The coronavirus pandemic is shifting the world to a digital one. As a member of the church, how are you coping? Some churches have temporarily halted their worship services and masses. Will you do the same or are you open to the idea of online worship services?

Online worship is the same as traditional worship. The only difference is you do it online.

Usually, the mass is broadcasted live with church members. However, because of the ongoing pandemic, the only ones present in the service are the pastor, altar servers, and the cameraman.

By taking your worship online, you give your members hope, especially in times like these. So, let’s talk about how your church can take worship to a modernized one.

Miniaturize your church website

Already have a dedicated website for your church? You can have a mini version of it. Focusing only on a specific page, for this instance, your online worship service, it will be easy to create.

What are the elements that are included in your minisite?

• Your own chat – open or closed chat
• YouTube link – for your live broadcast
• Description – all about your church
• Header and profile images – images that can distinguish your church
• Social media share buttons – share your minisite to Facebook and Twitter
• Text area – anything you want to say to your members or visitors

These elements are available for you to change. Also, the chat is unique to this minisite. You cannot change the chat, but you can customize it via CSS or skins.

Creating your online worship minisite

How can you create a minisite for your church?

• Firstly, you need to register to RumbleTalk. Just go to the RumbleTalk website and click Sign up.
• Next, on your admin panel, you will see Page. Click that and you’ll be redirected to another page. This is the Page section, which acts as your minisite.
• Lastly, customize the page to your liking. A default template is set so you won’t have any problems with coding or website development. All you need to do is change it according to your church or organization.

The following are step-by-step visuals of the procedure.

Use the chat as an online donation platform

As with all churches, donations are a vital part of worship. With this minisite, you don’t have to leave that out. This can help you gain donations.

For members of the church, they can donate via chat. To enable donation in your chat, go back to your admin panel. Then, go to Monetize Settings and check the box for donations. Don’t forget to save your changes, else it will not reflect.

To make a donation, members of the church should log-in. They can choose from five methods:

1. Guest
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. Username
5. Register as a new user

If they choose to register as a new user, the next time they donate, they can log-in with their username and password.

Should they wish to be anonymous, they can also log-in as a guest user. Facebook and Twitter log-ins will show their respective profiles on their social media platforms. This means that it will show their name and profile picture.

After that, they can donate by clicking the dollar sign on the text box. They can choose to donate via their PayPal account or their credit/debit cards. It’s that easy.

Additionally, they can write a personalized message for each donation. The minimum donation for each transaction is $2, while the maximum is $100.

You can refer to the example above where the chat is used for donations. In parallel with your YouTube live stream, you can collect donations simultaneously.

Also, you can read this blog post if you want to know more about how donations work for churches and non-profit organizations.

Online worship made easy

Just because the world has turned to online measures doesn’t mean you need to stop all church services. There’s always an alternative.

Moreover, your members need the church’s guidance more than ever. The pandemic is causing panic. As part of the church, it’s your task to guide and keep the faith in people’s hearts.

With a minisite, you can chat with your members and let them donate for a good cause. Also, you share the Word to your members even if they cannot attend the mass personally. You give them an option and that’s always better than canceling all worship services.

Want to get started with your minisite? Then, visit RumbleTalk to know more about the feature.

Giving your church or non-profit organization the ability to collect donations online is a huge benefit for your cause. In times like these, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed people to go online.

People are working from home, students are having online classes, and churches are live streaming their masses.

The more simple you make the donation process, the more donations you will receive. Why is that? It’s because when you make the donation process more available, people who live in a fast-paced world will appreciate its straightforwardness.

Furthermore, the younger generation is also more inclined to give donations online. With that, you can build a relationship with your younger members.

Ready to know how you can set up your online donation platform to your website? Here’s how you can do it.

Things you should know

There are some things to keep in mind before you can add online donation functionality.

• First, ensure that your website allows embed codes.
• Alternatively, you can also share your online donation link on your social media platforms. If that’s okay with you, then you can go for this option.
• All donations go through the platform and you need to reach a certain amount before you can transfer it to your account.
• Speaking of accounts, you need to have a PayPal account. This is where all your earnings will be sent to. When you decide to withdraw, funds will be transferred on the 1st and 15th of each month.
• Don’t fret. Members can donate via PayPal even without an account. They can use their debit and credit cards for donations.
• Lastly, donations are non-refundable.

If you agree to all of those, then let’s get started on the actual set-up of your online donation platform.

Powering online giving with online donations

How do you add an online donation platform on your website? There are two ways that you can do it. This is the first option.

1. Create your RumbleTalk account.
2. Copy the embed code.
3. Paste it on your website.
4. Check the box for donations on Monetize Settings.

This online donation platform also acts as a chat. Therefore, members can chat with each other freely.

However, you can also choose if you want it to be an open chat or a membership group chat. That means that only trusted members of the church or organization can enter the chat and donate.

If you ask us, it’s better to open it for everyone so you can maximize donations. You can put out an announcement that the chat will only be used for donation purposes. Other inquiries can be asked on social media, email, or a different chat room.

If you don’t have a website for your church or non-profit organization, you can always share your online donation chat’s link on your social media platforms.

To do that, just copy the URL of your chat room. Then, paste it on your preferred social media platform. When clicked, your members will be redirected to your chat.

Allow members to donate by opening your chat to different login options.

When one of your members donates in the chat, a message will appear in the chat room. It contains the member’s name, an optional message, and how much he/she donated.

To make an online donation, all your members need to do is to click the button (looks like a dollar sign) on the right-hand side of the text box.

Modern giving in times of crisis

Don’t let the pandemic stop you from donating to a good cause. It’s needed now more than ever.

As a part of a non-profit organization, you can still collect donations via monetary means. Then, you can convert that money to actual clothes, food, or other necessities the world needs right now.

As a member of the church, donations are a regular thing. This is how the church is running. Now that you’ve lost the ability to do a traditional mass, you’ve turned to live streaming. Live streaming equipment is not cheap and you also need to give back to the church and other causes you’re supporting.

The pandemic has changed our lives and it’s up to us how we tackle the situation.

RumbleTalk can help you in setting up your online donation platform. Learn more about it here.

With the Covid-19 pandemic, e-learning is booming. Educators are leaning towards educational tools, chats, and websites to cater to their students’ educational needs.

There are many tools out there that you can use. The challenge is how you can introduce conversation in an e-learning community.

The real fact is that students and educators may not be familiar with this process. All they’ve done in the previous years are face-to-face conversations and lessons.

If there ever was the use of educational tools, this will lean towards the basic activities such as online quizzes, homework, and the likes.

However, real communication is not present. There’s only a one-way communication that’s happening.

This made us think of how teachers and students will be able to survive this predicament. Over the next few points, we’ll be sharing ways of how you can add real conversation while using a live chat tool.

Schedule a time to answer live questions

Before the pandemic, you’d have a set time to answer your students’ questions. Why not do the same on your live chat tool? Here’s how it could work.

• Set an official time where your students can have access to the moderated chat with a designated educator.
• Give the students access to the designated educator instead of having a normal class. The expert will be there to answer the students’ questions but not required to engage conversation unless a question is asked. Also, the expert can moderate the chat by choosing the appropriate questions. The following is an example image that demonstrates this. A moderated chat is added to a website or shared via a link. The students can see that the admin is online and they can ask questions.

Have your students participate in a group discussion

Instead of letting your students do their work themselves, they can find comfort in engaging with other students. As they don’t have much interaction outside of the physical classroom, this is a great way to still keep that connection. Here are two ways to do that.

• Deliver the e-learning curriculum in parallel with a moderated discussion. As the educator and moderator, you deliver a controlled environment with the course content. Then, you can take a break from the moderated discussion and let your students discuss freely among themselves.
• Another approach could be a group discussion where each group has their own moderated chat. You can assign a leader per group and let them moderate their teammates’ messages. For a productive conversation, create a list of questions and review materials for them to answer and discuss.

Create an e-learning moderated chat for group discussions

With today’s technology, it’s easy to create an online chat. You have a variety of e-learning chat tools to choose from and a lot of them are free. Also, there are chat tools that are web-based and don’t have any access issues.

So, how can you incorporate a group discussion in your e-learning course?

• As said above, setting a time for a live chat with an expert and students can be advantageous. In times like these where online classes are needed, this is how you can answer your students’ questions.
• While setting a specific time is convenient for both parties, you can also opt to do a group discussion that’s not dependent on a particular time. With a moderated chat that you can immediately change into a group chat, the chat is open to all. You can also keep a history of your chat transcript so that information can be reviewed and accessed in the future.

A dynamic chat experience through e-learning

In the examples above, we used RumbleTalk’s moderated chat feature. We showed a quick demo on how you can use a live chat tool as part of the e-learning experience.

In the examples above, we used the Add File’s ability to insert discussion questions and review materials. With RumbleTalk, you can also change from moderated chat to group chat with just a click.

Because of RumbleTalk’s embed code, you can also insert it on Google Sites or your own website. Also, this is easy for educators with limited technical skills as it is just copying and pasting elements.

For this, we used the chat’s free features to give you some idea of how you can work with a live chat tool in an e-learning environment. The advantage is that you introduce a real conversation.

It’s a great way to build social connections and encourage thinking and not just sending homework or PowerPoint files.