Online discipleship, building community and outreach are often talked about, but what is working? Come hear case studies, best practices…
Browsing: church
Today I’ll be blogging live from the first ever Cultivate Conference in Chicago. Cultivate is being described as less of a conference (which tends to be a few people speaking and the vast majority sitting back and listening) and more of a series of “organized conversations” for participants to discuss issues related to church communications.
Listen live at 3 PM to the Internet radio program “Simple Church Websites that Work.” The show is being hosted…
This morning I read an interesting article on EpiscopalChurch.org by Deb Cuny titled In search of communion: Cross-country pilgrimage reveals…
This coming Wednesday (September 30) at 3 PM I’ve been invited by my friend Chris Walker of EvangelismCoach.org to join…
Last week I wrote about why I believe Willow Creek and Saddleback and Losing Influence while North Point and LifeChurch.tv are Gaining Influence. Thanks to all of you who joined in the conversation. Thanks in particular to all of you at Willow Creek, Saddleback, North Point, and LifeChurch.tv folks who added your insight to the post. Based on your comments, there are 4 areas I want to address. (And sorry to disappoint some of you, but Reveal is not one of them.)
More and more churches are launching Internet campuses, aka virtual churches. Meanwhile, people continue to debate whether Biblical community can really exist online. Drew Goodmanson weighed in with his perspective on Thursday with an excellent article entitled Is Online Community real Community? Questions about the Virtual Church
In the article Drew cites 27 “one anothering” verses from scripture. Looking at these verses it’s clear that while some “one anothering” can be done online, there are certainly some things that are not technologically possible to do in an online community and in those areas a virtual church simply can’t live up to the biblical standard.
Getting even more practical…
For the last couple of decades Willow Creek Community Church outside of Chicago and Saddleback Church in Southern California have been the twin towers of influence in American evangelical circles. Thousands of churches have sought to emulate their success by adopting Willow Creek’s seeker church model and Saddleback’s purpose driven church model.
But in the last several year’s Willow Creek’s and Saddleback’s influence has begin to decline. Pastors and Christian leaders have been looking elsewhere for ideas, resources, and leadership. More and more of them (especially those in their 20s and 30s) are being influenced by churches like North Point Community Church in Atlanta, led by Andy Stanley, and LifeChurch.tv in Edmond, OK led by Craig Groeschel.
There are some obvious reasons for this, but there are also some not-so-obvious reasons.
The debate over online church has been going on for years now. But as more and more churches launch Internet campuses, the debate continues to grow. A few days ago John Piper shared his thoughts on the issue. Piper is essentially saying church is to online church as sex is to online sex.
In part 2 of our Social Networking Round Table we looks at social media for organizations. There are lots of opportunities for organizations to connect with people using social networking tools like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. Many organizations struggle to decide which tools to use and how to use them effectively. Our panel provides some insight to help your organization navigate those options.