All posts in Echo 09

The Church Panel

by Tim Schraeder on 07/30/2009 in Church Communications, Echo 09, Notes, Principles, Resources with 4 Comments

This was an awesome session moderated by Scott McClellan of Collide Magazine and featured Conway Edwards (CE), Cynthia Ware (CW), Scott Hodge (SH), Carlos Whittaker (LS), and Bobby Gruenewald (BG).

Does the church leadership conversation focus too much on innovation, just enough, etc?

CW: We’re not focusing enough on it because our culture is changing so dramatically and rapidly.  People aren’t aware that the first-time visitors to church come to their websites. People consider hiring a great lead pastor, worship pastor, etc and not invest in their website and staffing in areas of media and technology. By using technology doesn’t mean using it for the cool factor, it means, evaluating where culture lives and what part we can and are called to redeem. If we can be were people are and use technology to drive forward the Kingdom, we need to.

LW: We need to be careful, as the Church, to not innovate for the sake of innovating. What’s the purpose and role of the local church in your community? And how can you innovate with that goal in mind Churches get ahead of themselves when they try to innovate for the sake of innovation.

BG: Collectively, the Church doesn’t understand or focus on it at all. There’s examples of churches that lose sight and think that how you use technology replaces why you do things. Technology is a tool. The “why” behind it is not to use technology, we use technology to build the church. We don’t understand how to live in a culture of change.  It’s easy to create a change but difficult to have a culture of change. People need to anticipate change. People need to learn to lean into change.

What are your sources of inspiration for creativity, innovation, connection, etc?

CE: Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill through The City; Andy Stanley, and John Piper.

CW: For tech and media, she gravitates towards people who are asking deeper questions. Carefully weighing what we’re doing it, why we’re doing it, and where’s the Scripture to back it. (Ill: John Piper vs Twitter). There’s a lot of polarization between pro and anti tech people. Beyond that, she believes we’re  just beginning to see the earliest iterations of what online community will look like. She looks to people like John Dyer and Shane Hipps.  We need to find our theological underpinnings to make sure what we’re standing on is what we should be standing on.

BG: In terms of online church, there’s a book called SimChurch that pulls together thoughts and questions about online church. A guy in France named Eric… who runs evangelistic websites that are specialized to different cultural website. Have seen over 1.2 million people come to Christ through their websites.  The thing he personally learns the most from is understanding why people use technology.

LW: Leaving the church world and diving into the coaching world, he’s inspired by the churches that people don’t know about that are doing things that are out of the box. (Ill: Shawn King and Courageous Church in Atlanta built via Facebook.)

SH: We have a tendency to look up, churches that are further ahead than we are. He’s looking at churches that are just starting that are taking risks and making quicker decisions than larger churches can. People like Shawn King, Pete Wilson and Carlos Whittaker, Dave Gibbons, etc.

Are there any current media tools trends that get you excited?

SH: Most excited about leadership and tools like Twitter that enable access to people you didn’t have access to before. And tools  that allow for people to create influence and learning. Also, through using Jarbyco, people are enabled to ask questions they would never ask. They’re getting questions people would never ask and are also able to see what their people care about.

LW: With the transition from church work to coaching, video chat is enabling face-to-face connections. It’s changing the way you can pour into leaders.

BG: Most excited about Carlos’ coaching network. Hehe. Running GoogleAdWords that are intersecting what people are searching for (porn, etc) and redirect them to their online church services. (Ill: Looking for Naked Ladies? Try church online instead.)

CW: LifeChurch.tv’s innovative tools… YouVersion.com, ChurchMetrics.com, church online, etc. And Jarybco… the ability to text and maintain connection with their congregation.

CE: Doing coffee and conversation, and allowing people the opportunity to ask at least five questions during the process of the message.

SH: Interesting that all of the things mentioned are not about broadcast, but about conversation and engaging people in conversation. It’s all about interaction.

How do you create a culture of change?

SH: We’re an 85 year old church and we are the story of that change. The change we needed was a cultural change… not a change of music, style, etc… it was a change of their DNA. There’s a difference between transition and change. Change typically has to do with the outer things we’d change (music, style, etc) – transition has to do with people’s hearts (how they think, what they feel, what they believe).  Churches have a real challenge with change. But if you think about who God is, He’s unchanging, but He’s all about changing us. It’s a journey. We tend to not talk about change and wonder why people are inflexible towards change. God is constantly changing us.  We want to be able to continually morph and change and make that culture of change a part of who we are.

LW: In Andy Stanley’s talk “Don’t Be That Couch” he talks about the “ugly couch” everyone hangs onto… for whatever reason. But sometimes we need to get rid of our ugly couches and replace them with something new. That marked a change from doing KidStuff once a week to once a month at NorthPoint.

CE: We must always be ready for change. We mustn’t hold on to things too tightly.

Complete this sentence. I like it to see when churches use media/technology to ____________.

CE: Drive home a spiritual truth.

SH: help reshape people’s perception of the Church and Christianity. We have a perception problem. The world’s problem isn’t so much with Jesus, but it’s with Christians and Christianity. We need to be wise with how we use technology… like Christian television… we can take it in the wrong direction. Or, we can be intentional about how we use it to celebrate and tell stories.

LW: create followers of Christ who weren’t followers of Christ. (Ill: LifeChurch.tv’s online campus’ “click the button if you’ve accepted Christ.”)

Evangelism on the internet; can it happen, how?

BG: It does happen. So it can happen. How is through all sorts of means… through the places we intersect with people online. Sometimes we overlook the most basic elements… it’s not about significant technology or websites, it starts with you. One of the most significant touch points they have online is their online prayer feature. It’s a one-on-one convo with someone on their team or volunteers. Prayer transcends space and culture, it has no barriers. What’s interesting about the web is that a lot of the criticism of it is the anonymity it creates, but the reality is that all of us walk around with emotional facades all day. Sometimes when the physical facade is removed it makes space for real, deep conversation.

LW: Asked people on his blog what church they go to, and someone responded “this is my church.”

Where do you draw the line on spending for tech excellence vs going towards others missions?

CE: It’s mission vs machine. When you look at a tech issue, is is going towards the mission of your church or the mission of the machine? Work towards the mission… reaching people for Christ. If the technology facilitates the mission, go for it. If it’s majoring on excellence to please people in the room, don’t.

SH: Hopefully they both try to accomplish to reach others.  Technology gives us an amazing tool to let people know what’s going on in the world around us. One of the biggest issues the church faces is ignorance. We need to help our people become more aware… awareness leads to us becoming agitated… and when we’re agitated, we’ll be moved to action.

BG: Answer will be different for everyone. It depends on what God has called your church to uniquely do. The answer lies in your calling… who are you called to be and called to reach? You have to make a choice of where you are going to land on the curve of quality and cost.

CW: There’s the hardware, technology in the room, the software, etc. Online technology is different. Many online services are free. So is Facebook. So is Twitter. Video streaming. Their are applications galore that people in our congregation have access to. The largest mission field in the world is online.

How do we leverage skills/ideas in other churches to connect us and minimize the duplication of effort?

LW: Churches have to get beyond competition and we’ve got to learn to share.

CW: The web makes collaboration simple and makes connection possible. It’s sometimes easier to connect with a pastor online than in person.

BG: VideoTeaching.com is an example they’ve developed… mainly formed out of relationships they’ve established with different pastors and church leaders. Sharing relationships is a way we can help other churches.  We need to learn to leverage the relationships we have.

SH: It comes down to intentionality of sharing an idea that worked.

What are some things that any church of any shape or size could use to leverage technology?

LW: There’s a 16 year old kid in your church that knows more about technology than all of your church staff. Find them and get them plugged in and involved.

CE: From the beginning they’ve had a young intern from Dallas Seminary and have now decided they need to technology pastor to explore the intersection of technology, media and theology.

BG: The emerging generation are late adopters of technology.

SH: So much of it is already developed… we just need to learn how to leverage it.

CW: Pull other people into your dialogue. Sometimes your most obvious errors are not apparent to you.

Is the role of technology in church services changing?

LW: One church in Phoenix is going to move from teaching via preaching to story telling through video.

SM: One of the least interactive times of people’s week could be when they sit in a church service.

CW: The interaction we need to create in our church services needs to be interaction between the people and God. The connection and interaction needs to lead them towards Christ.

Using Technology without Technology Using You

by Tim Schraeder on 07/30/2009 in Church Communications, Echo 09, Notes, Principles, Resources, Social Media, Web & Email with 1 Comment

John Dyer lives in Irving, TX with his beautiful wife and awesome new son. He works at Dallas Seminary as the director of web development (meaning “main code guy”) where he also earned a theology degree. He is actively involved in several open source web projects, builds ministry resources such as www.bestcommentaries.com, and blogs about technology and faith atwww.donteatthefruit.com.

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  • Just for fun: John’s full name is John Charles Dickey Dyer
  • One of the worst things you can do is imagine that technology is neutral.
  • There’s to camps… tech lovers and tech haters.
  • Both sides use the word “change”
  • Tech lovers say it will “change” for good.
  • Tech haters say it will “change” for the worse.
  • It’s hard to balance our use of technology.
  • Humans make tools…. our tools make us.
  • What we create has influence back on us.
  • We become the things that we behold.
  • Psalm 1 … if we sit with those who are righteous we become righteous.
  • We tend to believe that about many things, but not about our use of technology.
  • Technology is an extension of humanity.
  • Technology can be an amputation of humanity.

Evolution of New Technology

  • Excitement – “YES! I got a shovel!”
  • Difficulty – After you use it, you get blisters
  • Transformation – You get stronger as a result of using it.

What kind of tool do you want to become?

  • Tech Crunch publishers 1,881,152 words per year… more than the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Moby Dick, etc.  combined.
  • We don’t  read blogs like we read books, we scan.
  • Content doesn’t matter… we’ve cultivated the skill of scanning text on the screen… much different than reading it in a book.
  • Content doesn’t matter, technology does.

Technology often has unintended effects. Most of us don’t think a lot about those effects. We just use what we’re told to use… whatever comes along and what’s new. Do we really need it?

Ages of Technology

  • Oral – community memorizes common information.
  • Print – logical individuals. (aka… The Bible is true. The Bible says God exists. Therefore, God exists). Many of our beliefs rest on rationale before faith.
  • Image – emotional story tellers. We are surrounded by images… we tend to think of how to emotionally convey things with story, instead of logic. That’s the technology we use today.
  • Machine – tireless producers. We became what we beheld… machines worked hard, we should work hard.
  • Computer – data gatherers.
  • Interwebs – loosely re-connected community?

There’s a world of disconnection and reconnection that happens with technology. If someone bothers us, we can block or unfriend them. We have switches.

What the Scripture says about Technology

  • The story moves from the garden to the city.
  • Who made the stuff in the city?
  • Our human creativity is written into the story.
  • What we create plays into the story.
  • The First Technology in the Bible: clothing (Genesis, Adam & Eve).
  • Rebels against God – expresses Imago Dei
  • God’s Imago Dei is reflected in our creativty.
  • Redeems the effects of the Fall – Foreshadows His return.
  • Cain and the City – Cain builds a city, a place that’s alternate from the garden. (Gen 4)
  • All the people who made tools and art came from Cain’s city.
  • Jesus and the Cross – Jesus was a carpenter. From his job we get the word “technology.” The very tool He worked with was the tool He died on.
  • God and the new City – God recreates everything and redeems it.
  • God redeems human works.
  • We offer redemption through what we create but it can’t compare to what God will give us.

New Testament

  • Paul constantly expressed his desire to be with people.  (2 Tim 1:4)
  • John didn’t want to use technology, but he did! (2 John 1:12)
  • They used technology when they couldn’t be present with people.

Technology should help us stay connected when we can’t be face-to-face with people. Being face-to-face matters. Community sometimes sucks. Being face to face means you have to have a commitment to people you don’t decide to be with. Online community is a different kind of community.

Using Technology without Technology Using You

  1. Deny the premise. You can’t use technology without it affecting you.
  2. Experiment with Technology. Do something different. (Ill: Don’t take a Bible to church, just sit and listen… experience it differently.)
  3. What do I want to cultivate? What do you want to get? What does it require for me to be “good” at it? Is that something you want?
  4. Work both through and against technology. Jesus came as a Jew… he fully absorbed the culture to be with them. At the same time, He worked against them, He condemned things they do. We have to be incarnate like Jesus was… meaning we work through and against our technological culture.
  5. Use technology as a means, not an end. We use a car as a means to get to an end. Or, we get a crazy awesome car… and use it so owning it is the end, the goal.
  6. Create for a new world. All we create, all we do should be for eternity… for something that’s lasting.
  7. Become a tool. Influence others for the glory of God. Be a tool He can use.

The Open Media Revolution: The Shift That Will Change Everything You Know About Media

by Tim Schraeder on 07/30/2009 in Church Communications, Echo 09, Notes, Principles with No comments
About Phil Cooke

Phil Cooke is the Founder and Creative Director of Cooke Pictures in Burbank, California. Many of the largest and most effective Christian organizations in the world ask for his advice, and his ideas are changing the way people of faith use media to communicate with the culture. Christianity Today magazine called him a “media guru” and you’ve seen him on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and numerous national magazines. His blog at philcooke.com is a highly respected resource on media, faith, and culture and Phil’s workshops are a rare glimpse into the future of media and entertainment. His new book is “The Last TV Evangelist: Why The Next Generation Couldn’t Care Less About Christian Media… and why it matters.” Phil is also a founding partner in TWC Films, an award winning TV commercial company in Los Angeles that produced two spots that appeared during the 2008 Super Bowl.

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  • The open Media Revolution will dramatically shift everything we do.
  • We used to have media that we turned “on and off”
  • Media is always on.
  • Media has become culture in the world we live in today.
  • Communication does not begin with words; it begins with connection. – Jedd Medefind & Erik Lokkesmoe, The Revolutionary Communicator
  • A brand is a compelling story that surrounds a product, person or organization.
  • The big question we need to ask is: What do people think of when they think of you?
  • What does our community  think of when they think of our church?
  • That’s the key to getting your message heard.
  • You don’t see most company’s brand statements.
  • Nike’s brand statement is all about the spirit of the athlete.
  • Difference between Nike and other shoes is the story that they tell.
  • Starbucks brand statement is a “great coffee experience.”
  • Everything they do comes out of their brand story.
  • It matters because of choice… and we live in a world filled with choices.
  • How do you stand out? What makes the difference?
  • Is Jesus a brand manager?
  • Jesus controlled His perception in every stage of His life.
  • Came to earth in a different way. Preached a different message. Did things differently. He left big crowds. He let Himself be arrested. He decided which questions to answer.
  • Who controls our perceptions?
  • Will you control your story or let other people do it?
  • What’s your Story?

The Branding Big Four

  • What’s the point? What do you do this? Why do you get up in the morning? What drives you?
  • What makes you, you? Who you are matters, it makes up the perspective you have.
  • What are your skills and talents? What are you good at right now? Not what you want to do, what you hope to be better at… what are you good at right now?
  • What makes you different? The world is looking for unique and different.

We are in the middle of the greatest shift in our culture since the inventing of the printing press.

  • We need to pop the bubble… too many of us live in a Christian media bubble.
  • We discovered the Christian audience is a buying audience and stopped speaking to the world and started speaking to each other.
  • We’re not impacting culture anymore, we need to pop the bubble.
  • We don’t need “Christian media” we need Christians who make media.
  • We live in one of the most cluttered times in the world of history.
  • We receive 3,000-5,000 media messages per day.
  • Average TV is on 8 hours and 18 minutes per day.
  • How do we get our voice heard in a world filled with different voices?
  • First public buildings to open in Afghanistan after the war were movie theaters. That’s the power of media.
  • Old media was a one-way conversation; today’s media world has created a two-way conversation.
  • We have a voice in the media.
  • This generation wants a voice.
  • The audience needs a way to talk back.
  • This generation picked the next American Idol by texting in their votes… they want a choice.
  • Today’s audience wants to be a part of the story.
  • Generation after generation of pastors and Christian leaders get it wrong. They believe our only responsibilty is sharing the message.
  • “When you find yourself in a hole stop digging.” – Will Rogers

10 Things to Remember…

  1. In a media driven culture, visibility is just as important as ability. Get noticed, get seen.
  2. You can’t brand a lie. Be who you say you are. In a media-driven culture, what you took up a lifetime to build up can be taken down in an instant. Google is not a search… it’s reputation management. Manage your online presence. If you Google yourself and nothing comes up, you need to get into the digital age. The future is about findability, if you can’t be found, you don’t exist.
  3. Being different is everything. Be different. Be unique. People who are unique get noticed.
  4. Stop thinking “mass” and start thinking “niche.” We can’t be everything but you could be something unique. Be the best you can be in an incredibly narrow word.
  5. Understand the Power of a Name. Names matter because they are the first thing people see, and in a media-driven world, that’s how they will judge you. Be careful where you put your name. In one year enrollment doubled at Grand Rapids Baptist Bible College… now known as Cornerstone University.
  6. Speak the language of design. Does your style and media choices reflect the audience you are trying to reach? If you have a flag, a dove, a globe or a flame as images in your church, GET RID OF THEM! Be careful about how you use the cross. The early church never used the cross as a symbol of who they are until after the last person who had seen a crucifixion had died. Images have power. This generation doesn’t get the cross.
  7. Lose the Lingo. We’ve created a language no one understands but us. (See my post on Christianese.)
  8. Culture is more important than vision. Create a culture where vision can happen.
  9. Find the over-arching theme for your life and work. What are you all about? If you cut yourself… what would you bleed?
  10. What drives you nuts? The problem that drives you crazy is usually what God is calling you to fix.

It’s not just who you are, it’s how you are perceived that counts.

Influence your own perception, or you will spend your life at the mercy of other people who will.

My Life as a Tomato

by Tim Schraeder on 07/29/2009 in Echo 09, Notes with 4 Comments

Phil Vischer made his first animated film when he was nine years old; by the age of fourteen, he was convinced he would be a filmmaker when he grew up.

Phil is actively developing new ways to integrate faith and storytelling through his new creative shop, Jellyfish Labs (JellyfishLabs.com). Phil captured the breathtaking rise—and heartbreaking fall—of Big Idea Productions in the book “Me, Myself & Bob.” He is also the author of the popular children’s books “Sidney and Norman” and “47 Beavers on the Big Blue Sea.”

Phil’s latest Jellyfish Labs project is JellyTelly — an interactive, online “mini-network” for children that is scheduled to launch in fall 2008. This web-based platform is a natural starting point for a wide variety of original programming geared toward helping kids grow in their Christian faith.

Phil lives with his wife Lisa (aka Junior Asparagus) and their three kids in
Wheaton, Illinois. For more information, visit PhilVischer.com.

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  • We’re here to talk about the use of media for the propagation of the use of technology for the advancement of the Gospel.
  • Phil’s great=grandfather pioneered a radio ministry in Omaha in the early 20′s… that ran from 1923-1964, one of the longest-running radio shows.
  • He was ambivalent about the use of technology for the advancement of the Gospel until he heard from someone that accepted Christ as a result of listening.
  • He was questioning whether the Holy Spirit could work through technology, turns out it could.
  • “Unction can be transmitted!”
  • VeggieTales sold over 50 million videos… outsold any other children’s videos/media in the late 90s/early 2000.
  • Top 10 most-watched videos on college campuses!
  • VeggieTales was spoofed by Saturday Night Live and was parodied 3 times on The Simpsons.
  • Phil learned early on that the only thing that mattered is what He did for Christ and wanted to get moving doing stuff for God’s Kingdom.
  • He recognized his ability to tell stories through film.
  • In 1993 created the first VeggieTales film.
  • It was originally made big by viral marketing, word-of-mouth.
  • Decided to get busier by creating more… videos, movies, shows, products, books, etc.
  • By 2000, they employed 300 people… one of the largest video production studios between the coasts.
  • Momentum was gained, but cracks started to surface.
  • Realized he needed to do something: let people go.
  • From there, it basically fell apart.
  • He got an email from a random lady before it all started to go downhill that said, “be careful and watch your pride.”
  • What does it mean when God gives you a dream… then it comes alive… and dies?
  • 2 Kings 4 … story of the Shunammite woman.
  • Elisha told her that she’d have a son… she’d have someone to take care of her.
  • Her response to him shows the deep-seated dream she had to have a son.
  • A year later, she had a baby… and it died.
  • Elisha brought the child back to life.
  • That’s the story of the Shunammite woman.
  • He who has God plus many things has no more than he who has God alone. – CS Lewis
  • So what’s the point? If God gives you dream and breathes life into it, and then it dies, it could be God wants to show you what’s more important to you… Him or the dream.
  • Once you see that, the dream might come back, or it might not, but that’s OK because you’ll still have God.
  • Abraham had a dream and a promise… and was asked to give up Isaac.
  • Anything you are unwilling to let go of is an idol, and it’s a sin.
  • When people in the Bible didn’t know what to do, they do nothing. They just wait for Him.
  • We misinterpret Proverbs 29:18… it’s not for a lack of VISION that people perish, it’s a lack of revelation.
  • For lack of revelation… when people don’t have revelation from God… a word form God… they throw off restraint and do whatever feels right to them, in their own eyes.
  • It’s not because we don’t have large enough programs, media, etc. It’s because we’re not focusing the people of God on the word of God.
  • If you don’t know what God wants you to do, wait on Him.
  • God calls listeners and waiters.
  • Noah was 500 when he got revelation for the ark when he was 500. What did he do before? He walked with God. (Gen 6:9).
  • The world learns about God by watching Christians… not our programs, media, etc.
  • God knew who to call because He knew who was listening.
  • As Phil “died” to his dreams he found new life… and less of a desire to make an impact and more of a desire to know God.
  • “God could have spared me from the pain of Big Idea’s collapse… but He didn’t.”
  • It was all about death to his ambition and his dreams… it was about him and God.
  • Why is waiting on God so important? If I’m not waiting on God I don’t know what He wants me to do.
  • We need to be quiet enough to hear God’s whispers, His direction.
  • If we make His directions more important than Him, we’re useless to Him.
  • The impact God has planned for us doesn’t occur when we are pursuing impact, it comes when we are pursuing God.
  • The most important thing in our lives and at this conference is not the work that we can do for God, the most important thing is to make God the most important thing.
  • Do you dream of the work you can do for God? Do you carry ambition for changing the world for His name?
  • When you’re willing to let that die, relying completely on your relationship with Him, you’re ready to be used by Him.
  • Dreams have specific outcomes. Dreams can make us do terrible things. Hitler had a dream.
  • Callings don’t have specific outcomes.
  • When we start with an outcome, we’ve started off track.
  • You don’t learn things when you succeed, you learn things when you fail.
  • Dreams are deep longings.
  • Often we graft our dreams onto God’s calling. And that’s when we get them confused. And that leads to bad decisions.
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