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:

  1. Friend me on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/pauldwatson.
  2. Write me a note and let me know that you want to be a part of the class.
  3. I will let you know if you’ve been accepted to the program via Facebook Message/Email.
  4. 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.

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Gowalla, Possibilities and Pet Peeves

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.

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Gowalla and The Gospel

March 19, 2010

I’ve been playing around quite a bit with the location-based social networking service called, Gowalla.  From Wikipedia:

Gowalla is a primarily mobile web application that allows users to check-in to locations that they visit using their mobile device. This is achieved either through the use of dedicated applications available on Google Android, iPhone, Palm WebOS and BlackBerry, or via m.gowalla.com. There [...]

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5 Seats Left for Church Planting Movement Skype Training!

March 1, 2010

I wanted to let you know that we’ve extended the registration deadline for our Church Planting Movements Skype Training by 48 hours.  We have 5 spots left.  We need to receive your application within the next 48 hours if you want to participate.
For more information about the training, click here.

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2010 Online Summer Missions

February 19, 2010

2010 Online Summer Missions
Summer missionaries will learn the principles of starting rapidly multiplying groups of obedient disciples – the same methods used to start over 7000 churches in Sub-Saharan Africa in the last four years!  They will learn how to use online tools to identify communities, meet felt-needs of those communities, identify Persons of Peace, [...]

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Small Groups that have the DNA of a Gospel Planting Movement

February 18, 2010

A Group Exercise
David Watson put an image up on the screen.  “I want you to take a look at this image.”  After a few seconds, he blanked the screen.  “Now, describe the image.”
People called out various things they remembered.  David allowed them to continue, just until they started repeating things that others said already.  He [...]

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Video: March 2010 Skype Course On Catalyzing Movements

February 17, 2010

(Yes, I know the lighting is weird.  I’ll work on that for next time! – Paul.)
Ministry and Missions That Catalyze Movements
Class Size: Class size is between 5-10 people.
Dates: The class will meet once a week in March.  I will talk with the applicants to set a weekly time and day that is best for them. [...]

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Growing Closer to God Through Facebook Prayer

January 28, 2010

Prayer is a critical element of ministry and of movements.  Whether you minister – paid or unpaid – online or offline, you need a net work of people who pray for you regularly.  You need their prayers to help you resist temptation.  You need their prayers to help you grow in your relationship with God.  [...]

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Funerals in the Digital Age

January 25, 2010

Last week, a 9 year-old boy from our offline church was killed in a horrible accident at school.  I heard the news within hours, via Facebook.  Because of social media, the whole church heard of the tragedy in a matter of hours.  The next day, the church staff called me to figure out the best [...]

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Starting Gospel Movements on Campus: Spritual Warfare

January 7, 2010

I received a text message from my wife while I was overseas:
“Really feeling down today. Don’t know why.”
Needless to say, her text caught my attention.  My wife had battled depression in the past, but there were always identifiable triggers.  This time it was unexpected and coincided with my overseas trip to train church planters who [...]

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