Most churches I encounter don’t think much about video conferencing. Some younger pastors are frequent users of Skype, Google Hangouts, and Facetime. Pastors of all generations are using these more and more. Many church members use these platforms frequently either for work or to keep in touch with kids and grandkids. But rarely do churches…
I was part of a meeting recently with participants from all over the Rio Texas Annual Conference. There were about six people in the room and around 35 on the screen. We were using Zoom video conferencing to gather with people from Austin, San Angelo, McAllen, Victoria and many points in between. Some participants on…
Here at the Rio Texas Media Center, we get to use a lot of high-tech tools to do our work. Some of these tools cost money, either to purchase or license. However, some of our tools are absolutely free or have free versions that your church can use. I know from experience that churches work…
![Technology in Rio Texas [Survey Results]](https://i0.wp.com/pastorwill.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/speed.jpg?fit=768%2C517&ssl=1)
As part of the plan that created the new Río Texas Annual Conference, our annual conference committed to ensuring that all of our local churches have the required tools and infrastructure to stay connected to the conference and their mission field. The unification plan called for all churches to eventually have the internet connection and…
The Rio Texas Annual Conference has made it a priority to use video conferencing to facilitate our work together. This annual conference covers an immense geographic area. Meeting to do our important mutual work is expensive in time and money. As I have written before, there is great value in meeting face to face. However,…
What started as one blog post about technology and pastoral care continues into part 5. I want to dig a little deeper into some specific technologies and how they might help us in our ministry of prayer and mutual support. I have already laid out my thoughts on why this is an important topic. In…
I have been spending a lot of time lately in front of my Mac meeting with people from all over the Rio Texas Annual Conference. Video conferencing has been around for a while now, but many of the folks I work with are new to the platform. When you are new to something, it takes…
Web-based video conferencing is an amazing technological revolution. By that I mean surely it is my punishment for some horrible thing I must have done earlier in life. With just the press of a button we can be face to face someone across town, across the state, or across the world. And we can see…
