Beyond Limits COG

The BLCOG Community is RADICALLY different!

You can do a lot of stuff on Beyond Limits. Click here to visit the main site & check out the “EASY MENU” in the right column:

• Find information about a Church of God congregation in your area. Press the YELLOW button (Find a Church). You can find the location, contact info and browse the church’s website – all from this link.
• Register (or log-in) to start using all the social features. Press the GREEN button  (Start). This community offers features much like FACEBOOK (Friends,  Groups, Timeline, etc). All features are free and available to every registered user.
• Create a new Blog or Website. If you are a registered member of this community, then you may qualify to have a blog hosted here for free. After you are registered, just click on the RED “Create A Blog” button to start.
• Get Help. A lot of what we offer here (for free) has only been available to a select group of “geeks” before. So, we understand that you may not be familiar with building a website or whatever. That is why we have built a Technical Support system to help you with each task. Just click the RED help button to read existing article, ask for help  or start a support ticket that will be tracked openly.
• Just “Chill” with friends. After you have registered, you can find friends, make new friends, establish groups, discuss issues of general interest or send personal messages to other users. Press the FRIENDS button to see what is going on right now.
• Add your Church to our database. All Church of God congregations in the State of Louisiana should already be in the database but if your church is not listed, Click the GREEN “ChurchLoc.com” button & add it. A staff member will review the entry and take the appropriate actions.

Just below the Title of this page is a menu of the other primary pages for this site. Click on a tab to view the following pages:

• HOME – Returns to this page
• ABOUT – More info about what we are doing here
• FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions (and the answers)
• TOS – Our Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy
• CONTACT – How to contact the personnel who maintain this community.
• CALENDAR – The list of events relative to the Churches of God in Louisiana.

Scroll down the page to read other articles that you may find helpful. Each article is written to help you find more reasons to visit us every day – and stay a while!

Welcome to blcog.com.

If you are a new user of this site, here are a few things to help you get started.

• You must register to get the real benefits of the community. Press the big GREEN “START” BUTTON in the right hand sidebar to get started or press HERE.
• There is some personal info that you need to add in your “dashboard” (the area where you arrive immediately after signing in) – select the “User” menu (on left) then “Your Profile.” (Press here.) At this point, you need to add your first/last name, nickname & ESPECIALLY click on the arrow for the “Display name publicly as” box and select your choice of how your name should be displayed on posts, comments, etc.
• You may also need to complete your “Profile” for the site. Top (Black) menu – My Account – Profile – Edit Profile.
• Always hit the “Activity” button (black menu, “My Account” / “Activity”) to see the latest notes from the admins and your friends. (Very similar to how Facebook works.)
• Visit the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page to get some of your questions answered.
• If you asked for and received a blog, then you should read the short tutorial at the bottom of the FAQ page. If you want a blog, but did not yet request it, press here.
• Visit the Technical Support Site for “How-To’s” & Tutorials about building and maintaining your website here on BLCOG.
• Leave a comment (or Direct Message) to Ray Waldo if you need some other assistance.
• Follow the NEW USER series of articles list below or click here.

Please visit the Tech Support site regularly. I am creating tutorials for many of the most common issues that you may have with your new website. There will also be a “Ticket” system where you can track your request for help.

You are welcome to post a comment here if something is confusing. I will try to answer as quickly as I can.

Most churches today are probably already using some church management software – especially for their financial transactions. However, due to the cost of purchasing such software, some smaller churches may not.

Prior to my retirement, I pastored some small churches that did not have commercial software. So, I created some Excel spreadsheets to accomplish the more important functions. If you are in a similar situation, you may download my files and edit them to use with your church.

• Budget.xls – a simple checklist of routine payments, so nothing is forgotten.
• Bulletin.dot – a Word template to print a weekly church bulletin
• Minutes.dot – an agenda/minutes outline
• MonthReport.xlt – a pretty complex spreadsheet to present a FULL monthly report of finance and attendance.
• Outline.dot – my template for sermon or study outlines
• Voucher.dot – a form to define the purposes of all non-check expenditures and assure proper reimbursement
• WeeklyFinance.xlt – A working spreadsheet to tally the weekly revenues & create the deposit slip for the bank.
• WeeklyReport.xls – basically the same as WeeklyFinance.xlt except this one is just to print and allow a NON-computer literate treasurer to just enter the data on a PAPER copy for someone else to enter into the computer.

If you like and use these forms, please add a comment below. If you make considerable changes, consider offering the changes for others to use also.

Bishop Moore has WISELY stated that every church website should have a map to help visitors find the church building. This is VERY easy to accomplish with our system.

To create a map on YOUR website, just visit the ADMIN function (the dashboard for your dashboard). Under SETTINGS, click on “MapPress” and fill in the blanks.

GOOGLE MAPS API KEY: You are welcome to request your own key from Google. It is free and takes just a couple minutes here: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/signup.html

After you complete the setup and save your configuration,

1. Click on the PAGES/ADD NEW.
2. Name the page whatever you like (we used MAP).
3. Type any introductory information in the content entry box.
4. Enter the desired address in the “MapPress” box (just under the content entry box) and press “Add location”. (you can preview the map below the MapPress box).
5. Click on the “Insert map shortcode in post”
6. Type any additional info you wish below the shortcode (in square brackets)
7. Click PUBLISH.

Here is a sample of what it can look like:

[mappress]

Some churches already have a website, so what can this site do for them and their users?

The BLCOG community offers many benefits to churches, pastors & others – regardless of whether they create a website here or not:

Facebook-like “social networking”

• Each user controls the information shared on their profile
• Each user has a timeline (“wire”) of activities and updates
• Users link to others as “Friends“
• Users can send private messages to each other
• Users can create and/or join groups which facilitate interaction with select group of Christians
• Users can share links easily with other users
• The system sends notifications (online and/or in email) of selected activities

Users can create forums for discussion

• Enables groups of users to discuss issues of mutual concern
• Can be public or private
• Easy navigation & notifications of new posts

Websites for every COG congregation in Louisiana

• Single sign-in for all sites hosted on this community
• Easily visit & see what is happening at each church
• Post comments across the entire community

So,  back to the question about churches that already have websites. There are several alternatives. Which is most appropriate is a decision that you must make. Here are some suggestions:

1. If your site is hosted on a free site where you are limited in the content and appearance, then you would almost certainly benefit from our full-featured WordPress installs. We can help you migrate from whatever site you have now to the BLCOG community.
2. If you have your own Private Domain Name, you can point that to a site built here on BLCOG. For instructions, see our “How-to” here. In this case, all existing users will continue to use your Domain and will be redirected to your site here. New users from the BLCOG community will receive all the above benefits while visiting your site.
3. If your present site is well established with a strong user base and heavy traffic, then you have a couple of options:  a) You keep your present site and duplicate it on this community or b) You could have your site on this community redirect users to your present site. (This is not generally recommended since your users will no longer receive all the benefits listed above.)

So… Complete your registration – REGARDLESS of your intentions about building a website on this community. You have a LOT of benefits coming to you!!

Create an automatically updating EVENTS CALENDAR on your website!

One of the really cool features of some sites is that they have an events list in their sidebar. Such as the one at the blcog.com site.

How do you do it?  Is it hard to create or maintain? Good questions! Read on…

Actually, it is pretty easy. And, once set up, you or someone you trust, will only need to add an event on your online (Google) calendar. Then the system will AUTOMATICALLY update your website and display the appropriate events as they come due. Recurring events that you have created (birthdays, anniversaries, etc) will automatically appear at the appropriate time– without any intervention from anyone! And, you can add additional calendars from others to combine with your calendar.

If you have a self-hosted (single or multi-user) WordPress website, then let me tell you how to do it.

1. Create a Google Calendar
2. Share the Calendar with ics
3. Import the Calendar into your WP Blog

Each of these functions is a little complicated so I will create a SERIES of posts (this is the first) to explain how to accomplish each step. As I create each step, I will link the article to the points above.

linkscolor = “330099″; highlightscolor = “FF0000″; backgroundcolor = “FFFFFF”; channel = “none”;