New E-Book: Twitter for Churches
“The Reason Your Church Must Twitter” by Anthony Coppedge is a new E-Book that you can purchase for your ministry or church. Twitter has been gaining momentum recently and is suspected to break-out into the mainstream very soon. This is a perfect time for your ministry to start sending out Tweets. If you want to know what Twitter is or what a Tweet is, follow this link and/or read the book.
Bible Reading Plans
Since it’s a new year, I thought it appropriate to post a site that has some new ways to read the entire Bible in a years time. BibleYear.com gives you the ability to choose your favorite translation and language and the ability to choose when you actually start the reading plan. I especially liked the Chronological and Historical reading plans, this seems to give a story line to the reading plans.
Tags: Bible, Chronological, Historical, Reading, Year
Internet Evangelism Book
Just came across a new book that is suppose to be a guide to Internet evangelism for the 21st century. Hope to get my hands on it and see what approaches the author takes. The title seems so 1999, since a topic of such should have been published years ago.
Internet Evangelism in the 21st Century
By Daniel Henrich
Tags: Internet Evangelism, Daniel Henrich, 21st Century
Assess Me
My good friend David Posthuma just published a new book titled: "made for a mission" I haven’t got my hands on a copy yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be a good one. It looks to be designed to go along with the Assessme.org service, where one can take online assessments that helps one discover their uniqueness in the mission of Christ. I highly recommend the service to individuals and ministries. I believe he is running discounts on the new book, so take advantage of this new publication right away.
Tags: David Posthuma, assessme, mission, assessments, book
Ministry Notes
There is a movement toward an authoritarian style of ministry leadership in many denominational and non-denominational groups. I see this as a direct attack against the new postmodern mind movement. A movement that reflects a large portion of the secular world especially here in the US. Below are some statements that hopefully will help guide any ministry approach and reflect a more genuine style of ministry. The tech connection to this post relies in the methods used to connect with people and ways technology can be abused or misused in reaching outward. Whether you agree with the following statements or not, they are a belief held by many in and out of the church in what I call the new postmodern movement.
1) Baptism isn’t indicative of health. It’s indicative of evangelism only.
2) Ministry isn’t or shouldn’t be a numbers game.
3) A church cannot be a all for everyone. Be good at one or two types of ministry to a selected group.
4) Don’t alienate the baby boomers, have a ministry for them, there are still a lot of them around.
5) Don’t create fake relationships for the sake of having a relationship. This isn’t genuine now is it!
6) Don’t push people out of church to reach your vision or goals. All kinds of people can be together and worship. A sin is a sin and all have fallen short.
7) Don’t create a church using modernist methods for the new postmodern person.
It should never be my way or the highway methodology. Leadership isn’t about doing it my way, but modeling a direction and educationally focused. Leadership is when the followers have a choice.
9) Minister to the ones in the church first, guide, model and educate them for health before being externally focused.
10) Don’t do ministry at the expense of others. You feed the circle of burnout and this gives the ever so popular bad name that Christians have today.
11) Christianity isn’t a exclusive club with membership rules.
12) You can never establish metrics for ministry. God is the only one that has the ruler for metrics. The Lord can use any ministry.
12) Don’t let time be a determining factor for ministry success. Our time isn’t Gods time.
13) Church growth isn’t indicative of church health. Numbers isn’t necessarily a reflection of health. A church can be healthy and not be growing in numbers. Numbers isn’t a metric of spiritual growth but healthy relationships are one example of a positive outgrowth of spiritual growth.
14) First and foremost be relevant to your ministry focus.
15) Don’t mentally compartmentalize, segment or classify people as lost, un-churched, sinners, or other judgmental terms. Reach out to all and reflect your relevant ministry focus only. Your definition is only yours, while another mans definition of you.
Lastly- remember that all have fallen short of the glory of God. No sin is worse than another. Romans 3:23
BTW: One can get further help and understanding, direction from the new book. unChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons
Tags: unchristian, leadership, ministry, growth, church, sin, evangelism, christianity, metrics, david kinnaman, gabe lyons, postmodernism, relationships, healthy, healthy church, relevant
Willow Creek Study
Willow Creek recently finished a study on the effectiveness of Willow Creek’s model for ministry. The multi-year study revealed that their model wasn’t establishing disciples any more than any other ministry. It was a numbers game, it could draw the crowds just like the mega-churches, but it wasn’t making disciples. I find this very interesting, since most churches want to just appease the senses, and grow the church, but forgetting to make spiritual application of personal responsibility. I’m totally for making the worship experience innovative, but not making the spiritual connection of personal responsibility or application will eventually lead no where. The complete study will becoming out in a new book titled "Reveal: Where Are You?," co-authored by Cally Parkinson and Greg Hawkins.
Tags: Willow Creek, Ministry, Discipleship, Church Growth
Free Book!
Just received a link to a free preview copy of the book "unChristian" by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. I’m excited to see what their perspective is on how the world views Christians in today’s environment. It’s becoming more and more apparent that Christians have an image problem on today’s world. This is something that doesn’t change overnight and so it is important to start looking inward instead of just judging the secular image.
To get a free copy of the "unChristian" click the free copy link and fill out the form.
Tags: unchristian, barna, free, image, christians, secular, culture, david kinnaman, gabe lyons
Internet Ministry Conference
I’m here and glad to be here and wish all of you reading this were here. This year the Internet Ministry Conference is held in Grand Rapids, MI. It is a collection of Pastors, Communication directors, Technologists and many others from all around the world. I took a glance around the room during the keynote last night and I can safely guess that most of the attendees are in their late 40′s and are from the baby boomer generation. This surprises me a little considering the content but it’s something I’m glad to see. Last night was the kick off with the Keynote by Rex Miller, The Millennium Matrix. His keynote was very interesting and a speech that would help all baby boomers understand where they came from and what world we live in today. I hope to get his presentation up for all to see. I haven’t read his book, but I plan too and hope to see more content and inspiration that he spoke of.
I hope to bring you blog posts everyday from each session I attend. This kind of stuff is what gives me sugar and caffeine in my blood. I think they call that passion!
Tags: Internet Ministry, Grand Rapids, Rex Miller, Millennium Matrix
The War!
I really didn’t want to post anything about current politics and the war in Iraq, but with that said I ran across a great article that really levels the playing field. It’s hard for someone to keep silent on such matters, considering the religious implications. It’s a long article, but I highly recommend it. According to the author I have done my intellectual part in matters of government.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/war-govt-nowin.html
Tags: Iraq, Government, War, Economics, Politics
