M2LIVE is a grassroots effort allowing believers of all backgrounds to share and learn from one another.  As a series of web-based and live hands-on workshops, M2LIVE is designed for church leaders and volunteers interested in enhancing their ministry using the latest in web and social media technology.

The M2LIVE webinar showcases insights from many of today’s brightest church web evangelists. While presenters have opportunity to share their message, the format allows ample time for asking questions and interacting with the presenter. Today’s free M2LIVE webinar features a discussion of some of the values embedded in the new media and why some folks resist participation.

Join me for the discussion today. To access the webinar, visit http://www.M2LIVE.org/live at 11:30am EDT / 8:30am PST.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Remember way back when, when we all voted on panels for SxSW?

Videos of today’s SxSW gathering are already hitting YouTube.  Thanks Tony Steward for streaming live on your iPhone.

Technology For Results, Not Profits featured a couple of the LifeChurch.tv digerati, Terry Storch & Bobby Grunewald, engaging audience members on ways nonprofits can maintain and even grow their support base.

“Profit isn’t a bad thing. When you incorporate free tools to engage your users (like LifeChurch.tv’s youversion), you are funded from a philanthropic perspective – people donate to support the cause,” Grunewald said.

Churches – quantify your results.
“It can be even more important for nonprofits to use online analytic services to stay in touch with their communities. Because many nonprofits are local, it’s important for members to feel connected and to know that their organization is in touch with them. As a nonprofit, it’s important to see your measurable results compared to how your community is actually doing. Crunch the numbers. See if you’re making an impact.” (via http://sxtxstate.com/)

Is your church measuring their results overall and in every department at every level?  If so how?  What metrics do you use and what do you measure?

Marketing gurus Phil Cooke and Brad Abare appeared in a livestream chat this morning on Conversant Life.  These guys are two of the most sought-after consultants in the field of church and religious media communications.

Hearing them talk about Christians / media / church / communication / change / effectiveness is amazing because of the way they compliment each other.  They really spark one another’s ideas and their seasonings & expertise just flows.

I should say that we all serve the Center for Church Communication, the nonprofit parent of Church Marketing Sucks.  But, that’s not why I’m recommending this stream.  It’s simply because the material they have in the archives of their heads is pretty spectacular.  Encouraging us to be who we are uniquely in the body of Christ, accept changing culture rather than resist it, be transparent & tell “your” story, all very interesting stuff.

A couple of key take aways include:

• Culture is more important than vision.  If you develop a unique, inviting, rich, spiritually inviting culture your vision will fly.  If not, no matter how compelling the vision, it will fail.
• Dialog over monologue.  People want to be talked “with” not talked “to” or “at”.  Conversation is valuable.
• Next generation leaders would like the former generation leadership to “carry with” rather than “pass on to” them the truths & principles they’ve learned about the Kingdom of God.

The stream will be archived and if you missed it (starting tomorrow) you can find it at the Conversant Life site.   Well worth your hour.

This week I’m headed for Chicago and Cultivate 09.  Then on to Ben Arment’s Story Gathering. Cultivate will be streaming live and I’ll be doing the interviews with facilitators all day. Who do you wanna see?

• Kem Meyer
• Dawn Nicole Baldwin
• Matt Knisely
• Tim Schraeder
• Maurilio Amorim
• Blair Farley
• Drew Goodmanson
• Jon Acuff
• Phil Cooke
• Michael Buckingham
• Brad Abare
• Kent Shaffer
• JR Kerr
• Sarah Hatter
• Jeremy Scheller
• Terry Storch
• Carlos Whittaker
• Gabe Taviano
• Cynthia Ware
• Tony Steward
• Michael Forsberg
• Brad Ruggles
• Clint Runge
• Justin Wise
• Tiffani Barnes
• Bobby Gruenewald
• Katie Moon
• Cleve Persinger
• Rhett Smith
• Jami Ruth
• Katie Persinger

Get the inside scoop at the event…  Text CULTIVATE to 24625 thanks to Jarbyco.

Cultivate: Where Culture, Innovation and Communication Connect

It is said the collective wisdom of a group is more valuable than the expertise of one. Cultivate is a collective wisdom. It brings ministry and marketplace leaders to the table and asks them to leave their formal presentations at home.

Cultivate is about bringing you together with the skilled, the experienced, and the insightful, and together you will drive the content. Together you will discover breakthrough insights.

Cultivate is about organized conversations, and each conversation will be designed to nurture collaboration without confining the experience to a box. Expect to be stretched. Expect to be challenged. Expect to cultivate a new way of thinking.

If you are creative, strategic, and responsible for influencing how your church communicates, there is a chair waiting for you.

October 27, 2009
Park Community Church, Chicago

Since we are still evaluating the reality & potential of church online the question just keeps coming up: “Of course, [virtual church] is possible. But is it biblical?”

The following is a response to me from Douglas Estes, author of SimChurch regarding his reflections on this post by Drew Goodmanson – Is Online Community real community; Questions about the virtual church?

A virtual church is just as biblical as a Baptist church, a house church, a Lutheran church, a megachurch, a Pentecostal church, a contemporary rock church or a traditional American fundamentalist church. Why? Because the Bible doesn’t prescribe one type of culture or ‘format’ for doing church. Period. I know that most Christians—even pastors and church leaders—will grudgingly admit this in public and not believe it in their hearts though it is the biblical viewpoint. Everyone who is passionate about the church views their version of the church to be the best, most right, most biblical, most blessed, and closest-to-the-New-Testament version of church as possible. This is not wrong but it does become a problem when we try to say that other people don’t have biblical churches (with the exception of churches whose theology/practice fall outside of historic orthodoxy). We can group current criticisms of online church into 2 main areas—and the first area, rightfully labeled, is denominationalism. This may seem kind of funny because I don’t mean that online churches are a new denomination; I mean that some people are reacting to them through the same lens (not our way = different = not biblical). Let’s consider the second area in more detail.

One important part of writing SimChurch was my starting point: I did not start with virtual churches. I started with the Bible and church history. A critical part of the research was investigating both with discernment to see if there would be anything to prevent an online church. The answer is no. And this is not an argument from silence (like those folks who say it’s okay to do drugs because they Bible doesn’t directly say we can’t), this is a ‘no’ from a close reading of the Bible and church history. In fact, anyone who has studied church history understands that God moves the church in seemingly radical directions at times. So far, most of the arguments against online church are the same types of arguments as those leveled at every new Christian group that has come along since Jesus left us.

Many of the criticisms I read seem to be written by people who are using the internet circa 1999. They forget that even older technologies such as Skype allow for a great deal of interaction, except fully physical (there is some physical because you can see the other person, wave, make faces, laugh, etc). More specifically, Drew (and others) cite verses in the Bible that deal with community and then argue that this community must be rooted in physical proximity (but not the SecondLife or Skype kind). I don’t want to (mis)characterize Drew’s argument here; and to be fair, Drew listed a few verses in a 200 word post whereas I wrote a whole book on this issue. Still, I need to point out a few serious problems with arguments like Drew and others use. SimChurch goes into much more detail, but let’s briefly look at the issues:

First, Drew lists 27 verses (all from the New Testament) that allude to community, or more specifically, what he calls “one-anothering.” These verses include loving one another (1 John 3:11) and the holy kiss one (1 Peter 5:14). In SimChurch, I defined a church as “a localized assembly of the people of God dwelling in a meaningful community with the task of building up the Kingdom.” Now, some people may tweak this but overall I feel it is a solid definition of church from a biblical and church-historical perspective (within a Protestant tradition such I come from). I think we can agree that church must be both local and a meaningful community. The problem comes in when we try to take the verses Drew cited and decide the physical extension of them. As with most of the Bible, these verses are communicating spiritual truth more so than physical truths. When the Bible tells me to love someone else, hugging is probably included in this but it is not the central meaning of the verse at hand (it is greeting). I can prove this: We don’t literally greet people with a holy kiss (at least I’ve never attended any church anywhere that does) at church. Why? Because we understand that the spiritual reality of greeting and loving another follower of Jesus is so much bigger than the physical expression. This is not to say the physical expression is not important; it’s just to say that certain physical expressions are just one aspect of it. Please note that I am also not trying to over-spiritualize this issue; I’m neither downplaying nor disregarding the physical aspect just pointing that it is only one part of what it means to have community. Again, consider people riding the NY subway to work—if you’ve ever done this, you know you unwittingly touch a lot of people due to the crowdedness of the train, but no one would consider a subway car (real) community!

Truthfully, none of the verses Drew lists speak to whether a church should meet in a building (been there), under a banana tree in a jungle (done that), or in synthetic space over the internet. In fact, as Drew admitted in his post, and any honest Christian will admit, we don’t get the type of community that the Bible describes in some/many/most/all ‘regular’ brick and mortar churches to begin with! But just because no one seems to love each other (or greet each other with a holy kiss) at First Baptist doesn’t mean we should declare it unbiblical or not a church.

Since this is a blogpost not a book, let me wrap up by saying that Drew is correct in his conclusion—we need to focus on creating biblical community. Chapters 2–4 in SimChurch go into great detail (for a non-academic book) on what church and biblical community is and how Western Civilization has so influenced this discussion as to make everything about community be tied to the physical where the Bible (primarily, but not only) ties it to the spiritual. In fact, it is the radically-skeptical Western worldview of Descartes and others that has shaped the definition of community for the average Western Christian far more than the Bible has (protests aside). In fact, we could say that if many of the virtual-church skeptics are correct—that to have real community with someone we must be in close, physical proximity with that person—then we cannot have community with God here on Earth because we can’t touch him either. Biblical community, and true presence, is far more nuanced than our materialistic, Western sensibilities can sometimes grasp.

Douglas Estes

Comments?

I get sent 4 or 5 books a week.  I have form letters both for authors & publishers saying “unfortunately, I cannot review your book because this space is reserved for discussions about the Church & media technologies”.   Sadly, there haven’t been many publications that fit well in this zone.   But recently, Zondervan sent me the book SimChurch by Douglas Estes.  I sped through it marking up every page, and realized how helpful it was to have a new set of observations about online church.   Now there’s a blog tour and a bit further into this post I’ve listed some of the blogs Zondervan invited to review / discuss / celebrate the release of this timely book.

Douglas Estes is a New Testament scholar and teaching pastor and he authored SimChurch to explore the (sometimes controversial) world of online churches.  As people (thus the Church) migrate online, we are forced to review our theology and re-assess some of our postmodern assumptions in light of our digital world.

Today I’m posting pointers to the SimChurch site, a list of the selected bloggers who are evaluating the book and a brief video clip from Douglas.  Tomorrow, I’ll be posting his analysis of a post previously put of by my friend & colleague, Pastor Drew Goodmanson at his site. (see: http://www.goodmanson.com/church-technology/is-online-community-real-community-questions-about-the-virtual-church/).  [Drew & I will be presenting together next week in Chicago at the Story Conference - come join the discussion.]

Here are the SimChurch bloggers:

• Church Relevance
• BibleDude.net
• Returned Sheep
• The Digital Sanctuary
• Lessons from Babel
• Mark D. Roberts
• Tall Skinny Kiwi
• Captain’s Blog

Now here’s a video clip to introduce you to Douglas Estes and SimChurch.  Come back tomorrow for his lengthy response to my “virtual church” question.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We are just two days away from The Nines, a 100% online, 100% free, conference for church leaders this Wednesday, September 9th, 2009.

Catalyst is partnering with Leadership Network to provide us with this first time ever free event.

Todd Rhoades of Leadership Network &  Monday Morning Insight answered some of our FAQ’s recently on The Show, and you can get a teaser video about social media changing the landscape of Kingdom influencers with Todd & Pastor Charles Lee below:

Charles Lee // Social Networking and Influence from Todd Rhoades on Vimeo.

Check back in here on Wednesday morning for the simulcast and to enjoy over 60 presenters, including:

Reggie McNeal (Leadership Network)
Perry Noble (NewSpring Church)
Leonard Sweet (Author/Speaker)
Ed Stetzer (Lifeway Research)
Mark Batterson (National Community Church)
Alan Hirsch (Forge Mission Training Network)
Dino Rizzo (Healing Place Church)
Greg Surratt (Seacoast Church)
Sam Chand (Sam Chand Ministries)
Jon Tyson (Trinity Grace Church, NYC)
Reggie Joiner (CCO, reThink)
Nancy Ortberg (TeamWorx2)
Mike Breaux (Heartland Church)
Pete Wilson (Cross Point Church)
Neil Cole (Church Multiplication Associates)
Jenni Catron (Cross Point Church)
Noel Heikkinen (Riverview Church)
David Foster (The Gathering)
Mark Bankord (Heartland Community Church)
John Bishop (Living Waters Church)
Rick Rusaw (LifeBridge Church)
Geoff Surratt (Seacoast Church)
Jim Tomberlin (Third Quarter Consulting)
Anne Jackson (FlowerDust.net)
Naeem Fazal (Mosaic Church)
John Coulombe (First Ev Free Fullerton)
Teresa McBean (NorthStar Community Church)
Jason Cusick (Faith Church)
Bambi Encarnacion (First Ev Free Fullerton)
Ken Fong (Evergreen Baptist Church)
Judy West (Windsor Crossing Church)
Scott Wilson (The Oaks Fellowship)
Amy Hanson(Author/Speaker)
Toby Slough (Cross Timbers Church)
Troy Gramling (Flamingo Road Church)
Scott Nickell (Flatirons Community Church)
Jorge Acevedo (Grace Church)
Matt Williams (Grace Church Greenville)
Bob Roberts (Northwood Church)
Dave Ferguson (Community Christian Church)
Matt Carter (The Austin Stone Church)
Lawrence Aker (Cornerstone Baptist Church)
Dan Kimball (Vintage Faith Church)
Ken Fong (Evergreen Baptist Church)
Bill Easum (Easum & Associates)
Bryan Carter (Concord Church)
Jim Burgen (Flatirons Community Church)
Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church)
Chip Henderson (Pine Lake Church)
Jeffrey Johnson (Eastern Star Church)
Jim Sheppard (Generis)
Brad Bell (The Well)
Brian Bloye (Westridge Church)
Steve Robinson (Church of the King)
Stacy Spencer (New Direction Christian Fellowship)
Bil Cornelius (Bay Area Fellowship)
Margaret Feinberg (Author/Speaker)
JD Greear (Summit Church)
Scott Hodge (Orchard Valley Church)
Greg Holder (Windsor Crossing Church)
John Ortberg (Menlo Park Presbyterian)
Darrin Patrick (The Journey)
Michael Trent (Third Place)
Scott Williams (LifeChurch.tv)
Steve Robinson (Church of the King)
Nancy Beach (Willow Creek Church)
Keld Dahlman (European Church Planter)

and believe it or not, many more.   Each presenter has nine minutes or less to present based on this thought: “If you could sit down one-on-one with a handful of church leaders, what is the one thing you would want to tell them?”

At last count over a week ago 6,000 leaders had already pre-registered for this one day online event, so make sure you register today.

In addition to being available to those who pre-register, The Nines will be simulcast on these other blogs and websites too:

• Leading Smart (Tim Stevens)
• Tall Skinny Kiwi (Andrew Jones)
• The Digital Sanctuary (Cynthia Ware, yours truly)
• TonyMorganLive (Tony Morgan)
• ChurchCrunch (John Saddington)
  
• Shaun in the City (Shaun King)
• Bruce Reyes-Chow
• Ed Stetzer
• Big is the New Small (Scott “fist bump” Williams)
• bob.blog (Bob Hyatt)
• Bill Kinnon
• Terrace Crawford

At each of these simulcast sites, including here at The Digital Sanctuary, you can watch The Nines online.

Leadership Network is offering a free church conference online called THE NINES on (you guessed it) 09/09/09 at 9:09am CST.

You’ll get to hear from 47+ speakers all in one day!

Each will each spend 9 minutes giving their best leadership advice.

A tiny preview of the speakers includes:

* Mark Batterson :: National Community Church

* Dave Ferguson :: Community Christian Church

* Reggie Joiner :: reThink Group

* Dan Kimball :: Vintage Faith Church

* Perry Noble :: NewSpring Church

* Ed Stetzer :: LifeWay Research

* and dozens of others

Live Bloggers for the conference include but are not limited to:

Tall Skinny Kiwi

The Digital Sanctuary

TonyMorganLive

ChurchCrunch

Shaun in the City

Bruce Reyes-Chow

Ed Stetzer

Big is the New Small

bob.blog

To register for this free conference, visit THE NINES

New Hope on iPhone from Peter Thourson on Vimeo.

This is the third part of my continuing interview  with Peter Thourson from New Hope……..

Churches are now in the midst of an exciting revolution where technology is now making it possible for churches to take their ministry global on a weekly basis.  Through advances in streaming technology, it is now affordable for churches to create an online presence.  Many churches are building online sanctuaries that allow  people to attend service from anywhere in the world.

This is a realm that is especially exciting in that it is uncharted territory.  Churches are using this as an opportunity to find new ways to allow online congregants to interact and encourage one another. Elderly, Shut-ins, people traveling & and those who may not be able to go to a brick & mortar church for whatever reason, are able to fellowship with other believers through Internet churches.

Despite all of the positives that can result from churches embracing media & technology.  There are many critics that believe churches shouldn’t adapt and use new media.  These individuals claim that technology water down the message, and make churches indistinguishable from the world.

This same argument was brought up several hundred years ago when the Bible was only accessible by the socially elite.  It was only during a Renaissance period that the Bible was made available to people of all ages & social levels. Today another shift is taking place, where people are beginning to rely less on printed Bible and are now reading the Bible on their phones & computers.  Even the translations of the Bible have changed over time in order to adapt to the linguistic norms of the time.

As much as we may try to avoid it, change is inevitable.  As long as churches stay true to the message, and make use technology to enhance the message, then church & media can co-exist in a very fruitful manner.

So would Jesus use technology?  Absolutely! I believe he would use anything he could in order to reach one more soul.

I’m just guessing you may not know who this is.   Let me introduce you to Peter Thourson, the guy who’s just basically responsible for streaming live church services on the iPhone.   You heard me right.    Peter works at New Hope in Hawaii along side the church’s Technology and Innovations Director, Michael Sharpe.   In case you’re unfamiliar with New Hope, maybe you’re heard of Pastor Wayne Cordeiro, the congregation’s Lead Pastor.  I’ve blogged my church attendance at New Hope before because they’re in my Foursquare family.

I interviewed Peter recently since they’re a good 6 weeks into mobile streaming their services.  Here’s Peter’s take on a couple of the questions Christian leaders find themselves wrestling with these days: