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spiritual | cultural | technological life

Gavin Richardson

congress on evangelism : making friends

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congress on evangelism '09
Originally uploaded by gavoweb.

last night kicked off the 2009 congress on evangelism. it is here in nashville after being here about four years ago. i like the congress, not for the content, though some of it is very good, but the networking here is a lot of fun. i get out and meet a lot of people who are not in my regular circles.

last night i spent the evening in conversation with some of the boy from church of resurrection & the foundation talking techie geek stuff, but it was fun to finally, finally meet my long time blogger buddy wayne cook of tnrambler fame. i would visit his blog as i bet he will be doing some good recaps of the event. got to say hey to amy forbus who is all over the place cause she is so popular.

jay has some spurred thoughts on connectionalism from our evening together.

today i will be cleaning our house a bit then heading over to the conference again. come say hi to me

participatory media : literacy teaching

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i loved this quote from michael wesch on why he is moving away from literacy teaching as primary to integration of participatory media literacy.

We use social media in the classroom not because our students use it, but because we are afraid that social media might be using them – that they are using social media blindly, without recognition of the new challenges and opportunities they might create.

to back him up, i've got a little marshall mcluhan again. that's 2x in a day. gotta be a record.

as someone who is doing some of this with my youth ministry i am grateful for some of the words & perspective to communicate this idea. i also like the rheingold quote.

If print culture shaped the environment in which the Enlightenment
blossomed and set the scene for the Industrial Revolution,
participatory media might similarly shape the cognitive and social
environments in which twenty first century life will take place (a
shift in the way our culture operates). For this reason, participatory
media literacy is not another subject to be shoehorned into the
curriculum as job training for knowledge workers.

madv & marshall mcluhan : the crazy early adopters

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i stumbled onto this when i was talking driver49 into plugging in friendfeed lifestream into his site (something at the moment of writing this we cannot claim complete success). he unearthed an article from clive thompson at wired, about some of the youtube culture.

i mentioned in the comment that the youtube illustration was highlighted in dr. michael wesch's presentation to the library of congress (a great synopsis/history of digital video culture as acted out in youtube). if i were listening, which i am, michael wesch's stuff is where i'd be listening too. they are creative and intelligently observing the anthropology of technological culture. but i do like this snippet from clive's article.

Marshall McLuhan
pointed out that whenever we get our hands on a new medium we tend to
use it like older ones. Early TV broadcasts consisted of guys sitting
around reading radio scripts because nobody had realized yet that TV
could tell stories differently. It's the same with much of today's
webcam video; most people still try to emulate TV and film. Only
weirdos like MadV are really exploring its potential.

i like the little snarky comment of only the weirdos, the fringe people, or the earliest adopters are really exploring the potential of some of the mediums we find in social technologies.


Marshall McLuhan from Gavin Richardson.

the purple church : reaching the early adopters

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i was pondering my earlier post about how my church misses the mark in some of these marketing attempts things and getting their message (which i believe to be good) to the mass. i felt sorta bad because i made a critique without any real suggestion, something i am prone to do (and be done too). so what is a piece of advice or starting point in suggesting to my tribe church & its general agencies which are charged with supporting it?

i came back to thinking of seth godin & his purple cow. as he mentions the purple cow in this ted talk, stop trying to focus your energies on these broad based middle audiences. look for the early adopters to get your message to & inspire them to tell others. i liked the videos created, so i share it, and the viewership spreads from there.

not that i am the earliest adopter, but i do consider myself an early adopter. i am interested and listening to what my church has to say and putting out. i have google news feeds on my church (as i am sure others do as well) to tell me happenings in the world. i pay attention to technology & art and how it is being used in our church. i’ve used resources in my ministry work that has taken root in the mainstream of my church and conference. five years ago when jonathon and i started doing prayer station worship it was new, fresh, ‘remarkable’ for our context. today our youth & youth leaders are well versed it and have contributed to published books and articles.

one thing with the early adopters, it is a small demographic and those folks don’t take as much money to communicate with as a mass audience. as the open hearts open minds igniting ministry campaign put out with how many millions of dollars? yet our church has continued to decline. imagine instead of getting people who watch 24 hour news (the only time i saw the commercials was on cnn) you reached out to a core enthusiastic audience who cares about the church and what new can happen. as godin mention’s the steve jobs keynote, a general board can do an open meeting free to anyone who has a internet connection and microphone (and video camera too to see folks) via www.tokbox.com. content could be the newest ideas, what is happening in the local areas & around the world, who knows. it costs you nothing but your time to do it. millions can then be invested in to user generated ministries & missions that people can talk up with passion instead of a tired tv campaign.



those are some first thoughts. i hope this helps you be remarkable.

monday music : love is here

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i am not a big christian music aficionado, at least not anymore. its not that i don't like christian music, but it just hasn't filled my soul need. one group tho that i got turned onto this summer (when way of pilgrimage was using their stuff for discussion videos) i do find myself listening to more and more. they are called tenth avenue north. they could be super huge now, i wouldn't know, but they are reasonably new to me. i like their sound & they don't sound awkward moving tempo in their songs. i haven't done the dissecting of the theology of songs, so far i am just enjoying.