Church Marketing Sucks

We’ve covered mobile church web sites and iPhone applications before, but recently we’ve chatted with a couple of developers whose companies are going the extra mile on this front. It’s becoming more practical than ever for your church to find its way to mobile devices.

“I think every church should have a web site and a mobile version of their web site,” says Greg Atkinson, a Regional Network Coordinator with the Center for Church Communication (our nonprofit parent). He’s teamed up with BigBadCollab and TruthCasting to offer affordable mobile sites as well as custom iPhone applications.

“We’re going to make getting a mobile web site affordable and easy for churches of any size,” Greg says.

They’re not the only ones.

“We quietly rolled out iPhone web apps, free of charge, for every church using our system,” says Matt Kirkland with City Gates. “It’s a small thing we can do to help churches communicate well, and the no-additional-cost aspect is a big deal in today’s bad economy.”

Want more? Check out The Church App from Subsplash. They’ve already created applications for churches like Mars Hill and Saddleback, and they’re hoping to provide native iPhone applications for even more churches in the future.

“1.5 billion people access the Internet. Between 4 and 4.5 billion people have mobile phones. It is expected to reach 5 billion by 2013. That’s pretty amazing and that’s why church leaders should care,” says Greg.

So Where Do I Sign Up?
You might want to start with the developer of your church’s web site if you have a good relationship and trust their abilities. But if that’s not a good place for you to turn, then have no fear, there are other options (including the ones mentioned here). There are also plenty of options in the Church Marketing Directory.

Even more, I’m sure some of the kind developers who are creating these applications will be kind enough to swiftly sweep into the comments and let you know about their work.