Our Future?
A big thanks to Van Sailo, for finding this great study on our youth in religion and society. The Pew foundation conducted a study that looked at the Nexters Generation, ages 18-25. As noted only 32% attend church once a week. That’s staggering considering they are the future generation and they see more importance on their friendships, and living a good life more than religion or going to church. How can one be a mentor or have an influence on them, well in my opinion look at what they are interested in. They are interested in technology, gaming, social issues, friendships, politics, and education for future prosperity. If we can’t reach them through creative and modern ways, then we have lost our true mission.
Church Communities
Think of Myspace, Facebook, and Friendster all rolled into a new social networking site with a small twist. It’s called MyChurch, where you connect and grow your church community. It’s a clean place to meet and collaborate with your members or others. I’m glad to see and hope to see more communities like this pop up. This is a great way to mingle great technology with a great purpose.
Here is what they say they are:
MyChurch.org is a free online tool for churches to outreach and build community by networking their congregation. Amongst some of its features are a library for sermons and media, a social network, a classifieds board, a collaborative blog, a photo sharing app, and an event calendar for you and your church.
The Green Gospel!
In follow up from my previous post on the environment. I found another great article that gives a great account of how religions have come to view the environment today compared to years before. As noted we see the coming elections and Christian movements focus their energy on environmental issues. Whether it is solely for political purposes or a total concern for the environment is arguable. It will be interesting to see if the connection to politics and religious issues gets intertwined via environmental initiatives that could or would bring about social change.
Which could bring about a new slogan: "WWJD: What Would Jesus Drive?"
Church Signs?
This is an interesting site that takes a look at churches bad marketing practices that really turn outsiders off instead of on. The article "When Church Signs Suck" looks at 10 ways that church signs in recent years have migrated to bad pithy sayings. My only caveat to this, is the environment at which you are marketing your church, in some locations good pithy sayings may work.
Church Website Self-Assessment
I found this Self-Assessment tool recently that truly would benefit churches looking to make their sites more user-friendly to outsiders. You can print it out or use the online tool to score your results.
Seminary Hopes to Connect!
I’m glad to see that a Theological seminary is training and allowing the students to experience new ways to preach the gospel.
Excerpt from article: (The Associated Press)
Free Christian Education Software
For those that know me, I usually don’t suggest looking at Linux alternatives to computing. But, this is time, there is Linux alternative that I suggest Christian schools take a look at. It’s called Ubuntu Christian Edition. This is a complete platform that includes the Operating System, Office tools, Bible study software, parental filters, plus much more. This is a complete package designed around the Christian school environment. It’s packaged in a easy form to install and setup. It may not be something that you start with, but definitely something you start testing, especially if money is limited. It’s Free w/o support of course.
2006 Person of the Year!
By now you probably have heard that "Time" magazine person of the year is "You". That is the social networking users of the Web 2.0 Internet. This would include the Youtube community and users of Facebook ,Myspace and others. Why would I be mentioning this on my blog. Well, if "Time" has recognized this as a generation that has and will transform the culture we live in, then we will need to recognize the significance and importance of using current technology for online ministry. "Time" claims that this generation of users will shape our destiny. That’s a pretty powerful prediction to recognize!
