Speaking of Faith and Globalization – Good News for Church Webmasters

Mark Alves Church Marketing, Faith

During the return leg of a power weekend roadtrip from DC to Massachusetts for my brother’s wedding, I caught an episode of Speaking of Faith while stuck in Connecticut traffic. Good timing because my patience, if not my faith, was being tested. The featured guest was Manuel Vásquez who discussed globalization and faith, based on his book “Globalizing the Sacred.” The associate professor of religion at the University of Florida (Gainesville) described how the Internet elevates rather than overwhelms local religious events in a way that transforms both major and minor religions.

Here are a few excerpts from the show’s transcript. Vásquez described the 1996 apparition of the Virgin Mary in Florida that inspired the book. “…the Virgin appears in a bank building in Clearwater in the middle of a strip mall, this very beautiful image…soon this event becomes an event that, although started locally, it becomes globalized. … And you have the media right away sending crews to document it…it make[s] the rounds on the Internet.

“…Pretty soon you have tourists heading to Orlando to come and see the famous apparition of the Virgin. A makeshift altar is set up there for the Virgin. And you have immigrants who are working in the nearby fields coming in to celebrate in December, thinking that this is the Virgin of Guadalupe that has appeared there because the apparition who appeared and, you know, happened in December. And so you had this polyglot group of people coming together, and for us it was a fascinating microcosm of how religion is acting today in the world. Religion is entering these very fast and very widespread means of communication….

“…At the same time, [it’s] very much localized. So the global does not erase the local, but rather it is as if the local has been taken in through global media and beamed globally in such a way that now it becomes a shared space throughout the world…this is not just a unique event…this is indicative of the reality of religion today with globalization.”

Check out the transcript or podcast if you’re looking for inspiration for your church web team. Let ’em know how your local activities can extend and transform across the globe.

Church Plans Excruciatingly Tedious “Fun Fair”

Mark Alves News

The OnionLooking for a chuckle or a reason not to always take your church work so serious? The Onion headline says it all:

Local Church Spends Six Weeks Organizing Excruiatingly Tedious “Fun Fair”

Those 6 Words and Church Webmasters

Mark Alves Content Ideas

These six words usually bring a smile to church webmasters’ faces: “for more details, check the website.” But what about if you’re sitting peacefully at church when a speaker concludes an announcement with those six words…in reference to an event you’ve never heard of and that you’re pretty sure doesn’t appear on your site?

I usually grab a bulletin to start scrawling notes on–assuming I was paying attention and not distracted by picking up a toy dropped by my youngest–and then try to intercept the speaker after Mass. How do you respond?  What do you do to avoid such situations at your church?

Jakob Nielsen is Looking for Church Redesign Case Studies

Mark Alves Usability

My inbox included the fortnightly reminder that a new Alertbox from usability guru Jakob Nielsen was online. The message also contained a request for case studies about measurable impacts of website design changes for an upcoming study. If you’ve redesigned your church’s site and have some metrics to back it up, send your data, before- and after-screenshots, and a brief explanation of the work to John Berger, metrics@nngroup.com, of the Nielsen/Norman Group. All contributors get a copy of the final study.

Possible metrics can show improvement or deterioration in areas such as:

  • Sign-up rate for newsletters
  • Conversion rates
  • Training time needed to learn a feature or system
  • Time on task and other productivity measures
  • Percentage of users who abandon a process at a particular step

You can remain anonymous in the final study if you’d like, but where’s the fun in that? The study isn’t limited to church redesigns. In fact, your entry might be the sole church featured. So, if you have some good examples then take the opportunity to contribute to the usability community and get some publicity for your parish.