I’ve been using Twitter regularly since the summer of 2008. I actually signed up earlier than that but found no real use for it. When the 2008 election campaign kicked in, I found in Twitter the best place to get links to stories, up to date information, and of course, tweets from candidates, particularly President Obama. At the time, he had something like 50,000 followers which was an unheard of number. Since then, I have used Twitter effectively and it has resulted in a whole bunch of new connections, friendships, website traffic and more.

Lately, I have noticed some people complaining about Twitter in that they’re not getting out of it what others do. When I examined how they use it, I noticed there are some similarities in how they use it. If you want Twitter to work for you, then be sure you’re not falling into these habits.

Follower/Following Ratio – You cannot expect Twitter to be a two way street when others are doing all of the work. Some time ago I saw somebody ask a question on Twitter and then about 30 mins later complain that he was getting no response and making comments about “social media” not being very social. He was being followed by nearly 1000 people, but only following 80 people. How does he expect people to be social if he doesn’t care about what the people following him are saying? I don’t follow everybody that follows me, but I am also not going to build up nearly 1600 followers and then only follow 100. Twitter is about more than conversations. It’s also about being part of a community. If you have a Super Bowl party, invite 100 people to come over to watch but then make 95 of them watch through a window outside the house, what does that say? Following rules are not set in stone. Famous people have large followings and only follow a few, but often many of them are willing to be part of a community. Gary Vee is a perfect example. He has over 800,000 followers but Tweet something at him and more likely than not, he will respond. Others like Guy Kawasaki follows everybody back, but his Twitter stream is much more of a content aggregator than anything else. The bottom line is, if you’re a basic Joe on Twitter, engage with more of the people that follow you by showing interest and following them back.

Promoting Yourself At All Times – As I said above, Twitter works best in the context of community. If all you do is talk about yourself or tweet links to only your blog posts, then people will eventually tune out. It’s worse if you’re not following anybody because you have no idea what it is they’re talking about. When I see a new follower, one of the first things I do is look at their stream. If all I see is self promotion, I don’t bother following back.

It Is Not About You – One of my favorite books of all time is ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People.’ In it, Stephen Covey writes, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” This is essentially an offshoot of what Jesus said in Luke 6:31 – “Do to others as you would have them do to you. (NIV)” It is easy to find people on Twitter who have the same interests you do. Don’t jump into Twitter and start asking people questions (unless of course it is related to using Twitter itself) and looking for help on issues. Do that first for others. Ask how you can help others. Seek out those with similar interests and see if they’re asking questions. If they are, jump in and assist. It is the easiest way to engage people and have them follow you.

Make an effort to provide interesting tweets – Twitter indeed start off being a, “What are you doing?” application. And early on, people used it for that purpose. But Twitter has evolved. Yes, people still send out tweets that say, “I’m off to Starbucks” or “Getting ready to see ____ in concert.” I do it. It’s common. However, your entire twitter stream should not be filled with the mundane facts of your life. Other areas to avoid: Doing nothing but tweeting quotes, never tweeting anything yourself, but just @ replying others and doing nothing but re-tweeting.

Change how you use Twitter if you’re frustrated with it and it will work better for you.

Anything you would add to the list?

If you’re a beginner, check out this post by Jeff Goins for some good tips.

You’re laughing right? Power of Twitter?

I still know people that scoff at the notion of using Twitter. “Oh boy, I get to tell people what I am doing all day and see what other people are doing.”

They simply do not get it. And if they haven’t by now, perhaps they never will.

You see the image above? I made that image at the Catalyst One Day conference in Orlando. I was able to be there shooting thanks in part to the folks at Catalyst, particularly Jesse Phillips and Sally Heffner.

I never would have been in a position to ask about the opportunity were it not for Twitter. It goes back almost two years now. I saw a re-tweet from Brandon Cox of this guy running a website called ChurchCrunch. That is when I was first introduced to John Saddington. I made a comment about connections in a blog post and then before I knew it, John was asking me to write a guest post. That started something that eventually became a real life friendship.

Back in September 2010, John invited me to be part of Catalyst Backstage and take photos at the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta. I jumped at the opportunity and had a great time making images there.

Fast forward a few months. I am attending the Dream Year weekend in Nashville. To be honest, Twitter facilitated that. I had no idea who Ben Arment was until Justin Wise (a Twitter connection) started talking about this ‘Story’ conference he was attending that Ben was putting together. So while in Nashville, I finally met Jesse Phillips face to face despite only connecting before on Twitter and Facebook. Since we now had a more personal connection, I felt fine inquiring with him about the possibility of shooting the Catalyst One Day event. He eventually connected me with Sally and it just went from there.

Granted, not everybody is going to have the experience with Twitter that I have had, but it’s so much more than just a vehicle to tell people what you’re doing. In addition it goes beyond the talk about, “It’s about the conversation!” (though that is an important aspect). The strength of Twitter boils down to the use of it in the context of community. That is where it is strongest. If you approach Twitter as a way of being part of a community, you’ll get a lot out of it.

It was Super Bowl weekend. Thankfully, two tough teams gave us one heck of a game to watch. Early on it looked like a blowout for the Packers as they built an early 21-3 lead. But the Steelers scored a touchdown just before the end of the first half to close the gap and then came on strong in the second half. The Steelers biggest problem of the night however – turnovers – came back to haunt them again as they were on a drive that could have given them the lead if they scored a touchdown. Instead, they fumbled and the Packers scored, giving them 21 points off Steelers turnovers. Still, it was a great game.

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I’m really happy for Aaron Rodgers. This guy took over in the toughest of circumstances, replacing hero Brett Favre. It was Packers GM Ted Thompson that took a ton of heat from the Packers faithful for drafting Rodgers and trading Favre. I think make of the faithful are eating a big bowl of crow for breakfast this morning. So are members of ESPN (and other members of the media) who have treated Favre like some kind of god.

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As for Favre, he went out like many predicted he would if he held on too long. He went out beaten, injured and in the midst of scandal. If he would have retired a few years ago, he would gone out with his legend intact and he probably would have been sitting with Bart Starr in one of those luxury boxes last night cheering on his team.

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Another Star Spangled Banner and another singer screwing it up. Look, Christina Aguilera is not the first (nor will she be the last) performer to mess up this song. The problem I have is this: The Star Spangled Banner is a simple song. Yet, so many performers try to make it complex, drawing out certain words and going to extremes. There are two words in the entire song that deserve emphasis and that is ‘free’ and ‘brave’ and that is it. Here is a terrific example of how to do it right. This is Huey Lewis & The News singing it at the All-Star game in 1984:

Here is a more recent example. Carrie Underwood at an NFL game in 2006:

KISS – Keep it simple stupid.

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As for the commercials, there was one that really stood out and was memorable. The ‘House’ commercial which was a homage off to the famous ‘Mean’ Joe Greene commercial from the 70′s. Most of them others this year were meh and the Doritos “finger licking” ad was just creepy. Though I will say that seeing Roseanne Barr get flattened by a tree trunk was great. Here is the ‘House’ ad:

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As for the half time show, the little I did watch just showed ‘The Black Eyed Peas’ to be an embarrassment. I kept talking about the need for the NFL to get a band like ‘The Foo Fighters’ to be the half time entertainment. No gimmicks. No tricks. No fuss. Why complicate things?

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Apple often has great deals in their refurbished stores. The computers they sell their are marked down, but loaded with the most up to date software and come with a 1 year warranty. It was somewhat confusing at times to see what model you were getting because subtle changes would come with new releases. That has changed as Apple has added the release dates to the description making it easier to tell if you are getting a newer or older version of that hardware.

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Cowboys & Aliens? Looks awesome:

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Gas prices are still going up. The average price is $3.13 a gallon. Does anybody else remember the ear piercing shrieks when President Bush was in office and prices were at $3.00 a gallon? My ears still hurt from it. All of that shouting about Bush being cahoots with oil companies to purposely drive up prices comes of as extremely stupid now doesn’t it? President Obama is not getting a hint of grief about gas prices. I wonder why that is?

Actually, I don’t wonder. My gaze is fixed right on the media. Not the liberal media. Not the conservative media. But the lazy media. The media that gets itself worked into a lather if enough people scream and shout about an issue but don’t bother when nobody else seems to care. You’ll see. Watch the next issue that comes up where people scream and shout the most. Food prices are starting to really climb. Sooner or later, somebody is going to into freakout mode about and then the media will latch on like a pit bull.

President Obama touched off a firestorm of criticism with some recent remarks of his and this time it probably united a bunch of conservatives and liberals on both sides of the debate. Obama had this to say when addressing graduates at Hampton University this past Sunday:

“You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter,” he told the students. “And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.”

Do you agree?

I have to say I was puzzled for a number of reasons.

1. As the image in this post shows, President Obama is a big user of his Blackberry. In fact, despite protests from those responsible for security, President Obama still carries his. Wouldn’t smartphones be part of that same culture? He doesn’t mention the Internet, but the iPad and iPhone would be sort of useless without it. The Xbox and PS3 are full blown entertainment devices thanks to the ability to get online with it. This a President who was the first one to really harness the power of the Internet for an election and use it to his advantage. But he leaves that out as well.

2. The President admits he doesn’t know how to use these devices, yet criticizes how they are used. That’s never a good thing. As a photographer it would be like me steering people away from Canon products saying they’re inferior to Nikon despite having never owned Canon equipment.

3. As for the arguments that don’t always rank high on the truth meter, that’s always been an issue. Maybe not in the 24 hours news cycle like we have now, but in my view, the Internet and the advancement of the smart-phone has helped to set the record straight with the mainstream media more than it has spread bad information. The best example of this was in 2004 when ’60 Minutes Wednesday’ did a story claiming they had definitive proof in the form of official documents proving President George W. Bush did not complete his National Guard service. Within hours of it airing, forums and blogs were challenging the authenticity of the documents. This was a few years before Facebook and Twitter took off.

Granted, the Internet has also been a feeding ground for bogus rumors of which many make it to the mainstream media for fear of not “having the story” if it is indeed true. It’s part of the reason why I don’t watch cable news anymore.

What do you think?

Over the last few months I have been following people on Twitter who have been part of Lifechurch.tv and their online church experience.

When I first had heard about it I thought, “Church online? Not sure how that would work.” I didn’t think too much about it and didn’t have anything negative to say about it as I never experienced it for myself. I didn’t have much interest to be honest because I didn’t think it would be all that good. “So I get to watch a preacher on video while chatting with some people. What’s the point really?”

I kept seeing people discussing it on Twitter and finally one day I decided to take a look. I did so in part because Lifechurch was teaching about Elijah and our own church was in the middle of a series about Elijah. Brandon Donaldson was doing the preaching and it was for the first time that I finally saw why people have such a passion for this ministry.

This wasn’t a simple video and a chat room. It was a truly interactive experience. They had a time of worship (a good fast Internet connection is necessity to enjoy the experience because music with lag time is no fun) and then announcements like any other church. The chat room was not just a free for all place. There are committed volunteers there ready to interact, answer questions and provide guidance. If a person needs more intimate prayer time, there is a place people can click and interact with a person one on one.

The messages are great with printable sermon notes. If the chat room and other things get distracting at all, one can easily go full screen to pay attention just to the message. Like any other church, Lifechurch.tv does ask for donations and makes it easy to give. At any time you can see how many countries around the world are tuned in at any given moment. They’ve even developed a tool for the chat room that allows people from different countries to chat in their own language and have it translated to the language another person is using. It is obvious the people behind this project worked very hard at being able to allow a person to experience as much of a true church experience as they can.

It isn’t only the church experience as well. If you click over to this page you can read their blog, and also find out about small groups (lifegroups), missions, volunteer opportunities and more.

One thing I don’t believe is that the online church experience is the only experience people should encounter (and I’ve seen nothing from the good people at Lifechurch.tv expressing the notion that church online can replace the traditional church). Nothing can replace the true brick and mortar church and the personal experience one gains from it in all facets of the church experience. But online church has a place in our world. Here are some benefits I think it brings:

1. It allows those interested in Jesus to experience it anonymously. People are nervous sometimes about walking into a church for the first time. It can be intimidating especially if they’re alone.

2. There are those who have physical disabilities and it makes it hard for them to leave the home. Rather than just watching somebody preaching on television, this gives them a chance to interact with others.

3. People can always learn more. Because church online at Lifechurch.tv has such a broad schedule, the opportunity to go to church and get some study time in — even if you’ve already been to church — is there and with plenty of times available.

4. It provides people with the opportunity to connect with people from all over the world. How cool is it to know that you can discuss a sermon you just watched with somebody 6000 miles away who saw the same thing?

There are people who have strong reservations about the online church. I think those reservations are misguided in that people think it is an attempt to replace the traditional church. It’s not. It’s merely a new way, using the technology we have to introduce the experience of church to people in a different way and to provide the church experience for those who may not be able to attend the traditional church.

It’s a great thing and I’m glad I clicked over to experience it.

If you have a Twitter account, here are a few people you want to follow who can help and answer questions if you have them:

Tony Steward – He’s the Online Community Pastor for Lifechurch.tv
Amanda Sims & Kim Thompson – Both volunteer for the church online experience.

I figured I would turn this into a series of entries since the post about worship music generated some buzz.

There’s a scene from the movie ‘Wall Street’ where Gordon Gekko (one of the greatest movie names of all time btw) is showing Bud Fox a portable television he bought for his kid. Considering the movie was filmed in 1986 and took place in 1985, it was a remarkable little piece of technology. Gekko says:

“We’re going into a new age, pal.”

He was right. We’ve gone into a new age with regard to church websites. A church website used to be nothing more than a fancy business card. It contained some basic information, contact info and some pictures here and there. Church websites for the most part were boring and bland and said nothing about the church itself. Many people going to church today were born or just toddlers around the time Gekko was declaring we were going into a new age. Now they’re 24-30, are married and have kids. They’re looking for a church to attend and they’re looking online.

Because they are more tech savvy, they’re going to associate the church website with the church. Real estate experts will tell you that people make a decision on a house 30 seconds from the moment they walk in the door. I would say that it’s a similar decision about whether or not to attend a church when looking online.

I read an interesting piece here that had some numbers in it. My Pastor told me recently that he’s talked with quite a few visitors who said they came to our church after visiting our website.

Brandon Cox (who directed me to the above link and whose church benefits in that he is the Pastor as well as the website designer!) said he has asked visitors about how they found the church and he said as many as 60%-70% have checked out the website before visiting.

Here are three churches in my town of Palm Coast, Florida. Now, I am not in any way looking to demean these churches. I know people that attend these churches and all three of them are great. But their websites really need some work:

First Baptist Church of Palm Coast – As you can see, the design is just not all that good and it looks extremely dated. There’s animated gifs, or no graphics on some pages. There’s mixed fonts and pages that don’t flow very well. They have a link to a blog that hasn’t been updated since November 2008.

Next is Palm Coast Community Church. If you click on the ‘About’ page you’re taken to a page that shows ‘Under Construction – 2008.’ The ministries pages are blank for the most part. The contact page has names with no titles.

There is Lifecoast Church. This is the best of the three, but still contains holes. The links page is blank. The search page is blank. The biggest problem for me is that the links on the left overflow with the text on the pages making it difficult to read.

Finally, there is my church, Parkview Baptist Church. While there is no doubt still room for improvement (and I’m trying to help with that), the first impression is leaps and bounds beyond the other sites listed above. There’s a welcome video from our Pastor as well as a clear link to his personal blog. There’s a ‘Before You Attend’ link that I think is crucial to new visitors. There’s scrolling announcements that are kept up to date. As I said, there’s still room for improvement, but it’s clear that some real effort went into creating this site and I think that is a very good first impression to make with people who are looking online for a church to attend.

Granted, there’s still time for people to not like what they see and hear after they walk in the door, but part of the process is merely getting them to walk in that door.

Do you agree? Is a church website really that important? Your thoughts are welcomed.

Earlier today, Tony Morgan sent out a tweet about mainline denominational churches attempting to market their way out of decline. The piece goes on to speak about a variety of issues and reasons why that may be the case. One area they don’t explore are church names.

I haven’t done any research on this, but could inserting the mainline names into the overall church names be an issue? If we look at some data that is collected, it shows an interesting trend. Outreach magazine does a yearly list of the largest churches in America. In 2008, those churches were:

1. Lakewood Church – Joel Osteen
2. Second Baptist Church – Ed Young Sr.
3. North Point Community Church – Andy Stanley
4. Willow Creek Community Church – Bill Hybels
5. Lifechurch.tv – Craig Groeschel
6. West Angeles Church of God In Christ – Charles Blake
7. Fellowship Church – Ed Young Sr.
8. Saddleback Church – Rick Warren
9. Calvary Chapel – Bob Coy
10. The Potters House – TD Jakes

Outreach also has a list of the fastest growing churches in America. Some of the top ones:

1. Church of The Highlands – Chris Hodges
2. Elevation Church – Steven Furtick
3. Triumph Church – Solomon Kinloch Jr.
4. Fellowship Bible Church – Robert Cupp
5. The Rock Church – Miles McPherson
6. Destiny Metro Worship Church – Bryan Crute
7. Flatirons Community Church – Jim Burgen
8. New Hope Christian Fellowship – Wayne Cordeiro
9. Reid Temple AME Church – Lee Washington
10. Mission Ebenezer Family Church – Isaac Canales

Apart from 2 of the churches spanning both of these lists, all of them have something in common. They have no denomination in their names. No Baptist, no Methodist, no Lutheran, etc. As I said, I don’t know if the name has anything to do with it, but it’s an interesting question. One has to wonder if the denominational name evokes feelings of hesitation in people because they associate denominations with legalism and doctrine.

Try to think outside the box here for a moment. If I were to compare churches and the style preachers have, then my church would be very similar to that of Andy Stanley’s church. My Pastor has somewhat of the same style, often weaving in personal anecdotes with his sermon. The music is contemporary. Both churches believe in the process of believers baptism. The name of my church is Parkview Baptist Church. Now in that outside the box thinking, let’s assume for a moment that my church was named:

Parkview Fellowship Church

Do you think a person would be more apt to visit that church as opposed to

Parkview Baptist Church

or do you think it doesn’t make a difference?

Thoughts?

Image via muuranker

I have been espousing how great the social networking tool Twitter is for some time now. As of now, I’m not sure there is a better tool for connecting with people you don’t know, and getting to know them. It’s pretty amazing what can happen in 140 characters or less.

One such connection I have made that has been rewarding in a number of ways has been with John Saddington. John has wisdom and knowledge beyond his years (I was honestly surprised to find out how old he is) and his site ChurchCrunch.com is a daily read of mine. If you’re interested in the intersection of technology and how it can be leveraged to further God’s kingdom, you’ll want to add it to your daily list as well. I don’t John well (though I suspect that will change) but I do know this: He has a heart for Christ and wants to spread his good news using the technology we have available to us.

Just about one month ago, ChurchTweets.com was officially launched. You can read more about it here.

Initially, John’s goal was to have contributors and a few senior editors to help him out. However, personal commitments led to changes and ultimately John said he wanted to hand over day to day control of the site to 2 senior editors and one junior editor and asked people to email him with their interest. Thankfully, I was offered the privilege of being one of the senior editors and I accepted (the other Senior Editor being Justin Wise and the Jr. Editor, Luke DeMoss). There are details regarding the entire venture which I won’t get into now, but will discuss as time goes on. This blog will remain, but I will be posting regularly at ChurchTweets.com so make sure you stop by and see how you can maximize the use of Twitter in your ministry.

I’ll be involved with a group blogging project where we’ll be going over Shane Hipp’s book, ‘Flickering Pixels.’

You can read about the last project to see the purpose and goals. You can read more here about the current project.

Last night I had the privilege of taking part in an online prayer session hosted by Carlos Whittaker. Los had posted an entry asking people to comment on whatever is they wanted people to pray for. The last time I checked there were 145 comments that were left.

It basically worked like this: Carlos started from the top and went down the list. He prayed and asked those of us who were watching to pray as well. We prayed privately. We posted our prayers on Twitter and in the chat room that was set up.

It was an awesome time. While I was on (it lasted for nearly 2.5 hours), there was anywhere from 75-100+ people viewing the live feed. Those of us watching as well as following on Twitter were all praying for the people who requested prayer for a variety of reasons. Two that stood out for me were:

A single mother who lost her young son to heart failure.

A family whose 5 month old son Noah was shaken by a day care provider.

As a parent of two healthy kids, I can’t begin to imagine the pain these people are going through. But prayer is powerful and God can do so many things so we’ll see what He does with those two situations.

There are so many amazing people out there. I’m thankful the Internet has allowed me to connect with some of them for something like this.

UPDATE: Here’s what some others had to say:

Kyle Reed who made up a really cool video.

Luke DeMoss