Cutting-Edge Collaboration

How ReFrame Media approaches web ministry

ReFrame Media is the English-language ministry of Back to God Ministries International with the mission invite people to see God’s story in their lives.

Rev. Steven Koster, English Ministry Leader at ReFrame, joined Back To God Ministries in 2005. With a background in broadcasting and interactive media, he took the reigns of ReFrame with the goal of creating excellence in online ministry. Responsible for 10 media-based programs, his goals were to rebrand, update, and create compelling online communities to minister to different audiences:

Under The Radar: for those interested in new and undiscovered Christian music
Church Juice: for church media staff and pastors
Kids Corner: for elementary-aged children and their parents
Walk The Way: for tweens and teens
Groundwork: for college-aged and older adults
Think Christian: for those interested in the intersection of faith and culture
Family Fire: for engaged and married couples
Spotlight: for those who have English as a second language
This is Today: for those desiring daily devotionals
ReFrame Media: the main hub for the English-language outreach for Back To God Ministries that serves as the umbrella for these different programs and websites.

Enter Five Q & Collaborative Partnerships

Steven began partnering with Five Q in 2009. In my initial meeting with Steven, I knew I had met a partner that understood the web and had a heart for ministering online. We began by developing a strategy to rearchitect and redesign all of the ReFrame properties, with the goal of rolling out a new or redesigned website every 4 months.

ReFrame is a perfect fit for Five Q as we could provide web strategy and information architecture for their properties, and they were forward thinking for the needs of their various audiences and the technologies being used to access their program websites. After we redesigned three of the ten properties, we all recognized the impact of mobile technology on their audiences. Since the iPhone’s debut, smartphone usage on the web had skyrocketed. So in 2010, we added developing mobile-optimized versions of their websites to their strategic planning.

ReFrame also needed a design and implementation partner for our strategies. Prior to bringing Five Q to the team, Steven had been working with the Agathon Group’s programmers in integrating their back-end systems. Since Five Q and Agathon have also been partners over the years, ReFrame now has at its disposal a highly collaborative, well-oiled web strategy and development team of experts.

This collaborative spirit can be seen mostly during meetings, where it is not uncommon for new ideas to come about through visual problem-solving as the entire team reviewed the information designs, strategic documentation, analytics, or beta-testing of a website ready for launch. This has been a highly successful methodology for Steven, and one that he encourages for all involved.

Playing to Our Strengths

Five Q continues to work with ReFrame on a retainer basis for ongoing web and mobile strategy, information architecture development, web project management, search engine optimization, and quality assurance during pre-launch beta testing. As Steven continues to develop his internal team of media and content producers, he plays to the strengths of his partners. This allow him and the ReFrame staff to focus on their ministry and content creation without having to worry about web strategy, software, and hardware development that play into their web ministry and marketing.

This collaborative environment has become a catalyst for implementing best practices and cutting-edge ideas, with everyone recognizing that the best ideas bubble to the top and no ideas off-limits. ReFrame understands that as communities become engaged and are provided excellent tools for interactivity, this is where online ministry happens.