Greg Davis - Technically Speaking

It looks like the viral generosity of many is indeed spreading across the country for the benefit of Herman (for background on Herman, go here). If you havn’t done so yet, get in on the action and Give Herman $1.

Okay guys, here is your chance to do something very small and help in a big way!  Terry Foester is doing a creative little experiment to help a local homeless man named Herman. He is trying to raise some funds (for which he has a matching donor), but here is the trick… for it to work this has to be virally because you can only give $1.  Yep - a buck.  You might be inclined to dismiss it or write it off, but if he can get 500 people to give a buck, the donor will match it, dollar for dollar, for a total of $1,000! 

Now, he isn’t going to give Herman the cash.  He knows Herman well and will be using the money to help Herman in a more significant way. Read Terry’s post for details but here the deal:

1. Comment here on his blog.
2. Leave your first name and your city/state, or if you’re scared just leave your “street name” – and tell us “I’m in.”
3. Follow through by sending $1 to:

Herman’s Bridge
PO Box 363
Montchanin, DE 19710-0363

Tell your friends before June to help make this idea fly and help spread the love of Christ in a viral way!

I’m in - how about you? 

Here is a great reminder of why we sometimes really need to not listen to what others say about what we are “supposed to” do in regards to how we do ministry or serve Christ. Granted, only highlighted in this post from the Collide Blog are success stories and there are probably many more untold stories where others tried and failed, but it does remind me at least, that God often brings about change in ways we don’t expect. What happens if God asks you to step out of your comfort zone and try something new that you (or maybe no one) has done before?  Will you follow God’s leading or brush it off because we are “supposed to” do things that way?

If you aren’t familiar with the stories highlighted, I encourage you to dig a little deeper and be inspired.  Who know what God will do next and who He might use!

Yea!I received my prize for “coming to the party” on Countdown2Innovate 2007 this summer.  I was awarded a personally autographed (by Kem Meyer and Tim Stevens) copy of the book, “Everything Reverberates - Thoughts on Design”.  It has some great quotes and as Kem called them in the podcast, “great hits of inspiration”.  I think it will be very usefull to look at time and time again when trying to think about design ideas and general brainstorming. 

Thanks Kem!  

Do you use the Mozilla Firefox web browser?  One of the really useful things about the browser is the ability to customize the functionality of it with add-ons.  Here are a couple I would highly recommend.  Both are from Cooliris: 

• Cooliris Previews - “Picture-in-Picture browsing which lets you preview links and rich-media without clicking or leaving your current page, so you can browse faster than ever. Simply mouseover your link or our Cooliris icon, and a preview window instantly appears with your content. No more clicking back and forth.”
• PicLens - “instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen slideshow experience. With just one click, PicLens makes photos come to life via a cinematic presentation that goes beyond the confines of the traditional browser window.”

 I have been using previews for a while now and just found out about PicLens. It allows you to more easily view photos from Facebook, Google and Yahoo Image Search, Flickr and many others by giving you a simple to use, full-screen show of all the photos on the web page you are viewing. Very slick!

If you haven’t tried the Firefox browser, get it here. 

My daughter can officially do something I cannot! At age 9 1/2 she can now ride a unicycle. I have no idea how she can do this but at least she can always get a job in circus!

This looks interesting.  Anne Jackson is starting a new project to help fight the church-wide burnout epidemic. The site officially launched today and is a communication point for her upcoming book by the same name.  However, it is more than just a marketing tool for the book, it is also a tool to help write the book itself. That is because Anne needs more than just her own story to tell, she needs to hear from the countless other staff, volunteer and family members of those in ministry who have both suffered from burnout or have a success story to share.

This is a great example of social-networking (web 2.0) tools at work. If this book does get written and the stories shared, it serves as another example of how modern communication and technology tools can be used to create something that before was not possible or at least far more difficult.

I believe the Evil One tries very hard to have us feel alone, tired and burnout in our effort to serve Christ. This project is a good counter-offensive to that attack and will be a great reminder that we are not alone in the battle. I pray that many will be encouraged by the stories that are shared and where there is brokenness, that restoration will occur.

Have a story to share?  Take the survey and let it help others for the cause of Christ!  Thanks to the team at Church Marketing Sucks for highlighting this.  Read their interview with Anne about the project.