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:

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!

Use your Google Calendar on your WordPress Blog

In this article, we will show you how to import your Google Calendar into your WordPress Blog. In  the previous article, you copied data from the settings page of your Google Calendar into a document file. You will now use that data to create the Calendar Page and/or Widget for your blog.

The process involves using a PlugIn to WordPress. The “AmR iCal Events List” plugin does the magic. So, here are the steps to use it:

1. The first thing is to install & activate the AmR iCal plugin
2. Visit the Settings page for the plugin & add any needed info. The only item that normally needs to be changed is the “date localization” – I recommend the “none” option. Press “Update” to save any changes.
3. Visit the Appearance / Widgets page & drag the AmR iCal Widget to the desired sidebar of your theme.
4. Add a Title for the Widget and then SAVE.
5. Visit the home page of your site and assure that the sample events are displayed properly.
6. Revisit the Widget’s Settings & erase the link in the URL field then PASTE the “ICS Address” into the field (The address is found in the document that you saved at the previous article – or from the  Google Calendar Settings.) Be sure to SAVE the widget settings.
7. Return to the home page for your site and assure that YOUR calendar’s events are displayed.
8. You may also add a second calendar by placing it’s ICS address (url) in the field after your own calendar’s url. (Suggestion: include the calendar of your host community.)

That will complete the widget’s function! Enjoy. You can edit the manner that the events are displayed by making slight changes to the configuration. Visit the plugin homepage for instructions.

You may wish to include a PAGE on your site to provide a bigger and more complete display of your events.

1. Visit your site’s dashboard & click on Pages / Add New
2. In the Title field, enter your name for the page. E.g, “Events”
3. In the window, type the open square bracket character and the letters “iCal” followed by a space and the “ICS address” used in the widget above. Add another space and the text, “days=100 events=10" and the close square bracket.
4. The final text entered in the window will look something like:

[ iCal http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/btlcog@gmail.com/public/basic.ics days=100 events=10 ]

(Delete the space after the open bracket and before the close bracket. This is the data for the BLCOG calendar.)

1. Continue from step 4 above, you must revisit the settings for the AmR Widget (Appearance / Widgets) and enter the name of your page (from step 2 above) into the “Calendar Page URL” field. NOTE: only enter the name of the page (e.g., “Events”) and not the entire URL.
2. Save the widget and close
3. Visit your home page and your new “Events” page should be available. Click on it to assure that it works.

As with the Widget, you can edit the manner that the events are displayed by making slight changes to the configuration. Visit the plugin homepage for instructions.

Finally, we can create another page on your blog that displays the calendar much the same as the online Google Calendar page. Here are the steps to do that.

(NOTICE: With the newest version of WordPress, this function does not seem to work. Whenever you press “Save Draft” or “Publish” button, the code disappears and the page will not be displayed. I will return to this article when I find a resolution to the problem. In the mean time, if it works for you, enjoy. If not, just delete the page.)

1. Sign in to the dashboard of your blog & click on PAGE / Create New
2. Enter the Title for the page… e.g.,  Calendar
3. In the editor, click on the HTML tab
4. Copy the “Imbed Code” from the saved document & paste it into the window
5. Click on the VISUAL tab & you should see your Google Calendar in the window
6. Click “Publish” and you are finished.

You should see the page listed when you visit the home page of your site. Click on the Calendar page and it should display.

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If your church or organization has a Google Calendar then you need to take it to the next level

The next step is to share your calendar with the people who need to know about the events. Here are the steps to sharing your calendar:

1. Sign in to your calendar.
2. Click on the “Settings” link in the upper right of the page
3. Click on the “Calendars” tab
4. Under the “Sharing” heading, click on the “Share This Calendar“
5. Click on “Make This Calendar Public” and press SAVE  (I told you to get a Gmail account specifically for your organization)
6. Answer YES to the query about “Are you sure?”
7. Under the “Calendar” tab again, click on the email address for your calendar
8. Open a blank text document to paste info into.
9. Copy the address in the “Calendar Name” field and paste it into the document and save the document.
10. Under the “Calendar Details” enter your calendar’s information into the fields if you wish to change anything.
11. In the “Embed This Calender” block, copy the code from the field at the right side and paste it into the document and save again. This code can be included in the HTML code of a web page to display the current calendar.
12. In the “Calendar Address” block, Click on the “ICAL” button and copy the address that is displayed then paste it into your document and save once again.
13. Press the “SAVE” button at the bottom of the page to save any changes made to the page.
14. You may now sign out of your calendar.

Secure the text document that you created. You will use that information to share you calendar.

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The GOOGLE CALENDAR reminds us of upcoming events

Google’s online calendar application is free, full-featured and it allows a lot of flexibility in scheduling. You can schedule a 5-minute event if you want. You can schedule recurring events (annual, monthly, weekly and even odd recurrences. You can create an event that occurs monthly, on the same day of the month or, on the same day of the week each month!

Google also allows you to invite others to an event and notes when they RSVP (or don’t). It will send alerts to your email or send a text to your cellphone.

The calendar is also in a format that allows it to be shared with others (you can select whether an event is to be private or shared). You can combine your calendar with other calendars (such as national holidays or another worker or organization). You can even allow others to create or edit events on your calendar if you want. It also syncs with most newer smartphones. This allows you to add or change events even when you are away from your computer.

That is a great combination for a church or business that has a problem with maintaining a central calendar and avoiding scheduling conflicts. It is especially valuable to organizations who want to publish their upcoming events on their web site.

So, how do I create a Google Calendar? If you do not already have a Google account SPECIFICALLY FOR YOUR CHURCH OR ORGANIZATION, then visit Google and get started… HERE. Note, you can sign up for a Google account using your existing (non-gmail) email address but I STRONGLY urge you to sign up for a GMAIL account in the name of your organization. It will provide many additional services.

After you have created an account, sign in at google.com/calendar and the site will walk you through the basics. Be sure to visit the SETTINGS link (upper right corner of the page) and review all of the options available to you.

Then go to the next article in this series…

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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.

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Question: Can I have a Private Domain Name for my site on this community? Answer: YES!

One of the first things that you may wish to do is to purchase a domain name for your website. You can do that with a domain registry of your choosing. Some registrars charge as little as $4 or $5 per year. Others may charge as much as $35. The difference generally is the level of service that you get with the purchase.

One of the most popular registrar sites is GoDaddy.com but I can not recommend them. Even though they may be cheaper than some others, I have found them difficult to work with. Plus, I find their TV ads objectionable.

How To:

1. Visit http://instantdomainsearch.com/ to find a domain name that you want – and that is available. You may purchase it online from one of the sites that they recommend or from any other registrar.  For the simplest solution, you may authorize us to purchase the domain for you. See the note at the bottom of this page.
2. Once you have purchased a domain name, you will want to point your private domain name to your website here on this community. The different registrars will have different interfaces so I cannot tell you the exact procedures for your registrar. However, you will need to add a DNS “CNAME” record pointing to your domain name on this system.
3. The Google organization has published instructions for creating CNAME records on various hosting platforms such as GoDaddy and others. Visit those instructions here.
4. If you feel that cannot accomplish the task, you may be able to request help from the technical support for your registrar. They will have all the information that you need except the address to which you want to redirect your domain.
5. To find the address you want to point your private domain name to, visit your site and just copy the address in your browser’s address bar. It will look like:  http://blcog.com/tech (replace the “tech” part with the short name for your site).
6. When you have finished creating the CNAME record, you should visit your site”s dashboard, click on TOOLS and then “Domain Mapping.” In the “Add New Domain” field, enter your private domain name (in the form,  mydomain.com ), click on the “Primary Domain” button and then click “Add.”

It may take from a few minutes to three days for everything to start working correctly (depending upon your registrar’s policies). But within three days, your users should be able to enter your private domain name into their browser’s address bar and it will automatically take them to your site on BLCOG.COM!

Note: The simplest process for accomplishing all of this is to send an email to webmaster@blcog.com with the following information:

• Private Domain Name (from step 1)
• Your website address on this community (from step 5)
• Your Full Name
• Your Address
• Your City, ST ZIP
• Your Telephone No
• Your Email address

Then contact PAYPAL (http://paypal.com) and send $10 for each year you wish to register the domain (up to $50 for 5 years) to the email address: webmaster@blcog.com. We will purchase the domain for you and complete the necessary steps to make it work.
Note – we do NOT receive any financial benefit from this. The registrar that we use charges $10/year.  What we are doing is a free service to you.

Hello Colleagues:

I am certain that you know that we are living in an era of change! The strains on our economy over the past year have exceeded anything in the history of mankind. Changes in the weather, changes in politics and national & international policy all seem to be beyond comprehension – and out of control. The “Tea Party” movement is apparently an attempt by people to regain some control over their lives. But we all face severe limits on what we can do.

I believe that our Lord could return for His church at any time. However, Jesus left us a command to “occupy till I come” (Lu. 19:13 KJV). So, how do we do that? How can the church keep up with all of these changes when we have such severe limits imposed on us? Of course, God is not limited. But the command was for US to continue doing business until Jesus returns. Even though there are boundaries and limitations all around, we have to find ways to get PAST those limitations!

It is significant that our society is undergoing unimaginable change. The term “generation gap” now defines age groups separated by no more than 10 years! How can any church keep up with that? Today’s college students (& many who are older) cannot imagine life without the Internet. But some of our smaller churches don’t even have a church telephone.

Lack of finances and lack of technical skills have kept many of our churches and pastors from using technology in their ministry. These churches have been relegated to a kind of “3rd world” position of not being able to connect with the younger generation because of their limitations. And it is a simple fact that any church that does not attract younger members is dying!

Let’s Go BEYOND THE LIMITS!

I have partnered with Bishop Moore to help every Church of God congregation in Louisiana to create a FREE web site. Not just a simple cookie-cutter directory listing on some site that adds a bunch of advertisement – but a fully functional & professional looking website that can be as interactive as you want! Did I mention that it is FREE? The cost of hosting the sites is being underwritten by the state and I am donating my services to get the project working.

If you need technical help, I will help you develop your website. If you feel totally incapable of the task, I will even build the site for you (for free). If you have someone in your church that you want to work on your site and develop it further, I will provide technical support to them.

If your church already has a website, we will link to it from our central system. Our desire is not to change what you are already doing but to BREAK DOWN THE LIMITATIONS that some churches are facing. There are additional benefits to having a site actually hosted within our community. So there may be a few churches who will move their existing site into our system. If so, I will assist you with that also. Or, you can have multiple sites: your existing site and a site on our community.

The focus of this community is:

• Assure that every COG congregation in Louisiana has a QUALITY web site
• Make the process of building a site EASY (“so easy even a caveman could do it”)
  
• Provide FREE hosting & support & a central “directory” of all LA COG sites
  
• Offer ways that churches can work together to encourage and support each other

Check it out and let me know what you think. The main site is located at http://blcog.com and is open right now. Please visit the site and REGISTER. During the process of registration, the system will offer to build a website for you, try that out. It will be a start. Almost everything can be modified at a later time to better meet your wishes. Or, it can be deleted and you can start over fresh.

We have been LIMITED too long. Let us go “Beyond All The Limits” and truly “occupy” till Jesus comes! God has given me a ministry of helping others use technology in their ministry, let me help you. If you want, give me a call and we can discuss this in more detail.

Today,  on the Bishop’s Facebook Page,  we had a question about playing the game applications available on Facebook:

Windows Vista Home Premium
AMD Phenom 9850 Quad Core Processor 2.50 GHz
8.00 GB RAM

Hope that’s enough info

I know the Bishop probably dislikes the Facebook games; however, I enjoy them. My question is this: When I play the games (farmville, cafe world) my processor will become louder and you can hear it running. This really frustrates my husband and he thinks it is a problem with my computer.

I need to know is this normal? Or should I call for service.

Thank you!

Yes, I do [believe that is the problem] and since it only happens when the games have a lot of activity, I figured that was why.

It has happened sometimes when the anti-virus is running an in-depth scan.  Phil is worried it is going to blow up.  I have protection with the geek squad where they come to your house, so I am going to call them just to make sure.

I really don’t play any other online games and don’t want to because of viruses, so I am not going to try that.

Thanks for your help.