The Directory is a list of tools, resources and companies that help the church communicate better. Consider it a yellow pages of church marketing. You'll find technology blogs, freelance designers, marketing communities, church management software and more.

The site has a handy 'Suggest a Link' feature where you can add resources we may have missed. We expect the Directory to grow and expand as more resources are suggested.

An important thing to note is that the Directory is focused on church marketing. This is not a list of Christian marketers or a list of companies that could help the church. This list is limited to organizations that specifically cater to the church. That's not to say these are the only organizations that can help the church, just that they specifically cater to the church. It's the difference between Seth Godin's blog and LifeChurch.tv's Swerve blog--both great resources, but only one focuses on the church. That niche focus will keep the list efficient and useful.

So we encourage you to check out the Church Marketing Directory. Help us add links to it and make it a helpful tool for churches.

So if at its core it feels a little Yahoo circa 1996, that's OK. We're starting small and hope to improve it as we go.

History
This project has been a long time coming. You can trace its roots to the original Don't Suck List on Church Marketing Sucks. In fact, we have notes from a 2006 conversation with Tony Morgan and Kem Meyer when we tried to hammer out our ideas for such a Directory (consequently, Tony and Kem shot down our ideas for a paid listing directory--glad we listened to them).

In 2008 we gathered a team to finally improve the Don't Suck List (this Directory is the first step in that effort, but it's not the Don't Suck List). We had lengthy discussions about how to make the site work and generated a lot of great ideas. But eventually the effort collapsed under the weight of so many voices. We were trying to build too much at once and didn't have the right structure in place to make it happen.

In 2009 we resurrected the idea with a smaller team and smaller ambitions. This time around the plan was just to create a structure that could house a Directory and let it grow from there. No frills, just links. The scaled down approach worked and through the fall we were able to fine-tune the site. By January we had a finished product that we began testing with the CFCC board, the Regional Network Coordinators and the Church Marketing Lab. Finally, we gave our e-mail newsletter subscribers a sneak peek last week and officially launched the Directory this week.

Whew.

Thanks
You can't do a project like this without needing to thank a lot of people. Perhaps the biggest thank you goes to Nathan Clark and Matt Kirkland at CityGates who volunteered to design and build the Directory. We also had great support from Paul Steinbrueck of OurChurch.com, who worked with the team in 2008 and came back in 2009 to help us think through a lot of the backend decisions. He's going to stay on as part of our Directory team that will continue to guide this project forward.

We also have to thank the many people who stepped up in 2008 when we first tried to launch this project. While that initial effort ultimately fell apart, we did learn a lot from those discussions and wouldn't be where we are today without those contributions.

Finally, we owe an on-going debt of thanks to the many folks who have and will continue to submit links. A directory like this only works because people share their expertise and make it better.

So thanks for your help and go check out the Church Marketing Directory.

She discussed ministry excellence with skill and poise in a recent piece from the State of Ministry Online. Asked about the definition of excellence in online ministry, Cynthia had this to say:

Excellence used to be about making your blog spectacular, but now we are seeing many more evolutionary and collaborative open source efforts. Sometimes online excellence is seen when someone has taken the initiative and laid the foundation for others to follow.

She was also quoted recently in Faith in San Antonio as well, discussing the delicate challenge of making wise decisions about when to embrace new technologies.

We look forward to Cynthia's continued role in helping the church balance technology and effective communication.

Last year, our newly appointed board of directors gave me the task of acting as hub (read: director) for our communication initiatives in 2010. I realized I would never be able to tap into all the creative communicators serving in churches across the United States (and the world!) without a lot of help. Fortunately, since I’ve worked in churches for so many years, I’ve got a lot of friends.

That’s why I’ve decided to establish a collective of Regional Network Coordinators for CFCC. These are simply friends and colleagues who we feel have something to offer as we identify, celebrate, inspire and resource a growing contingency of church communicators. They are diverse, some are well-known voices, others offer a unique perspective, etc.

What They Do
Our network of coordinators will simply function as eyes and ears on the ground in their respective areas of the country. They will help CFCC with behind the scenes projects and will point us to their favorite/most inspiring communicators and campaigns.

We have carefully selected these 18 individuals to act as local resources so that if anyone in their area needs communication resources they can point to CFCC. Likewise, we can learn from them what’s happening in their area and share those lessons, resources and ideas with the broader community. The goal is to offer some back and forth and ensure that CFCC is better plugged into the church communications community. This isn’t an exclusive club—we hope it will grow (especially in areas where we lack representation) and benefit the entire community.

As we all continue to improve our communication skills, we hope these coordinators will inspire us by pointing us to that which is good, true and beautiful in church communication.

Here is the list of Regional Network Coordinators:

CFCC 2010 Regional Network Coordinators

• Greg Atkinson (Dallas, TX)
  
• Tiffani Barnes (Nashville, TN)
  
• Shelley Chesney (Santa Barbara, CA)
  
• Nathan Davis (Oklahoma City, OK)
  
• Danielle Hartland (Erie, PA)
  
• Rich Kirkpatrick (Temecula, CA)
  
• Matt Knisely (Lawton, OK)
  
• Craig Littlejohn (San Jose, CA)
  
• Vince Marotte (Austin, TX)
  
• Crystal Renaud (Kansas City, KS)
  
• John Saddington (Atlanta, GA)
  
• Tim Schraeder (Chicago, IL)
  
• Ryan Spilhaus (McLean, VA)
  
• Vin Thomas (Portland, OR)
  
• Camron Ware (Dallas, TX)
  
• Heather Whittaker (Atlanta, GA)
  
• Brian Wurzell (Chandler, AZ)
  
• Benji Zimmerman (Las Vegas, NV)

We hope you know some of these people and can be a support to us by directing them to examples you may know of that reflect excellence in church communications. If you're part of our community, please visit their sites, familiarize yourself with their work and welcome them with comments.

Brad responds to the fad of Christians making puns or spin-offs of popular culture items, saying:

"The whole claim for Christians in general is that God is the source of all creativity. I think there's something to being original that will speak to people in a way that we don't have to copy."

It's always nice to have an opportunity to point folks looking for a quote from the "Christian perspective" in the right direction. We hope to see more loving and challenging quotes like this come from the church moving forward.

Our own Michael Buckingham is quoted on the issue, saying:

"The Internet isn't powerful because it connects you to information, but because it connects you to people."

And they go on to report our unscientific poll results to help get the pulse on how churches are doing with social media.

We're always humbled and excited to be involved with publications like Leadership Journal. We look forward to continue giving advice and challenges to the church community at large as we all try to communicate the gospel more clearly.

The board members include Brad Abare, Dawn Nicole Baldwin, Phil Cooke, Drew Goodmanson, Scott McClellan, Kem Meyer and Kent Shaffer. They first met in October and appointed Cynthia Ware as our executive director.

That's quite a team of church communicators and we're proud to have them on board. This new executive team will lead us forward, giving us direction, wisdom and guidance as we help the church matter.

The event was a huge success, and CFCC was honored to participate in the forum. It's exciting to see conversations happening about the current role and state of church marketing as well as dreams of what the future holds.

You can view the whole stream online at Vimeo.

He examines the obvious benefits of the technological advance--greater access to biblical texts, great connectivity amongst individuals and improved availability of resources for those seeking to go deeper.

But perhaps more astutely, the article considers the drawbacks of this technological advance. He warns:

A life-giving, biblical church community must understand the difference between using technology to communicate the transforming power of the gospel, and letting the gospel be transformed by technology. We need more thoughtful Christians who are determined to heed Henry David Thoreau's warning against becoming "the tool of our tools."

You can read the entire article on the Christianity Today web site.

On Tuesday, 250 Web-savvy Christians -- from blogging pastors to iPhone programmers -- gathered at Park Community for Cultivate 09, an interactive conference on ministry communication, which includes marketing strategy. More than a third of Americans younger than 50 don't have a religious affiliation, according to a 2008 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, but conference organizers say Web-based campaigns help bring younger, "unchurched" people into the Christian community.

The article covers the benefits of connecting via technology as well as the potential pitfalls of bypassing personal relationships in favor of online connectivity. It also includes a mention of Center for Church Communication founder Brad Abare:

The conference's proceeds benefit, in part, the Center for Church Communication, a nonprofit that tries to steer churches away from bad clip art and ineffective marketing. In its online labs, 3,500 people have shared their innovative ideas, said Brad Abare, 30, the center's founder.

Don't hesitate to read the entire article to see their view of churches marketing and communicating online.

They also point out that "the bulk of the site offers tips on designing eye-catching web pages." Hopefully we're accomplishing more than that, but we'll take what we can get.

The article does have a lot more to say about church marketing from smarter folks, as noted on Church Marketing Sucks.

Q is not for everyone. However, we know there are a select group of people who should be there and that might include you. We've worked out a special CFCC discount which saves you $150 over the current rate--if you register by December 31, 2008 using the code "CFCC09".

We'd like to see you there if you can make it. Michael Buckingham, Josh Cody, Kevin Hendricks and I are planning to attend Q, and we'll be hosting a special meet up for those a part of the CFCC community.

Drop me a line once you register and if you're interested in connecting with others from the CFCC community. Once we know how many of us will be there we'll determine when and where we meet.

None of this would have been possible without the extraordinary minds of the Church Marketing Lab, the design prowess of Michael Buckingham or the creative ideas of the folks behind MinistryCOM. Special thanks go to all of them, and without further ado, the Center for Church Communication is proud to present...

You Know You're in Church Communications If... (PDF, 176 KB, 6 pages)

We're extremely proud to feature them throughout the CFCC network alongside our other current members Splat Print, FellowshipOne and faithHighway.

• Designing and programming
• Volunteering to help plan and steer the project
• Feed us ideas about the Don't Suck List

For a more complete description of what we need, check out Brad's original post, Our Don't Suck List Still Sucks.