Church Technology & Mission

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Aug 30, 2006 in Church, Culture, General Technology | 5 comments

I presented a session, Technology & the Mission yesterday at a church planting bootcamp . Session Description: "There are numerous opportunities for churches to use technology to expand their reach, spread the gospel and gather people to your local church. Come learn practical ways to enhance your ministry and become incarnational-minded in how you do online ministry. Learn from case studies and best practices from churches that have been successful online."

The two main thrusts dealt with (1) how are you as the church communicating to the world online and (2) how are your reaching out incarnationally to people through the web.  For example, if:

• - American ages 13 to 24 now spend more time online than they do in front of the TV.
• - 64% of wired Americans have used the Internet for spiritual or religious purposes.
• - During usability studies, 88% of web users went to a search engine first to accomplish a task and 53% of searchers didn’t scroll down past the first 4-5 results above the ‘page fold’.
• - MySpace (in terms of market share) is the top site on the Internet.
• - 45% of internet users, or about 60 million Americans, say that the internet helped them make big decisions or negotiate their way through major episodes in their lives in the previous two years

What should the church be doing in response to this?  I presented 4 best practice cases where churches incarnationally used the internet to reach the lost and minister the gospel to them.  I'll post the mp3 of the session when it's ready. I'm thinking that in order for the mp3 to be effective I'll need to tie it in to my slideshow (I had 45 slides) or else it won't make much sense.  I used a lot of examples and case studies to demonstrate the point.  The presentation is all part of my plan to become a Church Technology Missiologist (You have to pick a niche since Ed Stetzer has wrapped up the missiology corner.)  

tags: church websites, church technology, web 2.0, sermon syndication, content management systems, online marketing

Church Planting Bootcamp & Church Conference

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Aug 30, 2006 in Church, Church Planting, Teaching | 1 comment

Today was the last day of sessions for the Church Planting Bootcamp & Church Conference.  Overall, I was greatly blessed by the sessions.  Tomorrow will be all-day assessments of potential church planters.  Some of the sessions I will post more information about include:

Leading the Mission by Daniel Montgomery, The Gospel Driven Church by Richard Kaufmann and Multiplying by Multi-Site by Doug Swagerty (all done without video venue in case you are wondering.  This model allows church planters to begin a movement, not just a church plant.  Doug is hosting another Mutli-Site Multi-Congregational conference next year in March for those interested.  (There will be mp3s to all the sessions at the church bootcamp as well.)

Young, Restless, Reformed

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Aug 29, 2006 in Church, Culture | 2 comments

Christianity Today's September cover : Young, Restless, Reformed – Calvinism is making a comeback—and shaking up the church. There is a resurgence in theology, as I mention why I think this matters in Five Trends for the Future of Church Planting. (Liberal churches that chunk theology for relevance will become social clubs.  Emerging churches who are in a conversation on a journey together as an authentic community walking a spiritual labyrinth without theological boundaries and a destination in mind will not make it.) More and more young people are thinking through this as a backlash to the postmodern mess we find ourselves in. There will be a whole new cadre of theologians that come from our generation. Or as Mark Driscoll says it,

"I like big books and I can not lie, You other brothers can't deny.." (think Sir Mix-A-Lot)

Here is a quote from the article:

"While the Emergent 'conversation' gets a lot of press for its appeal to the young, the new Reformed movement may be a larger and more pervasive phenomenon."

 Here is a list of some of the people mentioned in the article:

Alistair Begg, Don Carson, Bryan Chapell, Timothy George, Mike Horton, Tim Keller, John MacArthur, Tom Nettles and Phil Ryken, as well as the Acts 29 Network (Mark Driscoll), the Alliance, Covenant Seminary, Cyrene Ministries (go Anthony and Sherrard!), Ligonier Ministries, the PCA, Reformed Seminary, RUF (Reformed University Fellowship), Sovereign Grace Ministries and Westminster Seminary.

 Some other blogs mentioning this: Caveman Unleashed, reformation21

Five Trends for the Future of Church Planting

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Aug 26, 2006 in Church, Church Planting | 7 comments

1.  A move from denominationalism is going to radically alter church planting.  Local smaller churches will partner together to plant churches.  Larger churches will follow in Redeemer's footsteps and be more concerned with planting gospel-centered churches, than churches of their own denomination. Already, our church in San Diego has leaders as well as partners from multiple denominations.

2. Church planting networks will merge, collaborate and partner to more effectively plant churches.  For example, Todd Wilson, behind the 2006 National New Church Conference started a Church Planting Network, whose aim is to, "help champion an explosive expansion of new reproducing churches through an alliance of collaborative church planting networks."  He has already seen this shift begin in a couple networks.  Even next years New Church Conference states the goal of, "helping church plant leaders to the next level of collaboration.  Together we can experience exponential growth of new churches in our generation."  At last years conference, Bob Roberts of Glocalnet gave an impassioned plea to the leaders of many of the church planting networks in this regard at a dinner for church planting networks and sponsors of the conference.

3. In America, churches will be planted at a faster rate in the next twenty years than we have witnessed before.  God, Technology (see #5 re: video venue), technique (mutli-site) and theological urgency will drive this.  More and more of the pastors will come from the laity.  In this same period, established churches clinging to methods will die at a faster rate than ever before.

4. Philosophy/worldview, world events and a renewed focus on kingdom/gospel/mercy ministries will contribute to a revival in America.  First, in America postmodernism (particularly the view of truth being relative) will be replaced as people are confronted with radical and extreme views.  Second, the increase in chaos in the world and a shift in our economy will drive people away from worldview complacency.  Lastly, expressions of mercy and a greater gospel cooperation (1 & 2) will create a greater witness of the church.  Those who hold to the gospel and focus on gospel ecumenism will thrive; liberal churches will lose their identity trying to be relevant.

5.  More churches will be planted without the role of a preaching pastor.  Many church plant organizations will promote the use of 'best of' or license videos from top preachers across America.  Already there have been churches who have licensed Willow Creek material for tens of thousands (I heard $50k) a year.  Others will simply pick series that they believe will draw the biggest crowd.  There already is one church plant that has grown to over 600 within a couple months using this method.  (Someone could probably make some good money by contacting all the 'big name' pastors and create a company that licenses their work to churches.)

Gospel & Our Culture Network

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Aug 25, 2006 in Church, Culture | 0 comments

The Gospel & Our Culture Network re-launched their site.  It has a great new design.  The GOCN is a "network of Christian leaders from a wide array of churches and organizations, who are working together on the frontier of the missionary encounter of the gospel with North American assumptions, perspectives, preferences and practices."  Influenced by Lesslie Newbigin and led George R. Hunsberger it collects the writings many great thinkers on mission in our culture.  I've personally been influenced by many of their books including; The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission, Foolishness to the Greeks, The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America, Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, StormFront : The Good News of God and more…  (HT: Reformissionary )