Missionaries

Last week our missionaries from across the country were gathered together in either the Northern Summit or the Southern Summit. At these staff summits, we presented our vision and some of the screen shots from the brand new website we're developing. Our missionaries were encouraged and energized as they began to see some of the potential for what they will be able to do with their own new websites. Posting articles, sharing articles, posting media, offering resources, online event registration and online giving will all be incorporated in the new websites. Check out some of these screen shots from a sample site we created.

So You Want Online Curriculum?

One of the things many people have been asking us for in the last few years has been a way to download their curriculum. Let's face it, who doesn't want that? I've been a youth pastor. I know what it's like to hit Wednesday night, scarf down dinner, head to the church, make it 3 minutes early, open my bible and find.... nothing! Where did that lesson go? I was sure I folded it up and put in here right after I wiped off the coffee and toast crumbs this morning! Don't leave me hanging here. I know there's more of you out there!

Seriously, that's only one of the many great reasons we want to do online downloads of our bible studies. We spent the better part of yesterday afternoon in a conference call with one of our developers utterly amazed at his presentation of what will be possible in a few short months! He showed us how each missionary, church, ministry staff, and volunteer leader will be able to login and download his lessons. But it doesn't stop there! He told us how a person will be able to log back in after he taught the lesson, rate it with a 5 star system, leave comments for others to see, upload resources like videos, illustrations, dramas, etc that he used (so others who taught the lesson later could use it) and more! I am PUMPED about this piece of our new website. Please be praying for our team as we forge ahead with this endeavor. Praise the Lord for these opportunities.

Web Store Under Way

One of the major areas of improvement we hope to make in our online presence is in our online store. If you used the old store, you know that it got the job done, but was a pretty difficult beast to navigate! We hope to make the new store slick, easy and incredibly adept at getting you what you want FAST. We've put hours into planning and implementing this whole thing. Here's a list of a few things the store will include:

• a sharp visual interface that is connected with our future overall look and feel for Word of Life
• a powerful reductive navigation feature that allows you to get exactly what you want FAST
• a well thought out and appealing layout of the products
• a quick and easy way to checkout
• and much more!

If you'd like to see a quick snapshot of what this site will look like, check this out...