At the worship planning retreat this evening we were asked to take a walk and collect metaphors - something that could be used as a sermon illustration. My method of collection was to take pictures. Do you have any suggestions for captions for these photos that would point out a sermonic metaphor?
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This post is homework for the Internet Campus Strategic Project Team at Resurrection. Those of you not on our project team, feel free to learn along with us.
1. Read/view the following blog posts and videos and be prepared to share your reactions at our next meeting.
Senior Pastor Adam Hamilton’s eNote of August 24, 2007 in which he first mentioned the idea of Internet Campus
Church Online: Resurrection Internet Campus? - post by Andrew, read the comments too
A Vision of Students Today - video from K-State’s Digital Ethnography program
A Screen that Ships without a Mouse Ships Broken - presentation by Clay Shirky
2. Attend one service of one of the following churches with Internet Campuses:
Take notes about your experience. What did you like? What would you do differently? What can we learn? Be prepared to share your thoughts at our next meeting.
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I have been in a conversation with Ben Simpson regarding a post by Steve Knight in which he includes a video of Shane Hipps critiquing the possibility of online Christian community. This is a subject about which I have thought a great deal as I lead a project at Resurrection to develop an Internet Campus.
I have two reactions to the Shane Hipps video. The first regards his definition of “Christian community.” The second regards his comments about the incarnation.
Hipps starts by saying, “We’ve radically altered the definition of [community].” This premise suggests that at some time in the past Christians have shared an understanding of community that is radically at odds with what happens when people interact online. It would be helpful to know the source and content of that prior definition, if in fact such a definition has ever existed, in order evaluate the validity of this premise.
Hipps then goes on to give his own definition. He says, “A meaningful, missional, Christian community should have several ingredients: 1) shared history; 2) permanence; 3) proximity; and 4) a shared imagination of the future.”
Communities can have any or all of the characteristics Hipps mentioned, no argument there, but Hipps is saying a “Christian community” (or more precisely “a meaningful, missional, Christian community”) by definition should have all four of these. It’s not clear to me that this definition of community is sound, from either a sociological or a theological point of view.
I’m not a sociologist, but I believe a good sociological definition of “community” is a group of people who interact with each other and share one or more things in common such as interests, goals, intentions, worldview, needs, practices, proximity, emotional connection, resources, or identity. I believe a sociologist would say any one of these or other traits could be the basis of a community as the term is commonly used.
Neither am I a theologian, but some simple illustrations cast doubt on Hipps’ definition. If church I attend closes, then it wasn’t permanent. Does that mean the entire time I was part of that church it wasn’t a “Christian community?” Similarly, if a church I attend never arrives at a shared imagination of the future, does that mean it isn’t a “Christian community?” If I’m homebound and talk with other congregants by phone and listen to my church’s weekly worship service on the radio, does my lack of proximity mean I’m not part of the “Christian community?” Further, the term “proximity” is relative. As long as we’re getting technical here, how close is close enough? Did people who were close enough to see and hear Jesus but never touched him fully experience the incarnation?
This brings me to my reaction to Hipps’ comments on the relationship between the incarnation and Christian community. He begins by saying, “Jesus Christ is the ultimate medium and message for God’s revelation in the world.” He goes on to say it is, “… hard to understand how you incarnate the gospel in a discarnate setting.” It isn’t our task to “incarnate the gospel.” God has already done that once and for all. Jesus is no longer physically present with us in the body in which he was incarnated (or perhaps he is if you accept transubstantiation). Rather, our knowledge of Jesus is mediated through the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, and the Church, which is the Body of Christ in the world. Affirming the gospel as incarnational does not mean we must physically touch Jesus in order to be in communion with God. My question for Hipps is this: in what way does the incarnation demand that we physically touch each other in order to understand or practice the gospel?
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I just now got an e-mail from Terrell Sanders with the key information about the upcoming MinistryTECH/Church IT RoundTable, April 23-24, 2009 at Woodmen Valley Chapel in Colorado Springs.
Keynotes:
Brad Sheriff - Sonic Drive-ins
Jeff Wilson - Henderson Hills Baptist Church
David Drinnon - Second Baptist Church
Mike Gold - Willow Creek Community Church
Jason Powell - Granger Community Church
MainStreetOpen.com
Willow Creek Association
Church IT RoundTable
Church Community Builder
April 22 - Ministry Technology Tour:
Compassion International
New Life Community Church
Focus on the Family
Register at: www.MinistryTECH.org
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I’ve been at the Methodist Congress on Evangelism this week with Chuck Russell. This is the annual national evangelism conference for the United Methodist denomination. Chuck and I were asked to present on the role of a congregation’s website in evangelism. Chuck covered the basics and I talked about sermon content delivery, social networking and social media, and Internet Campus.
For fun, I used EVDO on my cell phone and a web cam to live stream our presentation via the Clif Guy Cam on uStream. When I verified that my EVDO signal was strong enough to support the live stream, I tweeted and within minutes we had 10 people watching. The third time we gave the presentation, I recorded it. You can watch it here. Sure, the video production values are so non-existent it’s comical. Despite that, the video gives a pretty good sense of the presentation.
Web sites/products mentioned in the presentation:
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I know I’m not the first person to have a bad customer experience at Best Buy. Neither will I be the last, no doubt. This is what happened last week.
I went with my daughter, who is a college junior, to Best Buy to look for a laptop. (Why didn’t we purchase it online? Because she didn’t want to wait.) After spending an hour looking at all the models, prices, features, screens, keyboards, etc., she decided on a Dell Studio 15. It was well equipped and less expensive at $780 than we could get it through any other channel such as the Employee Purchase Program.
So I asked the salesperson if they had one in stock. He looked around a bit and then checked his inventory system. The only thing he had was the display model, which he said he would sell for 10% off, but at the same time he wouldn’t recommend that to us. The inventory system told him that another store 5 miles away did have one and it was listed at $733. Excellent, we thought, so he called the second store and asked them to hold it for us at the customer service desk. We immediately took the short drive and found the box waiting for us at customer service as promised. We paid and went home happy. So far so good, right?
The next day I unboxed the system to set it up for my daughter. I expected to see the standard Vista “mini-setup” or sysprep - the final steps in installing the operating system and preparing the new computer for first-time use. Imagine my surprise when I was greeted instead by a screen showing two user accounts. As I investigated further, this is what I found:
Let that last part sink in a bit. How in the world had Best Buy sold me a laptop as new that not only wasn’t new but contained a huge amount of copyrighted material that I didn’t purchase? At the very least this was a serious security breach involving a person who others are entrusting with their computers and data. How could any Geek Squad employee not have a password on his own computer account? No matter the circumstances of his use of the computer, how could the computer possibly have ended up being sold to me without him removing his data? Did he use the computer without the store’s knowledge and somehow sneak it back onto the shelf? Did the store not know they had sold me an open-box computer as new? My mind was racing without a lot of information but all kinds of speculation.
Needless to say, I took it back to the store. Ironically, the person who greeted me at the customer service counter was none other than the previous user of the laptop. I asked to see the manager. When he came I asked if there was a place we could speak privately. When I explained, the manager was shocked and immediately seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. To make a long story short, it turned out that the employee had purchased the laptop and then returned it. Best Buy’s errors were twofold: 1) they failed to restore the hard drive to the factory load; 2) they sold me the machine as new. It’s quite possible they knew it was an open box item, accounting for the lower price at the second store compared to the first, but no one at the second store ever told me that.
The manager’s resolution? He offered his apologies and provided me with another Studio 15 with a slightly better configuration that sells for $865. (According to the manager, this second unit had been serviced by the Geek Squad to apply latest service packs, updates, etc. So it wasn’t exactly in the factory shipped configuration. I took his word for that in spite of the obvious fact that Best Buy had already given me ample reason to question their trustworthiness and procedures.) He then asked if I was interested in the extended warranty. I said I would take it if he gave it to me for free, which he declined. So how’s that for a mediocre response to what was at best major-league mistake?
I’m now attempting to reach the person at Dell who is reponsible for the Best Buy account in the midwest. Managers far removed from the sales floor occasionally need to hear from real end customers so they can better visualize the kinds of situations that arise at retail and the systems that need to be in place to serve customers well.
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It’s difficult to believe I got home from the national Church IT RoundTable at Seacoast Church a week ago tonight. Sadly, I forgot my digital camera battery, so I don’t have any pictures. Several other people have posted photos online such as here, and here. Note particularly Jason Powell’s Flickr set, which includes most of the attendees individually with their name tags, allowing those of us with bad memories to go back and refresh ourselves. Thanks Jason!
Me with name tag at CITRT Fall 2008
Quick notes from Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday:
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Once again, the Church IT RoundTable managed to be the coolest thing ever. Here are my quick, contemporaneous notes from the roundtable sessions. I moderated in Studio B, so my ability to take good notes was limited.
Conference WiFi
Mac OS issues
SAN/Virtualization
ChMS
Desktop management/Help desk
Network monitoring
Intranet
iTunes
Remote access
New facility construction
IT Management
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On Monday I traveled with Brian and Jeremy to Atlanta for the Fall 2008 Church IT RoundTable. Here are my quick notes for Monday and Tuesday:
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Yay! It’s time once again for the national Church IT Roundtable (CITRT). This time it is at the hub of Seacoast Church in Charleston, South Carolina. I’m stoked because I’ve wanted to visit Seacoast for several years. Full details of this week’s events are here. Even if you haven’t made plans yet, it’s not too late to join us. Register immediately so Trace will know you’re coming.
Rather than flying straight to Charleston, I’m taking my team early and going to Atlanta for tours of Johnson Ferry, North Point, and Perimeter. Our hosts are Derek Schwab, Ryan Clevenger, and Tony Dye respectively.
Due to Jason Lee’s first child being due any day now, he won’t be able to attend this time. Jeremie Kilgore is the only one coming from Northwoods. He’s meeting us in the Atlanta airport Monday afternoon and we’re sharing a rental car and hotels all week. Excellent.
If you’re not able to attend, we’ll be using the #citrt IRC channel, Twitter, blogs, Flickr, Ustream, etc. to keep you updated on what we’re experiencing. Charleston, here we come!
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As a rule, I try not to get too proactive on infrastructure. I have found over the years that doing so runs a high risk of investing precious resources to solve a problem you never end up having. In that spirit, a few years ago when WiFi was exploding onto the scene and many consumers started getting wireless routers at home, I knew we needed to start offering WiFi for guests on our central campus. Simultaneously, I wanted to use WiFi for children’s check in.
Rather that designing and implementing a rigorous commercial WiFi infrastructure, I felt it was best to go buy some consumer-grade routers/access points and get started at a very low cost of entry. Those devices cost $100-150 at the time. I bought one Netgear router and after a bit of experimentation, I quickly bought two more. Together they covered the narthex (lobby), most of the main sanctuary, and the portion of the children’s wing where we had check-in stations. Total hardware investment was under $400 and we had something that filled the immediate need.
Over the next couple of years, we continued to buy more access points to cover more and more of our facilities. Each time we have gotten new access points, we have used NetStumbler to measure signal strength and determine optimum placement. We weren’t worried about security because: 1) we don’t have a private WiFi network at all; instead we tell staff to use remote desktop when they’re using wireless, just as if they were working from home; and 2) we have the public, non-secure access points on a separate VLAN. Total investment was still under $1,500 as wireless equipment got better and continued to come down in price.
Two years ago we replaced our Cisco PIX firewall with a SonicWALL Pro 2040, after evaluating a wide range of web content filtering products. Ian, our network administrator, quickly discovered many, many cool tricks he could do with the 2040 and we fell in love with it. Since then we have upgraded to a 3060. One cool trick of these Pro-series appliances is their ability to manage access points. So last year right before the Church IT RoundTable and Leadership Institute 2007, we bought a 4-pack of SonicPoints and deployed them to our most heavily used zones. We immediately benefited from the improved realiability and manageability of these commercial-grade access points.
Earlier this week we got another 4-pack of SonicPoints and installed them in preparation for Leadership Institute 2008. The new ones are the 802.11a/b/g version. I mentioned that today would be the best chance to test them until this event comes around again next year. I’m pleased to report that it worked like a champ. The additional NetStumbler testing we did this week allowed us to determine permanent locations for installation over the next few months.
Through this process we have learned incrementally, invested incrementally, and made incremental improvements. Though we’ve spent less than $4,000 since we bought our first access point, we now have a solid, reliable WiFi infrastructure. $4,000 is less than the consulting fee alone to have a commercial WiFi system designed for our facilities.
Do you have a story of a time you overbuilt something? Or what about a time you invested slowly and incrementally, with a great end result and great stewardship?
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This week is Church of the Resurrection’s flagship conference for pastors and church leaders, Leadership Institute. Each year it ranks among my top highlights of the year because of the opportunity to serve and meet many new people from all across the country who are passionate about improving their church leadership skills.
This is my 6th Leadership Institute and the first one at which I am not presenting. This has given me the opportunity to focus much more than ever before on the network, WiFi, and other aspects of our guests’ experience. I will post tomorrow about our recent infrastructure upgrades and how it is faring under the load. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), only once a year at Leadership Institute do we have a major network load spike. Each year we learn something new, but then we have to wait until the next year to apply the lessons and find out how much of an improvement we have achieved. So Friday, when we have all 1,700 guests on campus, will be our moment of truth.
Not presenting this year has also given me the opportunity to take photos of conference activities all over campus. Andrew Conard asked LI photographers to upload their pictures to Flickr and tag them with “LI2008.” Right now it looks like I’m the only one who has really taken him up on that. Here are a couple of my favorites so far.
Paul Baloche and band lead a clinic for worship musicians
Attendees enjoying the presentation by Midnight Oil
Correy Trupp talking about Small Group ministry
Yvonne Gentile presents in the Wesley Chapel
Conference guests outside before opening worship
Senior Pastor Adam Hamilton interviews congregant Kelly Sisney
For more, check out my full Flickr set.
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David Kinnaman, President of The Barna Group and author of unChristian, gave a talk at Resurrection tonight and took questions from Adam and the audience. Here are my notes.
David has been with Barna for 14 years, since he was a junior in college (which makes him approx. 35).
The public thinks present-day Christianity is no longer like Jesus intended
Favorable view of evangelicals:
75% of Americans over 40 say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still important in their lives. 70% of Americans believe the resurrection is literally, historically true.
60% of Americans under 40 would say the same.
“Biblical World View” defined by Barna – 3% under 40 and 9% over 40.
Opportunities
We suffer from a failure of kingdom imagination
What does it mean to be Christ-like? Luke 7:36-50. What would the woman in John 7 say about Simon? He was judgmental, hypocritical, anti-sinner, too political, insincere, out of touch. This is what young people say about Christians today.
Births to unwed mothers: 1960 – 5%, now – 38%
Next generation is very relational. Music piracy – loyalty to peers is much greater than loyalty to authority, etc. Loyalty to peers is their primary moral compass.
How to post-moderns perceive truth? The majority of young people don’t respond to an apologetics approach (some do, but not majority). Being a Christian should make people have a clearer picture of what God has called them to do in their life. If a lawyer, a lawyer who is called to restore justice, etc.
Young people want deep answers, not simplicity, canned, or phony answers. For example, student ministry might be better with fewer students (lower student/teacher ratios) and deeper investment in their lives. We might think a great curriculum or a great program will communicate the gospel effectively. Since they’re relationally-motivated, that may be less true for young people.
It’s very easy for us to slip into patterns of judgmentalism, superficiality, and religiosity. For example, students often say that rather than being accepted at church, they’re socially shunned at church just like they have been at school. Church leaders favor the popular, beautiful, smart, rich, etc. Students conclude the church is no different, or even worse that secular social groups.
It’s very possible for Christians to use terminology that non-Christians don’t understand.
43% of Americans say they’ve gone to church in the last 7 days. That’s probably over-reported (“halo effect”). Frequency of worship attendance among committed Christians is declining. People have many more options and fragmented attention. People can listen to podcasts, etc. (Adam says it has gone from 2.7 times per month to 1.4 times per month.)
Situational awareness is important, but relational awareness is even more important.
The media doesn’t get spirituality at all. Barna has recently gotten lots of questions from the media about Sarah Palin such as, “Why would she speak about spiritual things in her leadership?” So it’s no surprise that the media doesn’t project positive portrayals of committed followers of any religion.
Young people today: it’s cool to care; they’re eager to take on big things and solve them.
12 years ago 80+% of people had a positive view of Christians. Now it’s something like 40% who have a negative view.
Young people don’t want to feel that they’re the object of someone’s attempt to win them to Christ. How do we feel when a Mormon comes to the door? We notice that if we’re not a great target for conversion, they move on. We don’t want friends who are friendly with us because of an agenda: insurance salesman, etc.
Critiquing Christians has become popular. There is very possibly a “bandwagon effect” going on.
Table talk: We incorrectly believe that non-Christians are faithless. Imago Dei tells us all people have a spirit that believes in something and is potentially open.
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If it’s true that the staff that plays together stays together, then today was a good day at Resurrection. Lots of good-natured trash talk before and lots of fun during the First Annual? Staff Flag Football Classic.
Naturally, I snapped a few pics.
Michael Maroon makes a catch over Dave Pullin's outstretched arm
Check out my Flickr set for more gripping action shots!
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Here are some pictures I snapped in the last two days as we hosted the Willow Creek Leadership Summit at Resurrection. The first pictures are from our narthex (lobby) during breaks.
l to r: Brian Slezak, Chuck Russell, yours truly
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Personal highlights from today …
Craig Groeschel:
Catherine Rohr:
Pastor Howitzer: “When I think, I have thoughts.”
Brad Anderson: “People are drawn to leadership because they’re looking for an affirmation of themselves.”
Bill Hybels quoting Mother Theresa’s vows to God:
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Personal highlights from today …
Gary Haugen:
Bill George:
Bill Hybels: “I never advocate insane living. I’ve done it, but I would never advocate it!”
Wendy Kopp:
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Why did I launch clifguy.com and then not blog for 6 weeks?
In his blog roll Brian has me as “Clif Guy Some of the Time”. In truth, for 6 weeks it was “Clif Guy None of the Time”. Now you know why.
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Three months ago I posted about how I was fed up with iTunes and was uninstalling it. Well … here I am downloading iTunes and QuickTime. I’m NOT happy about it, but too many things just assume you have it. My new digital camera (purchased to replace the one in my stolen laptop bag) records short videos. Alas, I can’t watch them because they’re in QuickTime .MOV format. I’m a podcast fan and too many of them just assume iTunes - they don’t give you the feed URL for other podcatchers such as Juice. Is there any other way?
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If you visit clifguy.com as opposed to subscribing with a feed reader then you can see the Google gadget on the left counting down the days until the Fall 2008 Church IT RoundTable at Seacoast Church in the Charleston, SC area. Early bird registration is $50. It goes up to $75 on August 8. I just now registered myself along with Brian and Jeremy from my team. We got the early bird rate. Did you?
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