We are at a time when 750 million people worldwide access the Internet every month. It is more important than ever that your congregation or organization provide an interactive and vibrant Internet presence. To assist congregations in that effort, the Greater Milwaukee Synod has launched the "Active Internet Ministry" project. The project is designed to offer participating congregations and organizations the ability to operate a state-of-the-art Internet presence with a limited budget across a broad range of technical abilities.

Today's technology affords us new and exciting ways to carry the message. We communicate via satellite, e-mail, cell phones and various other "high tech" methods. Communication and how we communicate has become an key ingredient to ministry. These methods of communication are the "Roman roads" of our time. As Christians we have a responsibly to travel these "roads." As we travel, we also have a responsibility to those we meet along the way. We need to make sure our message is fresh, that our faith and community are self evident, and that our environment is warm and inviting. To that end it's important that we find a way to use the power of our numbers.

Many churches’ websites are designed and maintained by volunteers who have a passion to serve and an interest or expertise in web development. We owe these individuals a debt of gratitude for their service and willingness to put their time and talent to the work of the church. But often having a single individual responsible for the maintenance and content of a church's website becomes burdensome and difficult to manage.

The synod's new Active Internet Ministry project provides a feature-rich web content management system for your church, school, or organization. There are many advantages for becoming a part of this initiative.

The Active Internet Ministry project is:

Versatile. Serving the smallest organizations to the largest ministries. Your website can be used for news, announcements, surveys, event registration, inter-staff communications, photo galleries, inter-board communications, audio and video feeds, document archiving, and many more possibilities.

User-Friendly. From the technically savvy user to those new to the world of the Internet, the Active Internet Ministry project affords the professional church staff as well as lay people the opportunity to easily and regularly add and edit site content.

Feature-Rich. Your church's website can look virtually any way you want it to look. It allows you to incorporate data that is both static (non-changing) and dynamic (always changing), and can be customized to fit your church's unique needs. This can include content that is text-driven, and also content that includes audio and video.

Community Supported. The Active Internet Ministry project is supported by the content of fellow Lutheran churches and organizations, each contributing their own ministries' news and features. It is therefore a very dynamic and useful source of information and interaction.

Easy to Join. The synod is actively searching for congregations and organizations to become a part of the Active Internet Ministry project.