Web Site Vision and Voice

Currently, TTUMC has one person (guess who?) with hard-core technical expertise on web sites.

Until I can build up a strong technical team, one question that needs to guide me is this: Am I making it possible for non-technical people to maintain and update web content–while the style and structure of the web site is maintained?

To a large degree, this means taking the time to provide web-based interfaces where new content can be plugged in. Ideally, the existing content will flow into the forms of font, color, and position that were previously designed.

Fortunately, to a great degree I’ve made it possible for people to contribute. Our administrative assistant, Susan Johnson, updates the online calendar and edits and emails the enewsletter. A web interface also makes it possible for her to update the “featured” area of the home page. Volunteer Greg Lachs handles the audio conversions and uploads necessary to make the message audio available. Of course, Director of Music and Creative Arts Deah McReynolds contributes the professional-quality images that illustrate the messages.

There’s a tightrope to be walked here. The visual unity of a web site–the coherence of its colors, fonts, and images–as well as its unity of “voice” and vocabulary determine whether the web site makes a professional impression. Ideally, a person with strong graphic design skills would help design the look of the site, and someone with a clear sense of the site’s voice would help edit its content. But the greater the diversity of people who contribute content over time, the greater the danger that the design will fall apart and the vision and voice will degrade.

Time itself also degrades things. New demands are made on the site–new kinds of content must be accommodated–and the original structure groans as ad-hoc design proliferates. Threads fray. The old design can’t hold it all anymore.

Obviously, it must be the job of the leader–the leader of anything–to constantly remind others of the voice and the vision.

And to know when a redesign is necessary, as well.

Dramatizing the Need for Focus

Drama Team leader Joe Henderson took this hilarious photo of the team in action:

Standing left to right: Carl, Janet, Don, Tia, Susan. Lying down on the job: Neal.

They performed this scene today (May 6, 2007) at the 9:30 a.m. service. The skit–in which wacky doctors vie to address peripheral issues such as foot, eye, and dental care on a patient who has just suffered a massive heart attack–was a great illustration of the need for focus in ministry.

After a moving message on the need for us to incarnate Jesus in our culture, Pastor Jerry told us that TTUMC needs to prepare for the influx of people that reaching out is going to bring into the church. And the areas we need to focus our preparations on are

1. Worship
2. Hospitality
3. Community Life Groups
4. Children and Youth ministries

Pastor Jerry said:

We’re going to put all of our energy and resources into EPIC worship, into hospitality, into Community Life Groups, and into Children and Youth ministries. What I mean by that is we as the body instead of going out into 500 different directions on major things, we as the community of faith, we with the people power, are going to put our people power into these four areas of the church. This is where we’re getting in the kitchen and putting all the ingredients together so that we’ll be ready to go out and serve.

Here’s what I’m talking about: EPIC worship, for example–that’s that whole worship where you’re immersed in the experience, you’ve heard me talk about it from time to time, I’ll talk more about it tonight–what we need for EPIC worship is we need people that run lights, we need people to be camera operators, we need people to run sound, we need actors, we need actresses, we need writers, we need set designers. We need an EPIC team, a group of people who’d be willing to come together once a week and talk about what’s going on out there in the culture, talk about hearing the themes of the message and saying, “How can we relate that in an experiential, participatory, image driven and connected way?”

We need this. We need the people power, we need you for this. Do you know anything about this? I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. If you’re willing to say, I will sign up for this, I don’t know a thing about any of it, if you’re willing to train me, help me, I will listen, I will learn, I will do whatever I can because I know how important worship is for people to be able to experience God.

Pastor Jerry went on to describe the need for volunteers in First Impressions and leaders in Community Life Groups.

So, it will be interesting to hear the discussion at the TTUMC Talkback dinner tonight.

In the meantime–are you interested in helping out with the Drama Ministry? The Drama Team web page tells you who to contact if you’d like to get involved in drama at TTUMC.

Culture 101 (#1)

In which I share what I’m learning about the culture and what TTUMC is doing in it.

1. Cultivating the Garden. I’m excited. The upcoming Park Cleanup Day and picnic at Hillsborough River State Park shows TTUMC taking the initiative to do something good and green. Be sure to donate money ahead of time so the Young Adults don’t have to operate this event on a shoestring budget. Because it’s really hard to buy food with shoestrings.
2. Worshiping By Cartoon. LifeChurch.tv, America’s most innovative church (.pdf), has recently opened a campus in the virtual reality world of Second Life. In Second Life, you move an “avatar” (or cartoon representative) through 3-D representations of streets, shops, clubs, stores, and other buildings while you interact with the avatars of other people. The virtual church campus is staffed by the avatars of LifeChurch.tv volunteers.
3. Touching Manzanillo. Giving by TTUMC has helped our sister church in Cuba add a second floor and renovate classrooms. A group traveling to Cuba Jan. 16-23 has openings for two more people: 813-988-4141.
4. Handling Voice Messages Left on Your Cell Phone. SpinVox is a free service that will take voice messages and turn them into text messages and emails. Via Kem Meyer.
5. Blogging x 12. TTUMC is now engaging the culture with twelve blogs.
6. Appreciating $2,253. The amount the TTUMC Relay for Life team brought in to support cancer research.
7. Keeping on Top of Things. Using the web site calendar, you can get a week’s view or a month-by-month view of upcoming events at TTUMC.
8. Broadcasting Text Messages. Twitter is a free service that lets you broadcast text messages to your friends’ cell phones or instant messages to their computers.
9. Realizing that Jesus Didn’t Make Any Junk. To get a new perspective on how artistic Jesus is, read this blog post on Jesus as an artisan.
10. Pac-manning (n.). “To drive right on the dotted white lane divider, which gives the same effect as Pac-Man eating dots. ‘Dude, quit pac-manning, you’re gonna hit that car!’” UrbanDictionary.com.

Blogs Splash Down on the TTUMC Web Site. No One Hurt.

OK, I admit I’m feeling a little excited and a lot relieved because I finally got something done I have been aiming at for a while.

Pastor Jerry’s blogs, as well as the blogs of other TTUMC leaders, now have a bigger presence on the church web site, ttumc.net.

New stuff includes:

• A NEW TTUMC Blogs Page. Click here to view. This includes the complete text from Pastor Jerry’s two blogs (in scrollable windows) plus links to all leader blogs (please let me know if I’ve left out a blog so I can add it).
• A TTUMC Blogs link on the home page. Hint: look in the “New to TTUMC?” section.
• The Prayer Warrior Blog on the Prayer Page. The complete blog in a scrollable window. Click here to view.
• The Caring Blog on the NEW Caring Page. The complete blog in a scrollable window. Click here to view.

I’m sure a lot more can be done, including placing one or more Celebrate Recovery blogs on the Celebrate Recovery page, for example.

If you have any ideas, please leave them as comments.

50th Anniversary Celebration Online

It has taken me a while, but key portions of TTUMC’s 50th Anniversary Celebration are now available online.

You may find it worthwhile to listen to Stacey Pomeroy again.

To find the links to the audio, go to the ttumc.net Messages page and scroll down to March 11, 2007.

Online Registration: It’s Available for VBS–Could It Help Your Event?

The newest thing at the TTUMC web site is online registration for Vacation Bible School: Avalanche Ranch.

Parents: VBS at TTUMC is a fantastic, week-long event (June 18-22) that your kids will not want to miss. It does fill up (we’ve already had 7 kids signed up), so register all your kids 4 years old through 5th grade now. It takes just a few moments.

Leaders and Volunteers: This is the second year we’ve offered online registration for VBS. The way it works is that the information is added to a database and also immediately emailed to the people who need to know.

Key Questions:

• What if were easy for you to create simple online sign-up forms for your events at TTUMC?
• What if the sign-up info was emailed to you as soon as people registered? Would it help you in anyway?
• As a volunteer or participant, would you like to sign up for things online?
• How could online registration be used? Dinners? Potlucks? Bible studies? Prayer breakfasts? Work days? Free concerts? C3 classes? Community Life Groups? Ushers and greeters?

Help me think outside the box–or at least find out where the sides of the box are: Leave a comment if you have ideas or would be interested in having online registration available.