There’s a Social Media Summit this weekend that will inject a shot of redemptive light into the Des Moines Social Club.  If you’re in the vicinity – sign up now!

Incubated by dear friend and colleague, Justin Wise, the Summit will be a hive of creative collaboration and a deep drill for Christian leaders who want a clearer understanding of participatory media evolution, new media values, opportunities, challenges and practical helps.

Justin, one of my team members at the Center for Church Communication, has done a masterful job of putting the Summit together and if you’re anywhere near the Des Moines, Iowa area this weekend and want a social media education, come dream with us.  The children of Issachar understood the times and knew what Israel should do.  Let’s do the same.

Recently, I got to skype in with the M2Live guys for a session on social media values and how they impact the church. You can access the archive here: Cynthia Ware on M2Live.  It was great fun and I was sorry it took me the whole summer to finally have time to say yes.

The guys who run M2Live are awesome and their mission is simple – to help the Church benefit from online media in ministry.

After broadcasting out of Atlanta for some time, the M2Live crew are gearing up for a national tour – bringing live training to a city near you.

First stop Chicago – October 8 – 9, 2010 at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.

And best news yet, if you’re near C-town, I’ve got a registration code that provides a 10% discount to you!

There are only a few more seats left and since we’re in the final 2 1/2 weeks before the tour’s launch; I recommend you hurry.  Here’s your discount code: WARE

And if you attend the Chicago event, please use the M2Live hashtag so I can follow your insights.

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.

One of the amazing people I get to work with on a weekly (sometimes, daily!) basis is Kevin Hendricks. Kevin acts as the editorial director at the Center for Church Communication and is a clever and thoughtful writer.

As you might know, I’ve struggled with book publishers asking me to promote their books. This happens on a weekly basis and I always send my standard form letter. “Thanks for considering me but I only review books that explore the intersection of faith and technology….” Nevertheless, the books keep coming.

Today, I make my only exception for the last year. I simply can’t resist talking about a cause I support (adoption) by an author I respect (Kevin) in a format I love (tweets). Wait! A book written in tweets about adoption – ok, I’m gonna call that the intersection of faith and technology.

Lemme clarify…

Kevin’s newest work, Addition by Adoption: Kids, Causes & 140 Characters, is the Hendricks family’s personal journey of adoption presented as a collection of tweets; you heard me right … a book authored in Twitter.

I just got mine in the mail. You can get yours today at Amazon. And to seal the deal, a good chunk of the proceeds go to charity::water!

Creating products that actually serve the church is not easy, especially when it comes to technology.  The interwebs are littered with Christian ghettos, static dead-end websites and social networking tools that promised they were designed to serve the church but somehow really didn’t.

Why a product or application fails is hard to say.   Some apps end up as walled gardens, others accidentally fell into broadcast mode, offering no community appeal, and so died off, and still others never got over their clunky user interface issues or high bar fees.

Nevertheless, there are those courageous individuals who press forward always straining to develop services that really do foster richer communication opportunities for churches.

Recently, I was asked to check out a start up called SoChurch and I found myself curious….

Here’s what I learned:

SoChurch is being built with the church in mind.

SoChurch is a work in progress, with developers getting plenty of input early on to make sure the product release is stellar.

SoChurch wants to change the way ministries and churches leverage web technology for church communication.

SoChurch is a communication platform for community development both within and beyond the church walls.

SoChurch is going to be scalable, dynamic, and culturally flexible – and I can’t wait to see what that means!

John Saddington, a SoChurch advisor & evangelist said this recently, “Organizations who are weak in terms of communication end up with frustrated programs, initiatives, and burnt out personnel.”  So true!!   So bring it SoChurch, help us communicate.

You can expect to hear a lot more in the near future and follow SoChurch on Twitter to get daily status updates.

Disclaimer: I am on the advisory board for SoChurch.

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?

Ed Young gets his rap on…..

By referencing a handful of  well known US pastors in this You Tube video rap experiment, Fellowship Church’s Senior Pastor, Ed Young takes ‘using video clips for ministry purposes’ in an unexpected direction.

Ed names Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Craig Groeschel, John Piper, Andy Stanley, Louie Giglio, TD Jakes, Rob Bell, Dino Rizzo and others, uses simple editing technology & builds a rhyme to distribute his message – U. B. U.

Thoughts?

Dallas Theological Seminary’s Center for Christian Leadership is hosting Shane Hipps, author of Flickering Pixels (my review), for a one day conference in Dallas called The Electronic Gospel: How Technology Shapes Our Faith on February 8th, 2010. Here’s the official description:

A conference about engaging technology with discernment, creativity, and purpose as you articulate the gospel in a digital age … Whether you’re leading a ministry, volunteering in church, or parenting children, this conference will help you navigate the digital age. You’ll be equipped to evaluate technology, discern its effects, and utilize it to communicate the gospel.

John Dyer will lead one on controlling technology in our daily lives, Scott McClellan of Collide Magazine will lead a session on social media, and Bill Buchanan of Irving Bible Church will lead one on technology in the worship service.

(via John Dyer Don’t Eat the Fruit)

Last week Guy Kawasaki directed his readers to a piece called 5 Ways to Create a Future-minded Non-profit.  The timing was a great read for me as I get more deeply involved in working with the Center for Church Communication, a non-profit group that “helps the Church matter”.

For me, reading the article allows easy application for ministry trends and the importance of leaders strategically resisting attrition, lack of innovation, failure to change, misplaced values, etc.

Here what the 5 trends look like when applied to the Church:

Shifting demographics. With new generations dreaming of their place at the table, churches must learn to share leadership with younger congregants.  Top-down leadership gets rejected by next generation believers in favor of team dynamics.  Thus, it’s critical to allow baby boomers to step sideways and share leadership opportunities at every level of church operations.

Technological advances. Social-media technologies provide churches the opportunity to gain greater exposure, but they also require church leadership to be comfortable giving more people a chance to speak out.  And we must accept the reality that conversation is going on whether or not we’re participating in it.  We’ve known for quite some time that the broadcast model is dead – dialog over monologue, conversation over one person megaphoning, etc.  The perceived threat of opening up the backchannel is now a moot concern – since most people have access to cell phone browsers in their pockets.

New ways to collaborate. With the advent of new technologies, churches (and parachurch organizations) can just as easily work with an individual located across the country (or world) as they can through their local parish or church.  And today, individuals would rather connect with those they share values with rather than those who are simply geographically close.  Furthermore, these connections often morph into movements, networks, alliances, etc. (formerly known as denominations).  Collaboration itself is seen as a fundamental value, so isolation / independence is viewed as a dead end.

Greater interest in service. There’s no doubt about it, the next generation speaks the language of volunteerism, but churches need to keep in mind that people have many different reasons for serving and ought to tailor their opportunities to individuals’ interests, gifts & talents.  In fact, if your church ministry philosophy is straight, rather than have people to get the jobs done, you have “jobs” to get the people done.  Serving is the key to each individual discovering their individual gifts & calling in God, so the fact that it’s en vogue right now to do so is a sure fire win.

Blurred lines between nonprofit and for-profit. There’s a greater emphasis on corporate social responsibility & justice and the emergence of organizations whose primary aim is to “do good”.   These groups are challenging the Church’s postmodern identity.   Formerly, it was the church who was to care about society.  But the Church fell down on it’s responsibilities in many people’s eyes, creating opportunity for other organizations to rise and take on some of the responsibilities that might have been the Church’s.   And, social justice & global environmental concerns aren’t just for rock stars anymore.  Masses of conscencious people believe these are stewardship issues.  Churches now have opportunities for new partnerships with these groups and can link with everything from recycling organizations to social services.  In fact, for many young people, feeding & clothing the planet, eradicating stupid poverty, ending the slave trade, etc. are considered the outward works of their faith.

Understanding these trends can greatly benefit the Church at large.  And, can often explain why rather than build a multi-million dollar building, young people are more given to using free technology to facilitate their ministry endeavours, networking and collaborating (even globally if necessary), tithing their time and working to improve the common good, rather than just the good of their own church facility or members.