Comments on: Jason Reynolds – CIO

By: Bspotted / Transition Blogging

Bspotted / Transition Blogging — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:08:07 +0000

[...] and interfacing with executives, and that means my focus is shifting in life and in technology. This is a great move for me, but I am realizing I never really accomplished what I wanted to with this [...]

By: Bspotted / Small Church Website Building Tips

Bspotted / Small Church Website Building Tips — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:49:49 +0000

[...] was kind enough to post a comment asking for helpful hints for building a web site as a lay person. My comment grew larger than the [...]

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:36:44 +0000

Stuart, I started to reply to your comment, but my quicklist of advice grew into a post. Will publish shortly.

By: Stuart D

Stuart D — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:50:41 +0000

Jason, I’m new to your blog so excuse me if this is easily found.

However, I’m just starting to undertake the project lead in designing our first Church website and I’d appreciate any tips, any feedback, any info, any links or even share any documents that you could on this topic.

Having read your blog entry I am dreading being a lay person doing this in my own time!

Cheers

By: Clif Guy

Clif Guy — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 17:00:56 +0000

Cool to hear you’re even more interested in the RoundTable. Any possibility you can come to Kansas City for the RoundTable Oct. 2-4? It would be awesome to have you here.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 13:49:43 +0000

Thanks for the comment Damian. Funny enough, as a lay person at Stonebriar I worked with a volunteer team on a certain ministry’s needs for the web and the project failed miserably. It was very frustrating. I found that once I was on staff the support improved dramatically, but not completely. So, it took me another 2 years to get the momentum, buy-in, and interested parties to crank out the project you can now see on that site.

The lessons learned for me in this are a-plenty, but one main one is that it doesn’t matter how web-educated the players are. What matters is how determined the team is to do something great, and how humble/flexible each of the participants is. One other piece is that great web sites cost money, and the church has to be willing to fork up the cash to build something. Church buildings aren’t free, and neither are virtual Church buildings. The project has to be properly funded and supported to do something really cool.

By: Damian Karlson

Damian Karlson — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 13:41:50 +0000

I used to develop and manage the men’s ministry website for a rather large church here in Austin. I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating it is to be tasked with something like that, have a vision for where it could go and how it could help serve people, and then get no real backing from church leadership. I went through a 2 year-long cycle of getting fired up about where the web could take the men’s ministry, all the way down to being depressed about not getting any help, and then to soul-searching and prayer — asking God if I was the problem.

I ended up abandoning the (volunteer) position, and eventually left the church for a lot of different reasons. The church I attend now is 1/10th of the size of my old one, but they are so much more hip to the power of the internet/blogs/podcasts/etc. Working with that web team has been invigorating and fun.

I guess I said all that to say congratulations. Nothing is more powerful than people who share a vision and know how to accomplish it.

By: Nathan Smith

Nathan Smith — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:33:22 +0000

Congrats Jason. Gonna miss ya here in Dallas.