Greg Davis - Technically Speaking

I’ve been really busy lately with a project at work (with a July go-live), but here are some interesting things and personal stuff I’m excited about.

• Perry Noble’s message “Celebrate or Sulk” in which he talks about Luke 15 and the parable of the lost son. Everyone in church in America today should watch or listen to this message!
  
• Collide Magazine - I am more impressed with every issue that comes out. I love the tag line “where church and media converge”
• OnePrayer - It is going to be awesome to make history in the month of June and be a part of something BIG that God is doing!
• Pop Goes The Church - Can’t wait to read this!
  
• The new Innovate Conference web site - very cool and can’t wait for the conference in September!
• Church’s that Think Big when it comes to visual worship.
• While Twitter is having some growing pains, it is still being used and more people are jumping on all the time. I love the creative ideas of Perry Noble in thinking about, what if Peter twittered? or what if David twittered? Very cool ideas!
• If you haven’t caught up with what Twitter is all about, check out this good primer to get you up to speed!  Thanks to Matt Singley for that one.
• We have our summer vacations plans nailed down!  We are headed to a dude ranch in August!  Should be really fun time for us and especially the kids. You can watch a video clip promo here (or watch below).
  

I learned something new today (actually many things), but one in partcular I’d like to share. Many of you use various methods to subscribe to blogs. Some use email (if offered) but most rely on “news readers” of some type. They are many types of news readers, including Bloglines, NewsGator, Google Reader, and others. I’ve posted before about how to subscribe to a blog and also referenced some great short videos which explain the basics of RSS and why it is your friend here and here. (If you aren’t familiar with RSS feeds, do check them out first.)

I personally like NewsGator the best. I’ve used Bloglines before and it is a very good product and I can certainly recommend it. NewGator gives you some exta features however that are quite interesting. First of all they have both the free online reader as well as a free desktop version (called FeedDemon) that sycronizes with your online account. In addition they also have a mobile version that allows you to download your feeds directly to your mobile device and it too syronizes with your online account, which simiply means is that if you read something in one place, it will be marked as read in the others - no worry about seeing same posts over again on your mobile device that you just read on your pc.

Anyway, the part I learned today and want to share with you is a feature of FeedDemon that I didn’t realize before. You can create and share clippings folders with others. That is simply an easy way to share posts and other web pages you like with others. You can read more about it here.  Simply put, you can copy posts or web pages (even drag and drop them) to your clippings folder and if you check the option which says to share the RSS feed of that folder others can subscribe to your “clippings”  To demonstrate this I have created a new shared clippings folder and used FeedBurner to generate the RSS feed I want to share. 

So, if you’d like to subsribe to Greg’s Shared Clippings, you can use this RSS feed,  or subscribe via email here:

Subscribe to Greg’s Shared Clippings on NewsGator Online by Email

I plan to share things here that I stumble upon that I find of interest to the church IT and technical arts community but may not do a seperate blog post about here on this blog.   Yes, you may have heard about other sites like Digg.com and StumbleUpon.com which are similar in concept, but I’m liking this integration with my news reader which makes it much easier and quicker for me to share. Let me know if you try it and what you think! 

Yesterday, Anthony Coppedge blogged about the importance of networking among those working or volunteering in the worship, creative, and technical arts areas.  This is something that is on my heart to do for 2008 and was first encouraged to do so by Greg Atkinson, back in December when he posted about “Who’s in Your Network”?

Going to MinistryTECH at the begging of April was a great step for me in getting to meet many folks from all over the country.  However, a goal I have for 2008 is to begin a network here in the Delaware Valley. So, today I have launched a Facebook group, “Technical & Creative Arts in the Delaware Valley”. I don’t know all that God might do with this, but I’m hoping to at least provide a place for those folks that are located in the greater Philadelphia/Wilmington area that have a passion in the “technical arts” to join together for support, fellowship, and networking. If that fits you, I hope you’ll join and invite others as well!

I do believe we all serve on the same team for the sake of the Kingdom and not in competition with each other. I hope this group will be just one small way to help foster that spirit here in this little corner of the the globe.

I really like the 3 products from 37signals, Backpack, Basecamp, and Highrise.  The latest updates to Basecamp are demonstrated below in this screencast and speak to the easy of use and elegant simplicity that are a hallmark of all 3 product offerings.  I’ve blogged about previous updates here and here. Unlike other companies they don’t rush to overload the product with so many features that they loose the simplicity of it in the process.

I highly recommend trying out all 3 for personal or group / organizational use. They do have free offerings in each you can start there to get a feel for them and then you can upgrade as you need or wish. It is a great way to boost productivity among work or volunteer groups. If want to know more about how I have used them personally or for church use, just let me know and I’d be glad to chat with you about it.

I love it when some of the more creative churches in the country give away their stuff for other churches to use and tailor for their own use.

Last Fall National Community Church, in Washington, D.C.did a series called “The Elephant in the Church”.  The have created a whole site for that series and are giving away their materials for any church to down load and use (yes for free). I like the way they used this series to challenge folks and were not afraid to ‘get in some faces’. As the series description states:

Churches are often full of people—and sometimes, elephants. We’ve found a number of different elephants in the church that need addressing. It’s time we loosened up and talked about the issues that are so often avoided by the church-at-large.

It is time to throw off the gloves and tackle the issues that everyone thinks about, but never discusses. During this seven-week series, we talk candidly about the issues that plague us, the topics that confuse us and the questions that intrigue us. We believe that something special happens in the course of this dialogue. And we want to share that with you.

NCC found 7 elephants they wanted to talk about:

• Gray = Legalism
• Fake = Hypocrisy
• Circus = Spirtual Consumerism
• Sexy = Sex
• Christian = Focus on the term “Christian”
• Blindfolded = the Bible
• Apocaloyptic = the Apocalypse
  

The question is, what are the elphants in your church and what are you doing to address them?  Talk to your pastor and your creative teams and think about coming up with a list for your church and using the materials NCC is giving away (or use your own) to deal with them in an engaging way.

As mentioned before, the One Prayer initative is moving forward! This is going to be an exciting effort by many churches to come together and partner as one.  Led by LifeChurch.tv the reason for this effort is to:

• Promote unity in the body of Christ.
• Expose churches to other great teachers and ministries.
• Empower churches to experiment with video teaching.
• Infuse spiritual passion into a typically challenging month.
• Give the senior pastor a three-week break from teaching.
• Raise money for a mission project.
• Teach our people to fast, pray, and seek God in concert with thousands of other believers.
• Participate in the larger work of God in His church.

 Find out more about the effort here. You can get badges and get resources to share about it here.

What would you pray if God would answer One Prayer for the Church at large?

Update: Here is also announcent from Perry Noble about this effort.  Boy is he pumped! 

Wow, this sounds both creative and like it is full of potential for the Kingdom!  Watch the video below (or email readers click here) for an announcement from LifeChurch.tv pastor Craig Groeschel about this initiative to take place in June.

You can also read more about it here. This sounds like a great way for the church as a whole to come together around a common cause and give some local pastors a break from teaching for a few weeks in early summer. Sounds like a great way to expose the church to great speakers as well as the idea of video-based teaching!