This past Sunday morning the Web Empowered Church team attended two churches to give our guest, Kasper, a taste of different worship services here in North Carolina, US. First we attended the Long's Chapel UMC worship service. This was a modern church building which extended off an original stone building. The sanctuary felt new, with pews on an angled floor, and a beautiful wooden roof having a look of yellow pine. The roof was flat, and angled upward from the corners of the room up to a square center, which raised up to let light in through small windows at the top. It reminded my wife and I of a Catholic sanctuary we visited last year while we were in Wisconsin. Both created a beautiful vertical space that gave a very personal feel to the room, and left you with a sense of awe.
The service was contemporary, with songs that were thoroughly approved by my wife, and we had the pleasure of witnessing a baptism. Everything had a touch of Southern style to it, which is hard to describe here in words other than "a comfort of home." This was the weekend before Independence Day, so the theme was patriotic, along with the sermon. The pastor spoke about church and politics, Chucks favorite topics I might add, and mentioned Jesus' response to paying taxes, "Give to Caesar what is Caesars, and give to God what is Gods." The message, as it should be - simple, hold God above all things in your heart.
The second service we attended was at the Stuart Auditorium at Lake Junaluska, through the South Eastern Jurisdiction. The auditorium was an open gathering hall, originally constructed with a tin roof and sawdust floor. The building we were in now was more modern than that, but still considered strange, with a very high wood roof and this large white structure coming out of the middle, descending down into the center from the ceiling. The only way to describe this thing was it looked it like it could sprout legs and walk off like a some version of the mechanical beast from the movie, Wild, Wild West. The sides of the building were very open, with fans hanging down to cool the inside temperature.
Other than the distraction of analysing the strange structure, I thought the service had a well seasoned choir, and the speaker of the week was William Willimon. He did use some "churchy" words in the sermon, and lightly dusted the sermon with dry humor about the disagreements between liberal and conservative churches regarding whether the Christian church needed a full body resurrection to believe in Christ. It was delivered in good taste, with no names mentioned.
It was wonderful to be able to experience not one but two Sunday services, both of which my wife attended and survived to my surprise, and something I'll be able to remember quite a while.
July 02, 2006
June 30, 2006
Conference - TYPO3
I've been here in North Carolina at The Foundation for Evangelism at Lake Junaluska over this week, learning more of the TYPO3 CMF. This in relation to the Web Empowered Church ministry. It has been the second opportunity I've had to meet and be inspired by Kasper Skårhøj, the creator of TYPO3, and although we drove quite deep into the technical, what stood out the most was Kasper's expression of his original mission with TYPO3. He always saw TYPO3 as a tool for ministry, which is now being realized with Web Empowered Church.
I try to step outside of myself and realize how truly unique it is for Christianity and technology to come together in such a way. The room is filled with twenty people who have come to have Kasper impart knowledge about TYPO3, but all have come to imagine new ways that expand the Lord's Kingdom through Internet Ministry utilizing TYPO3. We have people representing Web Empowered Church, freelance consultants, church staff, and ISPs. In short, Christian technology geeks, a categorization I happily place myself in. :p
I began as a WEC developer in January 2006, coming on board for multiple reasons. The short list being empowering the local church with tools for ministry, the fact that WEC is a global ministry with the ability to affect people on that scale, and most importantly because I felt God calling me to do this, which tells me all I need to know about WEC. Also, as Kasper expresses in his corner of the web, what better way to honor God than using the ability he gave me?
I rather enjoyed visiting The Foundation For Evangelism and experiencing their culture here at Lake Junaluska. It is the first time I've visited this part of the South, and I have to say you can hear all you can of southern hospitality, but until you experience it - you won't get it, trust me. The Foundation staff were extraordinary.
Although I came away with a deeper technical knowledge that will empower my ability in this ministry, I also came away with an experience being another notch on the pole of my spiritual growth. As some in the community would say, +1.
I try to step outside of myself and realize how truly unique it is for Christianity and technology to come together in such a way. The room is filled with twenty people who have come to have Kasper impart knowledge about TYPO3, but all have come to imagine new ways that expand the Lord's Kingdom through Internet Ministry utilizing TYPO3. We have people representing Web Empowered Church, freelance consultants, church staff, and ISPs. In short, Christian technology geeks, a categorization I happily place myself in. :p
I began as a WEC developer in January 2006, coming on board for multiple reasons. The short list being empowering the local church with tools for ministry, the fact that WEC is a global ministry with the ability to affect people on that scale, and most importantly because I felt God calling me to do this, which tells me all I need to know about WEC. Also, as Kasper expresses in his corner of the web, what better way to honor God than using the ability he gave me?
I rather enjoyed visiting The Foundation For Evangelism and experiencing their culture here at Lake Junaluska. It is the first time I've visited this part of the South, and I have to say you can hear all you can of southern hospitality, but until you experience it - you won't get it, trust me. The Foundation staff were extraordinary.
Although I came away with a deeper technical knowledge that will empower my ability in this ministry, I also came away with an experience being another notch on the pole of my spiritual growth. As some in the community would say, +1.
June 27, 2006
Podcasting sermons
Dan Bryant, a Disciple pastor in Eugene, Oregon, recently e-mailed a question about the Living Water site. Rather than answer him individually, I am posting the answer here. Dan writes:
Dan, start with my post explaining the simple technology behind how we publish the Living Water podcast on the web. Next, take a look at the post where I talk about the process of getting listed in the iTunes Music Store podcast directory.
Now, all of the above assumes you can create MP3 files of your sermons. At Living Water I do that by recording the service live off the house mixer, through a DBX 166 compressor, and then to a Tascam CD recorder. After the service, I use FreeRip to rip the sermon track to WAV. Then I use my 5 year-old copy of Cool Edit 2000 to trim it, adjust levels, and save it out as an MP3. Finally, I use MP3tag to fill in the metadata for the MP3 file. Yes, that is quite a few steps. None of the steps are particularly difficult, but it's a lot of fiddling around.
Looking for a simpler way? Try Sermons Online. I haven't used it, but my fellow Appian Way blogger, Chuck Russell, highly recommends it.
As to whether it is useful, we are excited that we have many people across the country and around the world downloading our sermon podcast. In fact, our weekly podcast downloads exceed our average worship attendance. A statistic like that will really make you take notice.
Thanks for the question, Brian. And happy podcasting!
I am exploring podcasting and found yours. Nicely done! Can you tell me a little about your experience with it, how much effort it takes, how useful it is, software you use, etc.?
Dan, start with my post explaining the simple technology behind how we publish the Living Water podcast on the web. Next, take a look at the post where I talk about the process of getting listed in the iTunes Music Store podcast directory.
Now, all of the above assumes you can create MP3 files of your sermons. At Living Water I do that by recording the service live off the house mixer, through a DBX 166 compressor, and then to a Tascam CD recorder. After the service, I use FreeRip to rip the sermon track to WAV. Then I use my 5 year-old copy of Cool Edit 2000 to trim it, adjust levels, and save it out as an MP3. Finally, I use MP3tag to fill in the metadata for the MP3 file. Yes, that is quite a few steps. None of the steps are particularly difficult, but it's a lot of fiddling around.
Looking for a simpler way? Try Sermons Online. I haven't used it, but my fellow Appian Way blogger, Chuck Russell, highly recommends it.
As to whether it is useful, we are excited that we have many people across the country and around the world downloading our sermon podcast. In fact, our weekly podcast downloads exceed our average worship attendance. A statistic like that will really make you take notice.
Thanks for the question, Brian. And happy podcasting!
Meeting Kasper in North Carolina
Brian and I are in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina (in the Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina) for a meeting of Web Empowered Church developers. Tonight I got to meet Kasper Skarhoj, the original brain behind TYPO3. I wished for a camera so I could show you Brian, Pania (Brian's wife), me, Mark Stephenson, Kasper, Mark's son, and Jeff Segars at dinner tonight. It was a historic moment.
Brian and I will have more to say about the conference over the next couple of days.
Brian and I will have more to say about the conference over the next couple of days.
June 08, 2006
Open source Church Management System (ChMS)
Shelley Hildebrand of Perimeter Church recently posted to the Church Management System (ChMS) Google group to ask whether there is interest among churches in building an open source church management system. Then she e-mailed me and asked if I would post a reply. This is a huge question that I have been pondering for most of three years. I can't possibly give a full explanation of our current thinking in a single post, but here at least is a strategic summary.
>>First, many readers of this blog and the Google discussion group already know about Web Empowered Church (WEC), but for those who don't ...
WEC is an initiative of the Methodist Foundation for Evangelism. The director of WEC is Mark Stephenson, Director of Cyber Ministry for Ginghamsburg Church, a large and well-known Methodist church outside Dayton, Ohio. WEC is building church-specific web applications on top of an enterprise-class, open source content management system called TYPO3.
TYPO3 is very powerful and so not surprisingly it's quite complex as well. Consequently it has a fairly steep learning curve, even for experienced web developers. To help new churches get over this complexity barrier, WEC provides a pre-configured TYPO3 package called the "WEC Starter Package," with all of the WEC-built ministry extensions pre-loaded. WEC has some pre-built TYPO3 templates to accelerate site design for smaller churches that don't want to do a custom design. Also, WEC has established a web hosting firm in the greater Philadelphia area called Vine Hosting. Their equipment is located in a world-class data center in Newark, New Jersey. Through the Starter Package, the pre-built templates, and the hosting, WEC is working diligently over time to ease the difficulty of building and running a church web site in TYPO3.
WEC has been operating less than two years and has already gotten some serious worldwide traction. See the cool Google mashup map of churches around the world using WEC and a list of example sites.
I am the IT Director at Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas (Kansas City area). We were the first church to catch Mark's vision for WEC and become part of it. We rebuilt our sites in TYPO3 starting in July 2004 and went live five months later. Earlier this year, we forged an even deeper connection with WEC when our most senior IT guy, Brian Slezak, transitioned into a new role as a software developer with WEC. He is still on our staff and still has a desk in our department, but he now works full-time on building ministry extensions for WEC.
Bottom line: WEC has all the earmarks of a God thing. It's a God-sized dream being lived out in a Kingdom-like way. It's amazing what God has already done and very exciting to see what God will continue to do in the future through WEC.
>>Okay, so what does all of this have to do with the question of an open source church management system? I realize that open source isn't for everyone. At Resurrection we are a Microsoft shop everywhere except our web sites. I'm not a Microsoft basher at all. We use a lot of their stuff and are particularly appreciative of their steep non-profit discounts. Also, I can see a place for commercial providers of church management systems such as Shelby, ACS, and Fellowship Tech. I know some people with these companies are readers of this blog and our Google discussion group. I don't speak for Resurrection, but I know that the church values its suppliers and seeks to bless those who provide us with everything we need to do ministry.
Having said that, I do believe that God is honored and the Kingdom is advanced when churches across geographical and denominational boundaries come together in the common cause of disciple making. We have differing styles, mission fields, and theological points of view, but we have one Lord and we proclaim one gospel. We're all on the same team. Take a good look at that WEC map and you'll see an amazing example of how this vision of cooperation is actually working in the world right now. Thinking strategically about this, I conclude that the open source model of software development and distribution is ideally suited to fostering technological cooperation among churches around the world. Let me quickly add that I acknowledge the technical challenges of open source, including the lack of support for "normal people" mentioned by Jeff Berg. Despite that, the benefits of open source in this situation are truly compelling. If Perimeter Church builds something on a common platform that Church of the Resurrection can pick up and use, I think we really have something special going on that glorifies God and represents awesome stewardship.
So, answering Shelley's question directly: Yes, I think open source makes total sense for the church. And yes, we are interested in working with other churches to develop an open source church management system. WEC is also very interested in this and hopes to be a catalyst and focal point for making this happen. The blogosphere is a great way to circulate this idea, gather support, and find like minded churches to get involved. I'm trying to listen to God to hear if He really is behind this. If so, within the next six months I hope to see a consensus emerge around a group of churches that will contribute resources and technology to a WEC-sponsored effort to build a ChMS on the open source/TYPO3 platform.
Is anyone else out there as excited as I am about this?
>>First, many readers of this blog and the Google discussion group already know about Web Empowered Church (WEC), but for those who don't ...
WEC is an initiative of the Methodist Foundation for Evangelism. The director of WEC is Mark Stephenson, Director of Cyber Ministry for Ginghamsburg Church, a large and well-known Methodist church outside Dayton, Ohio. WEC is building church-specific web applications on top of an enterprise-class, open source content management system called TYPO3.
TYPO3 is very powerful and so not surprisingly it's quite complex as well. Consequently it has a fairly steep learning curve, even for experienced web developers. To help new churches get over this complexity barrier, WEC provides a pre-configured TYPO3 package called the "WEC Starter Package," with all of the WEC-built ministry extensions pre-loaded. WEC has some pre-built TYPO3 templates to accelerate site design for smaller churches that don't want to do a custom design. Also, WEC has established a web hosting firm in the greater Philadelphia area called Vine Hosting. Their equipment is located in a world-class data center in Newark, New Jersey. Through the Starter Package, the pre-built templates, and the hosting, WEC is working diligently over time to ease the difficulty of building and running a church web site in TYPO3.
WEC has been operating less than two years and has already gotten some serious worldwide traction. See the cool Google mashup map of churches around the world using WEC and a list of example sites.
I am the IT Director at Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas (Kansas City area). We were the first church to catch Mark's vision for WEC and become part of it. We rebuilt our sites in TYPO3 starting in July 2004 and went live five months later. Earlier this year, we forged an even deeper connection with WEC when our most senior IT guy, Brian Slezak, transitioned into a new role as a software developer with WEC. He is still on our staff and still has a desk in our department, but he now works full-time on building ministry extensions for WEC.
Bottom line: WEC has all the earmarks of a God thing. It's a God-sized dream being lived out in a Kingdom-like way. It's amazing what God has already done and very exciting to see what God will continue to do in the future through WEC.
>>Okay, so what does all of this have to do with the question of an open source church management system? I realize that open source isn't for everyone. At Resurrection we are a Microsoft shop everywhere except our web sites. I'm not a Microsoft basher at all. We use a lot of their stuff and are particularly appreciative of their steep non-profit discounts. Also, I can see a place for commercial providers of church management systems such as Shelby, ACS, and Fellowship Tech. I know some people with these companies are readers of this blog and our Google discussion group. I don't speak for Resurrection, but I know that the church values its suppliers and seeks to bless those who provide us with everything we need to do ministry.
Having said that, I do believe that God is honored and the Kingdom is advanced when churches across geographical and denominational boundaries come together in the common cause of disciple making. We have differing styles, mission fields, and theological points of view, but we have one Lord and we proclaim one gospel. We're all on the same team. Take a good look at that WEC map and you'll see an amazing example of how this vision of cooperation is actually working in the world right now. Thinking strategically about this, I conclude that the open source model of software development and distribution is ideally suited to fostering technological cooperation among churches around the world. Let me quickly add that I acknowledge the technical challenges of open source, including the lack of support for "normal people" mentioned by Jeff Berg. Despite that, the benefits of open source in this situation are truly compelling. If Perimeter Church builds something on a common platform that Church of the Resurrection can pick up and use, I think we really have something special going on that glorifies God and represents awesome stewardship.
So, answering Shelley's question directly: Yes, I think open source makes total sense for the church. And yes, we are interested in working with other churches to develop an open source church management system. WEC is also very interested in this and hopes to be a catalyst and focal point for making this happen. The blogosphere is a great way to circulate this idea, gather support, and find like minded churches to get involved. I'm trying to listen to God to hear if He really is behind this. If so, within the next six months I hope to see a consensus emerge around a group of churches that will contribute resources and technology to a WEC-sponsored effort to build a ChMS on the open source/TYPO3 platform.
Is anyone else out there as excited as I am about this?
June 06, 2006
Culture of Change
I made the following comment to Tony McCollum's post about Saddleback adding services and changing service times in response to the release of The Passion of the Christ. I figured since I commented there, I should share it here too.
I was with a group of mega-church pastors (actually executive pastors) at Saddleback the week they changed all their service times. Our meeting was February 26-28, 2004. The film had opened in theaters the day before on Ash Wednesday.
As I recall (and of course it's been more than two years, so my recollection could be a bit foggy), Rick and his executive team decided only earlier that week to change service times. The movie was getting such a huge buzz, they were concerned about being overwhelmed the first weekend after the opening. So they scrambled to arrange for additional parking a few blocks away and got some shuttle buses. They opened up a new entrance onto the campus to allow for increased traffic flow. They identified the impact on everyone from Sunday School teachers, to ushers, to parking greeters and got the word out. It was an amazingly entreprenurial effort like you would see from a startup company trying to release its first product.
I'm an IT guy and I was in a breakout session with IT guys from the other mega-churches. Rick came into our session and told us that they couldn't do church the way they do it without information technology. You see, since they hadn't even announced the change to the congregation the prior weekend, the best way they had to get the word out was via e-mail.
The next week I heard from Eric Busby, Saddleback's CIO, that they had blowout attendance that weekend. Instead of a great opportunity, the surge of people would have been a disaster if they hadn't seen the wave coming and quickly adjusted to catch it. And catch it they did. People came to know Christ that weekend because of their extreme effort and willingness to change instantaneously.
Now that's a lesson in dynamic, purpose-driven, change-embracing leadership. I will remember it always.
I was with a group of mega-church pastors (actually executive pastors) at Saddleback the week they changed all their service times. Our meeting was February 26-28, 2004. The film had opened in theaters the day before on Ash Wednesday.
As I recall (and of course it's been more than two years, so my recollection could be a bit foggy), Rick and his executive team decided only earlier that week to change service times. The movie was getting such a huge buzz, they were concerned about being overwhelmed the first weekend after the opening. So they scrambled to arrange for additional parking a few blocks away and got some shuttle buses. They opened up a new entrance onto the campus to allow for increased traffic flow. They identified the impact on everyone from Sunday School teachers, to ushers, to parking greeters and got the word out. It was an amazingly entreprenurial effort like you would see from a startup company trying to release its first product.
I'm an IT guy and I was in a breakout session with IT guys from the other mega-churches. Rick came into our session and told us that they couldn't do church the way they do it without information technology. You see, since they hadn't even announced the change to the congregation the prior weekend, the best way they had to get the word out was via e-mail.
The next week I heard from Eric Busby, Saddleback's CIO, that they had blowout attendance that weekend. Instead of a great opportunity, the surge of people would have been a disaster if they hadn't seen the wave coming and quickly adjusted to catch it. And catch it they did. People came to know Christ that weekend because of their extreme effort and willingness to change instantaneously.
Now that's a lesson in dynamic, purpose-driven, change-embracing leadership. I will remember it always.
Blogs I read
Stuart Cowen of Casting My Net asked for my list of church IT blogs that I subscribe to and read. Since I created the list for Stuart, I figured, hey, I should share it with the world. It's the next best thing to an Appian Way blogroll!
http://webevangelist.blogspot.com/
http://www.betachurch.org/
http://www.blogministry.com/
http://www.bloggingchurch.com/home/
http://brianglass.wordpress.com/
http://castingmynet.wordpress.com/
http://churchtechmatters.com/
http://www.churchnerd.com/blog/
http://www.davidblog.com/
http://www.e-vangelism.com/
http://www.eministrynotes.com/
http://godbit.com/
http://www.healyourchurchwebsite.com/
http://jpowell.blogs.com/
http://www.leaveitbehind.com/
http://rodpearcy.typepad.com/
http://www.strategicdigitaloutreach.com/
http://techshepherd.typepad.com/
http://tonydye.typepad.com/
http://guide.gospelcom.net/resources/bulletin.php
http://webempoweredchurch.org/home/
... and (of course) http://appianway.blogspot.com/ ;-)
http://webevangelist.blogspot.com/
http://www.betachurch.org/
http://www.blogministry.com/
http://www.bloggingchurch.com/home/
http://brianglass.wordpress.com/
http://castingmynet.wordpress.com/
http://churchtechmatters.com/
http://www.churchnerd.com/blog/
http://www.davidblog.com/
http://www.e-vangelism.com/
http://www.eministrynotes.com/
http://godbit.com/
http://www.healyourchurchwebsite.com/
http://jpowell.blogs.com/
http://www.leaveitbehind.com/
http://rodpearcy.typepad.com/
http://www.strategicdigitaloutreach.com/
http://techshepherd.typepad.com/
http://tonydye.typepad.com/
http://guide.gospelcom.net/resources/bulletin.php
http://webempoweredchurch.org/home/
... and (of course) http://appianway.blogspot.com/ ;-)
June 03, 2006
Does the medium affect the message?
I encourage you to read this post by Shane Hipps in which he argues that electronic media isn't message-neutral. He contrasts how the text medium favors communication through systematic, linear reason, whereas the image medium favors communication through stories and experience.
Personally, I favor the use of multi-art, multimedia presentation. This approach uses emotion and reason, experience and information, story and logic to increase the liklihood of connecting in some way with each person and their different ways of learning. And yes, I agree that the medium affects the message. A multimedia approach means the communicator needs to think even more than ever about what they're saying and the most effective way to say it. I think that's a good thing.
Personally, I favor the use of multi-art, multimedia presentation. This approach uses emotion and reason, experience and information, story and logic to increase the liklihood of connecting in some way with each person and their different ways of learning. And yes, I agree that the medium affects the message. A multimedia approach means the communicator needs to think even more than ever about what they're saying and the most effective way to say it. I think that's a good thing.
May 29, 2006
Congrats Jason!
The Church Report has named Jason Gant, our new youth pastor, as one of the top 20 youth ministers in the nation. Jason is awesome. All the pieces were in place before Jason came and now the ministry is exploding under his leadership. Youth pastors are my heroes because they tell kids about Jesus.
While we're on the subject of youth ministry ... props to Leo Johns, our jack-of-all-trades web guy, who helped put together our new youth ministry web site. Check it out.
While we're on the subject of youth ministry ... props to Leo Johns, our jack-of-all-trades web guy, who helped put together our new youth ministry web site. Check it out.
May 25, 2006
Interruptions
Hey, I just now interrupted my work to post a link to an article I just now read about interruptions. How's that for self-referential?
Are any of you out there actually getting real work done? If so, please tell me how you do it. ;-)
Are any of you out there actually getting real work done? If so, please tell me how you do it. ;-)
May 24, 2006
Adobe Announces Non Profit Pricing
Since Macromedia was acquired by Adobe last year, people in the non profit world have been worried that Adobe's perceived hostilities toward non profits would eliminate the generous discount programs available for programs like Dreamweaver, Flash, etc.
Instead, it seems that in some part Macromedia's non profit commitment has won the day. Macromedia has had a long commitment to the educational and non profit space and my dealings with people at their headquarters have always been very positive.
I began to hear that the Adobe folks were listening to their position on non profits shortly after the merger was announced. Well the time is here. Adobe has announced significantly larger discounts on its product line including the ability to purchase standards such as the Creative suite for $400 (list around 900).
While the discounts aren't as deep as the Macromedia discounts, they are significant. One of the people close to the conversation is Sean McAtee at www.techshopministry.com he works closely with the Adobe Non Profit Representative. I don't believe the prices have been posted yet but you can email him at smcatee@umcom.org
You can also read the Adobe Non-Profit program specifics here(PDF)
There was some discussion of this issue here as well http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/861
Instead, it seems that in some part Macromedia's non profit commitment has won the day. Macromedia has had a long commitment to the educational and non profit space and my dealings with people at their headquarters have always been very positive.
I began to hear that the Adobe folks were listening to their position on non profits shortly after the merger was announced. Well the time is here. Adobe has announced significantly larger discounts on its product line including the ability to purchase standards such as the Creative suite for $400 (list around 900).
While the discounts aren't as deep as the Macromedia discounts, they are significant. One of the people close to the conversation is Sean McAtee at www.techshopministry.com he works closely with the Adobe Non Profit Representative. I don't believe the prices have been posted yet but you can email him at smcatee@umcom.org
You can also read the Adobe Non-Profit program specifics here(PDF)
There was some discussion of this issue here as well http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/861
May 23, 2006
How people get recommendations about your church
Check out this post by Beta Church in which they quote an article from Fast Company about how people use the web to get opinions on products and services they're considering for purchase. No doubt people are going to the web for opinions on churches too. Large churches particularly need to be aware of what is being said about them online so they can become part of the conversation.
May 22, 2006
A downside to Feedburner
Dave Winer said some thought-provoking things yesterday about the potential negative consequences of using Feedburner to generate RSS feeds for your blog or podcast. Hmmm ... I'm using Feedburner heavily now, including on this blog (see the orange XML button there on the right?).
Along the same line of thought, I insist on registering all domains with a registrar of my choice, rather than allowing a hosting service to do it for me. If you don't control your domain registration, you don't control the domain. Do you really want to be dependent on a service provider that you're leaving in order to successfully move your site to a new provider? Me neither.
One caveat: doing this occasionally causes hassles when the hosting company needs to change IP addresses of their DNS servers since the provider's network operations people generally assume that they control the registration and DNS for all their clients. Any time they want to make this kind of change, they'll need to coordinate it with you to avoid a site outage.
Along the same line of thought, I insist on registering all domains with a registrar of my choice, rather than allowing a hosting service to do it for me. If you don't control your domain registration, you don't control the domain. Do you really want to be dependent on a service provider that you're leaving in order to successfully move your site to a new provider? Me neither.
One caveat: doing this occasionally causes hassles when the hosting company needs to change IP addresses of their DNS servers since the provider's network operations people generally assume that they control the registration and DNS for all their clients. Any time they want to make this kind of change, they'll need to coordinate it with you to avoid a site outage.
May 14, 2006
NPR Story on The Da Vinci Code
I just now discovered that Jeff Kirby, one of our pastors, was featured in this NPR story on how Christians are responding to The Da Vinci Code. Cool!
May 04, 2006
Personal Content Networks
Richard McManus has an interesting post today about Superglu, a service that creates a site out of feeds from multiple sites such as blogs, del.icio.us, and Flickr. Called a "content aggregator," Superglu is a cool example of the kinds of things Web 2.o enables.
May 02, 2006
Worry about the big things AND the small things
Brian Bailey: "One of the biggest challenges of web development is balancing the big things and the small things. My goal is to get the main thing right while still being obsessive about the details."
That philosophy applies to most things we do in the church, not just web sites and applications.
That philosophy applies to most things we do in the church, not just web sites and applications.
Students view e-mail as outdated?
Ben Gray of Blog Ministry: "Realize that they [students] view email as outdated and almost useless. They only use it to communicate with authority figures. They use Myspace and IM to communicate with friends."
April 27, 2006
Eric Busby at Tech Ed
Check out Jason Powell's recent post about Eric Busby of Saddleback speaking at Microsoft's Tech Ed. I commented and shared one of my own Eric Busby stories.
April 24, 2006
Racial Issues
I was inspired to post by Jeff's post on racial profiling at God Don't Make Junk, that I picked up through the Wesley Daily.
Without a doubt, some places still need a lot of growing up to do. I've experienced enough racial profiling second hand, myself being a very white Caucasian, bordering on translucent with red hair. One experience was very similar to what Jeff wrote about, except it was with a Caucasian-Mexican friend of mine who looks quite Mexican. That was the only time I've felt threatened being pulled over by the police - hands on gun holsters, looking nervously at my friend in the back seat. (I-44 highway in Missouri.) I have a game I play here in Kansas City KS/MO, and I-70 into Saint Louis, it's guessing the race of the person who's been pulled over by not one, but two police cars. I'm rarely wrong, because it's always an African-American or Latino who's been pulled over.
Much less threatening, yet still annoying is my Indonesian wife who gets carded for using her credit card 95% of the time she uses it. And when I say carded, I mean carefully studying the card, looking at her face, then looking over the card again carefully. Caucasians, how often do you get carded for using a credit/debit card? It only happens to me once or twice a year.
It's very sad. Equality is not a balance of power segregated by race lines, but all of God's children seeing each other as such without color and race. The biggest beef I have with racial anything is that no one seems to focus on this, rather they are focus on segregated balance. I don't feel that helps stop or slow racisim, and feel it's a reason we've only made it this far yet. Individuals seem to want recognition as upstanding citizens of their race, rather than human beings or children of one Father. I think this is due to a couple prominent factors.
People confuse culture with race.
Race is genetic, culture is experiential. I am an Austrian-Hungarian, Croatian-Bohemian, German-French-Irish individual … and I think I missed one or two in all seriousness. The fact I'm Caucasian with hazel eyes and red hair in no way binds me to the culture I've experienced - period. Hold onto your culture, lose the racism.
People are naturally more comfortable with those whom they have more in common with, whether by race or culture.
Pull up some multi-racial situations in your mind. How often do you see all races equally dispersed, sitting amongst each other? More likely than not, you'll see groups segregated by race or culture. Why, because they're all racist? No, because people drift toward others whom they have more in common with, more likely by culture. I think this bends us naturally toward segregation.
You know what we all have in common though? Humanity. Can we focus on this instead?
Without a doubt, some places still need a lot of growing up to do. I've experienced enough racial profiling second hand, myself being a very white Caucasian, bordering on translucent with red hair. One experience was very similar to what Jeff wrote about, except it was with a Caucasian-Mexican friend of mine who looks quite Mexican. That was the only time I've felt threatened being pulled over by the police - hands on gun holsters, looking nervously at my friend in the back seat. (I-44 highway in Missouri.) I have a game I play here in Kansas City KS/MO, and I-70 into Saint Louis, it's guessing the race of the person who's been pulled over by not one, but two police cars. I'm rarely wrong, because it's always an African-American or Latino who's been pulled over.
Much less threatening, yet still annoying is my Indonesian wife who gets carded for using her credit card 95% of the time she uses it. And when I say carded, I mean carefully studying the card, looking at her face, then looking over the card again carefully. Caucasians, how often do you get carded for using a credit/debit card? It only happens to me once or twice a year.
It's very sad. Equality is not a balance of power segregated by race lines, but all of God's children seeing each other as such without color and race. The biggest beef I have with racial anything is that no one seems to focus on this, rather they are focus on segregated balance. I don't feel that helps stop or slow racisim, and feel it's a reason we've only made it this far yet. Individuals seem to want recognition as upstanding citizens of their race, rather than human beings or children of one Father. I think this is due to a couple prominent factors.
People confuse culture with race.
Race is genetic, culture is experiential. I am an Austrian-Hungarian, Croatian-Bohemian, German-French-Irish individual … and I think I missed one or two in all seriousness. The fact I'm Caucasian with hazel eyes and red hair in no way binds me to the culture I've experienced - period. Hold onto your culture, lose the racism.
People are naturally more comfortable with those whom they have more in common with, whether by race or culture.
Pull up some multi-racial situations in your mind. How often do you see all races equally dispersed, sitting amongst each other? More likely than not, you'll see groups segregated by race or culture. Why, because they're all racist? No, because people drift toward others whom they have more in common with, more likely by culture. I think this bends us naturally toward segregation.
You know what we all have in common though? Humanity. Can we focus on this instead?
April 11, 2006
Winning Gen-X for Christ - Part II
Through my thinking I came up with three steps to making a Gen-X / postmodern friendly church, and want to share them because I feel they are important and dependent on one another.
Create The Right Environment
Create an atmosphere that promotes learning. Imagine in your mind a casual environment where people are coming to relax, learn and follow. That environment should not be formal. Don't make it feel like a rigid environment where they have to be on their best behavior. Salvation is not forefront in their lives, so do not charge at them with that goal. Appeal to how Christianity is relevant in their lives today, and to the fullness of life it can produce. Create a learning environment where they are eager to think about religious subjects and deepening their faith through growth of knowledge. The environment should not be constructed with the ease of leading in mind, but with the ease of following.
Open The Doors
The church should be flexible and open to people showing up, sitting down, and getting to know others. You can't have an environment where people have their own seats they always sit in, or things that can only be done, used, or put away one precise way. You also can't make visitors feel like you are so very thankful they are here because the church just couldn't go on with out them, and would they please consider coming back next week, please, please, please. ;) Be personable with them. This interaction is very much like a blind date between the church and the first time visitor. Treat this situation with the same respect.
Reach Out Gently
As pastor Laura Guy put it, "it's much like feeding a wary deer from your hand." You have to be delicate, and make them comfortable enough to approach you. No fast movements. You can't charge over, open their mouth, force feed them, and make sure they chew it up appropriately. Don't reach out trying to win some for Christ being the first and foremost thought. Beware the salesperson filter! Danger Wil Robinson, Danger! Don't try to sell Christ to them. Instead, let them know there is a place that is open, has friendly people, and is inviting to perusal of the spiritual inventory. Appeal to the challenges they face with Christianity. The bible is a book of old stories written by uneducated people claiming this dude Jesus was born miraculously, died and saved us somehow, and then came back to life. In the words of a postmodern, "Whatever!?"
Create The Right Environment
Create an atmosphere that promotes learning. Imagine in your mind a casual environment where people are coming to relax, learn and follow. That environment should not be formal. Don't make it feel like a rigid environment where they have to be on their best behavior. Salvation is not forefront in their lives, so do not charge at them with that goal. Appeal to how Christianity is relevant in their lives today, and to the fullness of life it can produce. Create a learning environment where they are eager to think about religious subjects and deepening their faith through growth of knowledge. The environment should not be constructed with the ease of leading in mind, but with the ease of following.
Open The Doors
The church should be flexible and open to people showing up, sitting down, and getting to know others. You can't have an environment where people have their own seats they always sit in, or things that can only be done, used, or put away one precise way. You also can't make visitors feel like you are so very thankful they are here because the church just couldn't go on with out them, and would they please consider coming back next week, please, please, please. ;) Be personable with them. This interaction is very much like a blind date between the church and the first time visitor. Treat this situation with the same respect.
Reach Out Gently
As pastor Laura Guy put it, "it's much like feeding a wary deer from your hand." You have to be delicate, and make them comfortable enough to approach you. No fast movements. You can't charge over, open their mouth, force feed them, and make sure they chew it up appropriately. Don't reach out trying to win some for Christ being the first and foremost thought. Beware the salesperson filter! Danger Wil Robinson, Danger! Don't try to sell Christ to them. Instead, let them know there is a place that is open, has friendly people, and is inviting to perusal of the spiritual inventory. Appeal to the challenges they face with Christianity. The bible is a book of old stories written by uneducated people claiming this dude Jesus was born miraculously, died and saved us somehow, and then came back to life. In the words of a postmodern, "Whatever!?"
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