direction of the set from him.
So off to work I went. Between picking a list of songs that could work for that Sunday, narrowing them down into a set that had a specific musical and lyrical flow, meeting with a friend to work out keys and maps, providing the team with the maps, charts and inspiration and then rehearsal the night before, I had easily invested 20 hours of prep before even showing up at the church for 6:30 AM last Sunday morning for rehearsal and service run-through.
That's a lot of work and planning to go into a 75-minute experience of corporate worship for a given member of our congregation...and no doubt, there's some of you asking the question: “is it necessary?”.
My simple answer to that would be: yep...and here's why: preparation leads to excellence and I believe that we are called to do all that we do to the best of our ability, for God's glory. The really cool thing though, is that time-after-time, despite all of the preparation put forward by myself and all the members of the band for a given weekend, there always seems to be a gap or two that I tend to find out after the fact that God has plans to fill.
Kinda like this:
This past weekend, as I sat in the first of two services we have in our church, and listened to our pastor preach, he ended up reading a verse that was the direct inspiration for one of the songs that we had just finished singing. Bear in mind, as I outlined above, when I selected the set and narrowed it down from about 35 potentials to the 6 songs we sang, I did not have any of the supporting Scriptures that my pastor was going to use. I was so struck at that moment with how God had directed the set selection that I turned to my friend who was in the band and said: “Can you believe that? Of all the songs I could have picked and of all the verses that our pastor could have referenced, we landed on the exact same thing.” But it's clear to me, that it wasn't “us landing on it” at all...
And then, after the service, I was speaking with our pastor and he expressed how a quote that I had read to set up the final two songs before the sermon was one that he had considered adding into his sermon but had cut for the sake of time. The really cool part of that being, that I went home after rehearsal on Saturday night, still not knowing how I would set those two songs up. I even got to the point of getting into bed thinking I'd have to think something up in the morning. But before I shut off the light, I opened a book I'd been reading off-and-on for a while but hadn't touched for 3 weeks: and as I turned the first page, that quote was right there and as soon as I read it, I knew that it was the perfect set up for the songs before the sermon. I had no idea my pastor even knew of that quote, let alone had considered using it in his sermon.
And I believe that these kinds of things are the ways in which God honors our preparation. But it's a two-fold blessing. It's not just a matter of: “if I do the work, God will do His thing” (as if it's dependant on me and my work). Nope.
Rather, while I do believe that God honors our hard work and effort to give Him our best, the biggest blessing is the comfort that His blessing brings. Because, no matter how hard I work and how many hours I put into a worship set, I know that He is going to see His name glorified and will accomplish His purposes in the experience.
And I see that same principal applying in the work that you all do. As you work to fulfill the calling that God has given you, you are called to do so to the best of your ability, not accepting mediocrity because our God deserves our very best. But at the same time, be comforted in the knowledge that because of, and even at times in spite of all your hard work, God will see His plans come to fruition.
That's not an excuse not to try, but as a fallible human trying to lead and serve others, it's sure a comforting truth.
AdvancedMinistry is pleased to announce the official launch a new component available to all of its Orange, Red, Blue and Purple Suite users – a secure (password-protected) intranet at no additional cost.
What this means is that you can now setup an intranet for your ministry that enables you to create as many secure areas as you like. For example, you could have a secure area for Worship Arts Ministry, Children's Ministry, Men's Ministry and so on.
In order for people to access those secure areas, you can set them up with their own username and password. For every user that you create, you can either grant them full access to the intranet or simply give them access to certain areas (i.e Children's Ministry); it's completely up to you. Additionally, you have full control over whether or not the user has the ability to post files and messages to each area.
Here is a breakdown of the maximum number of users provided for each AdvancedMinistry Suite. (Note that the number of secure areas is “unlimited” in all available suites.)
Orange Suite customers – 10 users
Red Suite customers – 50 users
Blue Suite customers – 500 users
Purple Suite customers – Unlimited users
Regarding the amount of file space for your intranet, it is directly tied to the amount of file space available in your suite. For a complete listing and comparison table, click here.
Below are a few screen shots of the new component. To begin, login to your account and click on “Account Management” (on the right hand side of the screen), followed by “Secure Intranet”. Enjoy!
The first week back after the break I put out a message calling for requests for Xpiritmental wallpaper ideas. I received three responses; I was hoping for a few more but it's a start. :)
The first request I have fulfilled was Philippians 4:5. It was fun doing this and I appreciate the input. I hope you all enjoy it!
Don't get me wrong... I love Google. They have changed the face of the Internet in so many ways; some for the better and some for the worse – mostly for the better in my opinion. But personally speaking, I have a serious concern with putting all of my eggs in one basket. And with the latest cyber-attack to the Google infrastructure, it's got me thinking again.
About three years ago I asked many of my peers the following question (paraphrased):
“So let me get this straight... Google has all of your email correspondance for the last X number of years; they have most of your private documents through their Google Documents sharing application; they have all of your instant messaging conversations for the last X number of years through Google Talk; they know what you've been looking for and where you're going through Google Maps (and now Google Latitude); they have all of your website statistics through Google Analytics; and they have your entire search history for as long as you've been on Google. That's more data than any world government. Does that make you even a little nervous?”
Now I'm not saying, “Get up and move your files from Google.” All I'm implying is that when considering the digital strategy for yourself or your organization, it would be reckless not to evaluate all of your options. Consider the consequences if your data is breached – and when I mean “breached”, I mean copied or stolen. Most companies have a good backup plan in place in case your data gets hacked or if a hard drive fails – I'm not talking about that. I'm referring to the personal confidentiality of your data – things like contacts, social security numbers, private conversations, financial information, etc. If someone got a hold of that, would you be at risk? Additionally, if that service (i.e. Google) went offline for 1-2 weeks (or more), would that hinder your organization?
At the end of the day, I completely recognize that the Lord is in absolute control; He holds us in His hands. And regardless of where we put our data – we can't live in fear. At the same time, I don't think it's a bad idea to have a data strategy; ask yourself questions like:
- Do I have a backup plan if Google goes down?
- Do the files that I'm uploading contain any personal data that could cause harm to myself or another person? (Measure the risk factor.)
Once again, I'm not trying to generate fear by posting this; I'm simply trying to get you thinking in terms of a strategic data plan that covers as many angles as possible.
Last night I was at home after grocery shopping with my wife and we we're putting away what we bought from the store. While we we're doing so the radio was on and there was a steady dose of news coming in regarding the earthquake that occurred on January 12th in Haiti. At that moment I had a heavy heart thinking of all the people that had lost so much and there I am in my warm, dry house surrounded by an abundance of food and my family. It's a stark contrast that really got to me at that moment. So I started thinking about what can I do to help in any way possible.
Today I designed an Xpiritmental desktop for Haiti to inspire help, love and prayer for the nation and the people there struggling through this difficult time. At the heart of this image is the principle that we all have a responsibility to participate some way in helping a nation that has been nearly destroyed in a matter of minutes. Through prayer, giving or travelling to the area to help, it is up to us to be God's hands on earth to help a nation up from ruins. It's times like this that God's love can shine the brightest.
It's easy to be comfortable in our lives and be consumed with everything that we have going on. As believers we have to realize that we are going to be called to give account with what we did and equally as important, what we didn't do. Let this wallpaper provide an incentive for you and others to all play a positive part in this situation. No matter how big or small.
I just finished viewing some pictures out of Haiti that have really set the tone for my afternoon and made it clear to me what today's blog post should be all about.
As the Haitian Prime Minister reports that the death toll could easily be on the scale of hundreds of thousands of people, all I can think to do is provide links to a few organizations that we have relationships with (either corporately or as individuals) where your donations would be most welcome:
Over the last year or so, I've spent a great deal of time looking for better ways to be more efficient with the dollars that we spend on software – both in our company and at the local church that I attend. In my research I've found that there are many ways that ministries and businesses could be saving a great deal of money just by properly researching the software that they are purchasing (or not purchasing).
Long story short, I wanted to share with you one of my findings that I believe may be helpful to your ministry; it comes in the area of Office & Productivity Suites.
Our company and church have been using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) for as long as I can remember. I estimate that in the last 10 years, our company has spent in the range of $30,000 purchasing new and upgraded versions of Microsoft Office. About a year ago, we investigated the possibility of moving to OpenOffice, a free open-source software suite that generally speaking, does all of the same things as Microsoft Office. I am pleased to announce that not only have we switched to OpenOffice, most of us like it better the Microsoft Office. It's still able to open all of your old Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents (and save them in that format), and in our opinion runs a lot faster and smoother than Microsoft Office.
So if you're in the mood to try something different and don't mind getting it for free, OpenOffice could be the start of something good for you and your ministry. :)
As one of the designers of the Xpiritmental desktops I am curious to know what lifts you up and encourages you. If you have particular verses or anything else that’s appropriate that you would like to see incorporated into desktop backgrounds, we'd love to receive them and see what we can do.
It brings me great joy to design the wallpapers knowing thousands of people download them. Many people spend most of their days on their computers and the visuals can provide as inspiration and motivation in your daily endeavors. Coming into 2010 we're looking for some ideas to keep the library growing. So get us your ideas by adding a comment to this post and we’ll see what we can do!
A few of us here at the office are either familiar with, or friends with, a guy named Mike Tompkins. Mike's a pretty talented guy in the areas of sound production and beat boxing. So today, for our Casual Friday, we present Mike's latest offering…a remake of "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus. The catch being that every sound you hear was made by Mike's mouth, voice and a tambourine.
I'm not sure how many of our American friends found themselves glued to their televisions last night as the U.S. and Canadian Jr. Hockey teams squared off in the final of the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship, but I can tell you that up here in Canada, there were lots of people who were fixated on the big game.
Canada was vying for a record sixth straight gold medal, but were unable to deliver as the Americans took them to overtime and scored in sudden death to end the game and win this year's tournament.
What inevitably comes out of a loss like that for any sports team is that the losing team can take comfort in having played competitively and hold their heads high for playing in a gracious and sportsmanlike manner that represents their club or country well and we all nod our heads dismissively recognizing it as both a basic truth and a classic sports cliche.
But in many cases, that accepted truism doesn't seem to want to stick in a ministry or a non-profit context.
What seems to happen instead is that although sportsmanlike competition is construed as a positive and possible thing in sport, it's not possible in a ministry or non-profit context. Somehow, as soon as competition is mentioned in those circles, the only thing that gets envisioned is the kind of competition that's dirty, low-brow and mean-spirited.
But the reality is that especially in these tighter economic times, for churches, ministries and non-profits to function, they absolutely must realize that they are not only in competition for a piece of a financial pie that has and will likely continue to get smaller over the next while (as far as personal philanthropy is concerned), but that they are in competition with a growing number of ministries and non-profits who are vying for those same dollars. Additionally, in an advertising saturated culture that moves at an unbelievable pace these days, it's critical to realize that you are even in competition for people's attention.
To ignore these truths is to neglect the condition of the current market and it sets you up for failure.
Embrace the concept that you are in fact, in competition, and then compete.
But while you're doing that, regardless of whether you find yourself winning or losing, just make sure that you compete in a way that at the end of the day, we can all say that you battled hard and you did it with grace and quality.
As we head into the first part of 2010, we just thought we'd whet your appetite with a few things that we're going to be launching within the next few weeks:
1. For everyone on the Ray of Hope template, we will be converting it to AM 3.0. This means that you will now have full control over all of your template colors, fonts, column sizes, backgrounds, etc.
2. Similarly, for everyone on the Ultimate Love template, we will be converting that one to 3.0 as well. (More templates will be converted in the near future as well.)
3. We will be launching the ability for every ministry to have their own secure intranet to share files and communicate with one another.
Many people look at January 1st as a fresh start. Many of those people make themselves a promise that they intend to see through for that entire year in an effort to better themselves. Sadly most of those promises are abandoned by Valentine’s day.
The point of this post is two-fold. First I want to share what my New Year’s resolution is for this year and secondly make an appeal for you to share your resolutions. I think there is value in sharing your resolution with someone else as it creates accountability. It’s easy to stop doing something or give up if no one else knew you were doing it in the first place.
This year I am quitting the fast food scene. No more burger joints, tacos or greasy chicken. For me fast food is a bit of a vice as I find it easy to eat that kind of food often. But as a guy going into my 30s and as a new parent I want to ensure I am being responsible to my family and the body God gave me.
So there you have it. Is anyone else brave enough to share their resolution? Does anyone have any success stories from resolutions they stuck to? We would love to hear them. Who knows, your story could help someone else. Maybe there is something you can resolve for this year that will directly benefit the ministry or church you work for and in that directly impact God’s kingdom.
Not all resolutions have to do with quitting smoking or losing weight. Open your mind and your heart to something that God may be asking you to do this year and see where you are after 365 days of obedience to that item. Leave a comment on this post and we hope you’re successful with this year’s new start.
Xpiritmental is a resource. It's a place to learn and to share thoughts on marketing, ministry, design, service, the Web, culture and more. We'll start the conversation, but we're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say.
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