Willow Creek hosted a webinar with Charlene Li, author of Groundswell and Open Leadership on how church leaders can use social media more effectively.

Li shared profound insight into the power of social media:

“If your voice is absent (from social media), then (it communicates to those who are) that this is not a relationship worth having.”

“If you are in a relationship then you are not in control…to think that you are in control of the relationships in your church is a fallacy.” ***by far my favorite quote

“Twitter is not a technology but a conversation, and it’s happening with or without you”

“If you are not part of the conversation, you have no influence.”

She focused her responses on how technology enhances and increases the transparency in relationships. I enjoyed her thoughts on how social media reveals the true lack of control anyone has over a conversation. Much of ministry in the last 50 years has minimized the voice of the many in favor of the few; social media has completely turned this...

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Enjoyed reading these statistics from Generation Y: The New Kind of Workforce:

One in three said he/she would prioritize social media freedom, device flexibility and work mobility over salary in accepting a job offer.

64% of college students asks about social media usage policies during job interviews and approximately 24% says it would be a key factor in accepting the offer.

There is also a high expectation of the employee for the employer to offer a flexible schedule and freedom to work remotely.

Sixty-four percent of Gen-Y fails to list their employer on their profiles, yet they add an average of 16 co-workers each to their “friend” group.

Those that do enter workforce spend an average of just over 2 years at their first job. They are job hopping multiple times in their careers.

The theme of flexibility connected to nearly every statistic either directly or indirectly. Work and device mobility, frequent job changes, and the freedom to stay active online while they work all speak to this theme.

I se...

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Find ideas for evangelism and discipleship for your mobile phone. (This list was originally written before tablets became so popular, so many of these ideas would also work on your iPad or Kindle Fire.)

I’m re-posting this with permission from the original author.   I tried to update as much of the information as I could since technology changes rapidly, but please comment if any of these ideas could be better presented.  What ideas have you tried?

With Basic Cellphones:

• Audio
  • Interactive Voice Response (IVR), for example:
    • Telemensahe
  • Text messaging
  • sending out SMSs with short devotionals, and asking people to forward them to their friends
  • 4 Spiritual Laws by text message
  • Discipleship Message Subscription, for example:
    • www.2cast.net

• Prayer request distribution using:
  • Text messages
  • Facebook groups
  • Twitter

With Feature Phones

• Browsing to Christian websites, for example:
  • www.everystudent.com/mobi
  • www.jesus2020.mobi

• Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) advertising
  • Advertise ...

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“You can often get 80% of the way there in two minutes…”

A mentor recently shared this with me and I’ve seen it in action more than once in the last few weeks as groups I’ve been a part of, and observed, choose to get started instead of talking about it.

Simply taking two minutes to write a draft statement, diagram a timeline or sketch a design will often get you 80% of the way there and provide a great starting point.

I have seen so many groups flounder because they lack concrete options to evaluate, discuss or debate. It might only take two minutes to get you most of the way there!

How have you seen this in action?

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Social networks are essentially systems for distributing content among people who care about each other, and the frequency at which its users can share that content on a particular network is critical to how much value it’ll provide them on an ongoing basis.–Mark Hendrickson, former CEO of Plancast

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Some days the task list can wait. Some days I just need to be around the energy of students who are trusting the Lord for something beyond themselves.

Since Tuesday is our movement coaching/launching day, I had the chance to make the trek up to Washington State University – Vancouver to visit with a few of our student leaders today. I hadn’t been up there since last term and I had no idea what to expect.  WSU-V is on the edge of our scope and I’ve been coaching them via email/phone and occasional visit. It’s all student run with limited interaction with us. We resource and do our best to put fuel on the fire.

I could have said no to this trip. I have a ton of other tasks, phone calls and emails I could have worked on…but I drove the 40 minutes in the pouring rain in I-5 traffic to get some face-time with these students.

I met up with some “Coug Cru” students at a promotional table and I immediately began to get a taste of the flavor of things by asking a new girl who was helping out how she got involved....

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Where do you go when you have questions about your faith? While many people check out a church or talk to friends, some people run to the internet when they have questions. That’s why Keynote continues to create tools that help people who are searching for God online find the answers they need. We were thrilled to hear about a student named Taryn, who came to Christ through a Google search. Taryn recently shared her story at a winter conference for college students put on by Cru. Here’s a bit of her story:

Jesus hadn’t always intrigued Taryn. She had a great life growing up in Orange County with her Jewish mom and culturally Christian dad and saw no need for God. It wasn’t until high school that she even became curious about Him.

“In high school, I found myself in a group of friends that included what I like to call a ‘super Christian’. She was everything I imagined a Christian to be: super into church, never said a cuss word…and I couldn’t stand her. But, oddly enough, over time we bec...

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Over two years ago in September, 2009, I published my first post on eQuipping for eMinistry. This blog is meant to help you with what you’re already doing and/or to equip you to try something new.  I thought you might be interested in where I’m going with it.

Looking Back

e4e has over 750 followers and subscribers from every continent, averaging about 400 views on the site every week.

Topics have included (click on the links for some examples):

• MPD: practical tips and tools
• Communicating well
• Blogging and websites
• Social Media
• Mobile phones
• Tech Tips
• Travel Tips
• Step-by-step tutorials
• and more

Looking Ahead

Leaha will continue to submit her thoughtful and open-hearted posts six times a year.  Karen will add to our how-to’s content.  I hope to continue posting twice per week and am open to contributions.  I’m especially hoping to add more topics on:

• Photo tips
• Your true stories about using technology for ministry
• Practical Win-Build-Send help

Besides the content on the blog, Karen and I are working ...

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Changing a large organization’s culture often takes a large and focused push to drive adoption of a new technology or behavior.

I found this idea of Immerse and Disperse extremely helpful when thinking about how to tactically drive an organization forward in digital competency.

Immerse and Disperse:

• 15+ people do a stint on a social media team
• Served for approximately one year.
• Moved on to another part of the business.
• Result: 20+ experts, dozens more at intermediate level. T

Every organization or part of an organization reaches a plateau as it seeks to adopt social media. Either “the expert” reaches his/her level of influence, or the fatigue of staff amidst constantly changing online tools sets in and halts change. “Immerse and Disperse” can be a great strategy for moving beyond the plateau.

Large non-profits often have distributed teams that each possess their own highly customized systems for communicating and sharing resources online. Immerse and Disperse allows an opportunity to align these dispara...

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The old saying goes, “if no one is following you, then you’re not a leader.”

By definition, as a leader, you’re out front, leading the way with others coming along behind. This means that you are often the one that faces the most resistance, encounters obstacles first and expounds the most energy climbing up the mountain because you face the headwinds full force.

Here’s three things I have found helpful in dealing with the headwinds that leaders face.

1. Engage a mentor – A most points in my leadership development, I have had a mentor. A seasoned leader whom will ask me good questions about my development and hold me accountable to leadership and spiritual growth. These men have drawn out the best in me and been good sounding boards as I wrestle through various leadership challenges. In these relationships, I have often driven the agenda and initiated meetings so as to maximize getting wise input from veteran leaders who care enough to invest a few hours every couple of months to help draw out the best in...

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In The Geography of Thought, How Asians and Westerners Think Differently … and Why, Richard E. Nesbitt mentions how all Western Utopias apart from those derived from the biblical ideas of the Garden of Eden and the promise of the New Jerusalem have five salient characteristics:

• there is steady, more or less linear progress towards them
• once attained, they become a permanent state
• they are reached through human effort rather than Fate or divine intervention
• they are usually egalitarian
• they are usually based on a few extreme assumptions about human nature

Utopia in the Eastern mind is very different, more attuned to reversion rather than progress.

He writes: “It is worth noting here that the ancient Hebrews were in these respects closer to the Chinese than to the Greeks. Their Utopia – the Garden of Eden – was in the past and they hoped for at most a restoration. Their notion of the nature of change was similar to that of the Chinese – they held a clear notion of the yin and yang of life.”

In the first...

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You know me. I like sharing.

One thing I wish people would share more of is what sermons they’ve listened to recently that they enjoyed.

 

So in the spirit of the Golden Rule . . .

Here are some sermons I’ve listened to recently that I loved. I’m talking mind-blowing.

Leave a comment and share with all of us what great sermons you’ve listened to recently.

Ranked in order of awesomeness:

Beau Hughes – Learning Contentment (click to go to download/read the transcript – also available in The Village Podcast feed)

Skipped right over this on the Village podcast because, well, it wasn’t Matt Chandler. And Beau is definitely not Matt Chandler. In style, probably his polar opposite. Kind of like Keller (at least in this sermon), somehow enthralling despite its dry delivery.

• I think it’s good for us to be sobered by how horrible our discontentment is. It’s not just a respectable sin that we can deal with here and there.
• Contentment= Our highest ambition is to be the Lord’s and to be at His dis...

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Interesting infographic on the 6 Most Important Communication Channels for Non-Profits:

The top three online channels are websites, email, and Facebook. Yet many ministry fundraisers spend most of their time on Facebook, and little time on their website or email.

Fundraisers must use these channels as complements to one another instead of copying and pasting the same message in each place. If you are copy/paste mode, then you only receive a linear return on each channel, rather than an exponential one. When fundraisers vary the type and frequency of each communication channel they work together to create an exponential return of interest, engagement, and connection.

Consider telling part of a story on your blog, another part in email, and the rest in a direct mail communication. Instead of fatiguing donors with repetitive communication you will inspire, motivate, and increase their connection to you and your ministry.

via John Haydon’s blog

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By now you’ve probably heard that Campus Crusade for Christ is changing its name to Cru early this year.

Here are some questions you may be asking.  These are our answers:

Why the name change?

    Of course, Jesus is the name above every name.  We care tons more about His Name than any other name.  Our mission and calling to make Him known has not and will not change.  Yet we want to do all that we can to be more effective and engage with more people.  Changing the organizational name in the USA will be a step in this direction.

Unfortunately, some of the news media response has created the opinion that we changed our name simply to “drop Christ.”  This is not true.  We’re more committed and more passionate about introducing people to Christ than ever before.  Years of painstaking research and much prayer has revealed that we’ll generally be more effective in communicating the gospel with the new name.  Actually, only after one final late hour prayer session did the name “cru” emerge as a possi...

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I shared this with our Leadership students this last week and I think it was really helpful in clarifying what we want them to accomplish.

 

Quick background: We’ve noticed that our student leaders are great at doing ministry but not great at recruiting new leaders to join with us (whether that’s to Winter Conference, Summer Project, to our weekly leadership time, or even initiating with new people at Cru).

 

So we’re seeking to create a culture where Leaders not only do ministry but act as mobilizers.

 

Kind of like “Teach them how to fish”,

“Be a Barnabas” is sticky – it vividly and memorably captures what a leader does.

 

Just wanted to share for others to be able to use/adapt for their leadership times.

Here’s my notes:

• Tell me everything you know about Paul [greatest missionary ever, wrote most of the New Testament, persecutor, dramatic conversion, etc.]
• Now tell me everything you know about Barnabus [not much- the only response from students: “he was an encourager”]
• Lets read A...

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Have you ever shopped at The Golden Rule store? Listened to something from the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Firm? Talked on a product from the Finnish Rubber Works or used equipment from the Computer Tabulation Recording Company? If those company names don’t resonate with you, perhaps you know them by their current names: JCPenney, Sony, Nokia, and IBM.

Sometimes, names that made sense when a company was young hinder their operations as they grow.

Words Matter

Campus Crusade for Christ celebrated 60 years of ministry a few months ago. However, for the last several years we’ve wrested with the reality that our name is perceived differently now than it was in 1951.  For many Americans, the term “crusade” is filled with negative connotations.  Also, our ministry has expanded far beyond the college campus, so the term “campus” is inadequate or confusing in recruiting efforts for our Military Ministry, just as one example.  Our ministry leadership has listened carefully to a LOT of feedback from ou...

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• 29 training topics written and prepared. Check!
• 4000 pages of training materials printed and collated. Check!
• 32 trainees from 11 countries traveling to the training locations. Check!
• Visas. Tickets. Bags packed. Check! Check! Check!

Africa, here I come!

Keith drove me to the airport. Then he drove home. I, on the other hand, flew to Accra, Ghana as part of a training team. A few days later, we will fly to Nairobi, Kenya for a second round of training.

We are embarking on the next step in a massive, faith-stretching opportunity. Our Global Technology Team is partnering with the Go North project to train thousands of pastors and church planters to plant thousands of churches across the Sahara Belt of Africa by 2020.

Karin & Kay preparing training materials

The Go North strategy leaders expressed a need. How do we train thousands of pastors and church planters in thousands of towns and villages in a dozen countries? International Leadership University-Kenya had experience in life-transforming train...

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This was the question a Jewish teacher had for Jesus in response to the command to “love your neighbour as yourself”. The question is essentially asking, who should we love?

Jesus’ answer was to tell a story, the story of the Good Samaritan.

Bruce Springsteen’s response is to sing a song

What do you think?

Photo by thinkpanama

The past 2 days were one of the most productive meetings that I have attended for some time.  Part of it was because some of us have read some principles from the Modern Meeting.  Here are 3 points on why I think it was a successful time.
1) The leader had a decision that we could discuss and implement.  Modern meetings are more effective when a decision is the starting point to either debate or implement.   Instead of spending hours brainstorming and evaluating different decisions, a decision was made and the team had something to refine, debate, and/or implement.
2) We had group work sessionsInstead of attacking an issue with the whole team, the leader split the group into group work sessions.  It was not a "meeting" but a time where team members were "making hay" (i.e. getting work done) along side each other.  As a result we had a plan and action points to present and confirm in the next block of meetings.
3) We had a distinct time for brainstormAlthough usually recommended for...

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The Lord moves me to write out of an overflow of my time spent alone with him, so it only makes sense that the God who uniquely created me also uniquely inspires me.  When I sit down to read his Word or spend time in prayer, the words I’m inspired to write just bubble up in my brain, so I quickly reach for a pen to scribble them on paper (or if I am on the go I simply type them up on my iphone).  Then the events of my day also help to add a little more detail to those scribbled notes until I have time to tweak them later.  After all, I like to write about my thoughts on God and life with less of a blubbering mess and more of a beautiful mess by combining a little bit of grace with a little bit of truth followed by a little bit of editing.  Then a blog post is born as I launch it from my paper onto blogger.

As this process happens time and time again, I develop a voice as a writer.  Just as those who know me recognize my audible voice, so also those who know my writing recognize the voice that emerg...

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