For tech-savvy Christians or for just about any of the faithful under 35 years old, it’s a no-brainer: Spreading the Gospel means using the tools available now … and for a growing number of churches, that means having their own iPhone app.

Before getting into why churches like Mars Hill and Saddleback, as well as ministries of every type, have increasingly embraced apps used in mobile devices such as the iPhone, here’s the basic definition of app:

APPlication – The term is shorthand for “application” and was used in the IT community for decades but became newly popular for mobile applications, especially since the launch of Apple’s App (online) Store in 2008. An app is software that is commonly used for business or entertainment. It can be virtually any type of program. You might be familiar with its use in media players such as iTunes.

Why apps for churches and ministries?

Tech leader Chris Ediger works for Giant Impact, which includes a leadership development group and program named “Catalyst.” The group hosts conferences in the U.S. and last month launched its own app during Catalyst West. Ediger explains why Catalyst, along with software and app developer company, Subsplash, made the free app available.

“We are very content rich and so we knew we wanted an iPhone app that would enable us to dish our content out to another platform as well as make it easier for people who were out and about to be able to tap in and read, listen, and watch our content wherever they were at,” Ediger said. “Those who attend our conferences tend to be between 18 and 35 years old. For them, technology has just been kind of built-in. It’s always been a part of their lives. They were probably buying iPhones the day they came out three years ago.”

Ediger said it’s a good idea for churches to make themselves and their message easily accessible through apps and their websites.

“The good news about all these phones is that they’re all Web-enabled, and for a church or ministry to be able to position itself and make content and websites accessible through those phones is just getting easier and easier,” he said. “Even if they don’t go as far as to develop an application for those phones, just creating mobile websites needs to be a given.”

Catalyst leadership training events draw 30- to 40-thousand people per year, according to Ediger, and draw more than 100,000 people whom “we interact with online who may or may not come to one of our events.” iPhone apps are a part of that interaction.

“The important thing for us is that we want people to have access to the content that they want to have access to, when they want to have access to it, in the format that they want to have access to it,” Ediger said. “We don’t want to be an inhibitor to that.”

The Church App company

The slogan “Making the Truth of Jesus accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime” graces the homepage of The Church App, a division of Subsplash. The Seattle-based company, along with having clients such as T-Mobile, Expedia, Samsung, and Xbox, is the first and leading company in designing apps specifically for churches and ministries. Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., launched its own app a few months ago with the help of Subsplash.

Subsplash founder Tim Turner said that for churches having websites it’s important to provide more than just location and phone number. “An iPhone is a device designed to play media. Churches have a lot of media available in sermons through video and audio…and different resources. When people are out and about, doing their daily lives, having that content available at your fingertips is very useful,” he said. “An iPhone app serves a very useful purpose. It’s more than the cool factor. It’s actually very useful.”

Turner and much of the staff at Subsplash attend and serve at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. To provide an app specific to the church was part of a natural progression, say Turner and PR director Hillary Morris.

“One of the things that we found amazing when we released the Mars Hill iPhone app was that there were 30,000 downloads of the Mars Hill iPhone app in the first month alone and Mars Hill only has an attendance of 10,000 people,” Morris said. “What was unique about it was the realization that it wasn’t just the members who were tapping into this now, it was this entire global following that Mars Hill has. It is not to say that the iPhone is going to replace the church. It’s just a way for people to get awesome resources throughout the week and to grow in their faith.”

The company will soon be announcing an app for churches having less in the way of financial resources needed for the customized apps. “It’s really easy for larger churches to mobilize their resources … to jump on board and adapt this new technology, but we had a lot of requests from smaller churches,” Morris said. “We started an internal project, asking how can we reach out to these smaller ministries?

“Our first test was the Church of South Las Vegas, which is still a few thousand people. Through that experience we took those learning points and applied them to a new product called ‘Dashboard.’ We will be announcing that in a few weeks, and it’s really easy and does not take a lot of technical experience,” she said. “We think even small churches of 100 should be able to have an iPhone app because as long as they are spreading the Gospel anyone can benefit from this.”

Worldwide and personal discipleship

Saddleback Church staff director David Chrzan sees no limits to the growth of iPhone apps. The church’s own app enables iPhone users to view and listen to Pastor Rick Warren deliver his message live. An Android and Blackberry app is on the way.

“We are using the newest forms of distribution and the newest forms of media to deliver the message of the Gospel … to help us fulfill our mission and vision to disciple people and grow them up into full discipleship,” Chrzan said.

“As the world sees a reduction in the large media corporations like newspapers and so forth, as you see those begin to decline and the technology to distribute content both audio, video, and text gets cheaper and cheaper, you’re going to see more organizations, grass roots organizations, community-based organizations, and churches that are going to try to provide content directly to their people because they have natural audiences for it. They are going to utilize that technology and those audiences to create a community and a story within that community.”

Chrzan said the response from church members and others outside the church has been quite favorable. There have been 16,000 downloads of the Saddleback Church app in the first three months.

“My favorite feature is the fact that I can go back and listen to a message if I miss it on the weekend any time I want, anywhere I am,” he said. “So, if I’m sitting at the dentist’s office and I want to catch up on last week’s message, I can go in and watch it while I’m waiting in the waiting room. If I’m driving the freeway and I want to catch up on a message, or I’ve got time for some personal discipleship, I can plug my iPhone into my car radio, and I can listen to Pastor Rick speak. I can listen to Pastor Tom’s (Holladay) daily devotionals. I can listen to anything that’s happened within the church that we’ve recorded.”

Church app developers and providers say mobile device apps are not a substitute for attending church.

“The iPhone app is not meant to replace church community by any means, but definitely to keep you connected with great resources,” Morris said. “If you have friends who are maybe intimidated by the idea of church, you can still recommend resources to them that are on the iPhone that will make them feel comfortable. They can open these resources and hear something about Jesus.”

Originally published at ASSIST News Service