The Word of Our Testimony via Visual History

There's a company called Kronomy that will enable you to create a timeline of your life complete with descriptions, pictures and video.  Thus, you can share your story by making your life into a flowing visual slideshow via 3D browsing.  Kronomy also features social networking functionality including commenting, sharing, and friends.  Currently in beta, you will need a Kronomy invite to get the full effect.

Also, Guy Kawasaki (source of my beta invite) proposes other creative options for using Kronomy to document, for example, a product's lifecycle.  From initial sketches to prototypes to beta versions, almost any product could benefit from it's own archival history.  Guy proposes someone create a history of the Mac using Kronomy.  Good idea.  And I think there are lots of other possibilities.

As a fan you could document your history of relationship with a favorite band; as a CEO you could document the evolution of your company; as an adoptive parent you could write your adoption journey in pictures as an archive for your child's future.  As a runner, document your marathons.  As a couple, document your anniversaries.  As a pastor, you could create a rich visual history for your church. 

In fact, for Christians, nothing is more powerful than documenting how God has been present in our lives and how He has used us to touch the lives of others.  We often call this 'our testimony'.   Now, our stories can be told with words supported by visual media.

How would you use Kronomy's chronological memory abilities for the Kingdom?

Check out Guy's Kawasaki's life path in action.

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In case you missed this recent Digital post, How to Twitter (see Twitter in Plain English), you might consider going back and taking a second look.  Upon introduction, Twitter can seem both frivolous & narcissistic.  But as fan created, 3rd party apps roll out we will likely see it's growing value. 

For example, this weekend I suddenly lost over half my Feedburner subscribers here at The Digital Sanctuary. My data report clearly showed all those subscribers were using Google Feedfetcher.  No online troubleshooting provided me with any updated information.  I assumed, having just updated my WordPress from 2.3 to 2.5., it must be my problem. 

After hearing of my dilemma, a search genius someone sent this link to me……

Summize, a Twitter search engine, increases the value of the micro-blogging sphere for me. Mashable reviewed Summize and compared it to Tweetscan here.  Next time I have a problem and need immediate, niche-oriented news, I'll start with a Twitter search.  And now I might even pay attention to tlogging.

By the way, if anyone knows whether this micro-blogging sphere has an official name yet, please let me know. And please follow me on Twitter.

See also, Todd Rhoades post on Twittering.  

First Monday, an online, peer-reviewed journal, published the article - The Augmented Social Network: building identity and trust into the next-generation Internet by Ken Jordan, Jan Hauser, and Steven Foster.

The authors describe the future of the internet as an evolution from online experimentation and fads to stabilizing trends creating reliability, trust, even dependence.  They view social linkages as far more than a passing phenomenon.  They predict the ability of citizens to form relationships and self-organize around shared interests in communities of practice in order to better engage in online citizenship.

They propose an Augmented Social Network (ASN) model that facilitates connections between online communities and even builds into Internet architecture the role identity brokers could play. The authors note several elements of an ASN including:

Persistent Identity. Enabling individuals online to maintain a persistent identity as they move between different Internet communities, and to have personal control over that identity. This identity should be capable of reflecting an endless variety of interests, needs, desires, and relationships.

Interoperability Between Online Communities. People should be able to cross easily between online communities under narrowly defined circumstances, just as in life we can move from one social network to another. 

Brokered Relationships. Using databased information, online brokers (both automated and "live") should be able to facilitate the introduction between people who share affinities and/or complementary capabilities and are seeking to make connections. Such a system of brokered relationships should also enable people to find other individuals, information or media that is of interest to them, through the recommendations of trusted third parties.

The surprising thing is that this abstract was published back in July, 2003.  Only 5 years later, and here we are. 

My Facebook tells me I should add you as a friend.  Why?  It knows who we share in common.  Let me search you and verify your established online presence.  Now I can add you to my Plaxo, LinkedIn and twitter contacts.  This means I get to find out who you're connected to, see your work history, and probably hear what you ate for breakfast today via tweet.

Because building community is essential for the Church, we can capitalize on social networking.  In fact, isn't one of our primary goals to seek out those in need of spiritual hope and initiate relationship with them?  Since we know the Good News is most commonly transmitted person-to-person, it's not hard to see how the social web provides a unique new forum for sharing our faith. 

The relational trust individuals share paves the way for those with spiritual hope, healing and health to link with those they find in their circle of trusted others.  Equally importantly, it allows buildable bridges / connections with those a degree or more away. Quite obviously, we can not try to impose our beliefs on a whole society, but individually we can be witnesses of Jesus Christ, communicating with people of other faiths (or no faith) via the linkages we have online.

While some criticize the masks people wear online (persistent pseuds), view online communications as "not real" or reflect on the fragilty of social networking (all important considerations by the way) many Christians are engaging in conversations, networking and even collaborating with individuals they might never get a chance to communicate with face-to-face.   I say it's an opportunity.  What's your take on online social networking?

Although very few churches can afford to have a digerati team support their internet presence, most all can put up and maintain a web site online.  With some direction, every church can develop an internet strategy for beginning web-based ministry.  Here's a book for newbies.

Web-Empower Your Church: Unleashing the Power of the Internet for Ministry

Author: Mark M. Stephenson, Director of The Web-Empowered Church

Publisher: Abingdon Press

Summary: Harness the power of the internet for Jesus.  The internet is opening up new possibilities for all aspects of church ministry, from daily administrative tasks to worldwide evangelism and discipleship.

This book is about web-empowering your church ministries.  Learn the practical steps, techniques, and ideas needed to develop an excellent and effective web ministry that increases your efficiency and effectiveness.

Mark Stephenson, Director of CyberMinistry and Technology at Ginghamsburg Church, shares his experiences with starting and now leading a large and active church web ministry.  Ginghamsburg's website is now over 4000 pages in size, and averages over one new visit every half minute, 24/7.

Whether your church has a website or not, this book will help you grow you internet ministry and take the next step to fully web-empower your church ministries.

image attribution: TFWM 

More and more established churches are refurbishing and redesigning their existing facilities.  The creation of state-of-the-art worship sanctuaries with media/sound production in mind is booming.  Audio acoustics, projection screen placement and lighting considerations are now all part of church design.  In fact, digital technology considerations are now in the forefront of design.

For example, Technologies for Worship Magazine currently features an article on the continuing multi-site expansion of The Church on the Way, originating in Van Nuys, Ca.  With three campuses, this multi-lingual congregation is still growing.  Having attended The Church on the Way in the early 1980's, and having received such life-changing and dynamic ministry there, I was excited to think about how many individuals these new facilities might serve.  

But, in contrast, LifeWay Research has just released a newsletter with this article in it:  The unchurched prefer cathedrals to contemporary designs.  (You've got to subscribe to read the whole newsletter.)  According to the study, by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio over any other option, unchurched Americans prefer churches that look more like a medieval cathedral than what most think of as a more contemporary church building.  The assumption is that there is a desire to link to the past.

As Christians, we obviously have a strong desire to share our faith with others, but should we design our buildings with them in mind?  Or, are our temples primarily for those who name themselves as believers?

Fellowship Technologies is hosting it's 2nd annual Dynamic Church Conference in about a month.  If you are a church leader who wants to know more about ChMS, learn more about leveraging the power of the internet, networking with partners, etc., please join us in Dallas, May 15 - 17. 

Because there are two Leadership Network Digital contributors on the speaker list, I thought you'd like to know we'll be at the Frisco Convention Center.  We'd love to meet you.  Here's more of what's offered:

    * An pre-conference called 'Power Start' with six different, personalized training classes 
    * 60% more sessions across six different tracks, both Beginner & Advanced user levels
    * Guest speakers include:

            Terry Storch, Digerati Pastor, LifeChurch.tv and YouVersion.com

            Joe Suh, Founder, MyChurch.org

            Cynthia Ware, Pastor, Writer, Blogger, The Digital Sanctuary

    * 50% more hands-on training labs, both Beginner & Advanced
    * Dedicated Q & A - 'Ask the Experts' with Fellowship Technologies staff
    * Free wireless Internet throughout the conference facilities   
    * Free 2 hour live worship concert featuring Lincoln Brewster   
    * And much, much more!  

Tuggle is an online community designed with ministry in mind.  First, check it out in action here:  Collegelife (Denton, Texas).  Collegelife is using Tuggle effectively with over 900 active members.

Unlike church management software (ChMS) designed to be used by a few select people on a church staff, Tuggle is specifically for individual ministry leaders.  Ministry leaders don't work with accounting, child care check-ins, or Sunday attendance records.  Instead, they work with the people in their specific zone of oversight and with that segment's ministry events.  Tuggle is perfect for the leaders who want to nourish interactive communication between a designated group of people.  It's like a "back-end" management system for your ministry web site and isn't meant to provide any design or presentation content to your site visitors.

Since Tuggle is designed to serve individual ministries, a large church will have several Tuggle accounts running at the same time, one for youth or student ministries, one for college, one for any special interest ministries, etc.  But smaller churches will do fine with just one Tuggle account for the whole church.

Like many Web 2.0 applications, Tuggle is free.  No matter how large your church is, no matter how many members use the service, you won't pay. 

The Tuggle web site and it's graphics, fonts, layout, etc. need some work to come up to web glory standards.  But, their blog is beautiful and I of all people should know about a work in progress, right?

Amazing visuals & eye candy over at Creative MYK, not to mention access to loads of artists, web architects, designers, photographers, visual consultants and the like. 

In fact, Creative MYK is now also a social networking site where you can share graphics with artists from around the world.  You can network with artists using their Discussion Board, Critique Board or Creative Space and have your submissions reviewed, interact with others, etc.  

Since I've been traveling throughout Spring Break, I haven't had time to get my graphic displays working properly yet here on the new blog site, but when I do you can count on me reviewing this growing ministry resource more thoroughly.