We all love technology – when it works!  Last week International Ministries hosted our first webinar.  We practiced, we tweaked the content until finally, we were ready to click the record button.  Success!!  We were so happy (and relieved) that it worked.  We took the recorded webinar, posted it to the host server and emailed out dozens of invitations to missionaries, IM board members, regional staff and IM staff.

"What’s Happening at International Ministries" was the topic of the webinar, lead by Reid Trulson, Executive Director for IM, and Alyson Stratton, Treasurer and CFO.  Together they presented the current financial status of IM, implications for the future, the successful formation of 66 Missionary Partnership Teams and how IM is redesigning the World Mission Offering materials.

That’s when the technology went downhill. 

Some people couldn’t view the webinar on their computer.  Others couldn’t get past the registration process.  And the automatic replies that were supposed to be sent out after you viewed the webinar?  You guessed it, they didn’t go anywhere!  So we’ve archived and encoded and converted the webinar recording till we’re blue in the face.  Hopefully today, we will be successful in posting a version that will be accessible to those who have a Mac computer.   Still trying to figure out how to help those without high speed internet access.  But we haven’t given up! 

Meanwhile, more than 60 people have viewed the webinar and their feedback is starting to come in.  We’re encouraged by the positive comments and insightful suggestions.  Most everyone appreciates that we’re trying a new method of communicating with folks.  Technology might have tripped us up, but we’re learning from our mistakes.  I don’t know about you, but I think we’ve learned enough to last us for at a least a month.