if you involved in the united methodist church at any church geek level, as i am, then you no doubt know that ginghamsburg united methodist church does a lot of work with darfur. they were recently profiled on public broadcasting’s show “religion and ethics weekly.”
Ministry
what you think you have right about your communication is wrong : saying and communicating is different
i know when we meet as a staff we talk a lot about the need for better communication. it is a huge pain in our b'hinds. so i'm totally spinning in thoughts stemmed from rev. dan dick's latest posting on communication misconceptions of our 'good' communication that undermine actual good communications.
here's his three hit points.
I believe there are three main problems we encounter that prevent or
undermine good communication: 1) confusing “transmitting” with
communication, 2) over-reliance on information as the most important
part of communication, and 3) making assumptions about what people
“know.”
currently i'm wondering what push of information i do and how different that is from actually communicating to folks? in the size ministry i have, its impossible to pick up the phone and call everyone, not to mention many folks would rather not have a phone call (or they will tell me so). i might have become so conditioned to this that it is my norm. i actively use twitter cause i can spew out information, but if no one communicates back i just move on. did i ever really convey an idea? does that mean i should start blogging regularly again since its more of communicating an idea/plan/dream/rant/etc.?
what can i do better to help with communicating to you? my church peeps? my family? my internet networkings?
in the meantime, go check out the rest of dan's thoughts on communications.
Jesus is the shirtless guy : following is the new leading
i'm pondering this quick little ted talk by derek sivers this morning. i caught this idea to be quite radical in shift in the way we look at leadership.
"it was the first follower that transformed the lone nut, into a
leader… if you really care about starting a movement, have the
courage to follow and show others how to follow."
as with most things it has me pondering of faith.. wondering if Jesus is the nut, then who is the follower who showed us how to follow? Saint Paul? some of the Disciples?
where am i in this? am i the guy that's trying to get attention by some silly song and dance or do i need to figure out how i show to follow better?
i think if we asked Christ about the idea of following to lead he'd be pretty stoked by it.
me speaking & talking : here & there for your amusement
next week i'll be doing some of that speaking thing that i do.
wednesday thru friday i'll be in and around the dallas area for the united methodist reporters communicators conference. i'll be leading a churchy discussion based off the keynote speakers thoughts on new media strategy. the possibilities of that conversation could be amazing, so i'm excited to get to lead that. the next day i'll sit on a panel with a bunch of social media geek / church nerd friends on, what else, social media. that will be easily enjoyable. hope we can bring some stuff to the table that challenges everyone in the room. that's the task i'm giving myself.
flying back on friday and then on saturday is up early to volunteer with podcamp nashville and put on my session of 'sex, lies, and social media.' that's going to be interesting & a whole lot of fun. vegas is betting my awkward statement and subsequent blushing will be an over/under at 4 (its just 20 mins of talking otherwise it'd be much higher).
unfortunately, if you are not already signed up for the communicators conference then you'll have to miss me this go round, but you can still sign up for podcamp & check out me and some of the other fabulous minds of technology and what they are thinking about.
youth gone wild : stats can be misleading
as youth pastor i do a lot of news filtering on the state of, trends of, and all the ills of today’s and future youth culture. if you do some news search for teenagers it isn’t a very promising picture (especially globally). one of the trends i see in the news is a whole lot of angry kids in the england. but as with any news reporting as with any statistic there is always the ‘other side.’ so my heart was lightened by the latest from asbo jesus.
its nice to think of the other side of all the statistics that we hear about and fear over. truth is, i have over 100 kids from ages 12-18 in our youth community and, though i don’t know the intimate details of every moment of their lives, i pretty confident they are all on the positive side of every bad statistic.
it reminds me of some parenting education i used to teach on. i used to coach folks on doing a paradigm shift in their viewing of their children. to stop looking/seeing the bad stuff but to look for those positive pieces and celebrate those (even if they are minute).
well, enough of the preaching. its time for some music this whole thought process made me think of.