Social media works. Period. Savvy churches are now using social media to fund raise, organize events, and bring people to Christ. The old adage that dictated that the pastor of a church had to use the stage for all formal announcements is over. Churches and their communities are plugged in. Communication 101: reach people where they are. And for a large demographic in today’s world that most likely means via social media. Cross Point Church here in Nashville held an overwhelmingly successful night of praise this week that was completely announced via social media and an impressive 1,500 people showed up to the event. No emails, no church bulletins, no announcements were made. This was pure buzz generated solely via social media. Using powerful imagery and graphics and promoting the event with the hashtags #WorshipNight #OneNightOneVoice, Cross Point built up excitement. By posting on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, they spread…

I think it was Bill Hybels who said that “The Church is still the hope of the world”–not in a means unto itself, but as the messenger and conduit in which God uses it to reach out to those outside the faith and bring them into communion with Himself and with His people. Late Saturday my friend and client, Sal Sberna sent me a picture of his Easter service rehearsal. He gave me a challenge: why not text some of your clients and ask them to send you phone pics of their Easter services and share them with your team on Monday? As the pictures and reports of what God had done in many of these services came through my phone on Sunday, I felt compelled to share them not only with my team but with you as well. These pictures reflect literally hundreds of thousands of people who attended…

He’s only twelve years old but he convinced his whole family to try a different church. After spending the night at our house one weekend, Josh attended a service at the downtown campus of Cross Point Church. He sat quietly through worship and teaching but afterward spoke his peace “wow, I wish my church was like this. It’s so boring and I hate going.” Weeks went by and Josh visited again with us. Three weeks later, he was back. This time with his whole family: mom, dad and older brother. They sat next to us and left the service with big smiles on their faces and these parting words, “we will be back!” I love my church and I’m definitely biased about what happens there, but I also know the congregation Josh and his parents use to attend. I understand their feelings. When was the last time someone bored you…

Yesterday my church, Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN gave birth to its fourth campus in the Bellevue area just west of Nashville. I have been on the board since our early days and I must say this is the most successful launch we’ve ever had. Yesterday morning we had over 1,200 people attending two services. It’s a phenomenal statistics by any standard. There are many factors why we saw such success: from the newly remodeled Circuit City building we purchased, to a beautiful sunny day, and to several families from the area already attending our downtown campus. But I believe the main reason for this amazing first day rested on Bellevue’s campus pastor, Justin Davis becoming a shepherd to the community before we even had a first service. Months before our opening day, Justin and his wife Trisha and their three boys have been living among the people God…

We have just launched the latest redesign of Cross Point Church’s website. I love the way the site looks and the way it accounts for multiple campuses. But my favorite feature is how simple the site makes to share content anywhere online. As a part of our MediaMachine back end tool, all the code and images, including the Cross Point branded player, is generated through a simple interface that the church staff controls. We believe it should be very simple for Cross Point staff to create tools such as evites, banners, links and embeddable video or audio. We also believe that it should be simple for anyone visiting the site to share such content with their networks as well. However, since the player itself is branded and always links back to Cross Point’s site, the content is never out of context. “Who is this? Where does this come from?” are…