We here have been blessed beyond measure in this past year and are so grateful to have wonderful friends and clients like all of you.

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
-Luke 2:13-14

The church is no different. Without a meticulous focus on the mission and vision of the church every organization will begin to do things simply because they can, and these new things will be exciting for the core team of people at the church. There are 3 key questions that are very simple:

1. How does this help us get closer to our vision?

2. How does this line up with our vision?

3. How will this be received by those we intend to reach?

I was reminded of this concept today when Google came out with a new tool called Browser Size. It re-enforced the research we did 9 months ago when decided what the standard site width would be (we settled on 960 pixels) which is at the 90% mark for what people see. That means that even thought we have fabulous HD displays that would show another 500 pixels, we needed to pull back and make it accessible.

In the Church this happens as well. How many messages have been given because the preacher thought the content was of extraordinary interest to himself (but not to his audience)? I my self have sat through far to many of them. What I am no saying is that we should water down the truth of the scripture but that we must make sure we focus on being effective with the scripture.

For many people the idea of social media seems to be a fad or something that is inconsequential in today’s society. For much of the last decade it was seen as the place for teens and unproductive young adults. Today it has become a force to recon with. This video pulls together some amazing statistics on just how social media is transforming our culture and our world.

This reality is on of the driving forces behind many NGO projects like the One Laptop Per Child program designed to decrease the digital divide between the haves and the have not’s. It is this same reality that makes the online presence of your church so important.

So, what is your church doing to be a part of the Social Media Revolution?

Let us know in the comments below.

Video by Socialnomics – Sources

Enter Tim Gray

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tim not only is the Lead Pastor/Vision Director of The Bridge Community Church in Leadington, MO but also the Athletic Director for Mineral Area College. The folks over at the Catalyst Space blog did a great interview with him. He shares about his approach to church and is worth the time to listen to it. He talked about being bi-vocational starting at 4 minutes.

Just imagine preaching about tithing when you don’t draw all or any of your salary from the church among any other subjects. Since preachers asking for money regularly tops the list of things un-churched people fear about coming to church.

(Hat Nod: catalystspace )

1. Define your purpose for this account, and be interesting
   When you clearly understand what your account is for everything will fall in line. People who follow you will understand the content you are posting, and will understand what content is coming in the future. This will attract the followers that you want.
2. Posts that have pass-along value
   When posting something decide if it has value that someone else might pass along. This would exclude comments about what you had for breakfast or what you are doing at this very moment. Unless of course what you are doing would have value to those you are interacting with on twitter.
3. Be a part of the Conversation
   Don’t just simply follow people. Talk to people about what is going on in life. There will be people you don’t know, and people you do. If you begin to interact you’d be surprised to watch some of these relationships make the online to offline jump.
4. Remember it’s Public
   Be smart about what you post. Remember that anyone out there can read your tweets. To avoid subjects that would be seen as culturally taboo, unless there is a purpose for it.
   

   Click here to view the embedded video.

5. Not for chatting
   We understand that people want to chat. There are several services out there for chatting online. Remember #4, that that conversation is completely public. People seeing this conversation will likely be turned off by it.
6. Response to someone RT your tweet?
   Its flattering and encouraging when someone retweets something you posted. As a best practice send a private message to those who you can. Otherwise a short reply (@username) saying thanks goes a long way.
7. When you RT from someone else
   Let people know that you are re-tweeting their post. It’s really simple, all you need to do is write ‘RT: @username -’ and then post the tweet. If it is to long when you re-post, see if there aren’t words you can shorten or take out.
8. Keep your content Fresh – NO Repeats!
   Don’t keep posting the same thing. People will stop following you since they believe they already know everything you are going to share with them.
9. Get an Icon, good description, and Custom Background
   There are very few customizable options on twitter, so use the ones you have! Use an icon people will recognize, and same goes for the background. Keep it simple. Make your description a sort of vision statement for your tweets. If you say you’re a Web Developer you should have posts about being a developer. If you say you’re a pastor you should post pastoral tweets.
10. Watch the self promotion!
    If you are posting good and original content then the need to self promote should be minimal. This includes bragging about the number of followers that you’ve gotten to. Keep the content fresh and relevant and people will understand your value.

Thats my top 10 list. There might be something that would be added to the list. Anything you want to add to it? Leave it in the comments or reply to us on twitter @nineteen05.

Related Post: Twitter and 50 Ways to FAIL

Sources: NetworkWorld, Adam Copeland, Brandflakes,

Below are some quotes from the project that are particularly relevant to the church. Remember, the better we understand how people are using their time the more likely they will be to make sacrifices for Jesus.

“On Sundays at 11 a.m., about 13 percent of Americans are at church or participating in other religious activities.”

Time spent on Religious Activity per day:

By Race:

• White people spent 7 minutes
• Black people spent 17 minutes
• Hispanic people spent 8 minutes

By Age:

• 15-24 spent 5 minutes
• 25-64 spent 8 minutes
• over 64 spent 15 minutes

By Gender:

• Men spend 7 minutes
• Women spend 10 minutes
• Everyone averaged 8 minutes

View the Visualization Online

(hat nod kottke)

In June 2009 a survey was done on twitter by Sysomos to see how people are using twitter. The results include the following.

• 72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009
• 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
• 21% of users have never posted a Tweet
• 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people
• 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
• New York has the most Twitters users, followed by Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco and Boston; while Detroit was the fast-growing city over the first five months of 2009
• More than 50% of all updates are published using tools, mobile and Web-based, other than Twitter.com. TweetDeck is the most popular non-Twitter.com tool with 19.7% market share.
• There are more women on Twitter (53%) than men (47%)
• Of the people who identify themselves as marketers, 15% follow more than 2,000 people. This compares with 0.29% of overall Twitter users who follow more than 2,000 people.

How do power users use twitter?

Of those 5% who account for 75% of the activity they discovered that (source):

• Of the most active Twitter users updating more than 150 times/day, nearly all of them are bots operated by sources such as hotels offering deals, regional and national news services, regional weather services, the top news within Digg, games, anim services, tags within del.icio.us and financial aggregators. These very active bots account for one-quarter of all tweets.
• Among the most active Twitter users with more than 50,000 followers, we find singer Tyrese (@tyrese4real), actress Alyssa Milano (@alyssa_milano), celebrity Tila Tequila (@officialtila), tv host Jonathan Ross (@wossy) and evangelist Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki).
• 60.6% of the most active Twitter users live in the United States, while 6.9% are located in the U.K, 4.7% in Japan, and 4.3% in Canada.
• The split between genders among the most active Twitter users is fairly balanced with 54% male, 46% female.
• 88% of the most active Twitter users have never missed a day without making at least one update, while another 2.1% have only been inactive for one day.
• 48% have more than 100 followers, compared with 6.3% for overall Twitter users.
• 44% of more than 100 friends, compared with 7.5% overall.
• 33.7% of the most active Twitter users have joined Twitter this year, compared with 72.5% of overall Twitter users who have signed up this year
• The most popular keywords within bios are Internet marketing, music lover, Web designer, video games, and husband/father.

When to post on twitter?

It is interesting to note the times of day that are most used on twitter. If you are posting something and hope others to see it is it best to be on the upside of these curves. Which would place it between 10 and noon, and then between 6 and 8pm.

Here at nineteen05 we have a passion and heart for church planters. We are birthed out of a church plant (substance church) and are using nineteen05 as a platform to let us plant a church in Europe in the next 5 years. So needless to say we were excited to read through these gems.

10 biggest mistakes I’ve made so far

1. I took it way too personal
2. I missed out on life
3. I tried to promote me rather than the mission
4. I did too much and delegated too little
5. I didn’t clearly define expectations
6. I sometimes forgot that this was God’s thing
7. I didn’t have healthy ways to deal with anxiety
8. I took myself too seriously
9. I spent too much time with the wrong people and not enough time with the right people
10. I focused way too much on the urgent rather than focusing on the important

As Josh posts more of these, we’ll update the list above with links to those posts.

The reason it has been an issue for designers in particular is that after a designer has finished their work, the client would reject it not liking something and the designer is then out of their time/effort/money. While the concept of spec work does exist on large scale (competitions for major building designs). Unless you are holding a competition for your new church building, don’t do spec work. Even with volunteers.

The newly appointed president of AIGA (the international designers association), Debbie Millman, on Spec Work.

I am personally vigorously, passionately and fundamentally AGAINST designers being asked to do work on spec and neither I nor my firm will ever participate in speculative work. I have said it before and I will say it again: Speculative work denigrates both the agencies and the designers that participate. If we give away our work for free, if we give away our talent and our expertise, we give away more than the work. We give away our souls.

Read the full interview over at NO!SPEC.

For more information on the NO!SPEC movement.

In another article about the Debbie Millman, the author referenced these great articles. The top three are particularly helpful for how the church is most likely to cross the SPEC boundary line.

• Spec Work Is Evil / Why I Hate CrowdSpring, by Andrew Hyde
• More logo design contest nonsense, on The Logo Factor
• Spec Watch on design contests, on Logo Design Love
• Don’t design on spec, by Jeffrey Zeldman
• Spec Work Arithmetic, from the Speak Up Archive
• An interview with SpecWatch, on Web Designer Depot
• Pay the Designer, on 8164
• The Personal Cost of Designing on Spec, by Mark Boulton

Hat Nod: swissmiss

Communicating the meaning and value of an idea (and the Gospel) has been a goal for as long as civilization has existed. This video takes a look at some of the physiological factors that cause our brains to create meaning. Understanding this can help us create more impacting messages and better forms of communication.

Watch the 6 minute video for all the details

Keys to help the brain understand meaning are:

1. Use Images to Clarify Ideas
2. Interact with images to create engagement
3. Augment Memory with Persistent & Evolving Views

If you have been reading here for a while you’ll know that I love the TED conference (Technology Education and Design). I love even more that I don’t have to shell out thousands of dollars to attend plus the cost of room+board and can instead watch video of the talks online or through iTunes.