Christ Fellowship, a church based in McKinney, was the focus of media attention this past week. USA Today featured Christ Fellowship prominently in its story about how churches are using technology. CNN, Channel CW33 news, and a host of other news agencies then picked up the story
USA Today story - 4/17/2012
CW33 story - 4/23/2012
Washington Post - 4/24/2012
Huffington Post - 4/24/2012
Christ Fellowship's mission to help people find and follow Christ sparks creativity in how it reaches people. A powerful website (christfellowshiphome.com), offers information about everything at the church, and an archive of sermon videos and digital Bible studies. But it didn't stop there. Christ Fellowship leverages live streaming and online chat to provide an online campus with services eight times a week.
Technology helps Christ Fellowship connect with those who would never attend church, or those who physically are unable to attend.
"Our online campus (christfellowship.churchonline.org) reaches people around the world. These people include expecting mothers on bed rest, people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, people in countries where Christians are persecuted, and businessmen/women out of town on business. Grandparents who live out of state can log on and watch their grandchild being baptized," said Bruce B. Miller, senior pastor at Christ Fellowship. "We also know there are people who simply aren't comfortable stepping into a physical church building; through online church they can explore the faith and meet people from their home computer."
Christ Fellowship's online campus utilizes an application on Facebook to bring in the element of live chat. "We like to say it's OK to chat in church. In fact, we encourage it," Miller said. A sense of community forms in these conversations, and people reach out to each other.
The church seeks to be good stewards of its resources, and found low-cost and even free forms of technology to reduce paper waste and increase involvement. "We provide our daily Bible study guide in Kindle and ePub formats, for example. We also recently created an online worship guide that has replaced the traditional church bulletin for some. With links to the Bible passages, links to submit prayer requests and more, the online worship guide is a powerful tool." It's available at myworshipguide.com.
As you enter a service, you'll see a QR code that you can scan with your smart phone or iPad. It links to a mobile website with helpful links for anyone attending Christ Fellowship online or in person. Newcomer information, the worship guide, giving, prayer requests, connecting to a pastor or staff can all be done right from your smart phone or iPad.
"Facebook and Twitter allow us to stay in contact with each other throughout the week, and more importantly, they are forums for people to invite others to experience church and find help, hope and healing in Jesus Christ," Miller said.
Christ Fellowship has an online group called Moms Connection, and plans to launch an online campus in Spanish later this year.
"We aren't the only church utilizing these technologies; there are others out there doing amazing things. What we are doing isn't perfect, but we're really not about being cutting edge or leading the way. We are about connecting people with Jesus and in order to do that we need to be where people are. People are on the internet through many devices."