(Confessions of a mom's group Bible Study teacher)
So it's Wednesday night. The night before I am to deliver a lecture in my series, The Names of Jesus... it's late, my brain hurts and I've been praying my heart out for inspiration. I'm talking on "Son of David" and have searched all the New Testament references for this phrase "Son of David." I do all my homiletics and word study tricks and still I got nothing. I've got general ideas of where to go with this, but I need a little inspiration.
Then I remember a cool website called Wordle where you can paste any amount of text and it generates a "wordcloud." ("Oh, visuals. I like visuals.") I'm not super technical, but a wordcloud is just a picture made of words where the size of each of the words is determined by how many times it shows up in your chunk of text. So, big words = show up most often. I can get that. My tired brain nods appreciatively at the generated results of my study.
Once it is created you can monkey with the styles and colors
Save the little sucker (as a jpeg or png). I used Jing to screen capture mine. I'm sure there are other, more capable sorts who can suggest other tools to do this.
Fast forward to Thursday morning...
During my talk to the Moms with A Purpose I got to share this wordcloud with my ladies and it was so awesome. We're a small group (about 50 in the room) so I was able to ask "what jumps out at you?" and get audience involvement. It was great to hear the answers.
From a heart perspective, after analyzing the words, I was so convicted about the desperation in the people's voices. I was struck by how unloving and stern the onlookers were. And I was grateful again for Jesus graciously bringing his Kingdom into the broken lives of those willing to cry out in desperation for his help. Lots of applications that I could apply to my own self-sufficient soul.
So there you have it. Confessions of a Bible teacher who likes to have fun with wordclouds. What do you think?
Try this in one of your talks / sermons / lectures... leave a comment and let us all know how it goes!
I had the opportunity this afternoon to jump on an audio conference and screen sharing session hosted by Terry Storch, Digerati Pastor at LifeChurch.tv. Many of you are at least familiar with Terry's name or at least his boss, Bobby Gruenewald. These guys were the brain child behind YouVersion which launched about 18 months ago.
The purpose of today's impromptu, if-you-responded-in-time-on-twitter session, was to give about 40 or so interested folks a sneak peek at YouVersion 2.0, the first major overall of YouVersion since it's launch. While we aren't allowed to show you any of the preliminary screen shots used in today's presentation, we were encouraged to get the word out and let you know what is coming. So here are the highlights I found interesting.
YouVersion API - This will enable many other third party services to access YouVersion and present its content in various forms and ways. If you are familiar with Twitter and the many applications that exist for it, you have some idea of how cool this is and how it opens the door of possibilities to God's Word in ways never achieved before!
Regarding the YouVersion.com website itself:
Home Page - Much cleaner, easier to read and navigate around. You will also be able to customize it so you have the sections you want visible.
Parallel Versions - This handy feature will allow you to put two different versions of the same passage next to each other, side-by-side, in the same window. As you scroll through the chapter, both windows scroll in unison!
My Journal - A very nice improvement here which will be more blog-like and have both expanded and list views. I believe the cleaner design makes this much more likely to be used.
Favorites & Tags - This will allow you to find the content you like much more easily and quickly.
Followers / Following - One of my favorite updates is in the way they are making this more "Twitter-like". You will be able to easily see in list form who you follow or who is following you and have the ability to follow or un-follow right from that dashboard view. Very slick.
Community - This area was overhauled and I believe will help it to really explode in use going forward. If you are familiar with Facebook, then you will appreciate the new community "feed". Much like your Facebook "New Feed", you'll see a summary of what your friends have shared or contributed recently on YouVersion. There is also a tag cloud for all of YouVersion so you can see easily how others are engaging with the scripture and what the most popular tags are.
Mobility Enhancements - along with these web site upgrades, the iPhone, Blackberry and mobile web versions are also going to see improvements. There is very strong mobile use of YouVersion and rumor is the Digerati Team maybe partnering with outside developers to help get mobile versions for other platforms in the future!
All this is going to be going into private beta testing in the coming weeks with a target of April 1 for being in the hands of the general public. Stay tuned, we may see certain components released before others, such as the API.
Now it's your turn. Have you heard of YouVersion before? If so, do you use it? Why or why not? How do you see an updated YouVersion helping you engage with God's Word more?
After going to 9 cities throughout the US in 2008, the Church 2.0 Local Forum tour continues in 2009 with new cities beginning this Tuesday in Phoenix. Church 2.0 Local Forums are led by Greg Atkinson and various guests (depending on the city/host church) and are gatherings for Church leaders of all kinds to get together, meet/network and discuss issues such as innovation, technology and social justice. Here is the schedule so far:
Phoenix - Host Church: Christ's Church of the Valley (Feb. 17)
Nashville - Host Church: The People's Church (Mar. 20)
Washington DC - Host Church: National Community Church (Mar. 27)
Oklahoma City - Host Church: LifeChurch.tv (April)
Denver - Host Church: LifeBridge Christian Church (May)
Miami - Host Church: Flamingo Road (May)
Dallas/Fort Worth - Host Church: Bent Tree (Summer)
Baton Rouge - Host Church: Healing Place Church (Summer)
New York - Host Church: Journey Church (Summer or Fall)
San Diego - Host Church: North Coast Church (Nov.)
There may be another (secret) city added in later in the year. More details on that after the host church has been confirmed. If you're anywhere near one of these cities, I hope you'll join the discussion. If you have friends and peers in ministry that you know are near one of these cities, please encourage them to come.
Just before I left for Innovation3, I was contacted by my friend, Drew Goodmanson of Monk Development (and elder/pastor at Kaleo Church
in San Diego). Drew is someone I really respect, both as a Christian
leader and as a savvy business person. He was one of the first people
I discovered who was using the Internet (and SEO) to reach people for
Christ. You can read his story elsewhere online but I'm inviting you
to help him & those who are studying social media and the Church by
taking this simple 5 minute survey. Here's an overview....
Are churches using the internet to gather, disciple and build community?
In the last couple years a number of new private church community
networks have been launched in addition to numerous social networking
sites. We are still very early on in understanding what churches are
doing effectively online.
We invite you to participate in this first survey of several that examine the State of the Church Online.
This survey in particular begins by examining what churches are doing
with social and community networks. How pervasive are the use of these
web applications?
Future surveys will expand to examine what Christians are doing with
social networks, how churches are using their websites and other online
strategies. Our prayer is that these studies help bring clarity and
guidance for churches to pursue excellence online to the glory of God.
This survey is being led by Kevin Ring. Kevin brings years of experience from Bainbridge Consulting
leading qualitative research projects - designing and executing
customer/competitive research and analysis across multiple industries,
focused on Fortune 500 companies including Google, Yahoo!, Citibank,
Hewitt Associates, Gallup, Bank of America and others.
The survey is free and takes very little time to complete. Feel
free to leave your name here (below in the comments) if you participate.
But this is a tech blog, so let's talk tech, shall we?
Here are the tech headlines that I think we need to be paying attention to in 2009, "the year of":
mobile computing — I've been reading for a while about the global mobile phone/mobile computing revolution (I even included a section on it in my chapter on "Missions Transformed" in the Wikiklesia book), but now that I have an iPhone, I feel personally connected and empowered by it in a whole new way. We know that mobile phones and text messaging are already huge in other parts of the world, but I think 2009 is the year to start thinking creatively about how to use text messaging and mobile computing for ministry in the North American context. Bobby Gruenewald at LifeChurch agrees. John Saddington at ChurchCrunch isn't quite as sure. Last year, you could've been ahead of the curve by having a fun little Facebook application. In 2009, you'll need to start designing an iPhone version, as well.
the subject line — One of the first "2009: year of" mentions that I received (in my inbox, appropriately) came from Jeanniey Mullen, chief marketing office for Zinio, who predicts that more and more people will begin accessing email on even other types of devices, including "GPS systems in our vehicles, via MP3s that are not iPhones, inside appliances (like your refrigerator)," etc. I think her prediction about multiple mobile devices is still a few years off (especially in this current economic climate), but her primary point is still valid: As the streams of information begin to flood people's inboxes, RSS readers, Twitter clients, etc., having a good "subject line," blog post title, etc. is going to be crucial for "breaking through the clutter" and getting attention. This is where good writing and having a good reputation (e.g., trust, respect) will be key.
reputation management — Yes, we're already beginning to see some interesting examples of corporate brands being damaged in record time because of the speed and breadth of social media. Just look at what happened last fall to Motrin. Or yesterday's example of a near-FAIL by Priceline. Churches and ministries need to "go social" (e.g., get a Twitter account, join Get Satisfaction, create a Squidoo lens, etc.) and be able to respond quickly to the questions and concerns (the "chatter") in the Twittersphere, the blogosphere, and beyond. Not only to protect one's identity online, but because, as Beverly Macy writes, "The future is not about technology, it's about people."
Twitter — This is my own, out-on-a-limb prognostication here, but I believe this will be the year that Twitter either flies or fails. The "fail whale" is scene much less frequently now, but continuing glitches in the system at the beginning of the year, resulting in delayed delivery of "tweets," have kept alive doubts in many users' minds about the reliability of Twitter as a provider of real-time information (a.k.a., the "live Web"). But according to recent statistics, Twitter is growing rapidly with around 5 million users currently, 70% of whom joined in 2008. Granted, 5 million is tiny compared to Facebook's 150 million active users worldwide, but I think Twitter could become "mainstream" in 2009, having established itself as important part of the online eco-system—i.e., the go-to platform for SMS-style, real-time updates (which can be sent directly to mobile devices), update Facebook status, feed directly into blogs, etc. Even if Twitter continues to falter, I don't think it's going to go away. It's more likely to be bought by Google before it goes under. So, you've been sitting on the fence, wondering what this Twitter thing is all about. It's time to jump in and discover what it's all about.
Several conversations lately have led me to consider the
integration and universality of technology in a local church context. To be
integrated means “combining or coordinating separate elements so as to provide
a harmonious, interrelated whole” or “organized or structured so that
constituent units function cooperatively.”
Universal means “affecting, concerning, or involving all”, “used or understood by all” or “present
everywhere.” As I continue to chew on this concept, other words that come to
mind are total, comprehensive and whole.
I serve as a technology pastor at a church. For years “tech”
was considered one person’s role (the techie, tech director or AV coordinator)
– whether volunteer, part-time or full-time. Now in most local church
situations there is still the need for this AV/tech role that oversees the
sound, video and lights for corporate worship services and often oversees and
supports campus-wide AV needs. IT is obviously another growing area in the
church world and usually requires a dedicated volunteer or paid staff member or
the use of outsourced companies.
I’ll be the first to admit that those that serve in “tech”
and IT roles in a church have a unique gift mix and personality. In most
situations these servants and leaders are seen more as geeks than pastors or
ministers. I see my role as a pastor and shepherd, but that’s a topic for
another article.
I bring the idea of universal technology up because we’re
seeing a shift in the way the Church looks, functions and ministers to the
world. The reality that we are missionaries in a digital age is becoming
increasingly more apparent and hard to ignore. This brings the whole concept of
“technology” to the forefront for regular pastors and church staff members –
including the non-techie.
The conversations that I have regularly with pastors are
about their desire to learn, understand, apply and fully utilize technology for
ministry. The shift is bringing about what I call “universal technology” –
meaning every Church leader is engaged in, using and communicating through
technology – not just the tech pastor.
Events, gatherings and conferences that I’m regularly apart
of look a lot different. The Church 2.0 Local Forums that I host around the country or the churchtechcamp, happening tomorrow in Dallas for example, 3 years ago would have been a room full of “geeks” (not my word, I
got that from Mark Batterson) and “techies” (that is my word). Now, one walks
into a “churchtechcamp” and it’s full of church planters, senior pastors,
bloggers and lay leaders/volunteers that are involved in community/small groups
and discipleship.
I’m fascinated by it and am enjoying just sitting back and
watching this shift. Of course there are still giant conferences like NAB and
InfoComm where us techies get together and talk about all things tech-related
and the make up of attendees and speakers looks a lot different, but overall I
see a change in the use of the word “tech” and the concept and adoption of
“technology”.
This new reality that I’m referring to as universal
technology is a good thing and a long-awaited one by me, personally. I’ve
always viewed technology as a tool and not a toy, so the thought of senior
pastors, worship pastors, youth pastors, communication directors, small group
leaders, missions and outreach leaders, etc. getting interested, involved with
and captivated by technology is a beautiful sight to me.
What about you and your situation? Are you seeing volunteers
and staff members that don’t have “tech” in their title or job description talk
about technology, Facebook, Twitter, blogging and online ministry?
Since Christian leaders, especially pastors, are often "wired" for
serving others, it's not really a surprise that online communication
technologies can sometimes trick us, tempting us to serve them rather
than serving us.
No matter which technologies you and your staff elect to use, from Google docs to Yammer, we can probably all agree, the most common and far-reaching culprit in our technological clutter is our out of control email.
Contrary to what many of our tech-savvy congregation members might
think, it's often pastors who have the least time to learn basic email
processing techniques. And to aggravate the condition, the more staff
support, the more likely we may be to handing off the basics, creating
a knowledge & training gap. Pastors can easily end up as
underdogs when it comes to out muscling the email avalanche.
Mastering your email is absolutely essential for freeing your time
for other things. Furthermore, several fundamental principles provide
a simple way to get ahead of your inbox and stay "in control" of your
email.
Whether you subscribe to Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero
style or some other form of ordered system, you will never like your
computer the way you could with your email lording over you.
Check out some of his system (like not touching the mouse!)....
Empty your inbox everyday.
Don’t get bogged down, keep moving.
Do—take action on the task now. I follow David Allen’s
two-minute rule. If I can do what is being requested in less than two
minutes, I do it immediately. This gets stuff off your to-do list
before it ever gets on it. This has the added advantage of making you
look responsive.
Delegate—pass the task along to someone else. I’m not
talking about “passing the buck.” But oftentimes someone else is better
equipped to fulfill the sender’s request. Dawson Trotman once said, “I
purposed never to do anything others could or would do when there was
so much of importance to be done that others could or would not do.” In
other words, try to focus on where you add value and offload everything
else.
Defer—consciously decide you will do the task later. This
only applies to asks you cannot complete in two minutes or less or
can’t delegate to someone else. You can either add the task to your
to-do list or schedule an appointment with yourself to complete it.
Fortunately, in Entourage, I convert an email message to a task or an
event (i.e., appointment) with a single keystroke.
Delete—determine if you might need the information later. If
not, delete it. My own assumption is that if it’s really important,
someone, somewhere else in the world, has a copy of it.
File—if you think you might need the information, file it. But do not create an elaborate set of file folders.
This is the single most important piece of advice I can give you. Just
file everything in one folder called “Processed Mail.” If it is more
complicated than this, it will lead to procrastination. Trust me on
this. You will have to decide, Should I file this under Tami because it is from her or under Max because it is about him?
And then what happens if the email covers more than one subject? Do you
make copies of the email and put one copy under each folder? Things can
get complicated fast.Forget all of that. File your email in one folder
and let your email or system software (e.g., “Spotlight”) find it when
you need it. The search capabilities of almost every modern email
program will enable you to put your hands on any message whenever it is
necessary. It may take you a few minutes longer to find the message
using this method, but this is offset by the hours you waste trying to
figure out how to file your messages.
Use keyboard shortcuts and avoid the mouse.
Let email rules filter the low-priority stuff.
Like Michael, I also have a Bacn
folder for email newsletters, receipts, and other
automatically-generated reading material including almost every notice
I get from Facebook! “Spam” is unsolicited bulk email. “Bacn” is solicited bulk email. This simple trick (thank you Tony Steward) gives me control over incoming and thus saves me valuable processing steps (read: time).
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.
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.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a Facebook message from LifeChurchInternet Pastor, Brandon Donaldson. Brandon works in video (like this one) a lot. And since we were working on LifeShare
at the time and the message indicated that he wanted to share a video
with me, I clicked on it. Oops! What I got was not from Brandon.
When I let him know he told me that he was already aware that his Facebookprofile had been compromised.
Chris Fobes, author of the ebook Facebook for Pastors, also knows of a ministry leader whose Facebook profile was compromised. Again, an unknowing leader sent out embarrassing spam messages to his Facebook friends list. So, Chris put out the following message:
Facebook
has been hit with attacks by spammers a little more lately. But don't
worry, with a little education, you can protect yourself and enjoy all
the best of Facebook for ministry purposes.
Here's what happened to cause the situation. The pastor received a note from one the his Facebook
friends that said something like: "I saw this video with you in it".
Since pastors often travel and speak in various churches and other
venues, he curiously clicked on the link.
Instead of seeing a video, he found himself at what appeared to be the Facebook login page. He assumed he was somehow logged off and used his user name and password to log back in.
Had he looked closer he would have realized he had given his name
and password to a "Phishing site." Learn more about Phishing on
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
To remedy the situation, my friend had to change his password by logging into the real Facebook page.
There is a group: "Facebook Phishing Scam Awareness" with tips for what to do if this happens to you. Here are a couple immediate helps:
HOW TO RECOVER: If you think you have had your account compromised, immediately change your Facebook password at https://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php Also, report the scam to Facebook by sending an e-mail to privacy@facebook.com.
HOW TO AVOID BEING SCAMMED: Before entering any sensitive information like user names or passwords, make sure you are on Facebook.com and not a similar, but different domain.
HOW TO RECOGNIZE A PHISHING WEBSITE: It is easy to make a domain
name look legitimate when it is fraudulent. The only part of a domain
name that is unique to the owner is the part immediately before the
.com or .org, etc. So anything that ends with Facebook (like ilstu.facebook.com, or photos-d.ak.facebook.com) with no single forward slash (/) to the left of it, is legitimately Facebook.
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