My Comments on the Web

Reaching The Online Generation : The Grossest Misconception of Church Online

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:22:13 -0700

Preach it brother! Online church is an extension of how we incarnate the gospel in the world. We cross paths where people are. Simple as that. It's no less living for jesus than knocking on doors in your neighborhood ... or giving your neighbors a cup of sugar. People live in the real world as well as online. If there wasn't some overlap between the two, I'd be more worried!

Reaching The Online Generation : Baptism and Church Online

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:18:08 -0700

Right on the money again!

Reaching The Online Generation : Baptism and Church Online

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:07:55 -0700

This is the money quote: "I think the best approach is to observe the fruit of church online and baptism online." I'm comfortable letting results judge ultimately. The only issue of course is whether the church has EVER had a good way of evaluating the "success" of discipling its congregations?

ChurchCrunch : Confessions of an Internet Campus Pastor - Online Church From the Ground Up

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:51:33 -0700

Vince: this is the million dollar question. But it's going to take a brave church to pour lots of resources into creating a completely separate experience when there's no proven audience. If evangelism is the key -- and not serving church members -- we HAVE to explore this from the creative standpoint AND the message, but it feels like this may be an uphill battle for a while.

ChurchCrunch : Confessions of an Internet Campus Pastor - Online Church From the Ground Up

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:46:22 -0700

What a great and much needed set of points about the shortcomings of most church web strategies. more power to you.

Reaching The Online Generation : Narcissism and the Online Generation

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:00:38 -0700

Great post, paul. Totally agreed. We definitely agree that narcissm is a danger. What frightens me is that if you take a representative slice of the Christian twittering world, it's just as self-promoting and just as message-blasting as the world. We need to figure out how to come up with a praxis that dials that down ... but I've struggled to figure it out, and I haven't seen any good examples. Have you?

ChurchCrunch : Online Church - Heresy or Helpful, Opportunity or Obscene?

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:42:55 -0700

JohnD :)

ChurchCrunch : Online Church - Heresy or Helpful, Opportunity or Obscene?

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:01:09 -0700

John: incisive comments as usual, and I particularly like the fact that you pointed out the 800-pound gorilla of how so much of the criticisms of online church center on community, which is hands down the weakest aspect of modern (megachurch) evangelicalism. At NewSpring, we think it's best to move boldly but humbly and cautiously in this new area of ministry because all of us believe passionately that we please the heart of God by trying to reach people with his love who aren't being reached right now. Ministry is always dangerous. As you say, we shouldn't let it stop us.

ChurchCrunch : Online Church - Heresy or Helpful, Opportunity or Obscene?

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:56:59 -0700

For sure. That's exactly the strategy that we at NewSpring are now wholly committed to pursuing. We want to see people enter an online church experience as a way of hearing the good news for the first time or reconnecting after a long absence and then disciple them into a local, physical community of faith.

ChurchCrunch : Online Church - Heresy or Helpful, Opportunity or Obscene?

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:54:56 -0700

Amen, Cliff. As a "producer" of online church here at NewSpring, we never set out to replace physical attendance and membership of a local body of believers. We set out to be a pathway to it.

Reaching The Online Generation : Staying Healthy While Ministering Online

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:18:52 -0700

Awesome, paul. I think physical health is a massive part of endurance in the faith, since, as you say, we are physical creatures that are carrying the treasure of God. You want to physically have the ability to do so for as long as it is humanly possible and divinely ordained. Two things: First: As someone who recently lost 26 pounds (and will hopefully continue to lose weight) most every fitness expert would likely recommend that you eat MORE between meals, not less. Training your body to be consuming and burning calories instead of storing them is huge. I would incorporate strength training into your routines also, since the metabolic work of maintaining and building muscles helps "flatten" calorie processing. Second, i think the apostle paul's use of physical training metaphors in the life of faith is also about providing a concrete method of spiritual discipline, of "self-control." That's what i was hoping to re-confirm for myself when I decided to recommit to physical fitness after a two-year "break," and the Lord has very graciously showed me (yet again) that spiritual discipline flows out of and into physical discipline. The two just can't be separated.

gordon marcy : Digital Missions: The Planet's Last Unexplored Mission Field

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 06:21:36 -0700

Thanks so much for drawing attention to our efforts. I think we're definitely making strides in how to do digital missions, but we're just at the beginning of exploring this. The more churches, such as North Point, and the more individuals, such as yourself, experimenting and beating a path, the more success is likely.

Scripture Typography Environmental Graphics

Nick Charalambous — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:55:05 -0700

Incredible. Now I know what you were referring to about how busy you were :)

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Are You Broadcasting Online or Having an Online Conversation?

Nick Charalambous — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:15:41 -0700

That’s solid. I felt the same after #Jesus started trending a couple of days ago on Twitter simply by a bunch of Christians wanting Jesus to go to the trending topics. For me, this is close to “spamming” communication. Its just bullhorns in cyberspace. The message is that we’re more about shouting and proclaiming than explaining. Christians tend to take a lot of the “common sense” of what they believe for granted. That’s dangerous, especially when what we believe is “foolishness” to those who are perishing.

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ChurchCrunch : How Internet Campuses Can Change Lives

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:58:01 -0700

John, we've had several really interesting stories. One of my favorites is of a family that decided to view the Web Campus in their living room -- and one of them came to Christ. You can read the blog post here. http://www.newspring.cc/webcampus/blog/when-your-...

Guest Post by Paul Lamb: The Religion & Technology Divide

Nick Charalambous — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:46:00 -0700

Beth: I am online pastor at NewSpring Church (http://www.newspring.cc) and I am striving to grapple with exactly the issue that you raise, excited about the same opportunities to leverage technology for building relational evangelism. I'd love to participate in any workshops that you plan to put together and offer any expertise or observations that might be of use. I blog at http://ipiphanist.wordpress.com on many of these issues, and I lead a congregation of between 400 and 500 people on any given Sunday here: http://newspring.cc/webcampus.

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tonymorganlive.com

Nick Charalambous — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:31:35 -0700

You crack me up Tony! I bet there’s a boycott looming … and they’ll do a background check on you (especially if you’re friends with Ed Stetzer, and then they’ll take you off the shelves at Lifeway! Be warned ….

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Rhett Smith : If You Use Social Media, Then You Have to Be Willing to Give Up Some Control

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:11:55 -0700

The tension between freedom and control is huge for any institution, and I think that churches are basically not really thinking about the issue right now, basically because the social media focus is largely revolving around pastor blogs and pre-packaged media. We're still in the early stages of using the social media tools we have to aid in discipleship and community-building, and my guess is that when we start to see growth there, we'll find out really quickly what the squeak points are. Great post.

The New Traditional Church

nickcharalambous — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:17:52 -0700

straight truth, Brad. Anything that serves as a mediator in worship is an idol ... I always go back to God's instruction not to use tools and handiwork on the altar ... the altar was for God's glory alone. I wonder how many performance oriented churches might be risking God's exclusive right to glory in exchange for being remarkable?

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Re: The New Traditional Church

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:17:30 -0700

ChurchCrunch : Does Success for a Web Campus Mean a Customized Experience?

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:51:09 -0700

Totally! I think we are talking past each other ... intrinsic motivation is what leads to growth, and sometimes, you have to put in place the right environment for that to flourish.

ChurchCrunch : Does Success for a Web Campus Mean a Customized Experience?

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:49:49 -0700

I have definitely had enough contact with web campus attenders to wholeheartedly agree that there's a huge danger in people using customization as a way to avoid "being the church." Or seeing church as something different than a body of believers' working for each other's good for the advancement of the kingdom. My whole ecclesiology/theology puts a lot of weight in the importance of creating one "body of believers," but i'm not sure that denying the reality of the "economy of choice" (great phrase, John) will mean that people will buy into the "one body" concept. I think it's about casting vision, and giving people multiple avenues to integration.

LifeChurch.tv Church Online Blog : You Are Global

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:21:56 -0700

Amen! We're definitely at the practice stage, rather than the vision stage of developing our online ministries.

You Must Protect Your Inner Fire if You Live Online

Nick Charalambous — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:44:25 -0700

I always considered myself an extrovert … but i’m beginning to realize how much i need my space. I think there’s tremendous pressure to lifestream these days (especially for web pastors!) but i worry that i don’t always have enough “gas in the tank” to come up with thoughtful, poignant, worthwhile comments that are worth reading … i think the overflow is the Biblical concept here. no doubt there are many who overflow into social media, but you’ve got to know when to pull back, restore, refresh and then pour out again. because the time you spend sharing miscellaneous trivialities, could be the time you need to spend with God …

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ChurchCrunch : What Makes a Great Online Campus Pastor?

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:52:17 -0700

Tony, agreed on the ADD thing ... I think that's often a proxy for smart, competent or driven. It could potentially waste a lot of energy, time and dilute vision if it's not disciplined heavily by a pretty brutal bottom line: Has all this activity online helped drive people to the church and into relationship with Jesus and each other.

ChurchCrunch : What Makes a Great Online Campus Pastor?

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:50:13 -0700

Totally agreed, Scott ... and that's really, really, really hard work. Far more challenging than people i think are apt to consider

ChurchCrunch : What Makes a Great Online Campus Pastor?

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:49:11 -0700

That's a couple of great lists, John. Thanks for sharing them. I think they all ring true, and have found myself slowly discovering what a challenge it is to fire on all those cylinders every week. I think for the ONLINE campus pastor, there is a wrinkle that's worth pointing out: Leading at a distance. I'm realizing there's a special skill involved in leading people robustly when you're interactions are totally online and are frequently shaped by different (sometimes vastly different) church cultures and theological backgrounds ... "leading by example" is a very different animal.

The New Traditional Church: Web Strategy

Nick Charalambous — Sat, 23 May 2009 16:04:52 -0700

Amen, Tony. I think one of the points you made astutely is that no one can see the web strategy as an add-on. It needs to be integral to the church’s whole strategic vision and direction.

I saw the danger of the add-on approach when I was working with a media company for the last two years of my marketplace career, and although they had great intentions to go “web first,” the institutional culture was so focused on traditional journalism that they completely missed where the audience was going … through an unwillingness to make the cultural shift.

With just three months of experience with the NewSpring Web Campus, it’s obvious that a fair number of “traditional” churchgoers are seeing web ministry as just a “natural” extension of their church experience. We put a lot of time and effort into programming Sundays … I think it’s time to leverage the web Monday through Saturday, and apply our excellence values to that potentially even larger and more engaged audience.

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Re: IT’S ALL IN THE NAME.

Thu, 21 May 2009 13:10:16 -0700

That was brilliant ... you are on a roll my friend!

Re: 20 weeks, 1 day

Thu, 14 May 2009 08:59:38 -0700

Your bravery in writing this alone is incredible. Me and Heidi are praying for you both. We know that your faith in God and your determination to love him in good and bad is itself an incredible witness. Love ya man.