Running, Technology and Clarity…
You can check out my guest post at John Dyer’s blog, Running Without All the Noise. These are some thoughts on why running without music is beneficial, and I encourage you to give it a try.
Marriages, Technology and Facebook…
You can check out my guest post at the online version of Chatter Magazine (Irving Bible Church), in which I talk about the issue of technology (specifically Facebook), marriages and boundaries. If you are married, and on Facebook, I would especially love to get your feedback. Is Facebook Making Your Marriage Vulnerable?
Cultivate Conference, Communication and Ministry…
There are lots and lots of reasons to attend the Cultivate Conference this month in Chicago. Let me give you at least 4 for now:
The Cultivate Conference in Chicago is only about 6 weeks away and I’m getting more and more excited everyday with the number of amazing people that are showing up to participate.
Last week I posted my interview with Carlos Whitaker [aka Ragamuffinsoul], and he gave some phenomenal reasons for why he is attending, and WHY YOU TOO should attend.
If you are attending Cultivate, comment and let us know what drew you to the conference. If you aren’t we hope you change your mind and that we see you next month.
In the grand scheme of life this decision is about as unimportant as the come…really, it is. But somehow it is something I have been thinking about for months. I attempted to disconnect it twice over the last couple of months, but panicked and reconnected them within hours. Panicked might be a strong word…but it was in reality, a tough decision for a social media/web addict as myself. Yes, I fear that my online habits are bordering on addiction (and so are yours) and must be brought back under control. Sad…I know.
Cynthia Ware was the first person I had talked about this with a while ago…she disconnected them. Then I talked with John Saddington…he too has them disconnected. I saw Justin Wise disconnected his this week as well. I could list you tons more who disconnected them (or never even connected them) and tons more who still do it…great people like Greg Atkinson and Tony Steward.
But here is why I did it.
It floods people’s Facebook Home Page/News Feed. If there are 100′s of people or over a 1,000 in your network (and your friends numbers are reciprocal), then this isn’t as big of a deal. Your status update may not even be seen. But lots of new people on Facebook and if one Twitters a lot, well, then you just might flood their news feed.
Noise. If I send out 25 tweets, the likelihood of someone responding/commenting on them on Facebook goes down. On the other hand, updating your Facebook status and letting it sit there for most of the day, or at least several hours tends to invite more commenters I have found. This is the “boy who cried wolf” or “bystander syndrome.” Or that’s how I think of it. You keep tweeting, lots of people are going to stand by and watch until they hardly recognize your tweets anymore.
Two different communities. Twitter in my opinion is centered more around conversation, and Facebook is place to share photos, news, video, etc, etc. That doesn’t lend itself well to the Twitter symbols (i.e. RT, @, shortened words, etc.)
Twitter allows you to ignore Facebook. Because I never had to go on Facebook to update my status I tended to ignore a lot of what was going on there (funny thing is, people probably thought I was on Facebook all day, when in reality it was like every other day for about 30 minutes). I missed out on great opportunities to be a part of that online community, and share and contribute with them, rather than just taking and wanting them to comment on my ever changing status. Saying it another way…I could not leverage the true value of the Facebook community when I was taking a Twitter shortcut.
More ways to update now. If I really want to update Facebook without having to go on Facebook, or from my Twitter there are many ways to do that now. I can just send a message with hellotxt which I use. Or brightkite which I also use. Or why not use the #fb in your Twitter update which will post on Facebook (which I have not used yet, but heard a lot about)
I have been on Facebook for over 4 years and Twitter for about 15 months. Not once has anyone ever complained to me about the number of my status updates (at least not to me personally). I know some people defriended me and others unfollowed me, but rarely was anything ever said to me. In fact, I thought Twitter was a great way to bring the two communities together and I often got great comments on Facebook via Twitter.
But I’ve just been rethinking my online philosophy. It is a good decision for me. It may or may not be a good decision for you. I can understand both points of view.
As we spend more and more time online, and in more and more forums, using more and more tools, we are going to have to develop some sort of coherent philsophy…each and every one of us. If we don’t, we are bound to be taken over. This was my first step in rethinking how I do things online.
Discuss
What are you doing? Connecting? Disconnecting?
Why or why not?
Are there differences in the Facebook and Twitter communities? What are they?
I have been thinking about that word quite a bit in recent months as I have come “face to face” with more and more of my online friends on Facebook, Twitter and blog. In fact, if you have read my blog recently, you know that one of my 2009 goals is to “take online community offline.”
I remember just a few years ago when I used to attend a conference and the only people I knew were a) people I had met at that conference the year before; b) someone whom I “ran” in the same ministry circles with; c) someone famous (aka author/pastor/speaker). But most of the conference was spent getting to know people at the most basic level…exchanging of information and informalities.
But that has all seemed to change here in the last year or so. With the large number of people on Twitter, it’s almost as if these conferences are becoming a reunion, rather than a first time meeting. And the reason I mention Twitter is because it’s different than Facebook, in that the daily conversation creates a relationship that other technologies do not (look for my upcoming post in Collide Magazine on this topic). My first experience of this was at ECHO in August of 2008. Then at ChurchTechCamp:.Dallas in January of 2009. Then at Innovation3 Gathering this last week.
If you are thinking about having more of an online web presence for you church, but aren’t sure how to dive in…or even if you have a great web presence and are in need of some ideas, check out below.
Hope you can glean something from these posts, and if you have any ideas, or other links to blogs, or your blog, please leave them in the comment section.
Last week I was debating on whether or not I should attend the ECHO Conference, mainly because I was pretty exhausted from just moving here. And second, I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to pay the $329 for the conference.
I debated, but ultimately I felt like it would be a great opporunity to take part in this new conference. I thought I would make some good connections and hopefully some friends as well. And last, I hoped to really take away some valuable things from my time there.
Hands down, it was one of the best conferences I have been to, and I have been to a lot. I realized on Friday while I was looking at the snack table and pouring some more Starbucks coffee for myself, and for that $329 fee I was easily getting my money’s worth between the great speakers, the great food, the great connections, the challenges put forth, etc.
At this point, let me just state a few of the highlights for me and what really stuck out for me.
Hospitality: It was the most hospitable conference that I have been to. It began on Friday when I swung by only to pick up my registration packet and head home. I wasn’t planning on staying since I had my daughter with me. Two young women offerred to hold my daughter for me while I walked around the place too see what was going on and to find Cynthia Ware. First, let me say that I would never just hand my daughter over to complete strangers, but there was something in these women that made you feel like you knew them personally as friends. Great people to have at the front greeting conference attendees. But I did. I passed my daughter to the two of them and I walked around, only to come back and find my daughter having a great time playing with one of the women’s i-phones and smiling. Thank you Haley Thomas. That type of hospitiality continued all three days of the conference and it was one of the easiest conferences to mingle amongst not only the attendees, but the speakers and workshop leaders as well. Great hospitality.
De-Centralized/Flattened Leadership: This is a really important ethos for what I want leaders to embody. And even though I knew who was putting the conference on and who was in charge, it was nice to watch them serve people all three days, and not be above setting up things, helping cars find parking spots and being there to resolve any issues that may have arisen. You just don’t see that enough. Most speakers and leaders are often the first to leave after they speak and never stick around to help with the day to day work. So props to Rob Thomas and the people at Igniter Media, those at Worship House Media, and Scott and the crew at Collide Magazine.
Great Challenges from the Speakers: I’m sure if I were to poll the people at the conference everyone would have something different to say about each speaker. I didn’t attend all keynote sessions, but I did attend Donald Miller’s and Mark Batterson’s. Mark had me thinking all weekend about the quote he shared by Martin Luther: “It is wonderful’ proclaimed Luther, ‘how at this moment in history all the arts have come to the light…like the art of book printing, God’s highest and extremest act of grace, whereby the business of Gospel is driven forward.” His challenge that Christians and churches should be on the leading edge of innovation, and who of us in the room would develop that tool to drive the gospel forward has been echoing in my mind a lot. And Donald Miller’s message on “Story” was amazing. It held special importance to me because my wife and I were listening to that message about 6 months ago (he had given it at Mars Hills in Michigan; check here for it) as we drove from Los Angeles to Phoenix to visit my family. After his message all we could think about was the story God had given us and were we truly living in it. That message gave us courage to continue our move to Dallas, and to hear Miller give it on Friday night was confirmation of God’s grace in my wife, daughter and I’s lives as we had safely made the journey from Los Angeles to Dallas…desiring to live a different story than the one in LA…desiring to live the story God had given us. I know many of us are still chewing on that talk as it continues to resonate with us.
Networking: This is probably one of my favorite things to do at conferences. But there was something different about the networking going on here. It wasn’t the typical, here is my card, and if you can meet my needs, then we should hang out more. Rather, I genuinely felt like that the people I networked with are people I want to spend time with. Over dinner, drinking coffee, going to church, dreaming, etc. The networking had a sense of humility and friendship, and I think it was evident that people’s connection with Christ and ministry is what motivated them, and not money and power. That is a very different feel. So at the end of the day, networking was about friendship and dreaming together, not money and fitting a peg along someone’s ladder of success. I have to believe that that tone was not only set and embodied by those putting on the conference, but also those who came through the door. I am looking forward to the new friendships, and the times we will eat together, play together, and dream big dreams together.
Innovation and Creativity: Truly the keynote speakers, lab leaders and workshops were led by people doing very innovative things in their field. So no matter what breakout you attended or speaker you heard, it was always challenging and refreshing. Who saw the creative work of Barton Damer and was amazed? Everyone. Those are the type of people doing ministry that a conference needs and ECHO had plenty of them.
Christ, Church and Ministry: No matter who I came into contact with during my time at the conference, I was impressed with which everything came back to Christ. It is Christ who has given us our gifts, our talents, our relationships, and it is Him that we glorify when we use our gifts, and so in humility, always pointing towards Him who has given us such grace. I was excited that not only was Christ evident during our time there, but people were concerned about ministry. How does what I’m doing affect ministry? How does it spread the gospel and enhance ministry? So the talents and gifts and creativity were embedded in the local church of these people and they all came together to learn from each other. Obviously not everything must be tied to ministry and church, but when it’s a conference on media arts and church, well, it’s nice that it lived up to its billing.
I learned a lot, made a lot of new friends and was encouraged by the passion in others. And I’m looking forward to many coffee times and Mexican food lunches and dinners here in Dallas with many of you.
Jones has some great insight into the history of blogging (he’s been blogging since 1997/1998) and ministry. Some really good thoughts on setting boundaries online, as well as a church’s need to have a sense of integrity of what they display online and what it’s like in real life.
On Tuesday afternoon I went to coffee with Chris Capehart, one of the co-founders of ROOV. I told Chris when we met that I wasn’t quite sure what to think of ROOV when I heard about it. 1) One more social networking site seems like one too many right now. 2) I don’t like Christians removing themselves into “all Christian” environments to live life there , unless it’s for gathering around very specific or niche causes, etc.
But once I created an account and scoured the site I became more and more impressed with it. And one thing that stood out to me is the statement on their site:
ROOV is an online community that connects like-minded individuals around their shared experiences and passions within their church and city.
It’s one thing as Christians to go into our own bubble and live there, and it’s another thing to gather around our beliefs and causes so we can live them out in the world. ROOV is the best of this idea. I was really impressed with Chris and the other founder’s vision behind it. I’m excited to see where it goes. And I’m excited to see Christians gather around their passions, but not to keep them to themselves, but to move them towards action out in the world.
Here is a quick video about ROOV, and then just a couple of closing thoughts:
• It Connects People – The idea of connecting like-minded Christians based on what they are passionate about has a lot of potential.
• Forced Interaction – Since you have to add a comment or question to add the Roov to your profile, it keeps the discussion going. And it keeps people who are “add” happy from just build up their profile.
• Good Design – The site is easy to use and it works. And since it borrows elements from Facebook, Bloger, and LinkedIn, is already familiar to me.
So check it out. Get an account. Play around with it a while. And let me know what you think.
