Churches Flock to Internap for Online Messages

According to The Barna Group in a study1 about Protestant churches' use of technology, 62 percent of churches currently have an Internet presence, up from 34 percent in 2000 and one in four are available on social-networking sites. Additionally, 16 percent engage in podcasting and 13 percent are avidly blogging. The study points to the growing presence of religious groups and companies taking advantage of the latest Web 2.0 technologies to engage their congregation and spread their message to a larger audience.

eye-SPEAK.com is an interactive media and branding company that maintains a 40 percent faith-based clientele. Benj Miller, chief executive officer of eye-SPEAK.com, is an advertising veteran that uses his Christian faith a guiding principle for his business. "Branding for churches is the same as for anyone else. First, it is about the emotion that arises when one comes to the website. To be highly effective, we believe the faith-based website needs to be every bit as engaging and experience-driven as a corporate or secular entertainment site."

Most church leaders agree streaming faith is not a threat to the brick and mortar church, but rather a way to reach more people who want to connect with others to share their faith. As an example, RBC Ministries started with streaming sermons and then acquired ChristianCourses.com in an effort to further broaden their reach. They now provide students all over the world with free and low cost, online learning opportunities in Christian living, leadership skills and biblical studies.

"Our 175,000 students enjoy a unique, media-rich and interactive learning experience that is still strongly integrated with their religious beliefs," said Sharon Willis, marketing brand manager at ChristianCourses.com. "The continued expansion of broadband Internet has allowed us to enroll 3,000 new students each month, with 20 percent coming from outside of the US. This simply would not have been possible without Web 2.0 technology to back us up."

Today, technology and church intersect at the newest iterations of the Internet, dramatically expanding the ability of people to connect online. This new generation of Internet tools, including blogs, wikis, social networks and video / photo-sharing sites, has accelerated and enriched the online interaction first seen on e-mail distributions, discussion boards and in chat rooms.

"Faith-based organizations are moving online in rapid succession. The type of content they are distributing requires very robust streaming media and connectivity solutions," said Tim Sullivan, chief technology officer at Internap. "Groups from all religious denominations see the value in Internap's network, data center and technology solutions. We offer the higher level of support they need, integrated services for applications and tailored network solutions to support a global audience, multi-media and e-commerce, all attractively priced for a segment not very accustomed to spending for IT infrastructure."

Internap's data center colocation, IP networking, managed servers, and content delivery network (CDN) have been engineered for reliability, performance and global reach. These services can be tailored to meet the unique needs of Internet applications and websites including transactions, commerce, communities and increasingly rich media such as video and audio. As faith-based organizations seek to grow their audience and efficiently use their resources for the greater good of their congregation, Internap's network solutions can be the technology infrastructure to support their mission.