Welcome to helpmychurchgrow.com!
Hello, I'm Diana Cacy Hawkins, AKA The Digital Church Secretary.
I'm a wife, mother, a young grandmother, daughter, sister, cousin, or friend, etc. to many.
As a child, I attended a Christian Bible Church where I grew up, and would often visit my aunt, where I recall getting the strongest church influence.
I grew up, became distracted by the world of highschool, joined the USAF, and was away for three years. During this time, my connection to God's Word fell away and except for the church services I relied on to get me through basic training, I pretty much "forgot" my role.
A year or two after returning home, God called me to a small church, and called that church's pastor to me. There, my faith in God was renewed and reaffirmed, and I finally started to mature spiritually. The connection between God and I was so strong that I ended up helping churches after I moved on from that church, eventually working as paid staff for one for the period of three years. I work as a volunteer office helper/product builder/librarian for my own church.
Outside of church, I'm a writer of genre fiction and non-fiction. I left the church job to pursue that writing and to build my career as a copywriter.
Then, one day while speaking with my pastor, the Digital Church Secretary came to life. Pastor Jeff has experience with church planting and with generating church growth in various church situations, so our talks tend to gravitate towards this area a lot.
Pastor Jeff voiced the wish that he had had certain guides for church people and how he knew many other church pastors could benefit from the same guides. Pastor Jeff had said, "Sort of like a Digital Church Secretary."
I don't remember how this short conversation started for sure. I believe we must have been discussing how I had left a very extensive handbook I had created for my previous church job. I designed it for people filling in for the regular person who does the work, the board members so they could see what is actually done in the job, and for the person replacing me when I knew I would be leaving.
Now, Pastor Jeff and I are coming up with good ideas all the time. And we both don't have near the amount of time to bring them all to life. Normally not an issue. But this time, I left that conversation with one thought plaguing me. "I can do that."
Of course, we all say this in our daily lives, and don't do anything with it. But God wouldn't let me forget, and He prompted me to purchase digitalchurchsecretary.com that same day.
Now it was just figuring out HOW to bring this to the church market - many of whom still aren't used to buying digital products.
Over the next few weeks, I experimented with ideas for this adventure. Eventually I created the "Successful Church Secretary News" weekly newsletter. Then, I designed the first guide, The Church Newsletter Toolkit, which is now the first guide in the the Stewardship Growth Program.
After taking more training on internet marketing and what churches would benefit from the most, the concept of helpmychurchgrow.com came about.
(Note: There was a break of a few months in here while I dealt with a family situation.)
Pastor Jeff helped me pinpoint the 12 most beneficial areas a church needs for its staff and volunteers to build the Stewardship Growth Program from. With his guidance and other guest pastors who would like to offer something to helpmychurchgrow.com members, I feel God has sent me on a very fulfilling path.
It's a huge undertaking for me. This isn't the type of thing I feel safe outsourcing customer service on. This is the type of thing I feel that needs the personal attention from its creator.
At the time of writing this introduction, I've written 3 1/2 weeks worth of the guides and extras for the Stewardship Growth Program.. The program has just started as of last week. It's twelve weeks long. I will maintain the newsletter, forum, social sites, customer service, and personal contacts with the members.
A friend in a similar situation (a non-Christian area) worked 70 hours a week getting her members through her first program. I suspect that I will too. But it's also very exciting, and I look forward to seeing what God does with this gift he's given me.
The future appears to have been set before me. Christians and their churches have to fight extra hard to maintain faith and keep the church doors open these days. The needs here are endless.
The Digital Church Secretary and programs through helpmychurchgrow.com will be needed far into the future. I have ideas for their improvements in the future, and God shows me the path one step at a time.
The Stewardship Growth Program is the first major step. The next major step is the Evangelism Growth Program, due to release late May, 2009.
I hope you choose to join me on this journey. It's going to be a great one!
All for Him,
Diana Cacy Hawkins
digitalchurchsecretary (at) gmail (dot) com
helpmychurchgrow (at) gmail (dot) com
Places I can be found:
Twitter - http://twitter.com/churchsecretary
Facebook Profile - http://profile.to/dianacacyhawkins
Digital Church Secretary Facebook Group - http://groups.to/digitalchurchsecretary
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/dianacacyhawkins
Naymz - http://tinyurl.com/dbq5sy
Digital Church Secretary websites:
Weblog - http://www.digitalchurchsecretary.com
helpmychurchgrow.com - http://www.helpmychurchgrow.com
Stewardship Growth Program
Successful Church Secretary News - http://digitalchurchsecretary.dragynspice.com/successfulchurchsecretary.html
updated: February 11, 2009