Tag Archive - #bwe08

Blogworld and New Media Expo & GodblogCon

September 22, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 2 Comments

This last weekend was a great time at Blogworld and New Media Expo, and GodblogCon.

It was my fourth year at GodblogCon, and my 2nd time at Blogworld.

I have some thoughts about the conference and I will be posting them this week, but just a sampler of some things that stood out to me.

  1. Moving GodblogCon to Vegas last year to be a part of Blogworld and New Media Expo was a great choice.  I would actually be interested in exploring with the Godblog people some ways that we can integrate even more, so it’s not two separate conferences.


  2. Huge, huge props to John Mark Reynolds, Dustin Steeve and the crew from Biola’s Torrey Honor’s Institute for putting together a great conference.  They are some of the most amazing and hospitable people there are, and I’m glad to be a part of such a great group. Thanks Dustin and crew.


  3. Missional thinking: The connection between the two conferences this weekend was tech, new media, social media, etc.  As Christians we need to do a better job of finding our common ground with others, with the world, build relationships, etc.


  4. New media and tech people seem to be very accessible, patient and easy going to me.  The Church can learn a lot from them, especially how they collaborate with one another, communicate from decentralized positions/relationships, etc, etc.  I was super impressed with how accessible all the big speakers were, and how they spent a great amount of time talking to people. Chris Brogan, Andrew Jones and Guy Kawasaki come to mind.  This conference doesn’t seem to have the speakers that roll in at the last minute VIP and then leave.  The speakers are great.  Very participatory feel.  Again, something Church conferences can learn from.


  5. It’s great to see friends at the conference who are involved in Church-land, but who get new media technology and are using it.  I’m thinking of people like Matt Singley, Andrew Jackson and Lars Rood.

Again, I will post more this week on some more specific issues.  But before I do I have a question.

GodblogCon seems like it’s on the verge of becoming more integrated with Blogworld.  And it probably can take some more strides.

Are there any other major conferences where we can bring together the Church and the non-Church world, using our common interests to unite us, but allowing our differences to teach and learn from one another?

Liveblogging: Andrew Jones on “The Missional Church in the Internet Age”

September 20, 2008 in Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media with 4 Comments

10:44am: Andrew Jones is setting up for his talk….people are beginning to stream in the room..everyone looking for power strips. haaa

10:50am: #bwe08 is one of the best conferences to be at in my opinion. Where else do you get such diversity in the tech world (i.e. politics, military, ministry, tech, etc.)

11:00am: I’m chatting with Brett McCracken from Still Searching. Check out his blog…sweet stuff.

This quote is sitting up on the screen. I’m supposing Andrew Jones is beginning his talk with it…maybe.

“Let this observation be a safeguard against sinning: let us each note and write down our actions and impulses of the soul as though we were to report them to each other.” Athanasius, Vita Antoni, 4th Century

11:05am: Dustin Steeve is up introducting GodblogCon to everyone and welcoming them. Dustin and his team of volunteers have done a great job. Kudos to them.

11:10am: Welcome Andrew Jones…probably my favorite blogger there is, and definitely one of the smartest out there in the new media. He has been blogging for 11 years. Yeah, how many of you even knew there were blogs 11 years ago….

11:12am: Hilarious. Andrew Jones asked someone to come up and help him with the PC Powerpoint..awesome, Mac guy doesn’t know how to use the PC.

11:15am: Andrew Jones is giving us “you might be a faith blogger IF…..” You can see it on his blog here.

11:18am: Jones says the cyberchurch vs. the traditional/modern church is a false dichotomy. The “Church has always been virtual.” He’s using the story of the woman at the well to share the importance of our praise (which means to publish, share with others) in the new media world online.

11:20am: “blog your whole life. don’t be scared.” Jones is talking about how your sermons might be great, but your children and grandchildren are going to know what kind of cereal you want to eat. what’s your favorite color.

11:25am: “A blog should not be a well, but a spring.” It shouldn’t be a container for thoughts, images, etc, but should reflect the life given image of Christ in me, etc.
Andrew Jones blogging journey, and some milestones in blogging: Geocities–then he went to Blogger and loved the archiving. Then comments came, and changed the one way conversation that used to exist in blogging. Andrew is sharing about how he used to get emails back in the day before comments, and how he used to cut and paste emails and put them in the blog post. Then tags came. Then widgets came, and we are able to bring everything together….Twitter, Facebook, etc.

11:27am:

11:32am: Andrew is starting to talk about life streaming now. Blogging is just one component of life streaming/life streaming.

11:35am: Andrew talking about how to drive traffic: tags, history, etc.

11:45am: Andrew Jones on Len Manoviceh’s 5 Principles of New Media: 1) Numerical Representation 2) Modularity 3) Automation 4) Variability 5) Transcoding

Jones: In regards to the Church “We are talking about transcoding and not just translating….we don’t go native enough.” The Church just too often translates and not transcodes.

11:50am: Jones says if you want to see how the church is being formed look at the new media (i.e. collaboration, crowdsourcing, etc,) Jones says that Church is going to be more modular, not singular. We won’t be going to one church anymore where we have everything. We will have a worship service somewhere. A bible study somewhere else. A prayer meeting somewhere else. Something online. A conference, etc.

11:55am: Andrew is talking on the idea of a “gift economy” in the blogging, and new media world. Amazing stuff. You can see his thoughts on this issue at his blog, here.

Lots of good questions for him, and not enough time for him to talk. He is awesome. Great way to kick off the day.

Check out our interview with Andrew Jones.