Perhaps that’s all that needs to be said. He’s awesome. Go follow him.
And yes, it’s the real Andy Stanley. No jokes here. Let’s try to help him beat @Oprah for followers, shall we?
I’ve never been a Church-planter but I know more than a handful who are and have been a part of a few new ministries as well.
What I have done is a handful of startups and technology ventures, most of which have tanked so hard that I’m not ashamed (if that makes sense), but there have been a few good ones that survived a bit. I’d rather fail hard than not try I suppose.
I’ve come to see that the ones that have done well are the ones that have a legitimate plan and course of action; a roadmap. There’s a lot of other factors involved of course, but planning is crucial.
What I’m also beginning to see is that, truly, Church-planting is like creating a startup business, and planning is so crucial. When one goes to plant they do your homework on where they’re going to plant, how they’re going to reach people, who their staff will be, financials from every angle, etc. All these things have to be accounted for to ensure maximum effectiveness and success.
It makes me wonder, then, why a lot of ministries don’t even put an ounce of time into their Social Networking/Social Media Ministry strategy because launching into the online “world” is, to a certain degree, much like starting a new ministry and planting a church.
Now, it’s not completely 1:1, and so I won’t take it too far, but the point is that most ministries and churches just go do it without thinking about a plan (and the resulting consequences of not having one).
Perhaps it’s because it’s just so easy to start. Registration is all it takes, right? Perhaps we need to take one step back and take a look at the “bigger” picture, do some thinking and strategizing, and then move forward with a well-laid plan?
Here are 5 Tips and Critical Questions (from a startup perspective) that might help you:
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How ‘famous’ do you have to be to start getting people to create bogus and fake Social Networking accounts of you?
Late last night I saw that @FakeDriscoll is now following me and I had to chuckle. Mark Driscoll (real Twitter account is @PastorMark) is an easy take and target; he’s created some controversy over his subject matter, delivery, and pretty much everything else that Mars Hill Church does.
But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong necessarily, but it’s made him “big” on the internet.
But Mark’s not the first to get this comical use of social networks: I see that Ed Young also has a fake account as well (@FakeEdYoung) and then Tony Morgan has had, for a while, some faker pose as him on Facebook.
So how famous does one have to be to start getting the fakers to come out and play? Is this just a new “cost” of doing big things for Jesus online?
How would you respond (or react) if you woke up with a few social network posers cramping your style online?
Something that I’ve always considered in light of the literal hundreds of URL Shorteners out there is ‘Brand Awareness’ and how URL Shorteners don’t help.
They are great, I think they are awesome, and with additional metric-gathering capabilities to calculate click-thrus and all that good jazz they are definitely not a terrible nuisance.
But, they don’t provide another avenue for sporting your brand. That’s one of the reasons why when I redesigned ChurchCrunch I created my Twitter buttons to keep my brand intact on Twitter (as you can see by the image it actually shows the .com name).
The point is that it helps others to see the actual domain, know that they are clicking to a legitimate site (not some crazy site), and also get’s my brand out there more.
Well, if that suits you too but you don’t want to go code it yourself you should check out Synected by Blurbia, a nice little WordPress plugin that does all that work for you.
In fact, it looks so good I’m thinking about using it myself:
Synected enables shortened URL creation on your own blog. Rather than relying on services such as tinyurl.com or bit.ly, Synected lets you easily create and use short links based off your own domain.
This releases you from dependence on a third party — a server error on tinyurl no longer prevents visitors from reaching your site.
In addition, it strengthens your brand, keeping your domain name in view of your audience even on Twitter and other micro-communication platforms.
Good stuff.
What are you doing to keep up your Brand Awareness and having it grow?
Sunday’s a good day to take it easy.
I’ve decided that on Sundays I’m not going to do any blogging except for a very simple post series called “The Sunday Special” where you get to ask me anything you’d like.
You can ask about me about web technology, WordPress, blogging, what I ate for breakfast… whatever.
I can’t promise that I’ll answer all of your questions, but feel free to answer each other’s questions as well.
I’ll try to answer all the questions throughout the coming week.
Simple enough, right? Go.
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and I think it’s about time to ask the ChurchCrunch Community:
Should we have a Forum here at ChurchCrunch for more topical discussions, etc?
4 Reasons (from my perspective):
- Connecting with each other to pursue interests, conversations, projects of personal interest.
- Provide a persistent and managed feedback loop for suggestions on how to improve ChurchCrunch, topics to be covered, etc.
- General Q/A and other fun nonsense.
- To provide a place for Vendors and Service providers to advertise their skills. Also, a place for ministries and businesses to seek help for any web-related needs.
What do you think?
[Image from Night86mare]
John Dyer‘s recent presentation on “Technology is Not Neutral” at BibleTech:2009 is something that everyone should chew on for a bit.
A far-distant and often-forgotten result of our ever-increasing use of technology is the impact that occurs in our lives, sometimes instanteneously and sometimes over a long period of time. Generally speaking, we only begin to notice the issues and/or problems that have cropped up afer the damage has already been done.
I do not necessarily agree with everything that Dyer presents but the fact that I’ve reacted in the past toward some of these ideas is almost an indication in and of itself of something worth having a conversation over.
I’d give it a one over. I think the best way to really dissect Dyer’s presentation is to actually share it with someone else and talk about it. I think you’ll find it to be very valuable; I know I did.
Download the Presentation Audio Here or the Slides Here.
Take this presentation, listen to it, share it with someone you trust, and then schedule a coffee meet up. It’ll do you some good.
Thanks John.
Rodlie, using ChurchCrunch’s GetSatisfaction board (which I’m not really using anymore), asked a question a little while back about the “Proper Etiquette for Using the Feedburner Chicklet.” He writes:
Hey John: Here’s a question that that may be a good blog post. Not sure. But my question is concerning the feedburner chicklet that shows how many subscribers you have.
What is the proper “etiquette” for that concerning locations, when you recommend starting to use one. I have 50 subscribers right now, but I’m not using one. And for some reason I feel a little funny using one, like it’s self-serving ala “look at how popular I am-therefore you should sign up.” I don’t know….just a question I’ve been having. What do you think?
The short answer is that you should use it, no matter how many subscribers you have, because it is fast-becoming one of the most recognizable subscription-buttons on blogs.
It also suggests to more than a few visitors that you put the time into actually creating a Feedburner account and that you care about RSS Feed management.
More thoughts after the jump.
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A seemingly innocuous comment in the beginning of this interview with Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic and WordPress, about some of the upcoming things with his business is actually a pretty crucial and important issue for the Church.
Listen closely as he discusses in the very beginning about how we need to make a greater move to Open Source so that our kid’s kids can have access to the content we produce today:
Christianity and our faith is built upon historical events that occurred 2,000 years or so ago. Without the Bible, through the Holy Spirit, which has recorded those events, we wouldn’t have much if anything.
That’s why one should seriously consider using Open Source technology for one’s ministry needs. Open Source, for a number of practical reasons, secures longevity of the platform and data.
Just imagine if the business that runs your blog (or website) suddenly tanked due to market conditions and all your data was lost. What then? Open Source isn’t subject, necessarily, to any “market conditions” or economical issues, but can continue to provide their service rain or shine.
I like where Matt’s head is at, and that’s why I use his products.
[HT: TechCrunch]
This is a Guest Post by Jay Caruso.
Connections: Association, relationship, circle of friends or associates, or a member of such a circle.
One month ago, I had never heard of ChurchCrunch.com. Here I am now, guest blogging. I’ll get to how that came about in a moment.
A few days ago John wrote an entry where he said:
Sure, we’re passionate people passionately interested in our Savior Jesus Christ, but we have an opportunity to put our foot down and tell the blogosphere that there is a new motivation for blogging in town, and that’s the desire to connect with other people so that we may communicate an invaluable message.
We don’t do it for our own personal fame and glory, we don’t do it for money or to fill our pockets with stuff that “moth and rust will destroy,” we don’t do it “just for fun” (although it can be and is fun) because we are “on mission” to connect with others. We don’t do it just to market our church or pimp our ministry, we do it to raise up Christ.
Amen to that. The question is though: Who are we connecting with?
