
Tim Postuma
I serve the CRC in two operational roles - co-director of Ministry Support Services, and Operations Team Leader for Thrive. Both roles are dedicated to supporting CRC staff as they equip you and your church!
I grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba - go, Jets - but now live in Grand Rapids, MI (much to my surprise). My wife is a CRC chaplain and we have three grown kids. We spend most of our vacations visiting family members spread across the continent - Calgary, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, St Catharines, Montreal, and Washington DC.
Posted in: How to Start Using Google Apps
About a year ago, the CRCNA switched to Google Apps for all of our staff (in North America and around the world). It's been a great move!
Posted in: Finding Youth Ministry Resources With a Reformed Perspective
Dana - Have you tried Faith Alive's other course, "HC and Me"? If not, here's the link. Tim
Posted in: The HC is on the Cutting Edge of Youth Ministry!
To amplify your point, Marcel, I saw this posted today:
Interview with Kevin DeYoung on The Good News We Almost Forgot in the Heidelberg Catechism
(Kevin DeYoung is the pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, MI, co-author of several books (Why We Love the Church and Why We’re Not Emergent), and author of Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will. Kevin kindly agreed to be interviewed about his new book, The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism, which is on the Heidelberg Catechism.)
Posted in: How to Podcast Sermons
WordPress and other blog/CMS tools also have podcast plugins. I was just looking into that for a friend's podcast, but haven't implemented.
On a related note...I've wondered whether we try to encourage all the CRC pastors/churches to post to a central repository like SermonCentral, SermonCloud, etc Not only does that provide a nice feature set, I think our pastors have something good to offer people who cruise those sites. I haven't researched them enough to be able to promote one vs. another. Has anyone done some head-to-head comparisons?
Posted in: Livestreaming Sunday Service on WordPress?
Hi Rita. What streaming service are you using? It should be possible to embed their player into one of your website pages.
Posted in: Livestreaming Sunday Service on WordPress?
Ah, I see. I haven't used AWS Media Services. It looks pretty technical. My experience is limited to Livestream.com and similar services, where the streaming service comes with its own player that you can embed on any web page.
Posted in: How Does Your Church Do Photo Directories?
I think our church recently switched from PowerChurch to Realm. But from an online search it appears that ServantKeeper can store photos and create print directories as well.
Posted in: How Does Your Church Do Photo Directories?
Hi Bob - I wasn't involved in my church's evaluation of systems, but in the past I think I've seen some online comparisons of different tools. Hopefully some online searches will reveal those, but I'm sorry I don't have anything specific to point you to. One thing I'd suggest...only looking at web-based tools (as opposed to installing a program onto a computer in the church office). I think nearly all of the serious tools have moved online.
Posted in: How Does Your Church Do Photo Directories?
Yes, I think most churches will need/want both a print directory and online (whether through their ChMS or a separate tool like the Bridge app, InstantChurchDirectory, etc). And I agree that instead of wrangling with whatever print directory template comes with your ChMS it might be easier/cheaper to simply export the raw data (photos and text) and give it to a designer to lay out. Professional tools like InDesign can even do directory layouts from a data file (basically a fancy mail-merge). Which means that, once the directory template is set, doing next year's version might be as easy as having the designer hit 'refresh' from an updated data file.
Posted in: Online Giving Recommendations?
If you're using a church management system (ChMS), check first whether it offers online/recurring/text giving. That's what my church does. If the fees are competitive, then doing it through your ChMS means no duplicate data entry of each donation. Giving history is logged automatically and some systems allow members to log in to do donation-related things (e.g. view giving history, adjust recurring gifts) as well as other functions (e.g. adjust their directory info, communication preferences).
If you're not using a ChMS, then there are standalone options like Tithe.ly (which, it seems, has recently expanded to include ChMS features). Other suggestions for Vikki?
Posted in: Zoom Paid Accounts?
As you evaluate options, keep in mind that the pricing for Zoom is per HOST, and the login may not be shared within the church. Their website says "A Host is someone who schedules, starts and controls the settings in a meeting." And, from their legal terms of service, "A Host subscription may not be shared or used by anyone other than the individual assigned to be a Host." So unless you're going to have one person at every meeting, you'd be looking at multiple licenses.
Another option is meet.google.com. It's free. I use Meet. But I also get invited to a lot of Zoom meetings. There are some differences (Google it and you'll find articles comparing the two). Maybe Zoom's reliability is a wee bit better (in my experience) but they both do the job just fine IMHO. And they both have dial-in options for those without a computer.
[UPDATE: It looks like Google Meet might be just for churches that use G Suite. I can't quite tell if it's available outside of G Suite (and don't have a non-GSuite account to test with). Perhaps someone can try and report back.]
Posted in: Online Giving Recommendations?
Jeff's post is now live: Online Giving Option for Churches