We’re in the 11th hour before Christmas Eve services here at Liquid Church and our Church Online team is totally pumped about our first ever Christmas Virtual Choir that we’re pulling together.

What started as an interesting idea to allow our Church Online community to participate in our church-wide services, has become a great tool to talk about Christmas at church — and invite family and friends to one of the 6 services being held on Saturday at our campuses as well as 2 services for Church Online.

Since there is some novelty in a webcam- or “YouTube Christmas Choir” it has to potential to draw in some people that might be sitting on the fringes of the crowd.  I love that aspect of it.

So our video producer and media team has been rocking it all night since the deadline for submitting individual renditions of Silent Night over the web. . . And here’s a first peek at the Virtual Christmas Choir which will sing Silent Night:

Yes, we’ll have a traditional preached message and live worship band, etc that go along with a church service, but this one of the small ways we’re aiming to mix it up a bit… keeping the church experience fresh and inviting for those that walk in the door — some for the first time in a long time, others for the first time ever.

QUESTION: What is your church doing to mix it up this year at Christmas?

Kinetic Typography — that’s the official name of the motion graphics you’ve been seeing pop up all over the net these days. It’s powerful when done right.

Now you’ve seen a lot of great motion graphics on the web. Here’s one example to set frame of reference:

But there’s a specific flavor of motion graphics that deals with moving typography. Temporal typography to be more specific. And here, we have something called KINETIC TYPOGRAPHY which is produced by a new type of creative producer called a kinetic typographer these days. So get ready for more kinetic typography in the months and years to come.

Here’s some examples of great kinetic typography I’ve seen recently. And a big bang at the end.

And finally, we’re also seeing some of this format being applied within ministry media applications. I’ve included a fabulous one as the last one in this listing below as a “TRUER & BETTER” final example. . .

. . .

And finally, the true and better example featuring words of truth by Rev. Tim Keller by Peter Artemenko:

Do you know of any other examples of amazing motion graphics – kinetic typography? Share a URL below!

This weekend, I’m excited about being on the top floor of 7 World Trade Center.

It has a spectacular view in a totally green building — the first to go up amongst the WTC buildings.  When you are there, you can see up, out and down all around you when you are peering out the ceiling to floor windows.

But the view that I’m more excited about is regarding the discussions and activity that’s going to be going on at Redeemer‘s Entrepreneurship Initiative 2011 Forum conference — carving out a collaborative vision for what gospel entrepreneurship looks like on a practical basis.

It is always refreshing and at the same time challenging to hear  Tim Keller share his theological vantage point and then interact with others marketplace practitioners about how we are to go about faith and work integration.

I’ve been asked to help lead a session on social media for non-profits and for-profit organizations on Saturday — so glad that Guy Richards of Abiah will be my co-pilot so that we can both share case examples of social media in action.

I’m looking forward to reviewing with the group some of my own approaches to digital engagement across the web — including the Five C’s for Social Media Success framework I’ve been developing through my client work over the last couple of years.

If there’s enough interest, I’m willing to walk through the presentation again online via a webinar. Just drop a comment here if you’d be interested in hearing what I have to share.

Spring is in the air! After over 70 inches of snowfall around here this winter, I’m ready for spring.

Even though there’s still melting snow in our driveway, it’s time to get busy with spring time activities — including some spring cleaning.

So today, I decided to clean house a bit…online. And the first place to attack was one of my Twitter accounts. There are many different strategies for who to follow or followback. But one rule that’s probably agreeable to most is to remove people from your follow list that are inactive or MIA from Twitter.

I personally like UnTweeps.com since it lets you filter your Twitter Follow list for people who haven’t sent out a tweet in ____ days.

If you really want to be conservative, you can try something like 180 days (no activity in 6 months kind of makes them as good as any other non-user, right?). But I go for the 30 day threshhold and see how many come up.

In one fell swoop you can chop off dozens and dozens if not hundreds and hundreds of inactive twitter accounts from your follow list. While some people might want to hang on to everyone on their list, this actually does help your twitter friend ratio of following to follower ratio which is used by some measurement apps out there.

AHHHH….that feels better.

TOOLS THAT RULE:  UnTweeps.com

The viral spread of social media is one of the most obvious indicators of the break-neck pace of cultural change.

For many pastors already trying to cram 25 hours into a single 24 hour day, social media poses a range of dilemmas. . .

Do I use social media at all?

Is it merely a distraction?

Is it a legitimate way to reach and shepherd people?

Am I too enamored with it…or too resistant to change?

Wherever you fall on that spectrum, here are a few thoughts to fuel your pursuit of balanced answers.

Top 5 Reasons Pastors Should NOT Use Social Media:

1. Everybody else is doing it.

There is nothing more miserable then watching someone who isn’t interested in facebook, twitter, or blogging using the social application out of duty or a need to keep up with the guy down the street. They don’t want to use the application and have no plan. They simply throw stuff on the wall and hope it sticks.

If you can’t find an internal and healthy motivation, don’t fake it.

2. Brand “Me”.

In the age of Pastor as entrepreneur/CEO/rock star, it’s worth asking yourself if you are using social media to promote yourself or elevate your own profile.

If your gut tells you this is part of your motive for using social media, don’t do it.

3. Quick Fix.

Just because you’re tweeting, facebooking, and blogging, doesn’t mean all your church problems are solved (i.e. bigger crowds, more baptisms, and more revenue). Social media is not the silver bullet, even for better communication.

While we are at it…there is no silver bullet.

5. Creating Noise.

People don’t care that you almost ran over a squirrel on your commute this morning. Well, maybe the animal lover in your church cares, but you aren’t earning any points there. Be a good steward of your followers’ time. If you are going to post something, make sure it has value (see below). It’s fine (even good) to be whimsical and fun as you develop a sense of what you’re doing. Just don’t let meaningless banter become the norm. People will notice, and you’ll find yourself wasting a lot of time.

If you are just creating noise, don’t do it.

5. Distraction.

This is probably the most important reason you should not use social media. It can be a total time suck. Listen, your congregation (and your social media friends and “followers”) need you to be a lover of God and a shepherd of people.

If social media is just one more thing that will distract you from the things that matter most, don’t do it.

This guest post was shared with us by Paul Loyless, the President of d2design (formerly Details Direct). d2design is faith-based church branding organization that excels in helping small churches and church plants communicate clearly.  You can find more of Paul’s thoughts on his blog at: http://blog.d2design.com or on Twitter @d2design

One of the biggest concepts we’ve covered already is that social media is here to stay.  The Church cannot ignore this growing part of any given individual’s daily routine.  Your people are using social networks to manage and grow their relationships right now.

The question then becomes, how do you integrate social media technologies and frameworks into the social fabric of the church or ministry?  Is it too early to try and adapt or integrate the social web into how we do church?

The answer is a clear no, it’s not too early.  In fact, the time is ripe to seriously embrace social media into the relationship and communications flow of your community.  And there are a bunch of options available that are ministry specific so that you don’t have to cobble together your own solution if you don’t want to.

Here’s one example: the Table Project. It’s a non-profit ministry group that is producing a robust, customizable social networking platform specific to churches. Take a look at this overview that covers the philosophy/approach to TableProject:

This video above leaves you wanting for a peek at the actual nitty gritty of the TableProject experience for users, right?

Here’s just one example of how the TableProject is utilizing mainstream social web assets so that users don’t have to adopt another entirely new social networking platform.  Your community members already know how to use these features, they’re comfortable with them, and by taking this approach, TableProject aims squarely at the problem of  adoption and usage uptake for any new system.

One of the strengths of this entry into the social networking platforms for churches market is how it integrates 3rd party sites and content. For example, you’ll find fluid use of Facebook, Twitter, blog RSS feeds, and other web apps.

Here’s another video covering some of the basic features inside the platform:

It’s not open source, but it’s free (for now). It’s certainly an interesting platform to consider for most ministries.

The question to ask would be just how customizable is it — especially for larger 1000+ person communities that usually need more tailoring to their communities’ needs in managing groups, sub-groups, etc.

QUESTION: Are you encouraged or discouraged after seeing potential solutions like TableProject?

It looks like the case for social media and the church can continue on a bit. . .In this post, I wanted to do two things: A) share some of the actual benefits of social media in a non-profit context. The social web has been hyped so much, so sometimes it is good to hear about real results. …and B) briefly address one of the most common questions asked by people and organizations that haven’t jumped into social media just yet, but understand that they need to sometime real soon. So here goes:

Beth Kanter, one of the gurus of non-profit social media strategy offers a model of the “networked nonprofit.” Kanter and her co-author Alison Fine argue that many non-profits are full of “firewalls” and bureaucracy that create stand-alone organizations.

But networked nonprofits end up looking more like social networks than like traditional organizations.  Open, simple, connected with other similar entities, transparent, successful.  One key take away is that taking on the new mental posture organizationally will enable and empower your organization to take on social media.

The bottom line?  . . . (more…)

Last time, I shared a video of the digital nativity story.

It has garnered a lot of press around the world because of its timely and smart execution.

Kudos to the Portual-based team that produced it.

Now, others are jumping on the bandwagon after all the buzz that’s been going around (that’s the power of social media, right?).

I present to you this time . . . A Facebook Christmas story. . .

While there are critics who’s knee-jerk reactions will be to shout out how shallow and trendy these versions are — I wonder if you really quizzed people, especially younger ones, about the actual storyline — would they be able to tell the story better before they saw these videos or afterwards?

I would be willing to bet that since this video is so contextualized to the Facebook generation, a good portion of the group would be able to reconstruct the basics of the storyline in much better fashion than through the accumulated exposure to all the Christmas plays at church over the year as they were growing up.

Take a look for yourself at this video:

QUESTION: Does this video tell the story well enough?

Contextualization.

Mobilization.

Social Media Nation.

Nativity.

Creativity.

Levity.

Merry Christmas.

HT: Jason Locy of FiveStone

Well, the other posts in this series touched upon how your ministry should view the social web as an extension of your social community and also seeing that social media is not just a passing fad at this point.

Today, I’ll share three factors of the social web that makes it compelling to use for church communications, especially for outreach into the communities around you.

At the foundation of today’s discussion is basically whether you want to remain nameless without any familiarity or trust. Do you want to be some anonymous entity stuck in a corner of your community or do you want to be a dynamic community participant that befriends people so you can invite them into relationships — with you and / or your ministry?

Here we go:

1) Better visibility – Managing your online presence across the social web gives you a position of infinitely better visibility to those that are in your community.  These days, the Googlopoly has invaded our life, not just our computers.  People don’t let their fingers to the walking anymore, they  travel the world of mouth.   In fact, with any serious effort, you’ll personally gain a lot more “friends” that can now know you exist than ever before.

2) Increased familiarity – This benefit does not require exteme lifestreaming, but it can be found from intentional utilization of the social media networks out there. If you are wiling to take on some simple proactive strategies, the social web allows you to converse with a much wider range of people about a much diverse range of topics than you probably would in your normal offline routine around town.  As people begin to regularly have a view into your daily activities (regular as well as those seat of the pants last minute activities), thoughts /reactions to various happenings around town, and your overall posture regarding both -  things that excite you and things that really really really matter to you, your local online social network becomes increasingly familiar with you, your personality / humor as well as your general willingness to engage.

3) Trust - This can only be achieved over time with authentic exchanges pointing the way to a God-honoring relationship built on trust. If you are consistent, outward facing, and responsive to people’s questions, needs, and just plain ol’ calls for social engagement, it is a start to quickly establishing trust with other individuals in your social networks. This last factor category cannot be overstated enough in terms of effects.

Visibility, Familiarity, and Trust. These are the ingredients of any evangelistic outreach efforts whether you are online or offline.

Do you see how utilizing the social web successfully is not that different?  You really should leave a comment below.