Archive for February, 2007
Search the Bible On Your Cell Phone with Zondervan’s .Mobi Website
Posted by: | CommentsAlthough I talk about using technology for ministry a lot here, I admit there are a lot of areas I’m still learning about and exploring … one of the latest is creating websites geared directly for mobile devices, like cell phone, PDAs, etc. And with the .mobi domain now available, I’m seeing more and more pop up.
Jonathan Petersen, Zondervan’s Director of Internet Marketing, was kind of enough to send me some information about a couple of their “.mobi” websites to review. Read More→
Get LinkedIn With Me
Posted by: | CommentsLately, I’ve been receiving a lot of invitations to get LinkedIn on … uh … LinkedIn.
If you’re on this social networking site, which is geared for business-type relationships, and want to get networked, here’s my profile:
[ Update: If you're looking for my email to invite me ... it's corymiller303@gmail.com ]
Hey Brother, what's your numbers?
Posted by: | CommentsI have spent a few hours the last couple of days checking out some pastor’s and church planter’s blogs just to see what’s going on and it makes me sad to see that the numbers thing is a reoccuring theme:
- “We just hit 7,893 people and had to turn people away.”
- “I just met with an incredible dude who grew his church from 0 to 1500 in one year; he is amazing!”
- “This church in the middle of timbuktu is running 1800. It’s incredible!”
- “We are striving for and focused on hitting the 3000 mark”
(I did paraphrase and change the stats somewhat as I don’t want to point out any particular dude or appear to be bashing just a few churches. BTW – Thanks Cory Miller for your post on why you don’t bash others.)
Are numbers so important that pastors must incessantly drone on about it? Is the only way some of us value our existence on the earth by the number of church attendance one has, how many are following us, the number of best-sellers we have sold, or how popular we rank on Google or Technorati?
Many of the blogs I have been scoping say nothing about changed lives, baptisms (unless there’s a big number involved), or how the community is being impacted by the servants in their churches. I also keep seeing a bunch of church planting and pastor groupies following a few of the”big guys” and kissing the ground these stars walk on because these guys have huge numbers in their church and are getting all kinds of press. Should we not boast in the Lord instead?
We are a worldly people…and yes, I include myself in this camp! We must turn away from our focus of pride, arrogance, and fruitless fancies and turn towards the qualities of Jesus Christ or I fear that many churches in the future will not represent Christ, but the world and its values.
I have been gaining many insights from people in my community that are not believers and the consensus is that Christians hurt Christianity more than anything. If they see (or read) pastors as only trying to hit a magical number they might think that they are only a number. Brothers, please be careful. Growing a healthy church is important – but growing a church for the numbers is not.
Two Great Quotes for the Week
Posted by: | CommentsI just had to pass on two great quotes I read this week …
First, from Matthew Stibe’s Bad Language blog (not what you think) … a quote from Samuel Beckett: Read More→
The Ultimate Blog Comment Policy I’ve Seen and My Hearty ‘Ditto’
Posted by: | CommentsFMF has one of the best blog comment policies I’ve seen … and I’m going to be a total copycat and say … I love his so much I want it to adopt it as mine too! 
And some of you should do the same!
To boil down his policy, it goes like this: “I will take down whatever comments and not accept whatever trackbacks I want. Period.”
Blogging purists and idealists will say “Don’t control the conversation.”
But the conversation costs … in time and energy and money. And bloggers are the ones giving 99% of that!
[Found via ProBlogger]
