A press release this morning caught my eye. Apparently, using videoconferencing can hinder people’s judgments. That’s according to a 12-week study of people at 19 seminars that were used videoconferencing. It’s being published in the journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, or Informs.
Apparently, it’s harder to interpret information that’s presented over a distance rather than presented face to face.
And here’s the kicker for me, which reminds me of TV. People watching a presentation by videoconference are more swayed by the likeability of the person speaking, rather than by the person’s arguments. The opposite is true for the folks in the room.
What do you think? Maybe there is a difference between delivering preaching/teaching to a video venue vs. live and in person? Or is this just saying that likeable people are more effective on video than others?
Each of them will share about how their internet campus got started and the kind of ministry impact that's happened so far. Plus, we'll have Q&A time for you to ask your questions during this one-hour webinar -- hosted by Leadership Network.
The annual Internet Ministry Conference is well underway. Calvin College
is hosting this year's event and our sessions are designed to give us a
chance to absorb all there is to learn about ministry online. The
speakers are hand-picked experts in the field of internet ministry and
literally I wish I could hear them all.
TodayDr. Quentin Schultze
(who I recommend here often) will present the morning devotional.
Following devotions we'll head into 3 days of internet-related ministry
tools, skills and best practices.
I'll speak on Thursday about Your Spiritual Gift Mix Online (how to
successfully be yourself online!) so make sure and let me know if
you'll be here and we can connect. If you're anywhere near Grand
Rapids swing by.
If you use Twitter, don't use #IMC08 (that's a marketing conference), instead use #IMC2008 to follow status updates.
This edition of Tech Tuesday takes things in a different online direction, a little more philosophical. Here are 2 different sets of questions about internet campuses, which can be answered by both non-techies and techies ::
Does an internet campus "count" as church? Why or why not?
Suncrest is working through the philosophy of whether online church is a valid expression of ... church. Some issues we find challenging are listed below. I'd love to hear from you whether for, or against, online church service.
essentials of church – what are the necessary elements?
leadership / governing body
development of spiritual gifts
liability / safety boundaries
is face-face interaction a goal?
And, here's a macro-level question about the right analogy for online churches::
In a TED talk by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, he asks the question about what is the right analogy for the Internet. He suggests that the gold rush is not a good one, and suggests the electric industry as a better analogy.
My question is, what is the right analogy, or metaphor, for having a church on the internet? Is it a campus or is it something much else.
It seems to me that technology is never a goal. Technology is supposed to be a bridge and a tool, and not a end destination. The internet campus is really just placing new digital walls on our physical buildings, but I think that technology should be letting God break through walls, and penetrating the internet. I want to let God get out of these physical limitations and not just place different ones on Him. I think what God is doing with internet campuses and with our own live streaming is amazing, I just think there is something more, if we can just find the right question to ask, and find the right lessons from history.
What do you think? What counts as an internet campus for a church? Is there a better analogy for an internet campus, than just another location to gather people for worship?
UPCOMING WEBINAR:
Curious about how 2 churches launched their Internet campuses? Wondering what it would take? Join us for a free webinar about Internet campuses on Wednesday, November 12th, at 10:00 a.m. Central. You'll hear from two pioneering Internet campus pastors, Brandon Donaldson (LifeChurch.tv) and Brian Vasil (Flamingo Road Church). Register online to save your spot >>
Seacoast's mobile version of its website especially got my attention because during one of my trips, I wanted to visit a certain (unnamed) church. But its home page was 99% Adobe Flash driven. I only had my iPhone. When I clicked on the one "about" link in the footer, it said the website was getting a complete overhaul. No service times. No directions. So I didn't get to attend that (unnamed) church. If I mentioned the name, you'd recognize it. Ahem.
Know of any other churches with a mobile-friendly or iPhone-friendly website?
"This is one of those happy situations where everybody seems to be doing R&D on something different. Apple
is the user-interface king. RIM knows about keyboards and corporate
manageability. Nokia is trying to turn itself into "a services
company," so it's creating a new model for mobile content. HTC has always been a great commoditizer, bringing high-end
concepts to a range of carriers, form factors, and price brackets. And
Google likes it when things cost as close to zero dollars as possible.
Now everybody is going to build on everybody else's advances. The
result: In 2009, smartphones are going to be cheaper. They're going to
be easier to use. We're going to have tactile touch screens, great
media capabilities, and lots and lots of cool third-party software.
RIM, Nokia, and HTC must be writing love notes to Steve Jobs for
helping them out like this. By making exclusive deals with carriers,
Apple left lots of room in the market for competitors to flourish."
Greg Atkinson has been avidly meeting with churches and leaders all over the country this year through Church 2.0 Local Forums for a collaborative conversation about creativity and innovation. In the coming weeks, he's coordinating Church 2.0 Forums in Boston, Tulsa, and Portland.
... Several mega-churches in the Tampa Bay area offer online videos of their services. The Crossing Church, on Causeway Boulevard, has provided live video streaming for three years. But Hood, the church's director of media and technology, and the Crossing's pastors are taking a leap with a newly appointed Internet pastor — one of only about a dozen nationwide — and a slew of interactive features online.
... Ingram will be the third Internet pastor in Florida, said David Helbig, the Internet pastor at Christ Fellowship in Palm Beach Gardens. Christ Fellowship's online following has grown from 800 to 7,000 viewers each week since their online campus was launched about six months ago, Helbig said.
... LifeChurch.tv, an evangelical mega-church in Oklahoma, is leading the pack. It launched its Internet campus in April 2006, and it even has a virtual church on Second Life, the 3D online virtual world.
On Sundays, LifeChurch.tv streams its service in its virtual Second Life church auditorium, where players can seat their characters, called avatars, and watch the sermon. It looks like a real church, complete with virtual donuts in the entryway.
Learn more about how to launch an Internet campus and join this free webinar about Internet campuses on Wednesday, November 12th, at 10:00 a.m. Central. You'll hear from two pioneering Internet campus pastors, Brandon Donaldson (LifeChurch.tv) and Brian Vasil (Flamingo Road Church).
In thinking about this week's Church IT Roundtable,
I started to list all the various resources many of us church IT folks are
using to stay informed and connected ... and wow the list kept going
and going! This is both great and challenging :-)
It's great in
that our grassroots movement is growing rapidly and jumping on any
technology that could benefit the greater good. The challenge is that
these resources are scattered ALL over the place making them often hard
to find and easy to forget about. So I'm making this list mainly for
myself at this point, but assume it will be helpful for some of you as
well.
AND I've recommitted myself to help lead the charge in
creating an easy to use one-stop-shop portal for all our resources. So
far google apps and ning.com would be great possible tools to make this
happen. Let me know if you're interested in helping.
So here's the list I've compiled so far in the order they popped into my head ... what have I forgotten?
CITRT.org - We're planning to continue to make this THE FUNNEL for all things Church IT related (see CITRT Summary and Vision).
A place to capture everything from events to resources to prayer
requests to stuff to buy/sell. As mentioned above, an extreme site
makeover is coming in the near future. [site hosted/maintained by Jeffrey Thompson]
Church IT Podcast - www.churchITpodcast.com
Twice a month CITRT folks "meet" online and via phone to discuss all
manner of IT topics. The call is recorded and then made available as a
podcast. We even have transcriptions of each call to aid in searching
for something in particular. [maintained by Jason Powell]
Twitter
- There are a number of Church IT peeps on Twitter. I've not yet found
a good way to "group" us together, but you can search for CITRT to find some. During the roundtable this week I'm sure #CITRT will be hoppin'
Facebook
- We have over 200 people in our CITRT group on facebook. It's a place
to find other facebook CITRT peeps and get occasional CITRT news
updates. [maintained by Jason Powell]
Linkedin
- We have almost 200 people in our Linkedin CITRT group. Recommend you
join it to find other CITRT peeps. Linkedin now has discussion threads
which could be useful to gather feedback. [Created by Ian Beyer]
Blog Aggregator - We have aggregated a number of church IT related blogs. Here's how to add yours to the list. [maintained by Jeffrey Thompson?]
Blog Search Engine - Andrew Mitry made a handy google search
that searches through the blogs listed in the above blog aggregator.
It's found at the top of the CITRT.org main page or hit Andrew's link
above to use the code on your own site.
Blogroll - Clif Guy maintains a large blogroll of church technology related blogs
Roundtable Guidelines
- Thinking about starting your own local roundtable meetings? You
should! Here's the basic guidelines we work from for each roundtable.
Discussion Topics - Here's a large list of all the different topics that have been discussed at our prior events.
IT Discuss Forum - Ministry IT focused forum that's been around several years. [site hosted/maintained by Jeffrey Thompson]
IT Discuss Email List - Ministry IT focused email list that's been around several years with fully searchable archives. [site hosted/maintained by Jeffrey Thompson]
Church IT Survey
- Ever wonder what churches similar to you are doing IT wise? How many
computers do they support? What's their IT staff size? Do they support
multi-site, etc? Or what about those churches several steps ahead of
you - what's their IT makeup look like? How should you plan now to be
at that size in the future? What about trying to find churches around
you with experience in VoIP, Virtualization, etc? Wouldn't it be sweet
to have a resource that helped shed some light on these questions?
That's what this is for. (note to self to get more current data into
the survey and find a better way to manage end user updates) [created/maintained by Jason Powell]
Church IT Survey Google Map - Derek Berg
made a nice mashup between the above survey data and google maps. See
where other churches that have survey data are in relationship to you.
(Derek's working on a newer mashup version)
ChMS Google Group - Discussion of needs and ideas for Church Management Systems. [maintained by Tony Dye]
Flickr Group - We even have a group on Flickr where you can browse Church IT related photos and pics from our actual Roundtable events. [created/maintained by Justin Moore]
IRC / Chat Room - If you hadn't heard ... we have a 24/7 Church IT chat room
you're invited to join. You'll find IT geeks hangin' out in there
all hours of the day and into the midnight hours. It's a place to ask
questions, blow off some steam, and get to know other IT peers [created by Jeffrey Thompson]
Instant IRC / Chat Room - This link takes you directly into the Church IT chat room ... nothing but a web browser required.
Webcam Aggregator - Every so often some of us will fire up our webcams for your voyeuristic pleasure :-) [created/maintained by Justin Moore]
MinistryIT Yahoo Group - Another Church IT discussion group that's relatively new. [created/maintained by Nick Nicholaou]
Texas Ministry Tech
- From the site: Texas Ministry Tech is dedicated to creating and
growing relationships and cooperation between ministry-minded IT folks
in Texas. [created by Scott Miller]
Ministry Tech
- From the site: MinistryTECH is a new national conference dedicated to
church information technology professionals. Come join some of the
leading church tech professionals to learn how they are using
technology in their ministries.
I'm sure there's more ... as you think of other church IT related resources please leave a comment and I'll add it to the list.
As reported by Social Times, Friendster is now adopting Facebook's platform and Facebook Connect for 3rd party applications in addition to Google's OpenSocial.
I think this is big news in the social network platform wars. Previously, Bebo was the only other major social network to support Facebook's platform. Developers who create apps on Facebook could also launch them on Bebo, and now on Friendster. Facebook Connect support also means you'll be able to login to Friendster with your Facebook account in the very near future.
Friendster used to be the most popular social network in the US... pre-Myspace days in 2003-2004. It's still very popular in Asia, and I think this news could be a sign that they weren't satisfied with the app development ecosystem they've fostered with OpenSocial. Another win for Facebook, their platform, and Facebook Connect.
As someone who's created apps on both Facebook and OpenSocial (ex Facebook Church and Myspace Church), I personally prefer the Facebook platform for a variety of reasons. And I personally don't know anyone who's excited about Google Friend Connect or Myspace Data Availability. But know plenty of developers working on Facebook Connect.
(ps if folks are interested, I'll post more about Facebook Connect after it launches - what I'm doing with it through MyChurch, how other sites are implementing it, and what churches can do with it on their own sites)
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