June 2008

These five points sum it up - anything you would add or detract? (oh and check out the rest of the post this is from - great stuff!

At it’s core social media gives us five base opportunities:

• the opportunity to contribute - easy sharing of information
• the opportunity to comment - your chance to have your say
• the opportunity to collaborate - work with anyone, anywhere to achieve a common goal
• the opportunity of conversation - getting involved in discussions with others
• the opportunity of community - building relationships online

[From Colin Walker » What brings us to social media?]

This is an interesting post about using Social Media for Social Good. I am not sure if the guy who put it together is a Christian or not - but we can certainly learn from his ideas!

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By the way, I share these thoughts and more over at the Church 2.0 room I’ve created in FriendFeed, sign up and join us in the larger conversation!

Okay, you read a blog, talk to a friend or catch a Seth Godin or Geoff Livingston book and realize that even though the bottom hasn’t completely dropped out from under traditional communications and traditional media - it is certainly going to happen at some point. And that people want to interact in a different way - and that your church needs to get up to speed. The first inclination is just to jump right into a blog, a twitter feed and some live streaming through your cell phone with qik.com. If you do that you have put the cart before the horse.

First ask, what about our church or environment has made it such that we are still traditional and haven’t started implementing this already? Social Media is a tool and a movement occurring, and one that naturally fits with the rhythms of change afoot on the internet and in our communities (both online and off). If your organization or church is not adept to move with those rhythms, then it won’t be able to put a social media campaign or communications adjustment in action in a way that will be sustainable. I love this quote from the post that inspired mine below:

“the real question is how can you move them from an operational mindset and culture to one that is prepared for a constant state of change.”

[From 4 Things Companies Should Do To Really Prepare for Social Media]

SO, the first question for you to sort out first, or as you start to move in this direction, is: How can we make sure we don’t fall behind again? and/or What environment do we need to create to live in this world and new rhythm of change?

Great Park Church - How to Grow Spiritually - June 22 2008 from Tony Steward on Vimeo.

My good friend Eric Busby is planting a church (Great Park Church) here in Irvine, California. It is going to be centered in the Great Park of Orange county which is still getting ready to launch, but will turn into the center of Orange County when it is finished. The word is that it will be the California version of New York’s Central Park.

Anyways, I took my Sony Camcorder with me as I always do and decided to record the service. It is shaky at times and I’m sure the audio could use some help - but it was a really great service with both the worship by Sheena and the preaching by Eric. Check out the video and be blessed!

This is part of a series of videos I helped Saddleback Church do for their Purpose Driven Network Summit. Huge thanks to Carlos Whittaker, Tony Morgan, DJ Chuang, and Mike Foster for coming to the summit, hosting interviews and blogging for it!

Typically when you see a resume have a topic to it like the post of the title it is descriptive of the type of job you are looking for, in my case it is both that and the way that I’ve built it. You may or may not have notice the “Resume” page link come up on the top right of my blog over the past couple of weeks. Well I have been building an interactive resume because this year I feel that it is time to find a good fit in local church based ministry (but with a global frame of mind), but with the new set of skills and knowledge that I’ve acquired over the past couple of years.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

(A couple of side notes - huge thanks to Dan, Clayton and Josh for putting themselves out there and being willing to be video personal references for me with this new approach to a resume. Also this is the 600th post on my blog which is kinda fun!)

Great article from the guys at Lifechurch on finding and reasons for removing the wrong people on your staff/team.

read more | digg story

Here is a video of James Dyson, the Dyson vaccumer cleaner company with the “Apple-ish” commercials and CEO. In it he talks about how if a company makes a product the CEO shouldn’t be able to break it, and then he goes into dropping and punishing one of their vaccum cleaners on the spot, and he doesn’t break it.

So, this interests me specifically in regards to churches. Does your weekend message hold up to you? Do you see gaps and “balls being dropped” in your experience? Would you sit through your own assimilation classes? (The last one I went through on spiritual gifts was 4 hours - way too long!)

I love what the guys at Off the Map have championed with hiring non-believers in their community to come and check their church services out like “mystery shoppers” - and then they get an honest review back from their experience. What does that look like for you? Can you “break” or find “brokeness” in the way your local ministry loves on people, cares for volunteers or communicates the teachings of Jesus?