The Internet Ministry Conference 2010
This was the official website for the 2010 Internet Ministry Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Content is from the site's archived pages.
NEWS
2010 | www.gospel.com/
What does your internet ministry look like… and is it as effective as it could be? If you’re a church, ministry, or individual struggling to make the transition from simply having an online presence to doing meaningful online ministry, here’s a piece of exciting news: the Internet Ministry Conference is back!
The Internet Ministry Conference (IMC) was once the cornerstone of the now-defunct Gospelcom Ministry Alliance. Attendees, ranging from lone bloggers to the leaders of global Christian organizations, all gathered for one purpose: to learn how to more effectively use the internet to carry out their Christian calling. Today, that means more than just learning how to set up a good website—it also means making good use of social media, mobile devices, and other online tools to reach your audience.
The last IMC was way back in 2008… and so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that Reconnect Productions is re-launching the Internet Ministry Conference this fall! IMC 2010 takes place on October 26-27 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and registration is now open.
Speakers lined up for the conference so far include social media guru Dan Zarrella and online ministry expert Kent Shaffer. You can read more about the speakers and other conference-related news at the IMC blog.
Early-bird registration is still available but won’t last forever, so if you’re interested in two days of internet ministry training and networking, take a moment to see if IMC 2010 is a good fit for you.
Update: the Internet Ministry Conference Twitter feed is the best source of news and updates about the conference.
The mission of The Internet Ministry Conference is to help ministries effectively utilize the Internet to accomplish their mission. Our hope is that this conference will be a tool that not only helps you keep up on the latest possibilities for ministry via the Internet but will also serve as a chance for regular networking opportunities with other ministries.
More information will be coming about the Internet Ministry Conference as God leads us down this path. For now, rest assured in knowing our goal is to help you use the Internet in ministry however God leads us to.
IMC 2010 - October 26-27, 2010
Are you trying to reach people online? Is your church staff trying to figure out this whole Social Media thing for your church? How do we tap the power of mobile ministry with the incredible growth of that industry? These are just a few of the many topics we're planning to cover at this year's IMC
Interested in Regional Seminars?
One of the things we would like to offer to you is the opportunity to host or sponsor a regional event. If you are in an area, where a bunch of churches, ministries or organizations want more Internet Ministry or Internet Marketing training, let us know and we'll set up an event in your area!
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Relevant: In the early 2000's there was a lot of discussion within the Christian community about the role of the internet and the online church. I have always felt that Christians need to be on the forefront of technology and consequently cannot afford to not understand how to best utilize technology. For this reason, I believe that Christians must constantly be pushing the cutting edge and understanding the best way to communicate the message of Christ. Fifteen years later it shows that those of us who embraced the the use of the internet as another valuable tool to use to preach the gospel of God were on the right track. There are thousands of Christian websites.
Just the other day I was online looking for local furniture stores that offer modern dining tables. I happily found the website of room service 360, a Philadelphia based furniture store that is an authorized dealer of the most respected Italian furniture designers and manufacturers in the market place. Located about a half hour from my home, I planned to visit their actual showroom over the weekend. I felt pleased with my internet search results since the store's website showed a huge selection of contemporary Italian designed furniture which would be perfect for the new modern home we had just bought. Thank you Lord, I silently thought as I moved on to my next online search, this time for a 2017 book by Douglas Groothui.
If you are not familiar with the name, Douglas Groothuis is professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary in Denver, Colorado, where he heads the Apologetics and Ethics masters degree program. In the 1990s, Groothuis began to write about the cultural shifts. In 1998 his thoughtful treaty on "Christian Scholarship and The Philosophical Analysis of Cyberspace Technologies" sparked a lot of discussions among my Christian friends. Now that I am dealing with my mother and her developing dementia, I wanted to read his book, Walking Through Twilight: A Wife’s Illness—A Philosopher’s Lament which is a memoir of his very personal experiences of caring for his wife who suffers from primary progressive aphasia (PPA), the same as my mother. The book is also, I have been told, the thoughtful meditations of a skilled and eloquent Christian philosopher. It had been recommended by a friend. Ah, but I digress. Back to 2010 and the Internet Ministry Conference 2010.
When I do Google searches I don't really think about why some results show up on page one and others on page 2 or 3. I suppose any online site wants to be visible, but there are only 10 search results per page. My daughter builds websites and she tries to explain to me how Google's search results ranking algorithms determining how one shows up in the ranks. The catch is that Google doesn't let anyone know specifically what their ranking algorithms entail, plus every so often they change them! But this is a topic that should be a focus of the next conference, since the modern way to attract an audience is through Google searches. My daughter works for an SEO firm - TNG/Earthling in NYC. I approached the CEO Bob Sakayama and he is more than willing to speak at the next conference on this topic and on techniques that would bring social media platforms like Facebook and Pinterest into the mix. Bob is a well know entity in the SEO world and has been able to increase the results in organic searches for his clients which is amazing to me. Internet Ministry Conference, I hope you are paying attention to this for next year's event.
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POST:
Internet Ministry Conference 2010 – Grand Rapids, MI
Posted on 07/15/10 2 Comments
The 2010 Internet Ministry Conference October 26-27, 2010 – Prince Conference Center, Grand Rapids, MI
When You Register Early You Get Two Ticket Options: Conference Pass with Hotel Room Hotel Room (Conference center hotel or nearby hotel)* Meals Included – Dinner Tuesday – Lunch and Dinner Wednesday Snack Breaks Conference attendance on both days
Internet Ministry Conference 2010 – Grand Rapids, MI
Registration Deadline Coming!
Posted on 10/12/10
We are really getting excited about the 2010 Internet Ministry Conference on October 26 and 27 in Grand Rapids, MI. The final day for registation is on October 15 -That’s this friday! Make sure you get your tickets this week. We’ve got some great speakers and we’re planning on some great food too!
The 2010 Internet Ministry Conference
October 26-27, 2010 – Prince Conference Center, Grand Rapids, MI
When You Register Early You Get Two Ticket Options:
- Conference Pass with Hotel Room
- Hotel Room (Conference center hotel or nearby hotel)*
- Meals Included
- Dinner Tuesday
- Lunch and Dinner Wednesday - Snack Breaks
- Conference attendance on both days
- Conference Pass Only
- Meals Included
- Dinner Tuesday
- Lunch and Dinner Wednesday - Snack Breaks
- Conference attendance on both days
- Meals Included
* Not all tickets include this. You must purchase ticket that mentions hotel included or it is just a conference attendance
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IMC 2010 Speakers
Ken Andrus
Posted on 09/13/10
Session: Online Education and Discipleship
Ken has been a Christian high school math/science teacher, guidance counselor, and administrator in Pennsylvania and Michigan. He spent 4 years as a training manager in the manufacturing setting and most recently the founder and owner of Learn for Results, Inc. a training and educational consulting company based in Grand Rapids specializing in computer and internet solutions. He earned his BA degree in Biology from Cedarville University, M.Ed. in school administration from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and holds a life time ACSI school administrator certificate.
Ken has been married over 30 years with 5 children and 3 grandchildren. He loves to learn and has just recently started playing disc golf.
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Chad Williams
Posted on 09/08/10
Session: Content strategy
Chad has been involved with the Internet since 1995. His passion is to deliver results. Chad cut his teeth growing a Web ministry from a few visitors each month to millions of page views and significant revenue to the ministry. When he’s not helping clients, you might find him rolling on the floor with one or more of his seven kids, reading and pondering God’s word, or rooting for Nebraska Cornhusker football.
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Keith Finnegan
Posted on 09/03/10
Keith Finnegan
Session: Email Marketing and Ministry: Where To Begin
Keith Finnegan has spent 20-plus years in the world of technology from aerospace to apparel to publishing. In his current role at Zondervan, he leads the Internet Operations team and oversees corporate social media, email, and Internet marketing efforts. This includes more than six years of experience in email marketing, which includes winning a prestigious Marketing Sherpa Silver Mouse award in 2007.
Keith has an MBA from Western Michigan University and has had the privilege of working with colleagues and partners in Europe, where Bordeaux, France, became like a second home. He is passionate about social justice and seeks to help children escape the clutches of poverty and slavery. You can follow Keith on Twitter (@KFinnegan).
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Jacob W Noorman
Posted on 09/02/10
Session: Mobile and Ministry
Jacob is the Digital Production Manager of eBooks for the Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Christian publishing company, Zondervan. He and his team oversee the development, production, quality assurance, and distribution of hundreds of eBooks each year, including more than thirty Bibles, study Bibles, and devotionals. Jacob has a genuine passion for learning about the latest and greatest technological advances and sharing that knowledge with friends and colleagues. Given the opportunity, Jacob will talk to you for hours about virtually anything. His credentials include more than a decade in industrial manufacturing, four years in the US Army, and two weeks making Cracker Jacks.
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Paul Kulp
Posted on 09/01/10
Session: Bible Study Tools On The Internet
Paul Kulp is a dreamer, father, husband, developer, consultant, teacher,
internet strategist and Jesus follower. He has a PhD in Computer Engineering and is currently Chief Information Officer and partner at Web Services Group (Albany, NY). Paul lives in Averill Park, NY with his wife Sarah and three daughters, Rowan (8), Levity (4) and Trinity (2). He is passionately committed to showing the Church how to successfully use technology. If you want an earful, ask him about his family, radical hospitality, volleyball, church websites or Bible study on the internet.
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Kent Shaffer
Posted on 08/31/10
Session: How to create a tailored Web strategy
Kent Shaffer got an early start in ministry as a missionary’s kid in Peru. Although he has experienced a broad scope of ministry roles, his passions have been children’s and youth ministry (10+ years) and communications (6+ years). Currently, Kent makes a living via Web and real estate startups so that he can volunteer full-time with the Digital Missions team at LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, OK).
Kent’s design, marketing, and ministry experience gives a fresh and practical perspective on ministry, which he shares with churches and ministries on his blog Church Relevance each month.
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Dan Zarrella
Posted on 08/30/10
Keynote: The Future Of The Internet: 2011 and beyond
Session: Social Media Marketing 101
Twitter: http://twitter.com/danzarrella
Dan Zarrella is an award-winning social, search, and viral marketing scientist and author of the O’Reilly Media book “The Social Media Marketing Book“.
He has a background in web development and combines his programming capabilities with a passion for social marketing to study social media behavior from a data-backed position and teach marketers scientifically grounded best practices.
His Link Attraction Factors report helped readers determine which topics, days, times, and keywords attract links in social media stories for semantic content optimization, while his Viral Content report details the motivations, preferences and habits involved in online content sharing. His Science of ReTweets Report analyzes the when, why and how Twitter users ReTweet things, and explains how marketers can effectively get more ReTweets, and TweetPsych is linguistic analysis tool he built that allows users to generate psychological profiles of any other Twitter user or list based on the contents of their Tweets.
He has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Wired,Fast Company, Forbes, The Financial Times, Huffington Post, The London Times, The Miami Herald,Slashdot, Smart Money, AdAge, NYPost, Mashable, The Twitter Book, and TechCrunch. In 2009 he was awarded Shorty and Semmy awards for social media & viral marketing.
He has spoken at numerous conferences, including: PubCon, Search Engine Strategies, Iowatasmic,Convergence ’09, 140 The Twitter Conference, The Cool Twitter Conference, WordCamp Mid Atlantic, Social Media Camp, Inbound Marketing Bootcamp, and Social Fresh Nashville, and he currently works as marketing product owner at HubSpot.
What other people have said:
“Zarrella calls himself “The Social Media and Viral Marketing Scientist” and is one of the few people on the web with the credentials to back up such a bold claim.”
-Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb)
“@danzarrella just launched something I had drawn on our whiteboard a couple weeks ago”
-Ev Williams (Twitter CEO)
“Let Zarrella take you to social media marketing school. You’ll learn more from reading this book than from a month of research on the Internet.”
-Guy Kawasaki, cofounder of Alltop.com
“If I could be any other person for a day, it would be Dan Zarrella. Either him or Brad Pitt. But Dan’s smarter. This book is why I say that.”
-Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs
“We’ve covered several utilities that have found fun and creative ways to analyze Twitter messages, but TweetPsych takes the cake.”
-Josh Lowensohn (cnet News)
“… [Dan Zarrella is] arguably the most knowledgeable of the ReTweeting trend”
-Nathania Johnson (Search Engine Watch)
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Jesus Style Of Ministry And Evangelism
Posted on 05/06/10
Everyone seems to have a slightly different perspective on what it means to “do ministry.” For the sake of clarity I am going to begin to lay out the basis for ministry that we are using to understand what online ministry looks like. It really all starts with Jesus. He left us a perfect example of how to do ministry effectively.
Back in first century Jewish culture, Jesus taught utilizing a system referred to as the Rabbi-Talmid system. This meant that a Rabbi or teacher would choose those disciples that he felt had both the potential and the commitment to learn the his ways.
I like to think of this as the next step in the education process of young Jewish men. Up to this point, they had already gone through years of education. So this was a type of secondary education, if you will. Typically the best and the brightest were chosen to move on to this next level of learning.
After being chosen, a disciple had certain goals that were expected from him from the Rabbi.
- Begin to understand and interpret scriptures in the same way as the Rabbi
- Apply the lessons taught by the Rabbi to their life
- Interact with others in a similar way as the Rabbi
- Eventually become the “Disciple Maker” or Rabbi
The second category of ministry that we want to look at is Evangelism. It’s also the fourth goal of the disciple that we talked about in an earlier post.Jesus had a lot to say about becoming the “disciple maker” and inviting people into relationship with Himself.Most people will turn first to Matthew 28:19-20:
Matthew 28-19-20 – “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Known to many as the Great Commission, this command given by Jesus at the end of the book of Matthew really defines what is expected of us in relation to evangelism.
It was Jesus’ way of saying, “Now it’s your turn…” As you live life, invite people to come into relationship with Jesus as you have opportunity. Then be sure take the new follower on as your disciple teaching them to imitate what you are doing as you imitate the example Jesus lived.
Based on this command from Jesus, I would break out my understanding of evangelism into two parts…
1. “go and make disciples of all nations”
- as you live your life, both online and offline, be inviting people into relationship with Jesus at every opportunity
2. “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you”
- Assist them as they begin to grow in that new relationship with Jesus
