Nathan Smith, founder of Godbit posted an interview with me.  About Godbit's mission:

The purpose of this site is to help the Church catch up with the rest of the world in adherence to Web Standards given by the World Wide Web Consortium, the governing body of best-practices on the Internet. The majority of Christian web design agencies are using outmoded methods of coding to create websites that the rest of the world would scoff at. Basically, they are stuck in the 1990’s.

Thanks to the Godbit community for their faithfulness to inspire the church and it's use of technology.  The interview discusses my role at Monk Development and Kaleo. Read the interview here.

Monk Development's corporate site was starting to show it's age and I'm glad I can now show off the redesigned site!  Designed by Designwise with rebuild help by our friend Kyle Sollenberger .

About Monk

Monk Development creates web-based Content Management Systems from the ground up around best-of-class technologies.  We service our clients with our design network to build award winning websites.  Our solutions are used by thousands of individuals, organizations and corporations around the world.

Monk Development began in 2004 in a home office and has since grown to now employ nearly 20 people.  In 2007 we opened development offices in South Africa.  All along we have been able to grow through being a profitable company, investing back into creating the best suite of products and services for our clients. This is is because clients are viewed as partners at Monk Development.  We are committed to create comprehensive solutions to achieve their business goals.  We recognize that our clients success online is critical to the ongoing achievement of our organization.  

Over the weekend a company in Turkey must have decided they liked the Ekklesia 360 website.  

Our site:

Their site: [snip]REMOVED[/snip].

UPDATE: The owner of the site has taken it down.  Thanks for your help! 

The Tentmaker Group has teamed up with Simplêfy, Inc to offer churches, ministries & companies the best credit card processing rates available.  

Simplêfy is a consulting arm for First Data.  In our unique partnership we are able to leverage and negotiate the best pricing for our prospective clients.  Typically, the merchant processing and the management of the processing portfolio of any company are handled by an Independent Service Organization or "ISO".  This "third party" vendor, be it Chase Merchant Services, Wells Fargo etc purchases the processing from First Data and resells it to the merchant.

Simplêfy can provide the most cost effective pricing for prospective clients because they literally usher the merchant directly to the source, thus the merchant receives their processing and contract from a FDMS (First Data Merchant Services) alliance bank.    Simplêfy/FDMS conducts an audit of the prospect's current fee schedule and exposes compliance issues that cost the merchant even more money, i.e… Downgrades, EIRFs and any other compliance issue.  Most ISO(s) encrypt day to day processing to make such compliance issues invisible to the untrained eye. We are committed to illuminating such fees and eliminating the "fat and gristle" in your merchant portfolio.

Not only are churches/ministries able to go with the global leader of credit card processing, but Simplefy will invest monthly on new accounts into Tentmakers.  In turn, Tentmakers will use the money for church planting and city transformation.

Churches & Ministries:  Receive a free credit card processing audit for your church or ministry.

Companies: Receive a free credit card processing audit for your company.  Learn why companies like Walmart & Disneyland go direct to First Data to save the most money and be supported directly by their processor.  

Can there be a gospel sales cycle that follows the pattern of redemptive history?  This idea came to me as we discuss the Tentmaker Group and seek to launch our Gospel@Work ministry.  We believe that not one square inch of all things isn't claimed by Christ.  Let me give you an example.  I recently spoke to a person who worked at a 'custom closet installation' company.  Her job was to sell, design and install custom closets.

Creation - God created the world and it was good.  Mankind was called to cultivate the earth to reflect God's glory.  Communication was good.  Life was in order.  There was no 'clutter' or chaos.  From this creation, customers sense their 'ideal solution' and that there is a 'better way'.

Fall - Through sin all of our dominion has been marred.  Chaos enters.  The fall leads to waste, messy lives and cause us to toil against the constant degradation of our self and our surrounding.  Customers now know that something 'is wrong' with the way things are.  There is a constant struggle and problem with their life and needs.  Their closets become a mess and the sense a 'lostness' to their things.

Redemption - We are still called to steward this earth.  Custom closets seek to fight against the fall and chaos.  The sales person seeks to point to 'a better way' that brings a solution to the 'fall'.  It is points to God's redemptive plan.   A good sale is a redemptive picture that points to the necessary and finished work of Jesus Christ.  (The sale never is a 'perfect solution' though.  We live in an already/not yet tension) 

Glorification - Ultimately, we know the solution is only a sign.  One day we will not have messy closets and lives.  We will not hoard possessions and live in chaos.  We must wait until Christ returns to set all things in order.

How does your sales motivation change when you see it as part of God's redemptive history?  Is the gospel everywhere….even in sales?  I think so…

Ekklesia 360 Church CMS has launched our new design.  The old design had run it's course and we decided to give the site a fresh look.  The website uses the Ekklesia Website CMS.  The website was designed by Designwise and Shane Thacker developed our new logo.  (see blue/white logos)

It's been a great year so far, we have had 20 different design companies use our CMS for their clients.  (View a few of our website design partners)  We now have over 800 churches, ministries and companies using our backend to manage their website/content.  Our team has grown to 12 people who are passionate about helping use technology for God's glory.

 Learn more about Ekklesia's:

• Content Management System
• Event Management System
• Member Management System
• Contact Management System
• Blogging System
• Outreach System
• Social Networking
• E-commerce

Kaleo Church has re-launched it's website for the 5th time.  Our website has been a significant tool in our ministry as an effective way to connect our community, communicate with people who visit our church and non-believers.  Through our website we've seen people attend events/services and become Christians. 

To commemorate the launch, I thought I'd talk about why we have done this now and in the past and other decisions involved.

Kaleo v5.0 -  As Kaleo seeks to launch it's third and fourth locations, we created this design to reflect our multi-site church planting strategy.  We also wanted to change the style of design.  Our previous website designs were typically black/dark.  We wanted to change this to a more clean/white-space design. The functionality is powered by the Ekklesia 360 Church CMS.  Some of the changes included:

• Design: A new clean design was used, created by Mark Priestap at Designwise.  We partnered with the Journey in St. Louis in sharing the cost for the design and we each customized our one layout to reflect our community.  Mark's design was influenced by Mars Hill and we spoke to them to ensure it was ok that we moved in this direction.
• Design: We wanted to put more people and stories on the site.  We now have 3-types of Kaleo Stories: Gospel Stories (how the gospel is changing lives), Mission Stories (how people in our community are living on mission) and World Stories (how people internationally are spreading the gospel.  The persecution of believers and the church planters we support/pray for.)
• Content: Changed a lot of content, such as the gospel, added Mission, Serve & Connect sections and other pages.
• Media: We centralized all sermons (previously on three pages) to one Media & Messages page.
• Blog: We added a blog to the home page for better updates/communication.
• Social Networking: We added a backend for community members to create their own page, blog, galleries, commenting on content, participate in groups, discussions, etc.  As part of the previously mentioned Mullet Strategy - "business in front, party in the back".
• Event Registration: The site now has event registration both for free and paid events.

Kaleo v4.0 - While we had this site, we moved into AMC Theaters for our Mission Valley service.  We had the site up less than 2 months when we launched our 2nd site at San Diego State University (SDSU).  We had decided to move to a multi-site, multi-congregational church planting strategy.  The site was designed by Church Plant Media and the flash was done by AM Design.  This was our first transition to the Ekklesia 360 Church CMS.   (click on design for screenshot) Some of the changes included:

• Content Management System: CMS to manage content (sermons, articles, events, pages, etc.)
• Design: First design not created by me! 

Kaleo v3.0 - This was the site we had when we moved into a church building because we outgrew our warehouse.  The design was created by me and used a php/mysql database.  We managed it through phpMyAdmin.  Chris Livhdahl and I did most of that.  Click on the image to the right to view an interior page.

• Dynamic - We moved from a static, hard-coded site to php-based. 

Kaleo v2.0 - While we had this website, Kaleo 'went public' in 2004 with a move to Sunday morning service in a warehouse we rented.  We went public when we had about 50 adults attending the church.  This design was created by me (man I'm glad I don't design anymore).  It is a static site that better laid out content to view.  Click on the image to the right to view an interior page. 

• Flash - Each interior page had a unique flash header. 

Kaleo v1.0 - This is our first site ever.  We launched this site as we began to do services with a core group of a dozen or so people in the 2002-2003.  I had 7 or so images for the home page that were selected at random to give it a changing appearance.  Click on the image to see another home page.

Here are a few links of interest:

Seminary’s, Vocation, Depressed Cities & Tentmakers - Learn how seminary's, church Bible schools, cities with high unemployment can utilize the Tentmaker Group to make a difference.

The Porn Myth - Great article on the myths of porn by an early feminist.  As Challies says it, "I delight in finding articles in secular publications that just say what the Bible has been saying all along. In many ways, this is just such an article." 

An Interview with Tim Smith - Including info on the Continuous Worship Conference.

The 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis - It was only a week ago we (and those at the GCA conference) drove across this bridge several times.  Read John Piper's "Putting My Daughter to Bed Two Hours After the Bridge Collapsed".

The Tentmaker Group website has launched! If you know people looking to fund a church plant transition, pastors who seek supplemental income or people interested in roles that will re-invest money into church planting and ministering to people in their city, this is one avenue.  From the site:

The Tentmaker Group exists for God’s glory to create self-sustaining, gospel-centered movements to change cities.  Learn more about our vision. The Tentmaker Group was created in answer the following questions:

How do you transition into ministry?

How do you create a sustainable movement?

How do you fund a church plant?

How do you change a city?

For many, funding is a significant challenge to the pursuit of their calling. The Tentmaker Group provides opportunities to help fund these transitions and city-changing movements.

The Tentmaker Group is launching.  On August 13th & 14th a group from the Tentmakers will travel to Las Vegas to observe and meet with one of the companies to participate.  This company has a role that fits well with the need for church planters to fund a transition into ministry as described previously.  Training for this role will take place August 27th through 29th.  We expect a class size of 5-10 for this first round of training.  This role is a sales role, but allows for flexible work-schedules and the ability to work from home.  People who are interested in moving to San Diego to participate in a church planting movement will be able to shortly.  (We are looking at office space Friday.) We also have a second opportunity for pastors or ministry leaders who seek to supplement their existing income with part time work.

After we launch this out of San Diego, cities who would like to start their own Tentmaker Group will be able to.   

The Vision of the Tentmaker Group

1. Helping fund local church planting and ministry movements.

2. Allowing church planters, ministry leaders and others to augment their existing salary or setup a transition into ministry.

3. Providing a Kingdom expression through the value of work and a desire to demonstrate the cultural mandate to cultivate this earth to reflect God's glory.

4. Involving local organizations and businesses in these expressions.

5. Providing gospel consulting to people starting companies who want to give back to the city.

The Opportunity to join the Tentmaker Group

1. Church planters or ministry leaders who would like to raise support through one of the Tentmaker Group's positions.

2. Companies who would like to provide flexible part or full-time jobs to people transitioning into ministry.

2. Business leaders who want to impact their local city with a gospel-centered view of work and the city.

3. Entrepreneurs who desire to start business to impact their local city with a Kingdom mindset.

If you would like to learn more, feel free to contact me.  At this time we also will seek to raise some seed capital to fund the development of the Tentmaker Group. 

UPDATE: The Tentmaker Group has launched to help church planters raise funding.

The cultural mandate calls us to be stewards of the world and cultivate it for God's glory.  This includes our work.  Yet, churches have largely left work to the domain of the 'secular world'.  There are two reasons I believe this occurred, first Western Christians are shaped by an enlightenment, Platonic dualism worldview  (creating a false secular/sacred divide).  Secondly, we have a limited view of the gospel.   When the gospel is reduced to just individual salvation, the fullness of God's redemptive plan is not understood.    The evangelical world had focused almost exclusively on the great commission at the cost of seeing their entire life as part of God's plan. If we broaden our gospel understanding, how does this change the way we think about work?

First, it should change how we think about our job.   The themes of creation/fall/redemption are a pattern we must examine our work by.   For example, here are conversations I've had with people regarding their work:

Insurance Broker - God provided for man in creation placing him in the garden, because of sin, death/disease entered the scene.  An insurance broker seeks to bring peace in the face of sin by providing people with health care so they can be taken care of in a time of need.  This is redemptive work bringing shalom to a broken world.

Merchant Service Account Exec - (Provides credit card processing at a company that eliminates banks as the middle-men so they offer significantly lower rates).  In the garden we should have shared and taken care of one another.  In the OT God forbids the Jews from charging interest to one-another.  Because of sin, we don't want to help others in need and charge high interest rates (and because of sin people abuse credit.)  Lower interest rates seek to reduce the consequence of the fall as best as possible.  It is trying to reduce the impact of the fall.

It is important for Christians to see their work as valuable as they act as agents in this mandate. Are churches encouraging Christians to think this way?  How would it change for Christians if they connected their work to God's redemptive plan?  

Second, kingdom-mindedness would mean companies would re-org in effective ways to reduce waste, miscommunication, lack of delegation and responsibility.  Shouldn't distinctly Christian organizations be leading the way as it relates to employee satisfaction, customer service, etc?  In addition, these companies would re-invest back into the community.  What else would a kingdom-minded company look like?  (I'm excited that a member of our church is starting a job where he will provide consulting to companies that want to think through what it means to be kingdom-minded.  It will be interesting to see what develops from that.)

Lastly, work should play a bigger part of life in the church.  What would it look like for churches to be involved in enterprises, employing people, meeting needs, job training?  Doing all of this with the cultural mandate in mind?  Fortunately, there seems to be a re-discovery of the cultural mandate.  Hopefully this will broaden people's understanding of work beyond just a 'mission field'.  We will recognize that our job of cultivating the garden was given prior to the fall. Cultivating the earth was our primary mission.  Yet we know this redeeming process will not be completed until Jesus comes. 

Breakout session 6   Thursday 845 to 945am

Today is Internet Evangelism Day. More and more we need to see the internet as a mission field.  As our culture moves increasingly online, this presentation discusses how churches can be missionaries to unbelievers, gather the unchurched and connect with their community.  This is a session I did last week at the National New Church Conference.  The session wasn't recorded but a lot of Q&A occurred as much of the information was new for the audience.  Feel free to post if you have questions.

Session PDF: Using the Internet to Gather, Connect and as a place of Mission  

We've learned a lot about using technology to connect people to the local church.  With that said, we've launched Church Cloud.  Church Cloud is a FREE web-based tool for churches who want to do ministry online. Churches are able to upload mp3’s, post events, stream audio, podcast, and gather additional visitors using our online network and directory listings.  (If you signed-up for Sermon Cloud, you already are part of this but make sure your information is current.)  

We will be launching many more of these sites as part of The Cloud Network.  Our goal is to influence or connect 1,000,000 people a year to local churches using the internet. 

One of the cool things working at Monk Development is we are able to do most of our work with churches and ministries.  I've posted a number of the churches we've done using Ekklesia 360 Church CMS, but here are a few ministries we are working with:

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals  is an organization of individuals that believes Evangelicals have largely forgotten the foundations of the Christian Gospel and is dedicated to calling on the Protestant churches, especially those that call themselves Reformed, to return to the principles of the Protestant Reformation. To that end, they produce print and internet resources, broadcast radio programs (The Bible Study Hour, Every Last Word, and Dr. Barnhouse & the Bible) and hold conferences (Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, Princeton regional Conference on Reformed Theology, Reformation Societies) aimed at educating different segments of the Christian population.  The Alliance consists of a who's who of pastors/theologians such as Dr. R. C. SPROUL, Dr. ALBERT MOHLER, Mr. C.J. MAHANEY, Dr. JOHN MACARTHUR, Dr. MARK DEVER, Mr. JERRY BRIDGES and many others.

The Alliance was formed in 1994, out of what was known as Evangelical Ministries, when the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, then senior pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and teacher on "The Bible Study Hour" radio program, called together a group of like-minded pastor-theologians from a variety of denominations to unite in a common cause to help revive a passion "for the truth of the Gospel" within the church.

Design Partner: Designwise

Services: Content Management System, Application Development, E-Commerce.  The Alliance  brought Monk Development in to build an e-commerce resource site (ReformedResources.org) to host 60 years of reformed resources, including conferences, videos, digital downloads, books and others. 

Launch: 2nd Quarter 2007 

Enjoying God Ministries

Enjoying God Ministries (EGM) exists "to proclaim the power of truth and the truth about power." This isn't just a catchy phrase. It reflects both what is lacking in the church today and what is burning in Sam Storm's heart.

EGM exists to serve the body of Christ. Their aim is to be a resource not only for pastors and leaders but for all Christians who long to dig more deeply into the Word of God and to experience the fullness of the Spirit's power. Enjoying God Ministries is a non-profit ministry organization of Dr. Sam Storms who brings over 30 years of ministry to believers seeking a deeper and more passionate relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Design Partner: DesignWise Studios

Services: Content Management System, User Interface, Content, Ecommerce, Application Development

Launch:  Enjoying God Ministries

CFCC Job Boards

Center for Church Communication is the parent company for Church Marketing Sucks.

Churches have the greatest story ever told, but no one's listening. We think there's a communication problem. That remarkable story is lost thanks in part to poor research, little or no planning, bad clip art, cheesy photos and ignorable ads.  We believe there's a better way. It's not simply flashy designs or catchy slogans, but effective and authentic communication. If we can't communicate, how can we fulfill the great commission? We want the Church to matter. We want your church to matter.

We help the church by offering information, resources, advice and starting the conversation about church communication. We are a non-profit organized by communications professionals who have been serving the church and mainstream clients since 1998.

Services: Content Management System, Application Development, E-Commerce.  Monk built a job board to allow users to post freelance gigs and full-time positions in the church communication space.

Launch: 2nd Quarter 2007 

Pastors Edge

Pastors Edge is the web ministry of Dr. James Merritt, a pastor and two time president elect of the Southern Baptist Denomination. Pastors Edge was birthed out of Dr. Merritt's desire to help pastors across the country preach God's Word with power. His passion is to offer the best resources available for the price in order to help congregations across the country flourish.

Design Partner: Designwise

Services: Content Management System, Application Development, E-Commerce

Launch: Pastors Edge