It seems like a minister must be in 5 different places at the same time!

We are called upon for multiple tasks at uncommon hours. Well, I may have a tool that will help – and it is FREE (like everything else I offer).

The tool is called Google Voice. “What *IS* that?” you may be asking yourself right now. If so, I hope to not only explain Google Voice (GV) but also share some ideas of how a minister, church or any other leader could use it to multiply their presence to others.

Unique (local) phone number:

GV provides a FREE phone number. In most cases, it will can be local to you. Or, you may have friends or family in distant locations that you want to talk to frequently. You may choose a GV phone number in that location so that your friends in a distant city can call you for free.  This is a valid option but be careful since some of the other features may not work as you would like if you select a distant city for your phone number.

Single number rings multiple phones:

This is a very interesting feature. After you select your phone number, you can go online to setup which phones will ring when that number is called. Say, you have a church number 999-888-1111, a home number 999-888-2222 & a cell phone 999-888-3333. Then you receive a GV number 999-888-5555. You can set up GV so that when others call 999-888-5555 during normal office hours, the church phone will ring and your cell phone will also ring (you can pick up either and even transfer  between the two). After hours, when someone calls the GV number, it will ring your home phone or, your home & cell. Or, almost any combination of phones and voice mail.

Free voicemail:

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(Updated on Aug 11, 2010)

I have been building two new networks!

The original project was to assure that every Church Of God (COG) congregation in the State of Louisiana could have a web presence to point seekers to their church. All costs of the “Beyond Limits COG” project are underwritten by the COG State Offices with free gratis Tech Support currently being provided by the “Bishop of Technology” (Ray Waldo). During the development phase of this project, I found that I could inject a social networking function into the project.

The concept of a “Christian Facebook” is exciting! I decided to create the  “CDN Today Network of Christian Websites“.  The CDN Today project is located at http://cdntoday.com. The Network is owned, operated and funded exclusively by me (Ray Waldo). This Network offers many of the same as they have on their Facebook(tm) account. But CDN Today is designed for the Christian user. Users on the CDN Today Network can assign “friends” or “UNfriend” them, they can create groups, discussion forums and send private messages to other users. They can also link their CDN Today activity feed to their Facebook or Twitter accounts. Additionally, they can create their own blog, upload photos, videos, etc and post articles about whatever interests them. The primary requirement is that all blogs must be Christian/Family-friendly.

The “Beyond Limits COG Community” (BLCOG) is located at http://blcog.com -  Membership in this network is limited to those affiliated with the COG in Louisiana.

Both Networks are now active and online! If you would like to participate in either community, just click on the appropriate link above. You may also leave a comment on this site and I will get back to you with more info.

Churches MUST have a sign to help visitors find them.

Today, that sign is on the Internet. Every church should have a website.

In the past, some church leaders either did not see the need for learning what the Internet is all about or they felt that it was too technically involved for them to learn. Fortunately, many of those folks now use email and browse the websites that they feel are both safe and valuable. But some still do not have a website for their church.

It is a fact that the church cannot retain a 20th century mindset and expect to be effective in the 21st century. People of this generation are more familiar (and comfortable) with Facebook than with a hymn book. It is not enough for a church to just “be there” — in brick and mortar – and expect new people to come and fill it up. Old school outreach techniques like bus ministry and tent meetings have lost favor with the current generation. For most younger people today, if it doesn’t work on their iPhone or Blackberry, then it probably isn’t relevant.

Even though they might desire to reach the younger generation, they may feel unable to do so. Added to the lack of technical ability, some smaller churches feel that the financial cost of maintaining a web presence is too much for their already strained budgets.

It is my desire to help ALL Christian churches to overcome some of these obstacles. I have two projects that are designed to do just that:

• The FREE Online Christian Community, “Beyond The Limits Of  Church” is open for business at http://btloc.com. This community is very similar to Facebook and offers most of the same capabilities. One difference is that rather than seeing unending notices of someone’s Farmville “accomplishments” (or other game reports), the BTLOC will have true notes between Christian friends. Another difference is that most users will qualify for a FREE website hosted on the system.
• The second project is the Church Locator at http://churchloc.com. This site is a place where anyone in the world can search for a church or Christian business. Christians are welcome to submit their website for inclusion (free). Having a site included on the Church Locator will not only increase the number of visitors but also help develop a better ranking on the various search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.).

Give these two projects a look. I trust that they will help you overcome some of the roadblocks to 21st century ministry!

On the Bishop of Technology site:  Facebook Games Cause Problems?
Excerpt… Today,  on the Bishop’s Facebook Page,  we had a question about playing the game applications available on Facebook & some problems with a new computer. Are they related?

Click the here to read the entire article.