What if this works?
During our annual conference I was heavily exposed for the first time to the new Rethink Church campaign coming from United Methodist Communications (UMCOM). Being on the conference staff I have heard rumblings about this initiative, but this was the first time I a full presentation. The communications folks started talking about this months ago when they came back from their big annual meeting. I watched the presentation on the floor of conference, watched the DVD movie that was passed out and read the fliers. I met with the UMCOM representatives and discussed the project. I even discussed it with our own Communications Director. I realized after doing all of this research that this project may be leaving our people in the local churches wondering what the heck this is all about. Here’s a summary of the different resources I used to research this big project called Rethink Church.
The new campaign doesn’t seem to be just one website. It appears to be three different websites and directions. UMCOM has done significant work on some of their older and more established websites as well as launching completely new ones. Let’s discuss each one in turn.
Rethink Church
I first started at the Rethink Church website. The website address redirects to the umcom.org web template. This site contains the majority of resources for the Rethink Church project. It fully explains what the advertising campaign is and how it is carried out. I found the Rethink Church 101 page to be particularly helpful. The What If video is worth viewing. How can we propagate it via the social networks without the ability to embed it?
Find-A-Church
My search then brings me to the Find A Church website which had been completely revamped. This domain name also redirects to the umcom.org web template. It looked almost nothing like the older site that I was sending people to. This appears to be a major thrust of the new campaign. The site has been updated with a new Google Maps widget and links to the appropriate Conference/District websites. As before the information is as up to date and helpful as the individual church enters into the system. As long as they enter the information the site is very helpful. If they don’t participate (or maintain updated data) then the site isn’t very useful. That’s not a knock on the UMCOM effort however. The old adage about garbage in/garbage out definitely applies.
Ten Thousand Doors
The last piece of this new campaign is found at the Ten Thousand Doors website. This site seeks to match up interests with United Methodist churches in the visitors immediate area. You can pick from a list of multiple attributes such as Advocacy, Hobbies, Family Life and Volunteering. You then enter your zip code and a mileage radius for the search criteria. I’m not sure how these attributes are assigned but they are certainly interested. If I had to guess I would say it was when the church updates their Find A Church information. This site also integrates with Google Friend Connect and the major social networks. You can also read news updates from various sources. Some of them are pulled from United Methodist sources. I’m not sure where the other news sources are chosen. They don’t seem to have a whole lot of relevance to UMCOM or Methodism specifically. The most interesting parts of this website are the comment forums and the ability to find volunteer service opportunities via Google Maps. These are possibly the two most useful features of the entire campaign. These sections allow people to communicate with each other as well as easily match up their skills with nearby service opportunities.
Social Networks
You can follow along with the major social networks as well. These areas are fairly self explanatory for seasoned social network veterans. I recommend them all.
I wish all of the different domain names were built into the Rethink Church website. It’s a shame that they redirect away and lose some of the branding. That may be a technical issue with the back end system but it’s still a shame. Overall I like the new tools available on the Rethink Church website as well as the revamped Find-A-Church site. These changes are encouraging. They seem to be designed for people who are not already exposed to the United Methodist Church. We’ll see how it goes long term. I hope the outcome is positive.
