DISCLAIMERS: 1)There are better technical people out there concerning the web. 2) Do as I suggest, not as I do. I’m trying to keep up myself, and our college website reflects almost nothing of what I talk about. That’s how fast things change. 3) There are a lot of college ministries out there, and there are a lot of online tools to use, but it doesn’t seem like many are thinking through how to best utilize the new media and Web 2.0 (and yikes, Web 3.0) in their groups. 4) Knowing that things change overnight in technology, I hope to somehow impart to you some of the things I have been learning and wrestling with in these areas. You don’t need to be an expert in this area, just know enough to think critically about the issue. 5) If you have feedback, suggestions, criticisms, please comment. This is by no means all encompassing.

Starting Out

There are a lot of good books out there on the new media, web 2.0, building web platforms, etc., but no book has challenged my thinking, and convinced me to turn in certain directions as did the “manifesto” Getting Real by the guys at 37 Signals, when it comes to the issues of simplicity, flexibility, cost and speed. I consider it a must read in this area.

Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.

Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that’s not essential (and most of what you think is essential actually isn’t).

Getting Real is staying small and being agile.

Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.

Getting Real is about iterations and lowering the cost of change. Getting Real is all about launching, tweaking, and constantly improving which makes it a perfect approach for web-based software.

Getting Real delivers just what customers need and eliminates anything they don’t.

When a college ministry decides to have an online presence there are a few things to keep in mind. Some of these things are:

• student participation
• the fast changing culture of college/university life
• finicky tastes/styles
• revolving body of students and leaders
• budget
• access/control
• etc. (these are just a few)

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It’s funny how some words become commonplace in a community or culture.  As a resident of Los Angeles you hear a lot of talk about “sex” and “sushi.”  It seems that these are two things that Angelenos highly esteem.  So when I came across the book, “Sex, Sushi & Salvation: Thoughts on Intimacy, Community, & Eternity” by Christian George, I knew I must pick it up.  Rarely do you see the word “salvation” in the previous word mix, but I knew as a college pastor these are important topics to the community I minister to.  People’s worlds often revolve around sex (i.e. intimacy, connection, belonging, love, etc.), sushi (i.e. food, sustenance, community, great conversation, going out) and salvation (i.e. God, Jesus, transcendence, community, eternity, etc.).  George says:

Since humans are made in the image of God, we have three basic passions–intimacy, community, and eternity. We burn for them, save for them, pay for them, and pray for them. But only the God who fulfills these desires within Himself can perfectly fulfill them in us. This is a book about sex, sushi, and salvation–a book of snapshots–the ups and downs, the failures and fortunes, the smiles and trials. In these chapters, I retrace my travels around the world, from pagan temples in Greece to Transylvanian mountains in Romania. I confess my lust and love, my struggle with truth, and my quest for Christ.

Fasten your seat belt.  It’s going to be a wild ride. And along the way we just might discover that the God who satisfies us with Himself joins us for the journey.

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If you are involved in college ministry and haven’t joined Collective Muse yet, then stop and do so now!

One of the most important college ministry conferences is happening May 16-19 up in Seattle at The Inn. The Ascent Conference is a gathering of those involved in college ministry, and it has been real influential in shaping college ministry under the leadership of Mike Gaffney and his staff.

Church-based campus ministries gathering for… refreshing, equipping, and vision-casting.

Campus ministry is the adventure of a lifetime, but it’s not easy. Ascent was formed out of a felt need by campus ministers and students to come together around the common goal of sharing Jesus Christ with college students. Ascent is for staff, students, and lay leaders involved in church-based campus ministry.

I will not be up there this weekend, though I really wish I was. Too much going on in my family right now as we are in the midst of huge life transitions vocationally, as well as a huge move to Dallas that awaits us in the next few months. Hopefully you will be going up there, and if you aren’t, I hope you do get the chance to get up there at some point to the conference in the next few years.

I have been asking a couple of questions at our college ministry social networking site Collective Muse, and the blog as well.

1. What is the best thing about working with college students? Or what do you love about college ministry?
2. What is the biggest need in college ministry today?

What do you think?

I absolutely love that this is our college ministry administrator’s “other job”…and passion.

Cassie Boyd is amazing to work with, and it’s awesome hearing the things that you usually aren’t privy to in someone’s life outside of church. This is just one of the reasons I have loved working in Los Angeles with those involved in the entertainment industry. Such fun, passion and creativity. Makes going to work everyday really fun.

If you need voice-over work, contact Cassie.

Cassie, I expect some voice-overs on my answering machine at work

I have blogged a lot on this site about the collapse of hiearchical structures, especially within the Church, and the rising level of leadership from the bottom. I see this change in structure as a good thing and I saw a couple of good posts over the weekend.

First, Hugh Hewitt has a great piece on his blog that was written by Randy Elrod. Here is just a sample from his post, The Death of the Alpha Leader, but make sure you read the whole thing.

Servant leaders have the ability to provide a new type of leadership. A collaborative mentoring and releasing of people with varied and mystical gifts in order to create culture. Alpha leaders value control, servant leaders value collaboration. Alpha leaders value individualism, servant leaders value community. Alpha leaders value affluence, servant leaders value influence.

After reading his post, what are you initial thoughts? Is this a new concept to you, or are you “on board” for lack of a better term?

Second, Hugh Hewitt links a very fascinating interview in the Wall Street Journal with Clay Shirkey who just authored Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (which I just started reading–it is a great book). The title of the interview is Wisdom on Crowds: What CEO’s Need to Know About the Social Web. Here is the snippet that Hugh links:

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A little over a week ago I was having coffee and talking technology and ministry with Cynthia Ware of The Digital Sanctuary. And she told me a story about some friends of hers and how they had received information from Twitter regarding some events that later became the news.

Basically, because of the posts on Twitter, these people had firsthand accounts of news before it hit the major news stations. She talked a little then about how Twitter or even some tool like that (who knows what the future holds) would basically produce/create people who were journalists on the ground and would be able to convey news stories before the major outlets got a hold of it (Cynthia, if my details are off on our conversation, let me know).

So it’s not really a surprise then that I found out about the China earthquake this morning from Andrew Jones on Twitter. I read, “reading about twitter and china earthquake”, and then quickly turned on the news.

When I get online in the morning Twitter is the first site I check in with and it often delivers news to me that I had not known, or that would become important for that day. My Twitter network is more valuable to me then turning on some major news outlet. With that diverse group I know I will get the stories, news and updates that are important to me.

How many of you check Twitter first thing when you go online for the day? If not, what is it?

Check out Andrew Jones’ post China earthquake, where he links to this fascinating story about Twitter and the China earthquake:

China Quake–Twitter Comes of Age as THE Breaking News Tool

Fascinating reading…I think. Especially when I think about Twitter and it’s use in ministry. Very powerful tool. I will posting next week about Twitter and college ministry.

And though Twitter is an awesome tool, let’s be praying for all those affected by the quake itself.

My co-worker RO Smith and I have been talking a lot recently about expectations in the Church.

RO has been concerned with what are some unrealistic expectations placed upon pastors which he wrote about in the post, We Are All Pastors.

After reading the post and talking with him more about the topic I have become concerned with what I think are sometimes unrealistic expectations of those employed in the Church (i.e. pastors, directors, etc.), upon the rest of the congregation.

As a pastor, director, church employee or whatever, it is basically our job to do things in service of Church (really in service of Jesus Christ, but we know how that can become clouded). Without diving into debates over what that “service” means, and what a vocational position in the Church entails, or whether or not we should even be called “professionals” (John Piper deals with this topic extensively in Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry).

The reality is this: In ministry we have very flexible schedules, and can cater our schedule however we want to make meetings, meet with people, plan events, make time for events, etc, etc. But I’m starting to wonder about whether or not we take the average church attender into consideration when we plan things or expect them to serve with the same passion, effort and time that we do on an event.

Example: My full-time job is as college director at Bel Air Presbyterian Church. My vocation revolves around thinking about that ministry. But a college student in the ministry for example (and this may be a bad example since college students tend to have the most leisure time of any when you compare them amongst other demographics) has school, work, homework, family, friends, etc. Their schedule does not revolve around the college ministry, and yet sometimes I have expectations of them that it should. We as pastors and directors don’t fully think about the family with two income parents, driving across town in traffic running errands, shuttling kids, and all the demands that revolve around that family. And yet we have expectations of how much time they should volunteer, and how many events they should be at.

So the expectations head in both directions–clergy to congregation, and congregation to clergy–and it seems to create a vicious cycle of stress, burnout and an overprogrammed church and ministries.

So please read RO’s post Stress and the Unrealistic Expectations of the Church at our collaborative youth ministry site (though I have not collaborated to the site very much lately).

After reading RO’s post, I’m looking even more forward to Anne Jackson’s upcoming book, Mad Church Disease: The Church-Wide Burnout Epidemic.

I just want to acknowledge that there were and are many angles that I could have gone yesterday in my post Showing Skin at Church.

I knew this going into the post, writing the post, and at the conclusion. And it was even more evident when I received lots of feedback from a lot of you, most of it not in the comment section, but via email, Facebook chat, etc. All good thoughts.

I could have addressed the issue of men more, and the responsibility they have in this issue.

I could have gone deeper on the issue of why modesty is important.

I could have talked about the disposition of our hearts, and how that can be a guide to what modesty looks like in our lives.

I could have tried to offer guidelines. That gets messy quickly.

I could have talked about the nuances of dress, and how what might be modest in some cultures, is or isn’t in others.

So you see…lots of angles, lots of positions…lots of places to go.

And though none of my commenters or friends talked to me about this, I do want to be clear about something: This is not just an issue that we are to put on women, or blame them. That would be like Adam blaming Eve for eating the apple, taking no responsibility for himself. There is a vicious cycle at work here, and I think we all contribute to it to some degree. So the best thing we can do is to come together as communities and be open and honest about it, and the struggles that proceed. And we can be of encouragement to each other.

My friend Wess has a great post where he delves deeper into the heart of the issue: On Immodesty: Too Much Skin (At Church and Elsewhere)?

Also, I’m sure Anne Jackson could have taken her post in many different directions as well, but was speaking out of her heart based on certain circumstances, etc. She continues to raise great questions in her writings.

When we think of the issue of modesty, or showing skin, in church or elsewhere….What are some angles or points of discussion that you would like to see raised?

As a woman, do you feel like the Church blames you, or puts the focus on you most of the time for this issue?

Or what questions do you have in your mind that you would like to see answered or at least wrestled with? One friend was asking me if there are appropriate times, places and contexts for women to dress sexy? So you see, there are a million rabbit trails we can go down, and I’m no expert. So let me hear from all of you.

I don’t know if this is an issue (too much skin) at your church, but it definitely is one at ours. I can’t tell you how many conversations there have been about this topic. Doesn’t matter how many times our pastor has talked about dress and modesty, it only seems to get worse.

And I don’t want to pick on women here, it’s just that men don’t usually show skin because women aren’t usually visually stimulated the same way men are.

But it’s definitely an issue and I’ve become more and more shocked by what young women are wearing, not only in church, but when I step out the door and head into public. I’ve thought on this issue before, but now that I have a baby daughter I’m thinking more about the issue of modesty and what my wife and I want to teach her as she grows up.

No matter what we as parents do I know there will always be that cultural peer pressure on my daughter to do something different. But in the midst of that pressure I hope that we can convey the message of the importance of modesty, and that showing skin is not what she should value or want approval from others for. Doesn’t get easier for parents when teen stars provide much of the cultural peer pressure (i.e. Hannah Montana).

And I know this is a difficult issue for men. A little skin on a woman can send a man’s thought process hurling into outer space and in a direction farthest from purity. So on the one hand a man might get excited and tempted by it, but it’s also the same thing that can destroy him or make him make decisions that he would otherwise not make. That’s power.

It’s a vicious cycle. Women are admired in our culture for their sexuality, but we as Christians are also trying to send a different message that doesn’t usually succeed.

I don’t know where we head on this issue in Church. But maybe it needs to be an open conversation between men and women where we can encourage each other to strive for lives of more modesty, rather than just blaming each other.

How powerful is “skin.” So powerful that I decided a couple of weeks ago that I needed to sign up for online accountability with Covenant Eyes. What does that mean? It means for $7 a month all of my online behavior is monitored and flagged where necessary. And then each week my wife, my brother, and two of my best friends get a report of what I was looking at during my online time during the week. I spend a lot of time on the internet, and I’m smart enough to know the power of sexuality, skin, porn and more online. It doesn’t matter that I’m a father, husband, friend or pastor. We are all susceptible to its temptations. I’ve heard people complain about paying for online monitoring, but come on…are you kidding me? This type of accountability is worth what it would cost two lattes at Starbucks.

I want to leave you with this latest post from Anne Jackson, my thoughts on boobies. Definitely a catching and controversial title. Anne is a pastor at LifeChurch.tv, and is the author of the book Mad Church Disease: The Church-Wide Burnout Epidemic. Check out her post at Relevant Magazine, Dirty Girls, The New Porn Addicts, as she talks about her struggle with pornography and the effects of it on her relationship.

Here is her entire post:

my thoughts on boobies
Written by Anne Jackson on May 7, 2008 – 12:32 pm

did you know?

–there is a female feature we call breasts. they can also be referred to as “boobies,” or “the twins,” or “the rack,” or “jugs,” so on, so forth.

–most men find this particular feature interesting. tempting. and amazing.

–upon catching a glimpse of said feature (regardless of how much is actually exposed), it is likely for a man’s mind to go to places it shouldn’t.

–with above knowledge, women, you now are educated and have no excuse.

–PLEASE USE WISDOM WHEN YOU DRESS YOURSELF.

aside: call me a prude. call me whatever. i don’t really care. and as much as this may seem like “casting judgment” (said in a very, scary, echo-y loud voice) on members of the female gender, please get a freaking clue.

i was doing some bloggy-clicking-around during my lunch and it amazes me how many “nice christian girls” (some who are even in church leadership - gasp!) show quite a bit of skin. in the office, at church parties, whatever (oh, and then post them ALL OVER THE INTERNET!)

please forgive me if it seems i have something stuck, as they say, where the sun don’t shine.

I DO.

it’s called modesty.

and if you are supposed to be living examples of godly women…you should too!

that is all.

sermon over.

please, carry on.