Whenever I’m about to buy a new phone… I tend to talk about it a lot. So here’s something my new phone will have over the iPhone 4! Flash 10.1! How sweet is this?!

I read an interesting article called 6 Brilliantly Designed Mobile Sites the other day talking about… well… mobile sites, and how they’re quickly becoming just as important as “regular” websites.

It’s true: the mobile web is taking over the world, and by 2015, many predict it will be larger than desktop internet use. It’s no wonder everybody’s racing to build mobile versions of their websites.

- Ben Parr

I’m excited about having flash on my phone. Think of the possibilities!

What are some ways to build our ministry presence through mobile sites?

Our Saviour’s new website has been live for a couple months now and we are very pleased with how it’s performance. I have received some comments from the congregation that it is difficult to find information on it. This post is an attempt to help explain the new navigation system. Cloversites highly values “clean”. They firmly believe that a user at all times should #1 – know where they are, and #2 – know how to get where they want to go.

If you can’t use a product, it’s the product’s fault. It’s not the user’s fault.

-Cloversites

As I have stated in the past, 80% of the new site’s content is directed at people who are not yet a part of our growing community while 20% is directed at our current members. Below I will highlight the 20% areas. We know that this new website is vastly different from our old website. Everything we have done with this new design has been intentional.

Home – Advertisements for specific ministries and events have intentionally been left off our home page. The new website is focusing on drawing new people into our growing community and the images that rotate on our home page are designed to be representative of who we are, not what we do.

When We Worship

Times – Displays a list of our worship service times at both campuses as well as links to Google Maps for directions.

Messages – Contains a link to launch the media player where each week’s message is posted. The media player is one of the simplest web players I’ve seen. Clover automatically podcasts the messages for us and even offers them to you as an .mp3 download!

Giving – Simply put… giving is a form of worshiping God. This page explains how the giving process works at Our Saviour’s.

Summer Happenings – This page title will change throughout each year depending on the season. Right now it is home to registration links for our summer events.

News.Calendar.Register

News – Page where PDF documents of our weekly and monthly connections (newsletters) are posted for you to download.

Calendar(s) – We are currently in the process of replacing the Cloversites calendars with Google Calendars. This will create less re-work for staff and allow the public to subscribe to a Google Calendar for different ministries as well as the general church calendar! Google Apps FTW!

Downloads – This is where you can download Our Saviour’s original forms and brochures for events.

Registrations – Contains links to myConnections (Access ACS), our web-based database software where a member can use their own personalized login to search and register for events and mission trips.

myConnections – Contains links to the general myConnections (Access ACS) login page as well as a link to the current serving opportunities at Our Saviour’s.

If you are curious about how why we chose Cloversites and a overview of our the back end of our new website operates check out the below video.

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Recently my senior pastor, Pastor Tom, and one of my best friends, Dan Beirne, started something that I’m really excited about! It’s called Theology on Tap. Once a month there is a small group of us that is meeting at our local Irish Pub and discussing topical issues that are happening in the world. We have only had one meeting so far where we discussed the issue of immigration that our nation is currently facing. It is a touchy subject for sure and certain states are dealing with it more-so than others.

Theology on Tap allows us to respectfully voice our opinions about these types of issues and at the same time, look at them from the Christian perspective. What Would Jesus Do? seems to be the question on everyone’s mind.

If you are in the Naperville, IL area and would like to be a part of this discussion, please join us on July 14th at 7:00pm at Quigley’s Pub in downtown Naperville! We had about 15 people last time we met and expect a few more next month.

I plan on taking better notes during the July 14th session and I will blog about the discussion.

If you have an opinion on the issue of immigration feel free to voice it in the comments section below.