Welcome to "Community News," the Digital Faith Community (DFC) newsletter. We are excited to begin communicating to our members with this monthly newsletter.

In 2004 we began working with the Alliance for Christian Media to provide religious organizations with the tools and support necessary for effective online communication. Beginning with the Diocese of Atlanta, the DFC has helped judicatories, parishes, commissions, and other groups around the country effectively communicate online. Since that time, approximately 800 churches, groups and judicatories have become members of the Digital Faith Community, and we continue to grow.

I'm often asked "What does it mean to be a community online? What are the advantages?" Quite simply it means nothing more and nothing less than community offline. Our communities grow on relationships and information. In today's wired world we live online, chat online, give online and even pray online. The Internet is providing a method for our communities of faith to move beyond the Sunday hour and be available to us at our work desks, at the kitchen computer and our cell phones.

There are endless statistics, you can use the Digital Faith Community reporting tools to see for yourself how your community members are growing online. You may be interested to learn that one of the most used features is the church mapping and driving directions. By creating a community of churches and other religious organizations, your resources and ideas can be shared among your community. From a technical point of view, search engines can find your community more easily simply because it is a community. As a result, these search systems ( e.g., Google, MSN, Yahoo) rank DFC members higher and higher as time goes on. In other words, "we" is better than "me."

An example? Recently, a DFC member that is a new church plant held their first worship service. They began with a website to help build membership and establish themselves in their community. For approximately one year, they leveraged their website to help build identity, programs, and mission work. The result was vigorous membership in their various groups, extended outreach programs to their community, and approximately 225 people at their first worship service (please go to the DFC website to read more about St. Benedict's).

Please email or phone me (888-777-7997) to discuss how the DFC can help lift your community online and extend your community and the church's mission.

Sincerely,

Pat Herold