So I’m not a geek, but I play one on TV…
Ok, I am a geek in real life too…

Since January of ‘07, I’ve been heading up our IT direction at Sanctuary in addition to communications, web and design. Some things are finally coming to fruition.

At the end of 4 days of Mac OS X Server Essentials training, I was able to configure 4 servers from installation, with 1 Open Directory Master, 2 File Servers with windows and apple file sharing, and 1 Netboot server all talking to each other with multiple users, multiple workgroups, multiple sharepoints, varying levels of directory access, application and file permissions, vpn access, multiple printers, ftp file access and much more, all in under an hour.

Beautiful, intuitive, APPLE.

With a bunch of new iMacs and iBooks to replace our dying Dell Desktops, we should be golden…

And when Leopard Server comes out in a month with new ical server, podcast producer, wikis, and time machine….well, this is what the simplified productivity is really about….!

The Truth…from Granger Community Church.

Talk about removing the noise of our media saturated world.
This is everything that’s good about what the church can do with media.

Strip it down. Share the message. Share the impact. Share the truth. Move people.

Love it.

When Jesus was around, he did most of his ministry on foot going to people rather than bringing people to him. He used culturally relevant stories that made sense in people’s lives. The temple, the building, was reserved for the holy, the pure, the godly to enter into God’s presence.

Isn’t it interesting that the modern church in America is leaning towards the opposite scenario. We open the doors of the church to the unholy and ask them come inside our house, stepping out of their comfort zones and their natural settings and ask them to watch our media clip and listen to our story and then join the folds. We rarely walk the hillsides of our communities to meet people in their own natural settings. We tend to make them come to us…

I don’t think it’s wrong.
In fact, I’m a proponent of both models.
I think you can meet people where they’re at, even if it means bringing them to where you’re at.

But I also wonder if the church has done too good of a job rallying people around building buildings and maybe not so good of a job rallying the people outside of our buildings, outside of our buildings.

bottom line…meet them in a bar, meet them at the movies, hit them with your postcard so they can come watch your big screen. just reach people. reach them now. life is too short to have no model…

household stuff is compensation for missing inner stuff.

some of my stuff i have to keep, but if you want any of my stuff, let me know…

i have lots of books…

Love this post from Seth Godin.

Kinda puts you in an uncompromising position just for being you.

Are you in or are you “out.”

Great article from Jeffrey Sachs ( The End of Poverty ) in response to the combined wealth of the Forbes 400.

The economic possibility of our time: The elimination of extreme poverty.
Why should the church let a bunch of billionaires who are finally learning how to be philanthropists, beat us to the punch of what God asked us to do?

Through some discussions at MinistryCom last week, a few people have asked me about Sanctuary’s Brand Strategy…

Here’s the first page of Sanctuary’s Brand Strategy defining our target audience. This is very broad, and the strategy narrows from there, but here it is.

In words and pictures:

Download the Brand Strategy Target Audience PDF

Day 2 at MinistryCom was a short one for me…
I spent the morning with Seacoast Church….well not really.

Shawn Woods gave a sweet message on Brand Schizophrenia.

Shawn says, Communications Issues fall into one of two buckets:
1. How can I get people to help me do more stuff?
2. How can I do less stuff?

Branding is:
Creating experiences that match the expectation of the experiences with the aftertaste of the experience.

Takeaways:

“Don’t focus on the stuff, focus on the experience itself…All you have to do is get people to the experience and then work the experience to bring brand value by meeting the expectation of the experience.”

Terry told me that Shawn was going to use about 160 slides in a 35 minute presentation. Looks like he did.

*****

Graphic Design for Ministry with Ashley Schuerman from Seacoast Church

I was completely on the same page with Ashley. Though, I think she works way harder than i do. She does the design and web work for all 11 Seacoast campuses. I struggle to keep up with 1 Sanctuary.

The most important thing about Ashley:
She is HILARIOUS!

Dear MinistryCom: I’d pay to listen to Ashley year after year. Even if she just gave the same talk.

*****

According to Kem Meyer, Seacoast should change their tagline to: Seacoast SPANKS. (Gentle, loving Christian spanks though…)

We need to be careful of the paths we try to lead people through as we integrate them into the church. We can create just as much isolation through forcing people into community that they don’t want, as in not providing opportunities for community for those seeking it.

Don’t we all just want a place to belong?
A place where we feel our needs are met and our desires are important?

The Church tends to try to take people from, “Hi, I’m visiting,” to “share your darkest secrets with this person who is now in your small group…” in a moments time. In most cases, I think the word intimacy needs to go. Try and find it in your Bible anyway…

We need to look at how we reach people at Public Circles, Social Circles, Personal Circles, and Intimate Circles without making the huge jump from Public to Intimate with no relationship building in between….

Communications Revolution - Terry Storch
If you’re not there yet, it’s time to go to Web 2.0
Web 2.0 simply stated is The Participatory Web
(Enabling and Encouraging Participation, the relinquishment of communications control to viral methods and utilizing God’s people to deliver the message.)

Four C’s of Multicultural Marketing - Tracy Lewis
Cultural Awareness - eliminating fear, perception, criticism, preconceptions, doesn’t imply endorsement
Commitment - Long Term
Creativity - throw out the box
Christ-Centered - don’t sacrifice the message…but don’t limit the reach of it…

To accomplish this, you will need to have Multi-Cultural Awareness (Find Commonalities, Embrace Differences, Overcome the fear of honesty), Appropriate Application (Be Authentic, Know your Audience), and have a Strategy (Build conviction through scripture, Affirm diversity through identity and vision, Build a multi-cultural leadership and staff, Enjoy Progress and anticipate problems).

Writinng as an Act of Service - Jon Walker
Service Journalism answers two questions:
1. So What? (Why does this make any difference to me?)
2. What Now? (What should I do with this information?)

The goal is to leave the reader with a call to action.

Practical Outputs of Service Journalism:
- Timelines
- Headers and Subheaders
- Charts and Graphs
- Breakouts
- Q&A’s
- FAQ’s
- Captions

Branding 101 - Dawn Nichole Baldwin
Brand
the practice of delivering a promise that reflects the mission, uniqueness and personality of your organization…..

Positioning
Determining how you want to be defined by your audience.

A Matter of Message - Brad Abare
Matthew 5:13-16 - If you lose your saltiness what will you taste like>?
- Be Salty - Pursue God
- Be transparent - Pursue Your Own Story
- Think Local - Pursue Others
- Keep it Simple - Un-clutter the Message

1. I’m not perfect. Though I pretend to be. Though I desire to be. Though Christ made me to be. It’s hard to accept, but sometimes I miss a step.
2. I can’t do it all. I need help. I need an assistant. I need someone to manage details, so I can paint the big picture.
2. Numbering shouldn’t be that hard, but last week’s survey says it is.
3. I need the vacation that isn’t coming anytime soon (oh gee, what it would be like to be off to Cancun).
4. I waste a lot of time learning from others, rather than being able to focus more on my own end products. It’s part of my strengths as a “learner.” Though every unharnessed strength can be a weakness. My desire to constantly learn, minimizes the maximizer in me.
5. Despite my overt introvertedness, I still long for close relationships with others. Making friends isn’t easy. Maintaining friendships is harder. I am self-serving.

I plan on getting my hands on an ipod touch really zune.

Say see ya later to THE SOCIAL.
REMARKABLE INNOVATION is what keeps them coming back…

So 1:30am on a Saturday night. Where else would I be but driving out to my favorite reliable 24 hour kinkos for some bulletin issues…

Stop at the grocery store. Return my 3 Redbox Rentals (300 ****, Freedom Writers ****, Borat **) and get a monster cookie and a skim milk for the road home…

The lady in front of me is chatting with the checkout lady about working at the grocery store in my neighborhood. I live in North Minneapolis….

She starts to ring me up and then says, “Bet you’re glad you don’t live over there. Can’t go outside your house without getting shot. Don’t ever go over there.”

I mention I’m going there right now.
“Well, you better bring your bullet-proof vest. There’s nothing good about that place.”

I then very calmly mentioned that I live in North Minneapolis. That it’s my neighborhood she’s talking about.

I gave a line about “being entitled to our opinions.” and got the hell out of there. pretty much pissed and fuming.

Listen. I’m not immune to the violence. On the contrary. It scares me. I worry about my family some days. I’ve heard gunshots right outside my backdoor and I’ve walked through a line of crack dealers to get to my front door. I’ve seen one of my neighbors running down the street chasing somebody with a gun and my other neighbor holding his 45 cocked and using the corner of my house as a hiding place.

I abhor the violence. I hate it with everything in me. But I recognize it as a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.

God left us the opportunity to be his justice in the world.

“Just as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.”

Most of the time, it feels pretty safe here. We know our neighbors. We’ve built relationships. We share a cup of sugar and two eggs just like they do on Leave it to Beaver. But we also share something deeper. We share a bond built on the love of our neighborhood and the peace that comes from looking out for each other.

Some might thnk that Norh Minneapolis is a warzone. Hey- I’ve said it from time to time when I get so angry about the bullets flying in the streets. But it’s also God’s promised land. The new kingdom here on earth is wherever God’s people are. Wherever there are disciples of all nations. Wherever there are people who are transformed by the renewing of their minds.

I pray that we stop painting the picture that the only thing worth mentioning about this place is that our young black men keep killing each other.

There are passionate teachers.
Passionate preachers.
Connected neighbors and families.
Everyday people trying to make ends meet.
And there are the least of these.
Those with no home.
No more support system.
Paying the rest of their lives for their bad decisions or their parents poor choices.
And there is a remnant.
A remnant of people passionately pursuing God’s justice for this city.

I need to do a better job of painting the picture…and remembering what it looks like.

It’s been about 5 years since I’ve seen ben in concert. It’s time to rectify that horrible life mistake.

Labor Day - Orpheum Theater - Minneapolis - Dressing up for a “theatre-style” performance - wife & me - well, we fell in love listening to Welcome to the Cruel World back in the day.

Late nights, Lake Calhoun, driving home with ben harper.

ahhhh, nostalgia.

giving the new album a listen now