Discombobulated Postings

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Sep 29, 2006 in Church, Culture | 0 comments

Number 1: ShallowValley Church To Begin New Series Based on the Songs of Queen – While you may think well-known bi-sexual front man Freddie Mercury would be an unlikely topic for a church sermon series, according to senior pastor, Bill Warren, Queen and Mercury present a great opportunity to present truth in a context people will understand. 

Is it too much of a stretch to use “Queen” as the basis of a message series?  “Not at all,” Warren says, many of Queen’s songs are clouded in mystery, just like the Bible.  Take “Bohemien Rhapsody”, for example.  Who even pretends to know what that song means?  That gives us the perfect chance to pull whatever we like from the Bible and make it accessible for today’s seeker.”

The series will end the second week of October with a special message taken from the Queen song “Fat Bottomed Girls”.  Warren said, “I’m not really sure what scripture I’ll preach that one from, but I’m sure it’s gonna be great!  After all, it’s an awesome song!”

Irrelevant Question: If you were to preach a series on any band, which band would it be?

Number 2: On the topic of preaching, David Allis the author of the article, The Problem with Preaching responds to David Fairchild's comments on my blog. Allis believes we should call the weekly 'sermons people give' teaching & eliminate the implicit ‘we preach because it is biblical’ assumption/confusion, & secondly calls pastors to evaluate the effectiveness of these monologues as an appropriate form of teaching. 

Number 3: I'm always interested in where culture is going and Guy Kawasaki , well known author and venture capitalist hosted a panel of teens entitled Next Generation Insights (Video 9/20/06).  Mainly insight into their habits, thoughts on marketing.  Helps understand a bit what makes them tick.  TomBomb attended the panel and summarizes some of his thoughts on this next generation.

My Blog can beat your Blog up

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Sep 28, 2006 in Culture, General Technology | 12 comments

In a world of fun competition, now geeks can brag about their (blog) strength!  Find out your blogs Page Strength.  So you can go and get the bragging rights, 'My blog can beat your blog up' here is a tool to find your sites page strength.  I took my blog roll to find out who would have the bragging rights to walk with swagger.

5.0 Goodmanson

4.5  Mark Driscoll
4.5  reformissionary (Steve McCoy)

4.0 Bruce Chant

3.5 David Fairchild
3.5 JoeThorn
3.5 CawleyBlog

2.5 Michael Foster
2.5 Pete Williamson

Can you feel it!  A little blog smack-down for you all!  Michael/Pete come on you two!

Filed Under: How to lose friends and annoy people. 

New Insights to the Depth and Complexity of Religion in the US

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Sep 28, 2006 in Church, Culture | 0 comments

Most survey studies that include questions about religion only have space to ask about basic religious indicators such as church attendance and belief in God.  Baylor releases a study that claims "it is the most extensive and sensitive study of religion ever conducted, linking up with the pioneering surveys conducted by Rodney Stark and Charles Y. Glock in the 1960s…It plumbs all facets of American religion and spirituality in depth − nearly 400 items cover such matters as religious beliefs and practices, including religious consumerism, as well as nonstandard beliefs (astrology, "Bigfoot," alien visitors, etc.) and practices (meditation, New Age therapies, etc)."

Some interesting findings include:

Nearly a fifth of Americans believe God favors the United States in world affairs.

On the demise of denominationalism:

“We find that just asking about religious preference, 33 percent of respondents said, ‘I don’t know about my religion,’ ” Dougherty said. “But five questions later, they gave us the name of their congregation.”  The confusion stems from the rise of nondenominational churches, he said.  “Denominations don’t mean as much as they used to,” he said.  “People don’t think of themselves as good Southern Baptists; they tend to think of themselves as good members of a particular congregation.” (Source: ReligionNewsBlog.com Nearly 20% in U.S. see God as on America’s side)

The majority (31 percent) of Christians believe in an “Authoritarian God” versus other reponses.. (Critical God 16 percent, Distant God 24 percent).  Great chart of this at thenonist.com American Piety in the 21st Century)

DOWNLOAD the Full Report: American Piety in the 21st Century: New Insights to the Depths and Complexity of Religion in the U.S

Roman Zen Moment

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Sep 28, 2006 in Church | 3 comments

List of Church Technology & Website Blogs & Resources

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Sep 27, 2006 in Church, General Technology | 10 comments

For those of you who like to follow the latest church web/technology out there, here are a list of blogs & resource sites:

ChurchTechBlogs (An aggregator of Church Tech Bloggers, that Goodmanson.com has been added to.)

Blog Ministry (A site dealing with web ministry & online evangelism)

Church Marketing Sucks (Church marketing, web and communication)

Godbit (Designing better church websites)

BetaChurch (Church design & technology) 

Church Technology Review (Church websites, technology and web 2.)

Geeks & God (Everything tech audio, web and beyond)

Churchbit (Group of like-minded church tech strategists, many of the participants on in this list.)

Uneeknet (Design, usability & web standards) 

Art of Mission (Web & church/mission)

Godly Creative (Web & church/mission)

Matt Heerema (Web & church/mission)

Nathan Smith (Web & church/mission)

Robert Evan (Web & church/mission)

Tim Bednar (Web & church/mission)

Goodmanson (web, technology, church planting & leadership) 

Gospelcon (the internet ministry/church conference)