Church-iberish

I've been following the series at Church Marketing Sucks on Lessons in Not Sucking. In the Common Communication Mistakes lesson they refer to "church-iberish" and refer to this Dunkin Donuts commercial.



I've used the word "church speak" before; I kind of like "church-iberish". I tend to notice it because I do worship visuals at our church and come across some good ones in hymns ("unction", anyone?).

I love the expressions on the customers' faces in this video. I can imagine them as visitors to our church and saying "My mind can't find these words".

I also do our church's web site. I came across an article about Church speak and mission statements at digital.leadnet.org. We've had several discussions about mission statements, and this article hits close to home for me.

I'm pondering what to do about our web site. I know I can (and should) do better, but it's one thing to recognize it, and another to deal with it from a church-wide viewpoint recognizing the needs of a visitor.

Spiritual Mileage

As a new Prius owner for the past couple of months, I've been paying close attention to my mileage. I've been getting between 47 and 52 MPG for my first few tanks.

There's even a website where you can track your mileage and display it as an internet "badge"

After I filled up for the first time, I was going to post here how happy I was with my mileage. However, that got postponed, and then the second tank came and went, and then the third tank.

I then had to come to the grim realization that I just haven't posted here much. It occurred to me while my car's mileage is great, my "spiritual mileage" is about as low as it can get.

Like with the GreenHybrid link above, it would be interesting to track the ups and downs of my spiritual mileage on a chart. I have had periods of high mileage; right now its kind of low.

I can recognize it - I'm burned out. Even the smallest of tasks, like putting new information up on the church's web site, becomes a huge burden. I haven't really had a "Sunday off" in about 20 months, and it's very lonely as the web and media volunteer at our typical "aging demographic" Lutheran church.

I've been following a few online chat forums for Prius owners. Some owners are pretty enthusiastic about finding the best techniques for getting the highest possible gas mileage. What I need to to is figure out good techniques for increasing my spiritual mileage. I find great comfort and nourishment in the many online blogs I follow; that helps for sure. But for today, I think I'm just a bit "out of gas".

I've been Simpsonized

The Simpsons Movie is out today. I've always been a moderately casual fan of the show. I like the cultural references and social commentary the most. I'm not sure if I'll head out to the movie to see it, since my initial opinion was the same as the review in the Arizona Republic this morning - why not just wait to watch it on DVD?

Anyway, I recently stumbled on simpsonizeme.com, which will transform any personal photo into a Simpsons character. I tried it with my usual avatar, and this is what came out. I was actually pretty surprised at how well it worked. It even added a smile. I guess living in Springfield can make you happy.

From Blue to Green

New Prius
Originally uploaded by Andrew_Sandstrom

I recently experienced a saddening loss - that of my beloved 10 year old Jeep Cherokee. It was the best car I ever had: practical, modest, and always faithful. Unfortunately, I made a bad decision in lane changing and my Jeep paid the price.

I was short on ideas when deciding how to replace my Jeep. I didn't want any car that was too fancy (or too plain either), or a car that wasn't practical (I've got a lot of musical instruments to lug about). The Toyota Prius was kind of in the back of my mind but I didn't really think about it too seriously until somebody at church mentioned it to me as a good environmental decision.

So, in the end, this has become the new me. Still modest, still practical, and now, more green. Its not just the gas mileage (still working on my first tank after a week, but the computer is telling me about 43mpg so far), its also an AT-PZEV (Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle).

From the Christian perspective, I think its also a good choice, as far as being a good steward of God's creation (I even found a web site asking"WWJD - What Would Jesus Drive?).

Now, to be honest, I don't want to make this out to be the best thing ever. Its not like I've become entirely environmentally "pure" overnight. The Prius still does use gas, and there have been some studies questioning the entire energy consumption from"dust to dust", factoring manufacturing costs and other things. And I have discovered there can be a "holier than thou" attitude among Prius owners that I'm not particularly fond of.

But I do feel good that I've at least taken a step in the right direction. There are some passages in Jeremiah that describe the consequences of our poor actions and decisions. But I liked what Jeremiah 6:16 says:

Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it

I feel like I'm at the crossroads in this instance. Any major change can only start with small steps. I feel like I'm starting with some small steps.

We just recently saw Evan Almighty. In that movie, Evan wants to change the world but doesn't know how to accomplish it. God (Morgan Freeman) tells him that big changes start with small Acts of Random Kindness. So in Phoenix, the Valley of the Sun, where a car is by default mandatory for survival, I'm hoping this one small act of kindness for the environment.

(PS In the movie, I did notice that when Evan is sitting in a huge Hummer, there is a Toyota Prius behind him).

Bad Powerpoint....baaaaaad powerpoint

Considering I do worship powerpoints at church, and do your 'typical business' powerpoints at work, this one strikes pretty close to home...

23 Squidoo!

Sometimes my head spills over with all the new ideas I stumble across on the web. I recently found Swicki, a combination web search and wiki - its a search tool that you can optimize and tailor, and train, and then allow your community of users to improve by giving feedback.

Here is a test swicki I've created.

I'm also still trying to get my head around Squidoo. Its a web site that allows you to create Lenses, or unique views on different topics. The lens is a web page that can point to lots of different resources and web sites devoted to that topic.

It would seem useful to have a lens devoted to a church, which could highlight the church's vision, mission, programs, and ministries. I did a very brief search this afternoon and didn't find too much. I did find Church! At Bethany

http://www.squidoo.com/churchatbethany/

I like the ideas behind Swicki, Squidoo, and del.icio.us because they allow you to place another viewpoint over existing web structures. It allows for alternative ways to access info, and allows for community participation in making a web site stronger.

For now I'll keep thinking this one over

Phoning It In!

OK. this isn't the world's most exciting photo. Its a picture I took a while back on my phone at a Chris Tomlin concert (from the back row at the Dodge in Phoenix).

The cool thing is that I created this blog entry from my phone (well not the whole entry, I sent in the picture first in order to get it "claimed" and routed to my blog, and then I went and edited this after the fact to add the text (I have no mobile-typing mad skillz).

I got on this small sidetrack after finding a church youth group blog here on blogger (weareonetour), chronicling a mission trip for Katrina relief, and having a "V8" moment. Our church's youth are currently on a mission to Mexico, and something like this would be a great way to share the trip. I'll have to get this worked out for the next one....

Volunteer Coordination through Blogs

We were recently having some discussion at church about how to handle scheduling and signup of volunteers for Sunday mornings.

I recently finished reading The Blogging Church by Brian Bailey and Terry Storch. It is a terrific resource for learning about using blogs for many different uses in church life, and I'm hoping to write more about it later; but one use for blogging mentioned was using a blog for sharing news of ministry teams. The book suggests using multiple (and free even, like this one) blogs for sharing information.

I came across an example of this - a blog used for scheduling Sunday morning worship. The media team for Lake Pointe Church uses several blogs to schedule media team volunteers for multiple campuses.

You can see the schedule gateway here. Choose a campus, and you'll see a blog like the one I've shown here. There is one blog entry per week. Volunteers can view the current schedule in the entry and add comments to volunteer (or change status).

Its a very simple and elegant concept, and an effective use of blogging.

I believe the same concept can be applied over at our church's forum. In fact, I'm currently using the forum to list songs for each week for the Praise Team. It would be pretty easy to extend this concept to scheduling.

The one big drawback is that it requires volunteers to actually use it; and I'm not sure our congregation may be ready for this.

Oh Usher, There's a Cheetah in My Seat

Along the way in my discipleship journey I've come across lots of innovative things for ministry. This one boggles my mind.

Second Life is an online virtual world, where users can create digital versions of themselves and explore, participate, and basically live in a online universe.

As with many online worlds, some of the interaction can be, well, adult oriented, let's say, but some churches are making outreaches into this world as well.

LifeChurch.tv is a progressive church that connects many locations through satellite hookup, and hosts online church activities and worship experiences.

They're also entering the Second Life world with an virtual version of their church. People can attend the same worship that's being broadcast in the "real" world in Second Life.

Imagine being in a worship experience where the worshiper next to you is a Cheetah (see above).

According to the LifeChurch.tv website,

We developed "Experience Island" as an effort to share God's truth and love with the rapidly growing number of Second Life users. We desire to engage people right where they are (physically or virtually), and Second Life represents a new frontier in that effort. Because the Second Life environment uses avatars, people are able to remain relatively anonymous. We find that this creates a less-threating environment where people are much more willing to explore and discuss spiritual things.

I have to admit I'm both completely fascinated with this idea, and somewhat unsure about what this means for worship, especially in terms of human contact. This MSNBC article and video covers that angle as well.

I do think that we need to continually examine how we as Christians adapt to new cultures and new technologies. I'm still thinking I need at least some "real" church though.

I found an example of the Second Life church experience on YouTube, see for yourself:



By the way, a nod to TechnoPraxis for the original article that led me to some additional reading and surfing.

Your Table is Smarter than You

I don't have much to say about this, other than this is pretty cool.

God, iPod, and Microsoft

I recently stumbled on this video parody of the Microsoft version of iPod. It is funny in its own right, and I've seen millions of "If Microsoft made..." kind of writings. When I viewed this one though, something struck a chord with me. Its the difference between simplicity, elegance, excellence, and "overdone".



This made me think of church outreach, evangelism, and of worship. We often talk about how the message itself is fundamental, but the means of communicating the message are changing and changeable.

But it certainly is possible to overdo the message and create a lot of distracting "noise" that diverts people away the fundamental message.

Maybe this is an offshoot of the KISS principle (Keep it Simple, Stupid). Its easy to create fancy bells and whistles in our message and in our worship, but sometimes simplicity, elegance, and pure excellence is the most effective way.

Church Marketing - Seriously

In my previous post I noted a cartoon about church marketing. I also posted this to our church's forum, and the question of why this was so close to home came up. I've been doing some thinking about this, and here are some random observations.

Marketing? Can that be Christian?

Most people think of "marketing" in a secular sense, and it seems somehow foreign to church, in that trying too hard at marketing may be a "bad thing" and not Christian. But I think Paul was all about marketing. 1 Corinthians 9 comes to mind:

I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.
I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?
Run in such a way as to get the prize.

That sounds like "good marketing". Its the basis of the Great Commission too, isn't it?

So why do we Christians feel somehow "guilty" about good marketing?

Equipped?

There's a whole webiste and blog devoted to (bad) church marketing. This web site and the cartoon say a lot about equipping in our church. A marketing firm is full of trained, experienced marketing people. In church, we look for volunteers. Maybe the volunteers know how to do marketing; maybe they don't. I don't think its an issue of a church recruiting trained marketing people, its an issue of making sure the people who volunteer are properly trained and equipped.

Again, Paul is all over this - look at the next verse of the 1 Corinthians 9 passage mentioned above:

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.

When we talk about "equipping disciples" in church, its easy to imagine "churchy" things, like Bible studies, etc. But equipping in areas like marketing, outreach (and technology) can be, and should be, just as important.

Time? I don't Have Time!

I recently stumbled across a post in Tony Morgan's blog describing an article in Men's Health about volunteering. I don't read Mens' Health, and I couldn't find any information on their web site, so I'm going on the data from Tony Morgan's post, but here are some figures:

• Women are more likely than men to volunteer.
• 32% of women serve in some volunteer capacity compared to 25% of men.
• Working mothers are the most active as volunteers.
• Busy people are more likely to volunteer.

The interesting one to me is the last one. I think this is some indicator of the old 80/20 rule, that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. So with the same people doing things, are we maximizing our resources?

And those 20% are already busy according to the survey. I know a common refrain heard around our church is "I'm so busy, I just don't have time!" I can hardly argue with that - balancing work and family is hard enough, let alone church. But is it easier sometimes to just say you don't have time for something rather than making a sacrifice for Christ?

I'm reminded of the "Cost of Following Jesus" passage in Luke 9. For the longest time I wondered how I would react if I was asked to leave everything behind to follow - I always imagined it as some "big moment"; but I came to understand that this applies to even the littlest things and in the smallest of moments, like making extra time to do something for discipleship. Discipleship ain't easy.


I don't mean for this to be any kind of slam on people doing marketing, especially in our church. I think we are trying, and are succeeding in areas. But I'd like to think there's always room for doing better.

Here are some interesting church web sites, for example, and some interesting uses of billboards.

Church Marketing

I recently came across this cartoon about church marketing (click on the cartoon to enlarge)

The cartoon is courtesy of Cartoon Church.com.

While I'm not sure its entirely accurate, I think there's probably some amount of truth to it ;-)

Tower of Video

Blogger just introduced a new featured called the Video Bar. It allows you to specify a search for video from Google Video and YouTube, and will show a small tower of video links which will play at the top of your blog when clicked.

I put this in my blog as an experiment - it searches for "Church Outreach" and "web2.0" - I'm got to see if this shows up anything interesting. Since I can't necessarily control what shows up from those searches I'll have to apologize in advance if something "bad" happens to show up.

The Machine is Us/ing Us

I recently came across this interesting illustration of web 2.0, from Professor Michael Wesch from the Kansas State Cultural Anthropology Department.

(full size version from YouTube is here)



Its one of the most powerful (and dizzying) explanations of the current state of the web. If you've been around the web for a while, its easy to stay stuck in the past, and think of static web sites that are controlled by others. This video shows that the power and content of both reading and publishing lie with all of its participants.

Two things come to mind when I think of church outreach

1) the possibilities of sheer numbers for outreached (his video has reached over 1.7 million viewers)
2) the opportunities to boost ministries through information sharing and collaboration.

I'm trying in my own way to help the cause at our church, through this blog, use of del.icio.us, flickr, and ways of consolidating feeds into manageable content. I'm finding that the more I read, the more I find, and the more I need to read.

Technology in Worship: Pixel or Perish

I found an article in the Arizona Republic recently titled "Technology Advocate tells Pastors: Pixel or Perish". I found the original online article here.

I don't think I found anything incredibly new or exciting here, but I wanted to share it.

I think the one part that stood out for me is this quote:

"People under 50 don't remember what they hear," he said. "They remember what they see. If you look at a church that's dying, they have nothing for the eye."

I'm really interested in use of worship visuals to aid in making a connection between worship and personal discipleship. I think the visual aspect is a key element to worship.

Here's an interesting warning though:

"But if screens in churches have become ubiquitous, too many use them to project sermon notes or song lyrics...That becomes so deadly...Why put more words on the screen? The human brain needs access to a lot of information and can handle it. Action, movement, makes it more dimensional."

There's definitely a fine line between too-little and too-much.

Why Anxious?

Naming something new is always hard. When I was coming up with a name for this blog last week I was trying to think of something technical at first. But I knew that I wanted to discuss other things that were perhaps less technical, but still related to outreach ministry.

So I decided I wanted a name that would reflect my general state of being. Number one - I'd like to be a disciple. Our church's ministry is about making passionate disciples. Check. Secondly, I also wanted to describe the passion I feel about my personal ministry of trying to help our church with technology. But at the same time, I wanted to reflect some sense of how overwhelmed I can feel.

While running through words in my head the word "Anxious" came up. Sure, I feel anxious a lot - I'm sure anyone who knows me can tell you that. Being anxious can often be thought of as a bad thing. Dictionary.com says

uneasiness because of fear of danger or misfortune; greatly worried

Well, OK, maybe a little extreme, but I have worry and fear some times when faced with the "great unknown" of technology for Christ.

But, here's the cool part. Anxious can also mean

earnestly desirous; eager

So...bingo. At the same time, I feel fearful and worried, but also very eager and passionate about what I'm doing. So, I'm the anxious disciple.

What's all this then?

So, then. It's the first post. The "hello world" program. The Initial Program Load.

Why am I doing this? Well, good question. I don't imagine many people will read this, and I think that's one reason I haven't started a blog before now.

For the longest time, I thought that blogs were primarily meant for other people. Over the last few weeks, however, I've been reading lots of other blogs, and I've come to the realization that blogs can be useful for organizing personal thoughts and writing things down. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, so I suppose its not shocking that I haven't realized this before.

I decided to start this blog because I wanted a place to write down, keep track of, and organize random thoughts about my involvement with technology and media ministry in our church.

Over the last year or so, I've been working in creating a web site for our church. I'm interested in web2.0 and exploring new ways of doing outreach through the internet and the web. I don't feel I'm "there" yet at all.

So I plan to use this blog to mention other stuff I've found that I like, write down where I'm at, and maybe where I'm not at either. So there you go.