Client Spotlight: ARC Churches

Last month, the Association of Related Churches (ARC) launched an app with Subsplash on the eve of their biggest conference of the year. ARC, an association of over 400 churches, provides resources and support to church planters and other church leaders. "Our primary goal for the app is to make it easier than ever for our church planters to stay connected to the ARC community," says Guy Walker, ARC Marketing and Development Coordinator.

During the conference the app proved invaluable: "The new ARC Churches app was the perfect tool for our church planters at the All Access Conference," explains Walker. "They were able to view the conference schedule and detailed information about speakers throughout the whole event."

Because the Subsplash App Platform gives clients real-time control over their app, Guy and his colleagues were able to communicate last-minute schedule and event changes to attendees using the app. "At one point a speaker told everyone they could find her speaking notes in the app. This was a few seconds after we added them!" says Walker.  "The ability to update on the fly has been amazing!"

We're very excited to be partnering with ARC and many other great ministries. If you're interested in planting a church, check out ARC's free online training for pastors: "The 8 Keys to Effective Church Planting".

For more information about developing an app with Subsplash, contact us!

Download the ARC Churches app here.

The Church App: Now on Windows Phone!

We’ve got great news! We have added a new operating system to The Church App Platform and we are now pleased to announce that you can extend your mobile app presence to Windows Phone and the Windows Phone Store!

Windows Phone is on pace to gain a significant segment of the smartphone market within the next few years. Trailing Android and iOS, the Windows Phone platform has been picking up steam and has nearly doubled its market share in just a few months! It has been receiving rave reviews from fans and critics alike. You may have seen the new Lumia 920 from Nokia as well as the HTC 8X. Both phones are stunning and demonstrate how Windows Phone presents content impressively.

Windows Phone. Seriously Awesome.

• Vibrant: Windows Phone is vibrant, rich, and powerful. Your content will be presented in a bold new way.
• Early advantage: Although there are already millions of users, there are relatively few apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace which means you have more of an opportunity to reach people by being one of the first to get your app published in the store.
• Powerful and Beautiful devices:  The Nokia Lumia 920 won Engadget's Smartphone of the Year and Gizmodo's Best Smartphone Camera.

The Iglesia and the Eglise: How churches on opposite sides of the world are engaging technology

Who is the average smartphone user? An American college student? A young professional in a big city? The answer might surprise you: the average smartphone user is most likely to be a middle-aged man in China.*

While apps may have originated with Apple in California and the first smartphone was invented by IBM, China currently dominates the market. In fact, the US market only accounted for 17.9% of smartphone sales in 2012, and growth is expected to be strongest in India, Indonesia, Russia and Brazil.** Smartphone users now reside around the world, and the international demand for apps continues to grow.

“We're working with thousands of churches and organizations around the world, from South Africa to Brazil to Egypt” says Chris Sharpe, Media Director here at Subsplash. “It’s really exciting to have the opportunity to engage with the global church on a daily basis.”

Matthieu Layes, a staff member at Montreal-based Eglise Nouvelle Vie (“New Life Church”), partnered with Subsplash in 2011 to develop an app. “The French speaking world is our mission field. As there still is a large French speaking population that is unreached with the good news, we made it one of our key outreach strategies to reach the masses through the web. Developing an app was the key tool to efficiently reach the millions of French speaking people that own a mobile device.”

Several thousand miles to the south in Bogota, Colombia, Juan Manuel Cortes manages a Subsplash app for Casa Sobre la Roca (“House on the Rock”), a Spanish-speaking megachurch. Cortes first thought about developing an app when he observed a coworker reading a blog on her phone. When he asked her about it, she explained that she had listened to a sermon in English and was reading an accompanying blog post to help her understand the message. “That was the moment when it hit me,” Cortes says. "Why can’t we do the same thing for Spanish speakers? What a good way to take the message to a person.”

With thousands of downloads since the app launched in September and hundreds of new downloads each month, Cortes is ecstatic about the way an app has allowed Casa Sobre La Roca to extend their reach. He has met many people at the church who began attending after downloading the app and listening to sermons.

Cortes loves to share the story of a family who came to Casa Sobre la Roca after one of the sons accidentally downloaded the app on his father’s phone. After visiting the church, the entire family eventually became Christians. “You cannot imagine how many people have been impacted in some way [by the app],” he says.

Eglise Nouvelle Vie has experienced similar success. “Every week we receive emails from all over the world of people who testify how the messages are transforming their lives,” says Layes. Like many Subsplash clients, the reach of Eglise Nouvelle Vie’s app goes well beyond their membership. With over 3,500 members the church is by no means small, but their app is quickly approaching 10,000 downloads.

In an increasingly connected world, churches of all sizes from around the world are finding that mobile apps provide a platform to connect with believers on a local and global scale.

"Our goal is to make the best software available for the presentation of the Gospel. We want to give ministries the ability to have truly affordable high quality apps that they can control in real time, from features and layout, to branding and content,” says Sharpe. “It's been an incredible blessing for us to be a part of what God is doing through these ministries all over the world."

*mobiThinking: http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/a#topsmartphonecountries and Prosper China: http://www.prosperchina.com/ **mobiThinking: http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/a#topsmartphonecountries

Facebook Home: A new idea + its implications.

Although one of the most noteworthy and impactful ideas of the 21st century, Facebook has lost some steam. A company built for moving life and interaction to internet browsers has not adapted as seamlessly with the mobile growth and culture that has occurred in just the last few years.

The biggest mistake Facebook has made (as acknowledged by Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO) was hedging a bet against mobile apps. Predicting that apps were fleeting, and that we would eventually use our phones in the same capacity that we use our desktops, Facebook spent considerable time and effort on optimizing their website for mobile phones. There were a few problems. The multiple bugs that made the site repeatedly crash and painfully slow weren’t just a quick fix. Frustrations and numerous poor reviews by customers were more than Facebook could toss aside. In 2011 they made the decision to start over and build custom apps for each OS, in a move that changed the developing culture at Facebook. Fast forward a couple years, and not only has Facebook made leaps and bounds to improve their mobile presence, but they’re rewriting the whole experience, cue Facebook Home. Facebook Home is an integration with the Android OS that allows Facebook to be the lock screen on your device. From what we’ve seen so far of Facebook Home you will be able to browse pictures, see status updates, and send and receive messages, without ever having to activate or engage an app. Facebook Home will be first released on the new HTC First, and will be available for download on several existing Android devices as well. The creation of Facebook Home could be a game changer for the social network, and eliminates the need and potential overhead of creating a mobile phone specifically for Facebook.

Although in itself Facebook Home is a new idea, we can’t help but be reminded of Windows Phone’s Live Tiles. The ability to have content that is customized to your interests and social life immediately displayed on the home screen of your phone seems to be the connecting idea. While Facebook is just one piece of the puzzle that is Live Tiles, you have to wonder how much traction Facebook Home will get by being the only auto-populating screen on your phone?

So what does this mean for the future of smartphones, and life as we know it? Will having Facebook so easily integrated with our mobile devices cause us to spend more time than we already do interacting with technology instead of those around us? How will this change the game for other companies that are trying to further intertwine themselves into our lives and our smartphones? Will they have the capability to be our first thought as soon as we power up our devices in the morning and as we set them down as our heads hit our pillows at night? How do you feel about Facebook Home? Are you intrigued, wary, or excited about this new technology?

Do Churches Really Need an App?

It seems that everyone is talking about apps these days. A word once known more for its prowess at dinner parties has now become synonymous with mobile applications. With this craze, people everywhere are thinking, “hmm..maybe I should get an app for (insert creative thought here).” A word of caution, not all app ideas should be invested in and not every organization needs their own app. So how do you know if you should take this venture on, and if so, where do you start? The road of mobile development can be daunting, so it helps to plan well and to know where to start.

First off, there are many kinds of apps. For the sake of this conversation, I’m going to primarily focus on apps built for churches and ministries. For those looking to build an app for your organization, follow two simple rules: provide content and deliver quality. It needs to be done really well and it needs to have a reason for people to use it regularly.

If there is no reason for someone to download and then repeatedly want to use your app, it’s probably not going to be very successful. You need content, lots of fresh meaningful content. That’s one of the biggest reasons a lot of churches and ministries have had wildly successful apps.

At Subsplash, we have had the opportunity to work with incredible ministries of all sizes. We see over half a million page views daily on our platform. People are using it like crazy and the number one reason people use these ministry apps is to access media. Churches are in the unique place of being content creators and at least once a week there is a new sermon that they want to get into people’s hands. Not only are churches and ministries adding sermons to their apps, but there are a whole host of other things you can provide through the app such as blogs/news, events, online giving, sermon notes and bulletins, music, small group resources, Bibles and reading plans, and pretty much anything else you can think of. The app shouldn’t just be a duplicate of your site, but rather a source to get relevant content into people’s hands. Keep it simple and put your best foot forward.

Along with content, you need to make sure that your app is done incredibly well. As technology continues to develop, people demand more. They want it to be cooler, faster, smarter, and much more fun to use. So, if you have incredible content but you develop a sub-par app, people will hit the eject button before you get a second chance.

Apps are a powerful tool if done well. They can do much more than a mobile site or simply accessing the web through your phone. Take a feature like listening to audio in an app. If your app audio player only allows you to hit play and pause or do a simple fast-forward/rewind, you are going to add frustrations to the end user. What happens when you get a phone call while listening to a 45 minute sermon? Shouldn’t the app remember where you last left off? Or what if you live in a place where you don’t have the best cellular coverage, wouldn’t it be nice if you could download that audio for offline listening? These are just a few examples that seem like luxury items, until you start using the software and realize how important they truly are. We often don’t notice the quality until we use something that doesn’t meet our expectations. Don’t get caught being the church that built an app that was frustrating to use.

Overall, your app should be simple to use, it should work how you expect it to, and it should look really nice. It doesn’t have to win awards, but make sure it’s visually appealing and a delightful experience.

Most of the churches that have utilized our software have seen more downloads of their app than attendees in the church. Sometimes up to 50 times more downloads of their app than church members. Also, most churches see their sermon downloads increase as well as a spike in online giving. As an example, one church with a membership of 1000 people saw 2,000 downloads, 22,000 launches, and increased giving within the first six months of having their app. If your ministry has content and wants to present it well, doing an app might just be the right next step.

Discover more: Watch the video