This weekend I had the opportunity to attend two amazing events with Darlene Zschech and the Hillsong Team. Both of which were held at Woodlands Church in The Woodlands, TX. How I found about these events thrilled me as a Media guy but what these events were all about got me jacked up as a worshipper.

The first was a worship event on Sunday night. While building some Facebook ads for The Ark Church to promote an event a specific FB ad on the left hand side stood out to me. It was a photo of Darlene Zschech and the Hillsong logo with some text saying something about The Woodlands, Sunday and $5. I instantly emailed the link to my wife, asked if she wanted to go and within moments tickets were purchased (through eventbrite.com) and we were going.

Now because of my personal experience I am an even BIGGER believer of Facebook ads. I mean it is where the people are and the specific demographics you can hit with an ad is ridiculous. Plus the performance summary (impressions, clicks, etc.) you get after each campaign is so detailed that is helps you make educated decisions about your marketing dollars.

The second event was an intimate worship seminar on Monday for worship leaders (100 people tops). After the event on Sunday night I wanted (like many others) to share with the world of twitter and Facebook what an amazing experience I had with Darlene and the Hillsong team. So I searched for Darlene’s twitter name (really because I couldn’t remember how to spell her last name Zschech), began following her and then included a big thanks to @darlenezschech in my post to the World Wide Web.

Darlene Zschech and the Hillsong Team taking questions

What is one person to do when they are responsible for monitoring a Facebook page for a “Mega Church”? Today, The Ark Church has a weekend attendance of 4,000 people with a Facebook page (created October 2009) of 3,000 and counting fans. With a Facebook page this size (and for some much larger) a myriad of posts are inevitable and need to be responded to appropriately. As the Administrator, it is not feasible that I can monitor the site 24/7. That is where this brilliant idea comes into play and the dawning of the Facebook Volunteers began.

The team of Facebook Volunteers is comprised of various people in key lay positions within the church. Each is from a specialized area of interest and promotion (i.e. Welcome and Visitor Center, Greeter or Group Leader) and can not only respond to inquiries relating to their area, but can also promote upcoming events and activities.

Our Facebook page serves a two-fold purpose. It is first a Digital Welcome Center allowing new people to check out The Ark Church and see what we are about and get a feeling for what kind of church we are. However, it is much more than that, it is also a place for fans to connect and interact with The Ark and with each other and share thoughts, ideas and seek encouragement.

The duties of Facebook Volunteers are simple, yet vitally important to the success of the Facebook page:
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Many people at The Ark Church have stopped me in the lobby and asked: “Did you know that the Project 3:45 reading plans are on the Bible App on my phone?” or “How did a Bible plan that began at The Ark get to be on the YouVersion Bible App ?”.

In addition, when the new reading plans began in 2011 others have asked “Why doesn’t the Project 3:45 the reading plan’s daily chapter line up with the Bible App’s daily chapter?” So to the answer all 3 of those questions keep reading, but for that here is a little history on Project 3:45.

The Ark has always had a yearly Bible reading plan as far back as I can remember. My first year on staff in 2007 I took it upon myself to help give the plan a little design. However, in the fall of 2008 the topic came up to “brand” the reading plan and out of that brainstorm session Project 3:45 was born.

Why Project 3:45? In just 3 minutes and 45 seconds a day we can walk through the entire New Testament in 1 year (you even get the weekends off to catch up). In the process of designing this bookmark style folded reading plan I thought, “let’s do a website.” Thus we launched www.project345.com in January 2009.

In the fall of 2009 we decided to add on the “Plus” side of the reading plan which included a chapter daily from Psalms, Proverbs, and the Old Testament and Project 3:45+ was launched. But when thinking about updating a website with all these chapters and links I looked to the guys at LifeChurch.tv and asked them how we could use YouVersion.com in conjunction with Project345.com.
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