My Greatest Frustrations

Posted on | September 15, 2008 | 4 Comments

I face two roadblocks to reaching the Online Generation:

1. I can’t get Christians to commit to pray regularly for the Online Generation.  
2. I can’t get past church leaders  to talk with people in their spiritual community about reaching the Online Generation.

Create an Online Community with Ning!

Posted on | September 11, 2008 | 3 Comments

Committing to reach the Online Generation means connecting with Christians and non-Christians.  While this site focuses mainly on reaching the lost, we do want to highlight tools you can use to increase the level of community experienced in your church.

Ning is one of those tools.  From their website:

We started Ning with a simple premise. We wanted to see what would happen if everyone had the freedom to create their own social network for anything. We thought the results would be amazing, but they have truly surpassed our expectations. From artists to musicians, athletes, bloggers, video channels, journalists, students, educators, parents, craft hobbyists, alumni, and interest groups, the range and diversity of the social networks on Ning are profound. We thank you for using our platform and hope we can continue to relentlessly improve both the platform and the social networks powered by it.

Ning is free, if you want to have their branding and advertisements in various places within your online community.  A small monthly fee removes the branding and another one removes the ads.  Not too bad for such a powerful engine.

Increasing the number of times people in community interact during the week is a big part of building deep, authentic community.  Tools like Ning help you take the community into people’s homes in a way they can weave throughout their busy schedules.

If you use Ning, let us know so we can check out your online community.  

As always, I’d love to hear what you think.

Catalyzing a Gospel Planting Movement in Second Life

Posted on | September 10, 2008 | No Comments

This is what I would do to start a Gospel Planting Movement in Second Life:

1.  Find Second Life Christians interested in reaching the unreached members of the Online Generation who find community in Second Life.

2.  Create a group to welcome newcomers to Second Life.  This group would NOT tout themselves as ‘Christian.’ Have these members hang out in areas newcomers typically use to enter Second Life.

3.  As newcomers enter Second Life, welcome them and offer them a notecard that lists the best places to get free stuff, ways to earn money, and links to some cool places in SL.

4.  Members of this welcome group would engage these newcomers in conversation and offer to help them learn the ropes, if they’d like.

5.  As they talk with newcomers, group members would keep their eyes and ears open for identifiers of Persons of Peace.

6.  Persons of Peace would be invited into Discovery Bible Study groups with their friends or other newcomers.

Is the Internet a Waste of Time?

Posted on | September 2, 2008 | No Comments

Great question, but the better question is, “Is the internet a waste of MY time?”  A blanket judgment of all internet users seems rather foolish, especially when one person’s Call may require extensive use of the internet and another person’s Call may not.

Nevertheless, evaluating your time is an important part of accountability.  I ask myself this question once a week, as part of my ‘reality-check’ process.  All of us should ask, “Is (insert activity) a waste of my time?” about everything we do, everyday.  Time is finite, and we have to spend it doing what God calls us to do.

Simply put, my call is to catalyze spiritual communities among the Online Generation that seek to obey all the commands of Christ and teach others to do the same.  Consequently, I evaluate my time on the internet through this lens.

• How have I used the internet to connect with the Online Generation today?
• How have used the internet to meet and interact with the lost members of the Online Generation today?
• What have I done to contribute to existing online communities today?
• How have I used the internet to demonstrate my love for Christ and His love for all people?
• How have I used the internet to gather resources for reaching the Online Generation?
• What did I do today to catalyze spiritual communities online?

Obviously my call requires me to use the internet quite a bit.  Your call may place different limitations on the time you need to spend interacting with people online.

What questions do you use to evaluate the time you spend answering email, using social media tools, and surfing the web?  Is the internet a waste of your time?

Friday Prayer: Give Me Your Eyes

Posted on | August 29, 2008 | 1 Comment

Let this new music video from Brandon Heath guide your prayers for the Online Generation this Friday.

Now worship God for how He is going to answer your prayer today.

Thanks to Randy Elrod for bringing the video from Brandon Heath to my attention.

Thanks to my friend, Brenda, for bringing the Chris Tomlin video to my attention.

Church Planting is Not About You

Posted on | August 28, 2008 | 2 Comments

Church Planting is not about you.  So, if you wouldn’t feel comfortable worshipping one way or another, if a particular location or communication style wouldn’t ‘work’ for you, it really doesn’t matter.

Church Planting is about reaching the lost.  Consequently, if reaching the lost means planting a church that meets in a pub after-hours, then meet in the pub.  If reaching the lost means getting on Second Life - even if you could care less about Second Life - then you get on Second Life.  If the lost love rap music, then you worship in rap.

Once again, church planting is not about you and what makes you comfortable.  Church planting is about the lost and what it takes to reach them with the Gospel.

Consequently, if it doesn’t go against the commands of Christ, I really don’t care if the environment doesn’t make me ‘feel’ like I’m worshiping.  I don’t care if I don’t ‘feel’ like I’m in church.  Because it’s not about me, it’s all about the lost.

If lost people connect with Christ and chose to obey all His commands, why does it matter whether they meet in homes, mega-churches, Second Life, Facebook, Twitter, Blackberry Messenger, ooVoo, etc?

Since when did the medium become more important than the message?  Since when did church planting become a selfish endevor rather than a self-sacrificing mission?  When did making Christians comfortable trump saving the dying, healing the sick, ministering to the homeless, and loving the lonely?

I don’t care if you are a mega-church evangelist or a house-church evangelist.  What I want to know is this, “Are you reaching the lost?  Are they coming to Christ?  Are they obedient? Are they reaching others?”

And that, my friends, is what church planting is all about.

Hitting the Church Planting Sweet Spot

Posted on | August 27, 2008 | 3 Comments

Photo by Leo Reynolds

People want to make church planting too simple or too complex.  We train church planters too little, or we train them too much.  We don’t give enough knowledge to obey, or we give so much knowledge that it strangles obedience.  There is a sweet spot, though, a green zone of multiplication.  A balance that is critical for reproducing disciples and planting churches that multiply.

Our team saw this as we developed curriculum for church planters.  If we didn’t have enough Scripture (length of passage), then we couldn’t get enough of the context to understand how we needed to obey God’s Word.  If we added too much Scripture (length and multiple passages), then we made the lesson difficult to reproduce in an oral culture.  There was a sweet spot, a place of balance, though.  When we hit it, things took off like crazy.  Like the gauge above, we have to stay in the green zone for optimum performance.

This applies to a lot of things.  As you know, I spent the weekend touring Second Life.  I have a hypothesis about Second Life and starting spiritual communities:  The more a community mimics the offline world, the easier it will be to have spiritual discussions that have online and offline results.  The more a community exists in a fantasy, or role playing, world, the longer it will take to pierce the vale of fantasy and have meaningful spiritual conversations.

The fantasy doesn’t make meaningful spiritual conversation impossible, but it does lengthen the process and potentially slow multiplication.  The learning curve for catalysts is much steeper in fantasy communities as well, which can also slow multiplication.

Does this mean we don’t engage fantasy worlds in Second Life.  Not at all!  It means we change how we measure catalyst activities and understand the difficulties in operating in a foreign setting.

What do you think?  Does this echo your experience?  I consider this to be a learning blog, so if I’m wrong please correct me.

I’ll keep you posted as I test this hypothesis.  Continue praying for me as I search for Persons of Peace in Second Life, Twitter, Plurk, Rejaw, MySpace, Pownce, etc.

Some Observations from My Hike in Second Life

Posted on | August 26, 2008 | 1 Comment

My hike through parts of Second Life this weekend was pretty amazing.  Here are some of my observations:

• Second Life is a place that gives life to the deepest parts of your heart.  If you have evil thoughts and desires, they find life in SL.  If you dream of beauty, you can give that dream life.
• There is an economy in SL.  People buy, sell, and rent property.
• There is an exchange rate between SL and the US Dollar.  There are some people in SL who make a real life living off of selling products and services.
• Over 1.2 million people logged into SL in the last 6 weeks.  Anytime I logged in this weekend, there were 50,000 - 60,000 logged in with me.
• I visited two SL churches.  They own SL property and built some pretty cool facilities.  I’m excited that churches are even trying!  I attended the services at the ALM Cyber Church.  They were much like the services I find offline.  I wonder, though, if mimicking offline services is the way to go?  Will transferring offline church culture to SL be enough to reach the plethora of cultures within SL?  I don’t know, but it is something I’m exploring.
• Second Life is too big for me to catalyze spiritual communities by myself.  The learning curve is so steep that training Catalyst to work in Second Life is going to be difficult.  The best thing to do is find Christians in SL who want to reach SL and work with them to catalyze spiritual communities.
• Is there evidence of SL behavior that had offline results?  I don’t know.  True online spiritual community will have offline results.  Online obedience to God’s Word should result in offline obedience.
• There is a major porn culture in SL.  We have to disciple our children and our community organizers to be accountable and how to stay safe.
• Community Catalysts must be contributing participants in a SL community if they want to make a difference.  They must participate in the story and contribute to the emotional and monetary economies.

That’s the short list.  I will have more as I explore this world.  If you are in SL, or if you know anyone in SL, I would love to talk with you.  SL is a reality.  Christians have to carry the Gospel into it.  And SL is too big to do it alone.

Friday Prayer: Second Life

Posted on | August 22, 2008 | 3 Comments

I’ve just set up a Second Life account.  (Here is a link to more information about Second Life.) The online world is pretty huge and intimidating.  I’m hoping to find some persons of peace who are open having Discovery Bible Studies with their communities.

If you are in Second Life, or know people in Second Life, I’d love to talk with them.

Please pray:

• That I can learn how to navigate the world quickly.
• That I will be able to identify communities in Second Life.
• That I will be able to find Persons of Peace and Persons of Goodwill as I find those communities.
• That I can start Discovery Bible Studies that guide lost people to Christ.

The Power of a Tweet

Posted on | August 21, 2008 | No Comments

A friend of mine tweeted:

[My daughter] is in the recovery room… Trying to wake her up, but she’s SO SLEEPY!

Obviously I was alarmed.  I picked up my phone to text him back and figure out what was going on.  In the middle of my text, my phone vibrated.  Another tweet from my friend.  This one said:

Sorry, phone went crazy with calls after that last message! [My daughter] had her tonsil’s removed

When I talked to him later, he laughed, “Yeah, I answered the first call.  After that call I checked my phone - 5 missed calls!  That’s when I tweeted the second message.”

We talked a little bit more about his daughter and the response he got from his Twitter followers.   He concluded, “I told my wife if she was ever in trouble and couldn’t get to me, that she just needed to twitter, ‘Help!’ and she would have all the help she needed.”

Are you one text message away from all the help you will need?  Are you one text message away from being all the help someone needs?