Created by Cory Miller (me) of Church Communications Pro, this is an example blog/website showing how an individual ministry, in this case a youth or student ministry, could use blogging technology, like Blogger, to easily interact and communicate with its participants as well as reach out to prospective guests.

I created this site with my church's youth ministry in mind. if you haven't figured it out, it's called Q Drive.

P.S. -- The Q Drive logo was done by an outstanding artist who works at the church (not me). I'd love to put you in touch with him.

Labels: Intro

Here's just a couple:

• It's easy
• It's easy
• It's easy

Seriously, in most cases where I have advised people, they lack the training and tools to do Website maintenance.

I've said this before in my Blogging 101 series, blogs lower the bar for what it takes to create and maintain Websites.

Blogging platforms, like Blogger and WordPress, are essentially content management systems. In other words, they are neat, customized software -- chiseled to effeciency by the millions of people who use them -- to be well-honed, online-based ways to manage Websites.

I'll put it this way ... if you can operate Microsoft Word, you can easily use Blogger for a ministry site like this.

Now, some of you might be thinking, I don't want to use a "blog" simply because it's a "blog." Maybe you have negative stereotypes associated with it, or you think it's amateurish.

Well, then don't call it a blog! Call it your ministry Website or whatever. It's just the infrastructure for easily maintaining a Website!

The beauty of using a blogging platform to run a specific ministry area site is:

• Updating is easy. Blogs are designed naturally to put the most current content at the top. And handy archives give your users access to previous posts they missed.
  
• Podcasting is super-easy (see my tutorial on sermon podcasting with blogs).
• Keeping your ministry participants updated via email is automatic (FeedBlitz). Just make a post about an upcoming event, or important topic and they'll get it once a day in their inbox.
• It's cheap or better yet free -- If you want to use Blogger's free hosting you can, or simply use their FTP Publishing (what I'm doing here) on your church or ministry domain.
  
• It's interactive -- By allowing comments, you can let your ministry participants weigh in on your sermon, or the praises they've had this week, etc. Take polls, do surveys, ask questions.
• It's viral -- This simply means that it's ripe for being spread among a lot of people.
  
• You can collaborate with others -- You don't have to do it by yourself. With Blogger, you can invite other trusted "authors" to help write your content and keep your site updated.
  

Labels: Benefits

Here are the things I did to tweak this site and make it look different than the original template (Minima on Black):

• Custom graphical header
• FeedBlitz email newsletter form
• Changed the original font colors for links and titles, etc.

Labels: What I Tweaked

Here are some features I'd include on almost any ministry blog, especially this one:

• Google Analytics -- for free, and I might add great, website statistics and tracking. See what people are clicking on and how they're getting to your site.
  
• FeedBlitz Email Newsletter -- this is an automatic service that checks your site every day and emails your posts to your subscribers. Perfect for a ministry site, especially a youth site where parents can subscribe! No hassle, no fuss! FeedBlitz does all the work.
• Podcasting -- if you already record your teaching or sermons, put them on your ministry blog site. I have a tutorial on doing podcasting the easy way using FeedBurner. Go through the tutorial, but it's as easy as just posting your MP3s links in a regular post like this one.

Other Options:

Both of these options allow your students to interact with your site in a dynamic way ... and best of all, it's VIRAL ... meaning buzz spreads quickly!

• Flickr for Photo Galleries -- Free service that you has options for embedding photo galleries in your sidebar, etc. Photos can be uploaded and hosted at Flickr and used on your site easily.
• YouTube for Videos -- Another free service where they host your videos and give you a code to embed them in your posts.

Labels: Important Features