2011 was a phenomenal year for me.  I ran my church marketing and communications company full-time for the full-calendar year. It was an amazing journey and an amazing privilege to work with so many ministry-passionate clients.  I started a church communications podcast, teamed up with a great bunch of guys to launch a Christian Business Magazine, and served in my Halifax church as a leader.  The year was busy and a blast.  I have never enjoyed my career more.

I love writing. I love sharing my knowledge, experience, and opinions.  So, I really have enjoyed blogging here in the past.  In 2011 however, my writing was sparse and inconsistent.  I want to recalibrate my schedule in 2012 so I can be “here” more often.  I really feel that one of my mandates from God is to educate church leaders on why and how they can communicate their ministry story with greater effectiveness.

So, I a coming back online and I am actually scheduling my writing times with the intent that this will bring forth consistency.  I am praying God will keep me on track.

As I start 2012, I want to re-affirm that I love Jesus.  I am taking many purposeful steps to spend more time in relationship with Him every day in my personal and business life.  This is not about me being religious.  I hate religion and so did Jesus.  I love my ever growing relationship with him and I love representing him in all I do.  I would encourage you to recalibrate some things in your life this year in the pursuit of relationship too.  I know from personal experience…that you’ll never regret it.

So, this video below (click here if you cannot see it) really resonates with me and it sums up my pursuit for relationship with God because I Hate Religion too!

It has been a busy time over the past few months and finding time for blogging has indeed been a challenge. It certainly has not been due to not having something to say or not wanting to!  One of my side-projects has been a new magazine that I have been involved with.  A group of us felt felt there was a need for a magazine that would encourage Christians to live out their faith in the workplace.  So, we have launched a Christian business magazine called Integrity.

The first edition is now published in print and digital format. I welcome you to take a look and provide me with any feedback. I welcome it all!  And at the same time I want your response on this question…given our curent culture and media spectrum, are magazines still relevant today?

David Tonen is the Marketing Navigator for MinistryStory.com a church marketing and communications company helping church leaders to communicate with greater effectiveness, impact, and excellence.

This week, I spent some time talking with Kerry Bural from The Resonate Group about church branding.

Kerry very passionately believes that good church branding is about connecting with people.  He asks – what really drives what your ministry is doing?  As a church leader, you’ll want to think this through as you listen in to his vast experience working with ministries on branding.  He said the best brands are built when focused on relationship.

Kerry also quoted his favorite branding definition that comes from John Jantsch:

“Branding is the art of becoming knowable, likeable, and trustable.“

If you are serious about building an effective brand for your church – you’ll want to spend a few minutes and learn from Kerry.  I published the first half of our conversation today and will publish part 2 next Monday.

Listen to Episode #12 of the Ministry Story Podcast: Church Branding That Resonates – a conversation with Kerry Bural.

I can best explain it with my STORY process.  Let me expalin it to you in this short 1-minute video:

If you can’t see the video - you can link to it directly on YouTube here…

You may want to consider a church marketing plan for your ministry. Contact me and we will begin that dialogue!

What do you think?

Anthony wrote a blog post earlier this year which he called The Disney Experience at Church. We discuss his five key observations:

1. Leverage the Web – User Testimonials
2. On-Site Arrival
   
3. Deliver What Your Selling
   
4. Consistent Impressions
   
5. Have a Heart
   

So, please take some time to listen to part one and then part two so you can implement some of the concepts Anthony shares so your church can generate a great experience for your visitors.

In this week’s Ministry Story church communications podcast, I talk with Anthony Coppedge, Director of Communications at Fellowship Technologies.  Anthony shares his recent Disney experiences and some powerful insights that church leaders can learn from Disney so they can develop an experience in their ministry that will powerfully connect with people coming to their church.

Listen to Ministry Story Podcast Episode #10 here…

Very important!

Most organizations drop the ball when it comes to creating compelling and focussed content on their websites.  Churches struggle in this area too – maybe even more so because this task is often given to a volunteer.

In this week’s Ministry Story church marketing and communications podcast, I share a couplke key points to implement to ensure that your church is communicating as effectively online as it possible can.

Listen to Episode #9 here…

For many church leaders, understanding church branding can be confusing.  In this week’s Ministry Story Podcast, I talked with Mark MacDonald of PinPoint Creative in North Carolina.  If you struggle to get your mind around what branding is and why assessing the brand of your church is so important, I invite you to listen in to our conversation.  I know it will help you!

Listen to the MinistryStory Podcast #8 on church branding….

The culture between Canada and the Unites States is different.  There are many similarities, but it is different.

The culture in small towns (in Canada or the US) is different from the culture in cities.  The culture from state-to-state and province-to-province is different as well.  Churches have to take into account the culture they are communicating to and in.

Church communication is the topic of this week’s Ministry Story Podcast.  My guest this week is Adam Fry who is part of the leadership of the Create Conference taking place in St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada in June 2011.  Take some time to listen to our conversation and consider bringing you church leadership team to Create…

Listen to the podcast here…

Today’s episode focuses on answering a question I have been getting a lot over the past year.  Why do you use WordPress as the foundation or platform for the church websites you develop?  I have answered that fully in the podcast.  As a summary, here are the top 5 reasons to use WordPress for your church website:

#5) The Price Is Right

• it is a free content management system (CMS)
• great church financial stewardship

#4) Great Designability

• great design capability
• premium templates or custom graphic design integration

#3) Easy To Use

• great end-user interface
• it is your website, your content, you should manage it – easily!
• its as easy to sue as MS Word

#2) It’s Like Lego

• anything the average church could want to do is easily added
• tons of add-on features and functionality – they just “snap” in place
• great coding, great security, great functionality

#1) Google Loves It!

• it is the best church marketing website platform
• excellent SEO
• Google loves WordPress

To hear the in-depth explanation on these, please listen to the podcast here….