ChurchPost.com Blog

We completed our transition from GroupReply to ChurchReply today!

If you have existing groups that were originally named with the @groupreply.com naming scheme, those groups are up and running with @churchreply.com endings.  You should have received individual email messages for each of your groups with this information, as well.

If you have requested new groups, we will be setting those up throughout the day and you will be individually notified.

Please keep in mind that if you set up an alias on your server (to forward from an existing list name at your church to our groupreply address) you will have to reset those to forward to the new, correct @churchreply.com address.

Don’t know anything about ChurchReply?

ChurchReply™ is our newest “add on” feature that enables a designated administrator at your church to create and customize distribution email lists (like youthretreat@churchreply.com) specifically designed for group discussion and conversation threads. Best of all, ChurchReply™ is completely integrated with ChurchPost.com! Make a change in one location and ALL INSTANCES of that record are updated instantly - no more hunting down EVERY LIST or GROUP to update!

Key Features
» “Reply to All” and/or “Reply to Sender”
» Online message thread retrieval (public or private)
» Create allow/deny email lists
» Subscriber-only posting
» List moderation functionality
» Bulk import/export
» Customized message subject for easy sorting
» Intuitive web-based management

Other Benefits
» Hassle-free setup and maintenance
» Whitelisted mail servers managed by ChurchPost.com
» 24/7 SpamAssassin monitoring by ChurchPost.com
» DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) included…

the sticks is a gathering to inspire and equip pastors in small to medium towns to make a big impact for the Kingdom!

ChurchPost will be exhibiting at THE STICKS next month (November 11-12 at New Hope Community Church in Loudonville, OH 44842) - stop on by and say hello, ask about our new version (ChurchPost 3.0), check out GroupReply (our newest service that integrates with your ChurchPost Broadcast database), take some candy and sign the Happy Fun Ball!

The Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, PA has purchased annual subscriptions of ChurchPost for all 65 of its parishes!

Following 2 days of in-person trainings, individual parishes began rolling out ChurchPost for their electronic communications last month. The Diocese, itself, also uses ChurchPost (and GroupReply) to communicate with their area churches, staff, lay leaders and more!

Read more on the DioBeth newSpin Blog at:

http://diobeth.typepad.com/diobeth_newspin/2008/07/churchpost-trai.html

We are happy to welcome them on board, and look forward to working with them over the coming months and years ahead!

Want to hang out with the gurus of church communications?

MinistryCOM (visit their website) is the only national conference dedicated to church communications professionals. Come join some of the leaders in church communications to learn how to make your ministry more effective.

This conference has four objectives — to provide encouragement, education, resources, and networking opportunities to ministry communications professionals.

We had such a great time last year in Nashville that we’re headed to Oklahoma City! Stop by and say hello (our booth is located next to the General Information section), ask questions, see our newest features and grab some free candy!

Hope to see you there!

For more photos of last year’s conference, click here.

Tags: ministryCOM Oklahoma city 2008

This Friday, August 22, we will be performing several minor upgrades to our servers, including a small fix to our “coaching system” that ensures you are making the most of our service.

We have done everything possible to limit the number of emails you receive, but if your account has been inactive for some time (more than 175 days), you may receive multiple emails at once indicating that your account has been idle and/or deleted.

We apologize in advance if you receive one or more messages from us on Friday because of this upgrade.

Messages you compose and send on Friday using ChurchPost will be unaffected by this maintenance.

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact us any time (by replying to this email OR by visiting support.churchpost.com).

Respectfully,

John Goodell
ChurchPost.com

When someone signs up for a group at your church via your Get Connected Box, they are instantly welcomed once they confirm their email address.

This welcome message is your chance to provide not only information about the specific group/ministry/activity, but also to stamp your unique personality as a group leader.

We have recently updated the customized welcome message format. Effective immediately, welcome messages (by default) contain only 3 short sentences that ensure the recipient knows what they have opted to receive.

The rest of the message is completely customizable, and is automatically personalized for that subscriber.

You can customize content, signoff, and more! Best of all, your custom welcome message accepts HTML, so have fun!

Welcome messages are always sent to the subscriber FROM the group owner’s verified address. So matter what time of the day someone signs up for your group, they will instantly be welcomed by the group owner!

Well, we think we’ve solved it this time.

Recently, we’ve heard from many of you about funny characters appearing in your messages - especially when content was copied and pasted from other programs (eh hem…Microsoft). Last year, we launched the addition of the “Paste of Word” feature on our editor that cleaned up proprietary code created by Microsoft programs. That worked for many of you, but others have continued to see some funny business going on…

Now, we’ve changed the way our database stores information in your message body (for those techies….from latin1_swedish_ci to utf8_general_ci) and we think that’s done it!

If you see strange characters creeping into your messages, drop us a line so we can determine the source. Otherwise, enjoy a ‘funny-character-free’ ChurchPost experience!

We LOVE your feedback - keep your comments, questions and suggestions coming!

We find that this article about Bonnie Anderson, the president of the General Convention House of Deputies, speaks directly to our mission and ministry. To read the entire article in The Record, click here.

“I know that this is likely an interesting, if not difficult, time for communicators. Budget cuts often find their way to the diocesan office of communications first. At the same time, there is a lively debate in the whole communications universe about digital versus print. In these current debates, first it is important for our own Episcopal communications universe to know how all the fellow Episcopalians that are served consume the news. Secondly, it is important to advocate for what we believe is the right mix.

“I want you to know that you have my support in your quest for free-flowing, transparent communication that enables the ministry of the baptized,” she said. “I believe that communication is a mission priority for our Church and needs to be recognized as such. For me, this falls into the category of an ‘infrastructure rebuild’.

We are excited that churches and church “headquarters” of all denominations are starting to focus on efficient, thorough, healthy communication.  Please let us know if we can help your church or denomination in your efforts to communicate better.  (And yes… the House of Deputies has chosen ChurchPost to power their communications.  We’re really excited about that too!)

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) uses digital, cryptographic signatures, attaching information to a new header field in the message.

Since January, AOL, Yahoo and Google have been using DKIM to authenticate their inbound messages.

While authentication protocols like DKIM do not guarantee deliverability, they are a critical step to making sure your message gets through. So rest assured that your ChurchPost messages are being sent from mail servers that are monitored 24/7 and utilize the latest technology to ensure deliverability.

And because ISPs like AOL and others take into account BOTH IP-based reputation and domain based reputation, ChurchPost also utilizes SPF (Sender Policy Framework) authentication, so your recipients know they are reading messages from the IP/domain that it purports to be from.

For those interested, there is a fantastic white paper entitled “Trust in Email Begins with Authentication” available from the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group at:

http://www.maawg.org/about/publishedDocuments/MAAWG_Email_Authentication_Paper.pdf

Happy sending!

ChurchPost.com has launched a new feature that allows your subscribers to change their email address globally by clicking a link in the footer of every message you send:

Like our SureRemove™ service, this page is encrypted so that only the subscriber (the recipient of the original email message) can access it.

You can also reach this page via the Subscription Manager (clicking the “SureRemove” link in the footer):