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congress on evangelism : blogger bishop meet up

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Blogmeetupstitch

tuesday was my second day at the congress on evangelism. i took in two workshop sessions, one with mike slaughter of ginghamsburg notoriety, and bishop robert schnase of 5 fruitful practices notoriety. the cool part, and the anticipated moment for the day was a sit down conversation with bishop robert schnase about church & technology with some of our "methotweet" & "methoblogger" community.

folks in attendance, were my wifey erin richardson, theresa coleman aka reverend mommy, jay voorhees, amy shanholtzer & stephen drachler, wayne cook aka tnrambler, kathi ambler, bishop schnase, midlife rookie, & amy forbus of dog & God.

some of the things we discussed as i can best frame

  • the essence of blogging community & how they are bona-fide relationships for us
  • the sharing of information & creative media, creative commons ethos
  • communication across the lines of the church, cultivating a relationship connection
  • finding the bright voices to lead the church, who are they?
  • some of the role of technology in church
  • we solved global warming, but jay doesn't think it'll work
  • the bishop as a blogger and engaging in social media
  • how we have huge divides in the church over a theology of bbq
  • plus more

we had some really great conversation for about 3 to 4 hours. a bunch of laughs, stories, and a few deep thoughts. strange though, we didn't talk about twilight or potter puppet pals. i would loved to have discussed that.

i've posted some of the photos from my days hanging out at the congress.

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.

blogger meet up : the bishop robert schnase

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if you are in the nashville area, a blogger, and got some free evening time on wednesday evening. come over to the congress on evangelism for a blogger meet up with bishop robert schnase. amy posted info at the methoblog.

Several of us attending the upcoming Congress
on Evangelism in Nashville are pulling together a blogger meetup
at the supper break time on Wednesday, January 7. We haven't yet set
the location; one factor in that decision is how many people we expect
to have. So, please email me at aforbus(at)umr.org by Friday, Jan. 2 if you plan to attend the meetup. Bishop Robert Schnase will be part of the gathering.

UPDATE:
We've decided to meet later, to get around the time crunch of the
supper break. We are going to meet up after worship and go somewhere
that'll let us sit around and talk past 9:00.

bishop schnase is the toast of methodism with his fruitful congregations book & resource. i first ran into him at the umerging event back in 2006 when he sat in as a q&a with bishop scott jones. that was a heated little conversation, but in the following years i believe we all understand each other more. i liked bishop schnazz then & i expect to like him more after hanging out.