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Mavis Moon on March 3, 2012

In reply to by anonymous_stub (not verified)

Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier on this; missed it somehow. If you go to my profile, you'll see a "Contact" tab and you can email me from there.

-- Mavis

Hmm, I might just have to use that Teamviewer info for a blog and resource. Thanks, Sherick! I didn't know it was free for non-profits.

Mavis Moon on April 23, 2010

In reply to by anonymous_stub (not verified)

I would agree with others' comments in regards to this. We do not use Google Apps (Sites, Docs, etc.) as a public portal; it's our internal collaboration tool. It's working well for us and getting better as more people start using it.

Our pastor and the worship leader have become very regular users of Google Docs, sharing a document for planning worship together. They even use Google Talk within that so they can chat as they work together.

Our deacons and elders are using it to share some documents. And I am the chair of our worship team and have shared a folder with the team so that as I create meeting notes or run across articles to share or whatever, all I have to do is put it in that folder and the team has access.

Gmail's been useful, too. I've created some groups such as Council, Deacons, Elders and some other teams, plus an "all church" group we use for important communication to everyone.

As someone else mentioned, the calendar is great and I have made that public and show it on our website. I also have all our various volunteer schedules on Google Docs, as public web pages (no last names, emails, phone #s or anything are used), with links to those from our church website. I've also got a link to the home page on the public website so everyone has just one thing to remember -- www.sjcrc.org -- to get to anything they need.

We use Squarespace for our website and it's been a great tool, easy to use and yet full of features and very customizable. You don't have to install any software, and their support is excellent.

Hope this helps!

Mavis

Thank you, Allen and Martin, for your comments. It's great to hear actual experiences from those of you active in Twitter. What a powerful story, Martin, of your use of prayer during the manhunt in your community. Isn't it amazing God can be present in the virtual world, too?

Hi Thomas,

If I understand your question correctly, the answer is yes.

Do you mean that you'd like to host your church website with another provider and still use Google Apps and GMail? That actually is what we do. When people go to www.sjcrc.org they see our public website. People wanting to log in to their Gmail or Google Apps go to a different address, or use the link I put on that public website.

For both things the domain name can be the same, so your Gmail addresses would have the same domain name as your church's website. When you set up Google Apps, if you already own a domain it will prompt you to do some steps that prove you own and have access to that domain, and then you can use that domain name for your Google Apps and Gmail.

Hope this helps.

Mavis

You're right, Picasa is a great program. I am thinking of doing an article on photo sharing and Picasa is right up there. I especially love the way it quickly and easily corrects red-eye. Thanks for bringing it up!

Great input, Robert. It sounds like you've got a lot of expertise and insight on this topic - thank you!

What a good point that there is a different "problem" than just clear words. I love the idea that we can use our visuals, as we try to use all our gifts, to help us -- and others -- experience God more fully.

Thanks a million for those $.02.  :)

I clicked on the link to this article specifically because I lead a small group and thought it would be good for me to learn how to encourage and help any of the members who might be "E.G.R" types. I agree that we can't label and classify everyone, but I find it helpful to learn different strategies and methods of dealing with different types of behavior.

As I clicked the link, I was hoping that the article would go beyond naming types of people and actually contain practical advice. This article definitely has some good, practical advice that I will find helpful as I lead my group.

Hi Allen,

One Call Now looks like a great option. Using the phone rather than email might make a lot of sense, depending on the community, as you wrote.

Thanks for sharing the idea!

Mavis

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