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Chad Whitman

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Random Friday Posts…

[Random Friday] is when I basically just post a bunch of stuff I am coming across…

First, I thought this service looked interesting for pastors, especially college campus pastors who have to schedule a lot of appointments…You Can Book.Me

Still haven’t seen this yet, but it is getting great reviews and I hear the dialogue is good. I have to admit I am fascinated by Mark Zuckerberg… The Social Network

My pastor friend Mark, who helps maintain a website, introduced me to Google Analytics. It is a free service that tracts your web’s stats (how many people come to the page, which page is opened the most, etc.). Yeah, it has probably been around for a long time, but I am now just learning about it. Google Analytics

Researched whether or not our church should take our tech services to a cloud last week. Did a trial run on rackspace and talked with a specialist for the longest time. Looks interesting, but not sure if we are going to go that route. Rack Space Cloud for Servers

Currently taking a programming class in: Java

The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet.

Really interesting article in Wired Magazine (its the cover story actually). Read it here: The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet.

The more I read this kind of stuff, the more I can’t help but think churches could develop specific apps for their church, or using apps already out there, that help people connect, get info, read, listen to sermons, etc. etc. that members can access on their smartphones.

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HTML 5 in action. Beautiful..

The Wilderness Downtown Check it out. P

Some points from “Face-to-Face Gospel & the Death of Distance”

About a week and a half ago, I posted on this blog about an article that I discovered at the online version of Christianity Today entitled “Face-to-Face Gospel and the Death of Distance.” You can read the article below in my previous blog post. I picked up the hard-copy of the magazine yesterday, and read it again. I thought I would post some of my thoughts on the article to help me process through what I actually took away.

One thing I am learning to do – especially because of my role here at New Life – is examine how technology has shaped the following: me, the ministry I do and how I engage people in ministry. I find this kind of examining hard to do. I usually think of technology solely in terms of its utility: it makes things easier, faster, and better. I rarely care to examine – if at all – how it fundamentally influences me as a human being or, say, how I engage people in ministry. I mean, is there value in doing this? If so, what is it?

The first part of this blog post deals with some general thoughts from the article. I hope to post “part II” of my post next week…

The Article:

One of the article’s main points is that technology brings the Christian community closer together. This is a good thing. We can now stay connected with people all over the world and on a daily basis if we so choose. We can now access material from all kinds of people, backgrounds, and perspectives from anywhere in the world and all within a few minutes. Technology shouldn’t replace face-to-face human interaction, but it should have a “layering” effect, that is, technology should compliment itself.

It is not a matter of whether or not we will engage in technology when doing ministry. The reality is we do it already. So, the real question is whether or not we are examining how it has shaped us, our message, how we will use it in the future (or not use it as the case may be) as we try to adjust to the fact that it changes continually.

Technology has the potential to enable a fundamental redesign of the lives of church leaders. Her writes,

For example, a pastor can readily access many more sources and incorporate video into a presentation. He or she can put sermons online and thus reach many more people. Discussion groups can reach across a community, even across the world. More than one author has suggested that this is “the death of distance.” If you have just returned from another part of the world, you can maintain communication with people there in a remarkable way.

We have the opportunity to access material that, say, 40 years ago only those in academia or in a particular region would be able to access. Our theological views can now be shaped by so many different thinkers. And not just in terms of knowledge, but relationship & Christian community. We can now virtually DO ministry anywhere, at anyplace, and at anytime – all without leaving our hometown. Technology is helping to shrink the world of ministry and “flatten” it. Its helping to build and keep relationships that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.

We shouldn’t think of the evolution of technologies (written word, radio, television, video, internet, email, etc. etc.) as replacing each other. We should think of them as layering to form an effective pattern of communication. Television, Web conferencing, and e-mail should not replace face-to-face communication, but rather complement each other.

Jesus spoke to small intimate groups, but he also spoke to large groups as well. Al Erisman argues “If he had come in the 21st century, Jesus would also have used these new tools, but not to replace the intimate or even large group discussions.”

The last point I thought was especially interesting. Sure, often asking “What Would Jesus Do?” can come across contrived, trite, superficial, and insensitive to context. Still, I find it interesting to think about…

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What does technology have to do with the gospel?

Another interesting article on the connection between technology and doing ministry. It is actually one of the main articles in this month’s Christianity Today too…

The Face-to-Face Gospel and the Death of Distance by Al Erisman.

What does technology have to do with the gospel?

A lot. Narrowing our scope just to information technology, we recognize it is all about information and communications, a fundamental element of proclaiming the gospel. It is also about what kind of people we become, and how we communicate to people who are part of the digital generation. We could also look at the broader impact of other technology, such as automobiles, nuclear power, or biotechnology—anything that comes from a step-by-step process or the use of tools. But we have our hands full talking about information technology….continue reading article Here

Despite appearances, some things are real. Peter Rollins’ thoughts on Facebook.

This is the title of an upcoming talk by Peter Rollins (PhD in Philosophy, Professor, and Christ Follower). He will be speaking about this:

We tend to think that our facebook profile reflects something of who we really are while virtual platforms such as Second Life enable us to live out unreal fantasies. But what if our most private virtual fantasies actually bring us into deeper contact with the horrifying Real of ourselves than technologies which re-present our conscious image of ourselves to the world?

This should not be taken as some mundane argument that social networking sites like Facebook are a form of deception because they offer up an idealised reflection of who we are (describing only the side of ourselves that we wish to present to others). But rather that networking sites like Facebook are derivative of a deeper psychic structure – namely that our conscious self is a form of deception because it offers up an idealised reflection of who we are (effectively hiding our deepest desires and drives from our own gaze).

These are some of the themes I will be exploring and developing at Apple on 12th May in London. Apple is a forum that explores the intersection between technology, philosophy and theology. ~ Peter Rollins.

This is something for us to definitely wrestle with. Churches are more and more trying to tap into the social networking world, places like Facebook and twitter etc. How can the church use these things redemptively? Go to Peter Rollins blog

Utilizing Google Places & its new features…

Though Google seems to focus primarily on business organizations for using this service (or at least that is what they seem to advertise more than anything else), it can also be used for churches as well (google knows this too, because when you get the chance to describe your organization, they not only have the option to put church, but also what denomination you are). It basically allows you to take more control of the information people see when they search for you on google. I don’t think it is necessarily new, but some of the recent features are cool. I am going to use it for New Life Dresher. You can add photos, little blurbs, hours, etc. etc. Some of the options wouldn’t make sense for churches (i.e. posting coupons) but other options would…

Check out the Google Blog for a little write-up and background on Google Places.

New Study: Everything moble by 2015…(so what does this mean for those in ministry?)

Click to Enlarge

I wanted to dedicate this post to a conversation I recently had with a good friend of mine in NYC two weekends ago. He runs his own Mac support business (and he really knows the technology and the business). I was telling him about some of the web stuff I had been getting into and he mentioned how, because he is always on the go, he really appreciates things that he can easily bring up on his iphone and that the future of the internet is really about mobility – being able to pull something up, and have it look good, on an iphone, nexus, ipad, kindle etc. is what the future is all about. So, when I saw this article that supported my friend’s opinion, I thought it would be worth blogging about: Here is a small blurb from an article on Mashable, presenting a study and pointing out that mobility will rule the web by 2015.

In a dense, 87-page report, Morgan Stanley analysts have charted the most important online trends and predicted the future of the Internet. In addition to forecasting more online shopping and showing the geographical distribution of Internet users, the study also shows a dramatic shift toward mobile web use.

Read the rest of the ARTICLE HEREin Mashable.

The real question, however, at least for the sake of the purpose of this blog, is what this means for people in ministry and for the church? How will this mobility be an advantage and/or disadvantage?

ipad – what would be a helpful app for our church staffers?

Jerry and I were having a long conversation yesterday about the ipad and a bit more today as well.( He owns a kindle and really likes it – but is ever so tempted ). One thing we talked about was how an ipad could be used for the church staff. Examples: We thought about how it might be good for sermon notes – rather than having notebook paper or whatever, having a little ipad up there while giving a sermon would be nice, or for those teaching Sunday school classes for adults to have your notes at your fingertips like that would be great too. Or for teaching kids – being able to quickly pull up pictures or videos that everyone could see (I am thinking of a small class of about 5) would be cool too. But, what about others on the church staff? Debbie and Corby working in youth ministry or Michael in accounting – what kind of apps would you find useful on something like the ipad – in terms of your work? I know Ron could probably use it for the video conferencing he is doing (it will eventually come with a front and back camera)…

Article in New York Times about the kind of apps people are downloading: Read article here

Anyway – as a student – I am tempted to get one for note taking (buying a keyboard for it though) and using it in class. Work, School, Home, sharing a car, I am very mobile and having something as light as the ipad would be great.

Here are some links to some other interesting sites: Hackers have already been able to hack the ipad and download “unapproved apps”Link to article

Free Anti-Virus Software? Yup…

So, I spent the better part of this past Saturday trying to remove a “worm” from a computer that my church uses to run the worship songs/slides off of for the Sunday morning worship service. During the worship service a little warning pop-up would appear, and quite often, telling the computer/user that a virus/worm had been discovered and stopped and deleted. In the process of trying to kill the thing, which was making it near impossible to access any internet websites on the computer, I came across some pretty cool free anti-virus software. This software will help stop and protect a PC from viruses, but it doesn’t necessary remove the virus – you have to find a specific tool for that. There are also free anti-virus software out there for Mac too, even though Macs don’t suffer as much in this area like PCs do. Check it out and let me know what you think…

AVG Anti-Virus Program (seems like one of the better ones out there)…

Microsoft “staking future” on Cloud Computing

Last week Microsoft announced their future with cloud computing. I have blogged about this before – actually the article I posted dealt with whether or not cloud computing would be a big thing in the future. Debbie seemed really excited about the possibility of us going this route to . Well, if Microsoft is staking their future on it, I guess that goes for something…Read the article …Article in Telegraph UK