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?

Beloved Catalyst West comes to SoCal again this year and if you act now (like today) you can still get in on the early bird discount registration.  Hold these dates – April 21-23 and plan to hit Orange County for one of the most inspiring gatherings next generation leaders can experience. Most importantly, you can get a discount on your registration today if you use this rate code: BLOG.  Tripp & Tyler invite you to CatWest here:

Catalyst West 2010 :: Tripp & Tyler’s Unusual Invitation from Catalyst on Vimeo.

Zappos is a growing company with a unique culture, an innovative marketing style, and a brilliant reputation.  Compared to most young upstart companies, it’s pretty amazing what they’ve accomplished.

In 10 years Zappos has grown from “nothing” into a billion dollar industry leader, no small feat if you’re just selling shoes!  When this happens in business, it’s no accident.  When a company is doing this well following their launch they’re worth studying.

Given, the Church is obviously not a “business” that can be governed by “best” practices.   But that being said, can your church learn anything from Zappos?  In fact, is it possible that Zappos may be activating spiritual principles and successful because of it? And if more churches were doing the same we could see greater things accomplished? Zappos has been fruitful, and multiplied.  How’d they do that?

According to the company, it’s pretty simple.  They’re able to define their core values in 10 sentences.  See the following….

Zappos Core Values

As we grow as a company, it has become more and more important to explicitly define the Zappos core values from which we develop our culture, our brand, and our business strategies. These are the ten core values that we live by:

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

I don’t know about you but I can think of scriptures that most of these values reflect.  Do you see any scriptural foundations in Zappos core values?

It’s likely that having a clear vision, mission & set of core values might be what sets your church apart…. or not.  Clear definition creates intense focus, momentum & effectiveness.  Think of ambient lighting versus a laser beam.

Can your church state it’s core values?

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.

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.

Again, a special thanks to Catalyst & Leadership Network for giving a dozen of us bloggers the opportunity to simulcast “The Nines“.

Yesterday’s simulcast, the landmark event featuring some of today’s most well known Christian leadership, was amazingly successful if you measure success in terms of numbers of viewers.   As you can see from the visual, these 9 hours of 9 minute interviews with some of today’s most influential Christian authors, pastors, bloggers, scholars & communicators really changed the rhythmic pattern of my blog’s traffic flow.  Additionally, although there were some ‘to be expected’ technical glitches, the vast archive of inspiration, admonishment, and insight will be drawn on for a long time.

The question I have been asked the most is “how can I see the videos I missed or want to watch again?”  and I’m working on getting that answer as well as rounding up some embed codes to host some of my favorite clips here.  The whole thing was a great experiment and we learned a lot of behind the scenes lessons I won’t go into today.  However, one thing that stood out to me is that although people used our blogs to “watch” the videos, none of the commenting went on on blogs….. all the conversation action was on Twubs, Twitter, & via Texting.

Today, I’m headed to LA for the Christian Web Conference at Biola University and if you’re anywhere near, please stop by.

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.

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:

Today is a “Mass Blogging Day” for those of us who are meeting in Los Angeles at Biola University on September 11 – 12 for the Christian Web Conference. If you have any interest in the dialog about online faith communities (can digital be incarnational?), this will be the place to have your questions explored.

One of the highlights of the conference is a debate on the virtual church taking place between Andrew Jones (Tall Skinny Kiwi) and Matthew Anderson of  Mere Orthodoxy.

Since I’m never one for debate, thank you Andrew for representing the affirmative argument.

But The Great Debate is only the beginning….  check out this who’s who of a speaker list and their topics!  It’s gonna be incredible:

• Tim Challies: Tweeting the Truth with Love
• John Mark Reynolds: Christian Ideas in a Hostile Environment
• Jon Acuff: Three Ways Satire is Changing We Talk About Faith Online
• Charles Lee: New Media and the Development of Compassionate Justice
• Joe Carter: Medium-Sizing the Message
• Abraham Piper: Serving Your Audience by Getting Out of Your Own Ideas
• Mel McGowan’s walking tour: Walking in Walt’s Footsteps
• Drew Goodmanson: Internet Strategy: What does the gospel have to do with Social Media?
• Anne Jackson: Changing the World One Blog at a Time
• Marcus Goodyear: New Ways to Listen?
• Rhett Smith: Twitter: Collaborate, Connect, and Resource via Your Story
• Paul Watson: What will it take to plant the Gospel in every population segment represented online?
• Dr. Dave Bourgeois: Developing a Philosophy for New Media Ministry
• John Carley: Seven Successful Strategies for Web 3.0
• Yours Truly: Envisioning the Future of Faith Online

And here’s a partial sponsor list:

• Torrey Honors Institute
• High Calling
• Desiring God
• VOXBIBLIA
• Monk Development
• Internet Evangelism Day

Here’s an excerpt from the Echo Conference blog to celebrate Echo Conference ‘09….

One of the things we’re most excited about for this year’s Echo experience is our panel discussion featuring Bobby Gruenewald, Carlos Whittaker, Conway Edwards, Cynthia Ware, and Scott Hodge.  The panel will be a free-flowing conversation that covers current and future trends in the intersection of media, technology, and the Church.  Each of these leaders has a unique and valuable perspective to share, and we’re looking forward to hearing what they have to say.  The panel will be moderated by Scott McClellan from COLLIDE Magazine (but he promises to stay out of the way and let the panel do most of the talking).

If you have questions for our panel, you can dm me by adding me on twitter @ http://twitter.com/cynthiaware.