A HUGE step in the right direction. You may have heard that more and more people are using the internet from their smart phones. Not one to be left behind, FaithStreet just went mobile-friendly. Now, when you visit FaithStreet.com from your phone, it will be prettier, easier to use, and an all-around better experience. 

Not like you needed another reason to create a great looking profile for your church, but now we take away the headache and hassle of optimizing your website for iPhone and Android visitors. If you have a FaithStreet profile, you have a mobile profile.

A big thanks to Chamara Paul, an incredibly talented HackStar here at TechStars who made this mobile experience possible.

#progress

If communities of faith are the original social networks (and I think that they are), why hasn’t the internet accelerated growth and maturation? This is a time unlike any other in history, but for the most part, churches continue to communicate like they always have.

Here at FaithStreet, we think there is a huge opportunity for churches to not only use the internet to broadcast a message but to engage in dialogue and conversation. Facebook and Twitter have provided early platforms. The Jesus Daily page on Facebook has massive numbers of fans and engagement. Twitter is reaching out to pastors. 

Unfortunately, the overwhelming church use of new media channels is treating them more like pulpits and less like living rooms. It’s not that the first is wrong but that the opportunity for community is so much larger if you bring people into your “living room”. 

This isn’t FaithStreet today. But tomorrow we’ll be a little closer. And a little more each day thereafter. We hope you’ll continue along with us.

To stay up to date on upcoming features and progress, sign up for FaithStreet.

We have huge news for everyone, and it’s already taken way too long to share. FaithStreet has been invited to the TechStars NYC 2013 class (here’s a mention in Forbes). This is one of the most exciting times in the history of our company. What is TechStars? Basically, some of the smartest minds in technology, business, and media are gathered together to help make our humble company a success. Of the 1700+ companies that applied from all over the world, FaithStreet was one of 12 selected for this three month, mentor-driven accelerator program.

But what does this really mean? Sean, Ryan, and I are going to be pushed to build a better service, create more value for you, and grow FaithStreet in ways that we could only have dreamed of before. It’s going to be awesome.

Most importantly, we could not have gotten here without all of you, and we’d like to say a big thank you to everyone.

This is only the beginning.

FaithStreet is currently going through the TechStars NYC program, the #1 startup accelerator in the World. 

We’re innovating in a huge, underserved space, and we are making big progress.

We’re looking for someone to help us keep up with an intense workload.  You’ll help us with hire for key technical positions, do market research, handle scheduling with mentors and investors and lots of other stuff. You’ll probably do some stuff you’re overqualified for and a lot of stuff you’re underqualified for…

We’re looking for a problem-solver: an organized, motivated person, maybe with a legal, banking or business background. This person might be looking to change careers and break into the startup world or headed to B-school in the fall.  We work out of the TechStars office at 36 Cooper Square (above the Village Voice in the East Village) with 10 other ridiculously awesome companies.

This is a 4 month position with the opportunity for full-time after TechStars. You’ll make 15 years worth of connections in 3 months, and see how an early stage startup is built.  And you’ll help us build it.

If you want to take a leap on FaithStreet, please send an email to jobs@faithstreet.com and tell us why you want to work with us.

Dear FaithStreet Community,

We’re thrilled to announce a big milestone in the history of our young company: We’re Hiring!

FaithStreet is hiring one web developer and one web designer. If you are interested in either position, or if you’d like to refer someone who may be interested, please reply to this email or complete the form here. We’d also encourage you to post our jobs on social media or in your church’s newsletter.

In the last 6 months, FaithStreet has grown from a few hundred churches in New York City to over 11,000 churches in all 50 states and more than 3,000 cities. We’ve connected tens of thousands to a new Christian community, and we’re just getting started. We’re looking for two exceptional people to join our team. Both positions are full-time with great pay. Both positions are NYC-based. (We’re happy to help the right people relocate.)

For more details on each position, visit our jobs page.

We hope to hear from many of you. Please reply directly to this email with any questions

Grace & peace,
The FaithStreet Team

P.S. We’re also currently raising a round of outside investment. If you’re an investor, and you share our mission of bringing great technology to Christian communities, let us know.

This is an edition of Word on the ‘Street, the official FaithStreet newsletter. If you’d like to receive weekly updates, sign up on FaithStreet.com.

For those of us on Twitter, sharing links to churches on FaithStreet just got a little bit better. As you can see from the picture above, we were just approved for Twitter Cards. Every time you share a church (or event) on Twitter, your followers will see content directly from your page beyond the 140 character limit. Think of this as a tweet enhancement.

Try tweeting a link to your profile and see for yourself!

Churches can now share events on their profile. When a church seeker visits a church profile, this is a great way to give them other opportunities besides the Sunday morning service to discover your church. This is a great way to keep church members updated as well!

Events are a big part of the church community, and we’re happy that we can help you communicate them better.

You may have seen it already, but you can now search for churches by service time on FaithStreet. For both early-risers and those who enjoy a 1pm brunch, this makes it easier than ever to find a church.

Reporting To

Company Overview: FaithStreet (www.faithstreet.com) is building a service that makes it easy for anyone to connect with a great church or Christian community. For churches, FaithStreet provides a great-looking, easy-to-use web presence designed especially for newcomers. For church seekers, FaithStreet is creating a personalized connection experience that will take the confusion and uncertainty out of finding a great church.

We’re growing rapidly. In the last 2 months, over 7,000 churches have created profiles on FaithStreet, and we have already connected thousands of people to great Christian communities.We need people who are excited about our mission and want a challenging learning experience.

Internship Overview:
This is a great opportunity to learn full-scale public relations for an early-stage tech startup.  This internship will build skills relevant for pursuing a career in public relations and marketing on the agency side, or the company side.  You will be working directly with the Chief Marketing Office and the CEO, and you will gain extremely valuable hands-on experience researching, designing, and executing a PR program at a young, exciting tech startup.  We do not currently have a PR plan, so you will design and help execute that plan.  Everything that you do will directly contribute to the growth and success of FaithStreet.  There is no “busy” work. We’ll evaluate your performance based on the relationships you build and the stories you successfully pitch for FaithStreet.

Recent Press:
We’ve received some solid coverage, and we’re seeking to build on early momentum. You’ll help us design a strategy to reach different kinds of media (social media, web, print, TV, et al) in new markets.PandoDaily: FaithStreet Lives At the Corner of Tech and Christianity
Huffington Post: FaithStreet Connects Communities
the Blaze: FaithStreet Connects People to Churches
Christian Union Magazine: Taking A Leap on FaithStreet
We Are NY Tech: Sean Coughlin, CEO of FaithStreet
Episcopal Church Press Release: Episcopal Church Partners With FaithStreet
MTV Press: What Religion 2.0 Might Look Like…

Requirements:

• 15 hours per week minimum, with the potential for more.  Very flexible hours.
• Starting date of Jan 7, 2013 with minimum commitment of 4 months, max 6 months
• Work Remotely, but communicate via Skype and email.
• If you live in the NYC area we welcome you to come work from our office when possible

Responsibilities:

• Work with the Chief Marketing officer to design a PR strategy
• Research Christian and “mainstream” media properties and journalists at the national, regional and local levels
• Write “pitches” to journalists, bloggers and publishers
• Draft of actual stories or press releases that will be sent to journalists
• Research journalists’,bloggers’, and other influencers’ use of social media, and then use our social media properties to make connections and introductions
• Support all functions of public relations and media relations needs

Qualifications:

• Excellent organizational skills
• Excellent Internet Research Skills
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal
• Ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously
• Familiarity with spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel or Google Docs
• Persistence and a Positive Attitude

Apply:

• If you are interested please send an email to FaithStreet CEO Sean Coughlin at sean@faithstreet.com
• Please include your resume and a brief statement about “Why I Want to Work at FaithStreet”

Reporting To:  Chief Marketing Officer & CEOCompany Overview: FaithStreet (www.faithstreet.com) is building a service that makes it easy for anyone to connect with a great church or Christian community. For churches, FaithStreet provides a great-looking, easy-to-use web presence designed especially for newcomers. For church seekers, FaithStreet is creating a personalized connection experience that will take the confusion and uncertainty out of finding a great church.

We’re growing rapidly. In the last 2 months, over 7,000 churches have created profiles on FaithStreet, and we have already connected thousands of people to great Christian communities.We need people who are excited about our mission and want a challenging learning experience.

Internship Overview:

One of our biggest challenges is that information about churches has never been organized in a systematic way.  We are working hard to organize this information, and we think it is a very big and exciting problem to solve.  The problem is much bigger than simply identifying and categorizing all of the churches in the United States.  We want to understand how these churches communicate with the world through social media properties, their websites, etc.  We also want to understand and map how churches relate to one another through both formal networks (denomination, church networks, local associations, etc) and informal friendships and relationships.You will be doing research that has never been done, and you will be creating valuable data sets that are going to help grow our company and bring millions of people into church communities who might not have otherwise done so.  It’s exciting work with the potential to have an incredible impact.

Requirements

• You should have a passion for helping churches use the internet to more effectively reach people, and for helping people find the right church home.
• You must be a web junkie.  You have to enjoy spending hours online doing research and get a thrill out of finding and organizing this information.
• You must be detail oriented and very well organized.  
• You must be great at using Google and other online research tools to find information.
• You must be familiar with Google Docs Spreadsheets program (similar to Excel)
• Starting date of Jan 7, 2013 with minimum commitment of 4 months, max 6 months
• 15 hours per week minimum, with the potential for more.  Very flexible hours.
• You will work remotely, but if you’re in the NYC area we hope you’ll come work with us in our office occaisionally.

Responsibilities

• Work with the Chief Marketing officer to design research projects, and understand how these projects fit into the broader goals of the company, including the business goals
• Communicate daily via Skype or email with Chief Marketing Officer on progress
• You may have the opportunity to do business development on behalf of FaithStreet based on the research you complete. This will depend on your skills and interest.

Apply: 

• To apply, please send an email to FaithStreet CEO Sean Coughlin at sean@faithstreet.com
• Please include your resume, and a brief statement about “Why I Want to Work at FaithStreet”