Class Size: Class size is limited to 10 people.
Dates: This class is offered at two different times during the week: Tuesdays at 8:30pm – 10:30 (CDT – Texas Time), Saturdays at 9am – 11am (CDT – Texas Time). Our first Tuesday class will meet on June 22, 2010. Our first Saturday class will meet on June 26, 2010. There will be a total of 10 classes in this course (roughly 10 weeks).
Location: Online (Skype).
Cost: Free, with a catch. When you are accepted into the program, you have to make a $50 deposit. You will get your $50 deposit back at the end of the last class if you attended every class or made up any classes that you missed. If you drop out, or if you miss a class and don’t make it up, I get to keep your $50.
Application Deadline: June 15, 2010 (Don’t wait until the last minute. There are only 10 seats available per class.)
Prerequisites: You must have a computer, a high-speed internet connection, Skype, a webcam, a microphone, and earphones. You will also need a Bible, a notebook, and a pen/pencil.
Application Process:
- Friend me on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/pauldwatson.
- Write me a note and let me know that you want to be a part of the class.
- I will let you know if you’ve been accepted to the program via Facebook Message/Email.
- If you are accepted into the program, you need to make your $50 deposit for the class via PayPal. No credit cards or checks accepted.
What will we cover?
Each class will have two parts. The first part of the class will be an inductive Bible study of passages of Scripture that relate to ministry and missions that catalyze movements. The second part covers the application of those principles within your mission field.
Homework: There will be at least 2 hours of homework every week.
Course Outline:
- What is God Doing in India, Africa, Honduras, and California?
- Discovering a New Paradigm from Scripture
- Living an Openly Spiritual Lifestyle (Without Being Obnoxiously Religious)
- God’s Love Language
- Who Will Teach the Lost About Christ?
- What Does the Great Commission Really Say?
- Engaging the Lost on the Frontier of Missions
- Hiding the Gospel in Plain Sight
- The Difference Between Deculturalizing the Gospel and Contextualizing the Gospel
- How Does Christ Send You?
- The 21 Critical Elements of Movements
- Developing Leaders Within Movements
- What is a Discovery Bible Study?
- The DNA of Multiplying Groups
- The First Three Discovery Bible Studies with Lost People
- The Six Areas of a Mentoring Relationship
Contact: Paul for more info. His Twitter account is http://www.twitter.com/pauldwatson. His Facebook account is http://www.facebook.com/pauldwatson. His Skype ID is watsonpd.
by Paul on March 22, 2010
Last week I talked about some of the ways Gowalla (and other so-lo media) can be used within the church. I’ve been messing around with the service enough now to discover some really neat applications and some pet peeves.
Remind People to Check-In
Put a sticker on the front door. Put a slide in your announcement loop, if you’re a church. Whatever you do, remind people to check-in.
Follow-up
Then follow up with them, like Zach did, after the service. Take the step to building a relationship outside the walls of your business or church. If you follow them to a Facebook profile, suggest other people in your business or church that they may want to connect with. If they are on Twitter, connect them with other Twitter users in your church. If they have a blog, leave a comment. Let them know you appreciated the fact that they took a couple of hours out of their week to check you out. Then, make the relationship worth something to them in terms of connecting with a community of people who are interested in spiritual things.
Create a Trip
Use Gowalla to create a trip in your community. Mark businesses (Not residences!) your church members like and frequent regularly. Maybe mark some places your staff enjoy. In your follow-up, let people know about your trip and ask for suggestions of places they enjoy in your community.
Now for some of the peeves. This list is for Gowalla users, but I think it applies to Foursquare as well:
Check-in without adding to the conversation.
I love checking-in, but I don’t feel the need to broadcast my check-ins if I don’t have something to add to the conversation. Make sure and add a comment. Tell us why you’re there. Talk about the service. Sometimes, I will check-in after I visit a location so that I can comment about my experience. If you don’t have anything to say – and there are times I don’t – check-in anyway, but turn off the broadcast to Facebook and Twitter.
Check-in at places you aren’t visiting.
A couple of people I follow checked into a bunch – like 5 or 10 – places in a period of a minute. I was like, “Wow, they are busy!” until I noticed three restaurants in their check-ins that would take at least 45 minutes to sit down for a meal. I completely wrote them off as bogus. Sure, they may have visited them before. But they hadn’t since they started using Gowalla. They weren’t adding to the conversation. They weren’t letting me know what they thought of the service. They were focused on increasing their Gowalla stats, getting stamps, pins, and other goodies. Not cool. Totally bogus. It felt wrong. If they do it in Gowalla, they probably do it in other social media. At least, that was my first thought. I hope I’m wrong.
I’ll keep you posted as I use the services. I hope that I’ll get a chance to create two Gowalla Trips while I’m in Amsterdam. First, I’d like to create a prayer walk. Second, I’d like to mark one of the walking tours that Rick Steves suggests in his book. The two overlap pretty well, so if I do one, I can probably do the other. I probably won’t have the time, but I can hope.
