Saddington’s Heroes at 8bit have done it. Someone with a voice in the modern Christian community finally stepped up to the line. Finally, someone with some pull has called out the pink elephant standing in the room for years.

Don't be a Social Media Troll.

Finally, someone has called BS on the Church using Spiritual Social Media, defaming the name of Jesus in the name of being hip, or by creating “Christian-safe alternatives”. Read it here.

Social Media is all about connecting to each other, not a pseudo-identity behind a corporate (or nonprofit) name. There is something inherently wrong about jumping on board with a concept just because it is the newest fad. When a company or nonprofit (or worse yet, church) uses their Social Media presence to simply market themselves in a new way instead of as connecting point, it’s BS. If you take the social part out of Social Media, it’s simply media.

Here’s a great example of Social Media like it should be. A couple weeks ago,

In an interesting turn of events, it appears that the people growing up in “Generation @” actually prefer to not be online.

(Credit: summerpierre.com)

Does this mean that, at any moment, Chicken Little will come screaming, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” causing a great alarm? Of course not! (But, if the news media finds itself with a slow news day, don’t be surprised if they start yelling it!) What this really means is something we’ve known for a long, long time (like 10 years now): some people are online a bunch, some are not.

Let me point out some things that may not sound profound, but will get you thinking. In the 90s and early 2000s, the techno-crazes were:

The other day, I wrote about 5 Core Elements to Be a True Online Expression of Jesus. I’d like to think it was a good article, and you should read it and leave a comment. Now. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Jane Jetson's all over telepresence!

All caught up now? Good. One of the terms I threw around was telepresence. While I would love to say I coined that word gilded in its shiny pants goodness, I did not. The first time I saw it was in SimChurch by Douglas Estes. In the book, he describes this theological concept of togetherness as described in Acts 4:32, but in the context of doing it online. His summary of the concept of telepresence is thus,

Today is a vision dreaming sort of day for me. The worship gathering with our local church body was fantastic and intimate. I even had the pleasure of doing lunch with a good friend afterward. All in all, it’s been a pretty good day if you ask me!

At lunch, we chatted about the upcoming Online Campus we’ll be launching. Since the gears are turning, I’ve been mulling over a few elements which I believe define an Online Campus. While this is not a conclusive list, it is the very bare minimum five requirements to become a functional, biblically ecclesiological expression of Jesus.

(Credit: Doug Shelton, CreativeMYK)

1. Be in sync with the church’s vision. Habakkuk 2:2f

This is the first and foremost requirement. If an Online Campus is not

In reading the articles posted on this site, it’s pretty hard to miss the fact that God has called me into online ministry. What that looks like exactly is, well, figuring that out is half the fun! If you want to join me on this adventure, why not subscribe to my RSS feed, or contribute through the comments below.

(Credit: Todd White, CreativeMYK)

As part of my serving at our local church (and I am strongly convicted that any believer should be part of a local, physical expression of the Church), is working with the Media Arts Team. Specifically within that Team, I am helping to birth a fully functional digital campus for the church. While thinking about what that may look like, and thinking about ministry in general within the local church, this thought came to mind:

When you spend a lot of time finding people to attend your ministry, you are really putting on an event. But when you put on an event to fulfill the needs of your people, you are then doing real ministry. (Tweet this idea!)

Let’s unpack that a little bit.

Well, today is a memorable day for me. You see, I have these certain milestones set up for the accomplishment of this site. Some of these milestones include my first book preview to help the author generate hype (coming soon by the way), 100 hundred posts and comments, 100 unique visits in one day, things like that.

Today’s milestone is the first milestone ever reached, my first

My life (and wife) in boxes.

Moving day finally came! I always find it amazing how much space we want to use as personal space versus how much space our possessions take up when packed. I have always been very thankful for the spacious apartments we have had. We have used that extra space to house missions kids, provide a crash for displaced friends, house traveling/visiting parents, and to fulfill the ever-present need for a little extra storage space. What will our next place look like? No clue. All I know is 90% of our possessions will be in a storage unit for the next several weeks. Oh well, I have my wife and Bun-Bun to keep me company, and that’s the important part.

What’s been your biggest or scariest move? If you had to put most of your stuff into storage for several weeks, what would make the cut, and what would get boxed and hauled?