I was impressed.

First things first… It’s obvious that the guys at Monk Development “get it.” Too often a team of super-geeks get together to build these things and completely neglect making it graceful and usable. Not so with Cobblestone; not only was their beta build functionally viable, but it was actually very well thought out. I could tell a lot of thought and prayer has been thrown into the development of the tool, which is a welcome change from many of the other tools being developed in this arena. If I was building something similar myself, this is how I would do it. Here are a few of my favorite highlights:

• A unified view of all group activity. When a user logs in, they see the highlights from every group they’re involved in. Let’s say I was in an accountability group, a group for the choir and a normal small group. I would see the upcoming activities for all three of these groups in a single calendar specific to my involvement. Awesome.
• Different ways to reply. For many chunks of interaction on the site, I would never have to log in to respond to a group member’s question or comment. I could simply reply at the top of the notification email and it would be added to the conversation on the Cobblestone site (similar to Basecamp). Very convenient.
• Promotion possibilities. Folks are consuming more and more information these days solely through their involvement in social networks. Cobblestone provides many promotion avenues within the system to post video and large graphical billboard spots that all groups would see when they logged in. This would be a great tool for a church to promote upcoming volunteer fairs or future small group studies.

Obviously, that’s just scratching the surface of the functionality provided in Cobblestone. If your church is looking for a way to keep your groups doing life together online throughout the week, Cobblestone might be the solution you’re looking for. Definitely check them out.

Although many churches have continued to expand their staffs in this arena, I’ve observed a tendency to ignore one critical role on these teams: Project Manager. Maybe it’s just because most ministry-staffers are used to pulling double duty, but it seems as if project management falls by the wayside in the name of rushing to get things done quickly.

Although it may not be the first “critical-to-staff” position that comes to mind, project managers can be a valuable asset for three specific reasons:

• Someone “owns” the project. Rather than being passed around to different leadership teams with little accountability, one person can “own” the project and be responsible for organizing its progress and seeing things through to completion.
• Someone is mindful of and enforcing deadlines. Without project ownership, it can be all too easy to miss a deadline or leave out critical components simply because one hand isn’t talking to the other. The project manager has a bird’s eye view of progress/looming deadlines, and can remind specific areas of their requirements for a project.
• Other resources can be freed up to do what they were hired to do. For many creatives, planning meetings and flow charts are akin to back-to-back root canals. Project managers can take a lot of the administrative pressure off of your creative folks and enable your team to focus on the tasks God built them to do.

I realize not every staff has the luxury or capacity for specific project managers, but even assigning these tasks to a solid member of your current team will make a huge difference in the success of your next big project. It’s too important of a role to be overlooked.

How do things look at your church or ministry staff? Do you feel like your team has the members it needs?

• Playing Fantasy Football for money. Because it’s not gambling when you’re just “making things interesting.”
• Praying that God will fix a situation as long as you’re not part of the solution. Because being a “prayer warrior” is about as far has God has called you to go…
• Church Hugs. Because there’s a lot more strategy involved beyond the “A-Frame” (that’s a rookie move, son.).
• Making Purple - 11 Ways to Stop Camp Kissing. Because making members of the opposite sex swim at separate times just isn’t cutting it any more.

Take a look through their site if you’ve got a few minutes to burn today… These guys definitely gave me a few good laughs. Got one to add to the list? Pass it on in the comments below.

Unified Comments

This is more of a wish than anything, and one that I’ve mentioned several times on Media Salt before. I’m playing around with a revised version of longhollow.com where all news, events and online messages have comments enabled and users can gather around these pieces of information and talk about it. This sort of functionality is already very successful on our Facebook Fan Page, and I want to carry that over to the main site.

The only issue is that I want users to see and contribute to the same stream of comments, no matter what site they’re on when they view them. It’s annoying to me to have two separate conversations going on about the same thing. For a while I thought Google’s Wave might be the answer to this, but I’m not sure if it’s intended for this sort of functionality.  Maybe through Facebook Connect somehow?

A Real Small Groups Tool

Whew, this is a big one. We use Fellowship One’s “Web Link” tools to allow many of our Small Group Leaders to update their own rolls and send email blasts to their groups. That’s about it. We have very little control over the look and feel of this experience, and there’s really no incentive for Small Group members to gather there when they’re online.

What I would like to see is a specific tool built around these groups where users could talk, share photos, plan events, share prayer requests, etc. Ideally, users would be able to login through Facebook Connect and receive information from their groups however they like (RSS, email updates, etc). I realize as I’m typing this that this all sounds pretty similar to Monk Development’s Cobblestone Communities (although I’m not sure if that’s exactly what I’m looking for).

What I’m weary of doing is creating yet another login and closed off site that users would have to go out of their way to access every day. Whatever solution we land on, it’s needs to easily fit with users as part of their daily online lives.

A Better Way to Handle Contacts

Here’s another piece of functionality that’s built into Fellowship One, but doesn’t work well for our team in every day church life. We’re looking for a better way for us to manage the various contacts we receive during weekly ministry activities. Ideally, a contact item could be entered into the system, assigned to a specific individual as a middleman, who could then intelligently assign the contact to a lay person or deacon who could do the legwork and make the personal touch. In our experience, Fellowship One’s solution (along with others) falls short when you want to assign contacts and follow-ups to somebody outside the staff. Maybe we’re just doing it wrong, but I’m convinced someone could come up with a better solution.

Does your expertise speak into any of these issues? What projects are you hoping to tackle over the next year or so?

Disappointed that nobody gave you your favorite candy over the weekend? Despair no more… today’s your lucky day. That’s right, I have 15 invites to Google’s (debatably) useful Wave beta, and if you act fast, one of them could be yours!

Want one? All you have to do is leave a comment below telling us a creative way you think the Church could take advantage of Wave’s unique communication abilities. If you’re one of the first 15 to respond with a qualifying comment, you’ll get one of my invites; it’s that simple.

Be sure to leave a valid email address when you comment so we know where to send the invite; good luck!

Winners

Invites have been sent to the bolded names in the list below. If your name isn’t bolded, that means you’ve won, but I need an email address so I can send you an invite. You can send that email address to us at hello@mediasalt.com. If you haven’t responded in 24 hours, I’m going to give your invite to someone else!

• Aaron
• Phil
• Jack Minardi
• Josh Boone
• Scott Horberg
• Dave Hamilton
• Danielle Bean
• Dan Kassis
• Jenn Mathis Davis
• Adrian
• Jimbo Stewart
• Jeff Clark
• Beau Waldrep
• Anthony Bliss
• J.Mac Brown

It looks like the invitations won’t be sent instantaneously. Here are Google’s notes from within Wave itself…

Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of stamps to lick.

Thanks for all of the great comments everyone!

Giving Kiosk Pros

• Your giving isn’t limited by the location of your checkbook. A good chunk of our people just don’t carry their check books any more; if God prompts them to give during a service, they’re pretty much out of options unless they remember to do it online when they get home.
• It can still be an act of worship. Most kiosk vendors give the donor a receipt that they can drop in the offering plate when it’s passed around, so there’s still a connection to the act of tithing. Pretty cool.
• It can link up directly with our church database. This is a huge win on the administrative side of things; whenever someone gives at a kiosk, it’s automatically listed on their people record along with their other giving throughout the year.
• You can limit transactions to debit cards. This is a big deal to many churches like ours who offer financial counseling ministries and want to teach their people to live responsibly.

Potential Negatives

• Perception among visitors. Would it be a turn off for a visitor to see a few giving kiosks in the lobby whenever they come in? If we do install some, I think we’ll put them in locations that don’t scream “WE WANT YOUR MONEY!!!”
• Visibility. In a few of the demos I’ve seen, the amount given is shown in huge letters on the screen after a transaction is complete. That’s almost worse than someone making a show whenever they drop a Benjamin in the offering plate…
• Lines. We push hundreds of people through an increasingly small lobby space between services at our main campus; would a few kiosks be enough to handle demand without creating a logistical nightmare?

What do you think? Do you have any wisdom to add to the conversation? We would love to hear it in the comments below.