Amazing ministry tools (Part 1 communication)

So, the more I think about it, the more Im beginning to see that this may need to be a whole other blog unto itself.

But, to get us started, I wanted to share a few tools that I have felt have been invaluable in my ministry career.

Here is the disclaimer, these are only tools, nothing more. None of these items will magically transform your ministry, they will assist you in your ministry. Ministry is based off of one thing, spreading the word of God. You, have to do that, don't allow an auto updating SMS message to do it. Technology and social networking DO NOT REPLACE RELATIONSHIP!!!!! They can help to enhance it, but good old fashion coffee dates are still the way of the future (in terms of building relationships in your ministry) SMS and Twitter DO NOT REPLACE PRAYER!!!

Ok, now that all of the ground rules are set, lets get going.

COMMUNICATION

WEEBLY- (A personalized website just for your specific ministry!)One of the great things about Weebly is its cost. ITS FREE!!! Granted, you can purchase premium accounts, but for most ministries, their free version works just fine. Log on, create your ministry an account and link it to your churches main website. Is soo frustrating to have to figure out how to post all of the information about the ministry that you are involved in on one tiny page, so link it out to its own website!

A great thing about Weebly is that you can bring in collaborators and set different privileges. Do you have a student that lives and breathes music? Put them in charge of the "New Music" section of your student ministries web site.
Weebly is simple. Its template based (not lame templates) and its drag and drop. It hosts a number of excellent tools to help you get the most out of your site. It also integrates seamlessly with Facebook and Twitter so that any time an update is made, a notification is posted up.
There are a number of excellent free, template based web site creators out there, so search for one that will work best for you. (Weebly, Wix, a number of blog sites like Blogger or Tumblr.)

FACEBOOK-(Does it really need a description?) We all saw this one coming, but honestly, I love Facebook! It allows you to do so many things from online Bible studies, Event posting and even dropping a quick message. (not to mention, it allows me to remember everyones birthday!) Create a page for your church or ministry. Its quick, easy and completely free!!! (Your business administrator will love that.)

SENDHUB-(Desktop based Group SMS) Send hub is a game changer for ministry. I love my iPhone, but so often, I get annoyed with sending group messages. And, many times, I just want to do it through my computer! Enter Sendhub. Send hub is a web based SMS program that allows you to set up text groups (youth group, youth parents, volunteers etc.) You simply open the site, select the group that you want to message, type your message and hit send. It routes the message through your phone and sends it to the whole group. Your can even have it post the message up to your ministries Facebook page. There are a ton of other options out there that do the same thing, but this one has the best free option. They offer 250 texts a month, 60 free voice minutes, 3 groups of 50 contacts and unlimited messages and calls between Sendhub members.

GOOGLE APPS-  (The base for everything) What so many organizations don't know is that Google offers a free Google Apps account for non profits. Why is this important?

• A domain specific email address no more youthminister@aol.com. Now, its youthminister@gracelutheran.org or whatever your organization is called. (you get a total of 10 domain specific email addresses)
• A collaborative calendar. It is so frustrating to log onto a church website and see a handwritten, scanned in calendar. I applaud your effort to get onto the "intra web" but come on... I cant do anything with your calendar. Churches now days serve as a social hub! So many things going on that it is incredibly hard to keep track of them all. Give people a calendar that they can use, Something that they can download and print out, something that they can subscribe to with their own calendaring program, something that they can even have sent to their phones. Google calendar is this and more. So, quite making your cutsie monthly calendars with the snow flakes on top and give people a usable calendar!
• Contacts. I have the whole church directory uploaded into my Google contacts. From there, I break them out into different groups. youth, youth parents, volunteers, young adults group, etc. etc. I can load all kinds of data into each contact. 
• HERES a trick, I combine my Google drive and Google contacts all the time to make life easier. Heres how:
1. I scan in all of my students contact/info sheets, medical releases, media releases and any other file that needs to be associated with that student. 
2. In my Google drive, I create a folder for each student. 
3. I share that folder and generate a Share address
4. I go back to my Google contacts and find the student
5. I create a new field within the contact info labeled FILES
6. I paste the Google drive Share address into the FILES field.
7. Now all of my students information is combined with their contact card and accessible from anywhere I have web access. even my phone.
• Google Drive. each Google apps account comes with online cloud storage for each user. The possibilities are endless on how to use this storage.
• A ton of other Apps, go explorer!

Ok, this ends the first part of Amazing ministry tools. I am not paid by any of these companies, I have just found that they make life a bit easier in day to day ministry. Im sure that there are a ton of others that I haven't listed, if you can think of any, list them out in the comments with a short description.