The Church App: by Subsplash

What is The Church App? It’s an incredibly flexible platform that helps you develop mobile apps for your ministry!

Every single week, churches and ministries create incredible Gospel-centered content that needs to be shared with the world. Sadly, this content is often never published or is simply trapped within undesirable, clunky technology. So, the big question is; how do we get this incredible content into people’s hands? Here at Subsplash, we want to see the Gospel proclaimed to the ends of the earth. With that vision in mind, we brought our team of world class developers and UX designers together and created The Church App platform. This cutting edge platform allows churches and ministries to very easily create their own mobile applications (apps) for iPhone, Android, iPad, Windows Phone 7, and web. With rich features designed specifically for the presentation of the Gospel through an app, ministries can present full length audio and video messages, share blogs and articles, keep people connected with calendar events and social networks, integrate with online giving, and much more! With the growth of mobile technology, it only makes sense that the Church needs to be at the forefront of this tremendous tech revolution. Today, people actually consume as much data on their mobile device as they do on desktop computers. It’s an incredible cultural shift being led by mobile apps. We truly believe we can help churches and ministries get their Jesus-driven content into the palm of your hand. We’ve been blessed to work with some incredible ministries who are all about using technology to share the truth of Jesus Christ. We've worked with Billy Graham, Saddleback Church, Mars Hill Church, IHOP, Harvest: Greg Laurie, and many more. We’ve even worked with several churches that have less than 50 members who are using the apps as an outreach tool. How cool is that? The Church App is a tool built and designed for churches of all sizes who want to have their own custom app in the App Store and Android Marketplace to present the Gospel and keep people connected to their community.

Interesting facts about mobile and the Church

1. People spend an average of 80 minutes per day using apps
2. People spend an average of 30 minutes per launch of The Church App
3. Nearly half of all Americans will use a smartphone by the end of 2011 (Nielsen)
4. The Church App give people access to your video and audio sermons, news, blogs, calendars, and much more from anywhere, anytime

Things you can do inside of The Church App that you can’t do on your website

1. Advanced Audio Player: Listen to audio in the background while multitasking, download audio to your app for offline listening, and have your audio sermon remember where you left off if interrupted
2. Utilize your phones native features like Map and GPS
3. Watch Apple approved high quality video that won’t drain your battery life, never buffers, and uses data efficiently
4. Utilize a Music Player to sort by album and give users the ability to download songs

Other cool features of The Church App

1. Calendar/Events: Create a custom calendar or integrate with your existing calendar
2. ESV Bible: Include the entire ESV Bible, Audio Bible, and Life Journal Reading plan in your app
3. Blog Reader: integrate with any RSS feed
4. Social Networks/Sharing: Integrate with Facebook, Twitter and Email for social sharing of media
5. Bulletins/News: Integrate your Sunday bulletin and any e-news
6. Online Giving: Integrate with your online giving solution
7. Short videos: Integrate with Youtube/Vimeo for short videos

We are excited to continue to dream and develop for the future of mobile technology and hope to see it used more and more for the advancement of God’s Kingdom. If you have any questions at all, we’d be happy to help!

Overview of the iPhone App for Harvest: Greg Laurie

Icon-Harvest

For more than 35 years, Harvest and Pastor Greg Laurie have been committed to "Knowing God and making Him known" through relevant communication.  It has always been their goal to accomplish this by showing how God’s Word and faith in Him are applicable and relevant to everyday life. Now the incredible tools of this ministry are accessible anytime in the palm of your hand with the new Harvest iPhone App..

When you download this app you will have access to the latest audio and video content from Greg Laurie which include his popular A New Beginning radio broadcasts. You will also have instant access to daily devotions, answers to frequently asked questions on faith, social network connections, and tools to help you effectively share your faith with others. The Evangelism Tools section has quickly become one of the most popular features of the app. Once you learn and grow from the content within the app, you can share it with your friends, family, and church via Twitter, Facebook, or email.

It is always exciting for us here at the Church App to announce another church iPhone App like this! Check it out and stay tuned for more great Church iPhone Apps to come!

WWJD – What Would Jesus Develop? Part 1: Interview with Mark Driscoll

At Mars Hill Church, it’s all about Jesus. From blog posts to sermons, the ministry is always working to be on mission for Christ. The Church App for iPhone began a little over a year ago as a dream to serve this Seattle-based, Bible-loving, culturally savvy church we call home. In April 2009, Subsplash teamed up with their tech team to create the Mars Hill Church iPhone app. At the time, we didn’t realize that it would change the way members listen to sermons and rock out to worship music. It’s been almost a year since the release of the Mars Hill Church iPhone app, and we’ve found ourselves wondering how the Church is using this technology to spread the Gospel. In this interview—first in a three part series—we spotlight Pastor Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church’s use of this new medium.

Subsplash: Mars Hill Church was among the first to publish a church iPhone app almost a year ago. You, Pastor Mark, have been one of the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes. Considering that Mars Hill Church is at the forefront of utilizing mobile technology, in what ways has mobile tech impacted your ministry?

Pastor Mark: Without the Internet, my ministry is completely different. In God’s providence we started our church about the same time that the Internet went public, near Microsoft, and have ridden that wave ever since.

Subsplash: Some churches might want to use new technology simply because it’s cutting-edge…how do think the church has embraced technology well? How do think it has embraced technology poorly?

Pastor Mark: The key is to have biblically rooted Jesus-centered content and lots of it. It’s great to speak to a wide audience, but only if the content advances the cause of Christ. Ministries fail both in having poor content that is widely delivered, and conversely good content that is not widely delivered.

Subsplash: What is the theological reasoning behind Mars Hill Church’s use of technology to forward the Gospel?

Pastor Mark: Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9 that he became all things to all men so that by “all means” he might save as many people as possible. It’s that simple. We use whatever we can to tell as many as we can about Jesus. Technology is simply a tool or an idol depending upon whether it helps or hinders the forward progress of the gospel.

Subsplash: Do you believe all churches are candidates for cutting-edge, technological advancements like podcasting or an iPhone app? Why or why not?

Pastor Mark: Any church that believes the Bible is taught well with Jesus as the hero should attempt to do all they can to get the word out more broadly. If we love Jesus and people, we want to get his truth and love to them as cheaply, effectively, and responsibly as we can.

Thanks Pastor Mark!  We are so thankful that God blessed us with the chance to work with your ministry.

Faith and Reason: Ligonier Goes Mobile

R.C. Sproul was a freshman in college buying Lucky cigarettes from a vending machine when God decided to change his life. Behind him sat the captain of the college football team, who would proceed to share with Sproul the wisdom of the word of God. After a three hour conversation, Sproul was struck by the verse Ecclesiates 11:13.

In an interview with Christianity Today, Sproul stated that, “I just feel certain I’m the only person in church history that was converted by that verse. God just took that verse and struck my soul with it. I saw myself as a log that was rotting in the woods. And I was going nowhere.” That day, God transformed his life and Sproul began an incredible journey of faithful ministry. Over the course of the next forty years, Sproul would found Ligonier Ministries, the Reformed Bible College, author over 60 books and serve as a faithful minister on the radio and to his church.

At Subsplash, we love talking about technology and how it can help the church spread the Gospel. More specifically, we get excited about building apps for Bible-believing, Jesus-loving, God-fearing ministries. But for us, the completion of the Ligonier app is something special. Scrolling through years of content and articles that dissect complex doctrine and theology has brought us to a humble realization that our iPhone apps are small in comparison to the work of Christ through his faithful servants. The Ligonier app is simply a showcase of the amazing wisdom of God as explained by great teachers like R.C. Sproul, C.J. Mahaney, Alistair Begg, D.A. Carson, Ligon Duncan, and Ravi Zacharias. This app provides a daily Bible devotion, the ability to listen or watch Renewing Your Mind daily broadcast, free articles, and other resources grouped by topic, teacher, scripture or type. We hope that you are strengthened and encouraged by this new free resource.

Subsplash-Behind the Scenes

Hello from the Subsplash Team!

Recently, we received a request from one of our fans for more “behind the scenes information” about our company. Now, while we can’t reveal all of the exciting magic that happens behind the closed doors of our development studio, we aren’t on super secret lock-down like Apple. You won’t find our iPads strapped to our wrists (although that would be cool). And you are always free to pop us a question via email or phone and expect a response, design@subsplash is always there to help.

But for those of you who have always wondered about the “guys from Seattle with the funny name”…here’s our attempt to “formally” introduce ourselves.

Meet the Team

We have a fabulous team of developers, designers and customer support people at Subsplash. All of us are working hard to serve our clients, iPhone users and help spread the Truth of Jesus.

We Love our Clients

We love serving clients both here in the Seattle area and throughout the United States. On occasion, we have a chance to travel down to meet some of our more distant clients face to face. From Left to Right: Matt Turner,  Tim Turner, Matt Repucci, and our buddy Rick Warren. We have truly enjoyed working with all of our clients!