Multisite-Why or Why Not?

Because of our own growth, I have tried to be a student of the whole multisite movement in recent months. I have heard both sides of the issue argued and I am reaching the conclusion that there is one very important outcome of the whole movement…..Churches are exploring and implementing creative new growth ideas in record numbers.

I’ve seen video venues, big idea campuses, one church-one budget-one staff models, strategic partner models, hybrid plants, networks and about every combination of these options. Churches are connecting venues on heir exisitng campus, across the street, across town and across the globe. They are meeting in schools, theatres, YMCA’s, community centers, malls and old church buidlings. It’s raising up new leaders and giving enterpreneural gifts a place to make a kingdom impact through the local church. It’s leveraging facilities for uses during times that they have historically been dormant. It’s going into cities, neighborhoods and venues in fresh new ways.

I believe Its the most incredible display of creative solutions to advance the gospel in the history of the church. There is no “one size fits all” in multisite. Using some basic principles, a church can spin it with their own personality and style and leverage existing facilities in strategic locations.

If your church is not exploring some multisite options, I would encourage the dialogue. What was started by some churches to manage growth can actually become a growth engine and give your comfortable or maybe tired paradigm a new wineskin to fill.

Muitsite thinking is not just a good idea. Its a tool to generate good ideas and creativity. Try it. It will help your church think outside the box. In fact, you might accidently launch a new campus that would outgrow your current one.

Cloud Computing

From Wikipedia…Cloud Computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet.

I am a “cloud” evangelist. Sounds pretty eternal doesn’t it?

I don’t consider myself to be an expert on IT issues and there are a lot of smarter people that can bury me in this debate, but I advocate the concept of cloud computing because it allows me to focus on one thing….speed.

Thats it. If I have bandwidth, I’m happy.

What about backup? Handled.
What about software updates? Done.
What about multisite access? No sweat.
What about redundancy? Covered.
What about cost fluctuations? Not my problem.
What about expanding hard drive space? Don’t need it.
and my list goes on…..

I use Fellowship One for church management, Quickbooks web for accounting, Renweb for the Christian school on our network, Event U for facilities management, Readyhosting for web hosting, Vimeo for video hosting and a variety of other services that specialize in support of our cloud computing habit.

Our church management system is provided by a SAS or Cloud vendor called Fellowship One. Their system manages several aspects of our daily operations, but it includes security check-in tags for every child every Sunday. Last weekend, they handled over 300,000 child check-ins for the churches on their network.

But what if they crash?

Great question. And that’s what keeps them up at nights. They’ve invested in data centers, redundant connectivity, 24/7 network specialists, the best and the brightest systems people and while nobody’s perfect, our experience has been exceptional. They’ve placed huge resources into making sure that I’m checking in my kids seamlessly. They are able to synergize the resources of thousand churches to provide a level of technology that I get to enjoy.

I’m not suggesting Cloud Computing is for everybody. But for me, I believe it let’s me focus on the more important issues of the ministry environments that I serve in and it deploys specialists to spend their days thinking about how to best support my world with the latest technology.

It keeps me focused on the real issue…..SPEED! And that’s why I live in the Cloud.

Social Networks: More Heart, Less Hype

There is a lot of discussion in cyberspace about the use of social networks and particularly the use of Twitter, Blogs and Facebook in the context of ministry and the church. My favorite response by ministry leaders is that they are way too busy to post and read about what people are eating for lunch, where they are going and what they are doing…in two hour increments every day.

Couldn’t agree more.

And in the words of Jim Collins, “Technology is an accelerator” which implies that if the technology does not enhance my world, then it is not serving a purpose.

But consider this option.

In ministry and life in general, our days are filled with activities that affect us, our families, the people that we lead and the world around us.

Decisions are made that sometimes are filled with heart wrenching processes and they can affect scores of people. But we usually deliver those decisions in limited venues with a summary of our conclusions and action steps for implementation.

Journeys are shaped by experiences that impact our lives and change the trajectory of who we are becoming as leaders and we try our best to find a place to log those stories for a future talk or presentation.

But what about now?

What if people had the opportunity to follow the journey and get to the “heart’ of the decision you are wrestling with before you reached a conclusion? What if people could join you in a hospital room or on a mission trip when you had a word or an experience that profoundly pushed your worldview?

A few days ago, I was following a well known author while he travelled through Africa on a mission trip. Having read many of his books, I am confident we will see his experiences in print someday. But I noticed that one day while travelling he twittered….”Met a widow today who lives w/4 kids n 100 sq ft house. Said: “I’m the happiest woman on earth.”

In that brief moment of 20 words, I joined him on his mission trip half way around the world and connected to a value that I am confident had an impact on his life and for a moment caused me to reflect on my own set of values for that day.

One of the values that I believe characterizes the next generation is their passion for their leaders to be open, honest and authentic. Seems to me that the whole social network world can be about displaying the unfolding of those values. Facebook, Twitter or a blog can be about sharing your heart as it’s being shaped on the journey.

So quit telling us what you had for lunch and don’t sign up for social networks if your goal is to hype your next event.

But if your lunch included a conversation that caused you to rethink your day or if your upcoming event is birthed out of what God is doing in your life, your church or the world…then maybe that’s worth the keystrokes.

Give us more “Heart” and less “Hype” and let’s grow together.

ENGAGE:The Future of Missions

I’m not a theologian or a missiologist, but I am an experienced observer.

Almost 20 years ago I made my first trip into China. Until that time I was a mission’s “supporter” . I tried to understand the need and look for ways to support the work. I gave money, attended services where missionarys shared their stories and I even opened my home a few times to some missionary families. I was ahead of the curve by my generation’s standards.

But I have watched the paradigm shift and it’s picking up steam.

The next generation isn’t “supporting” missions.

Rarely will you find a young family that just sends a check and occaisionally comes to a service for a slide show of a missionarie’s work.

The next generation isn’t “supporting” missions.

They’re “engaging” in missions.

They are taking short term trips in record numbers. They are financially adopting orphans and corresponding with them. They are building habitat houses, serving in hot meal programs, collecting can goods, donating clothing to clothing banks, skyping across the globe, emailing international friends and opening their homes to foreign exchange students from local universities. They are committing their careers and leveraging their education, skills and talents to serve in mission roles all over the world.

I sat in a global medical conference at Southeast Christian in Lousville a couple of years ago surrounded by hundreds of medical students who were not trying to calculate their six digit income out of medical school, but they were trying to find the best place to pour their lives into an under served medical need outside of the US. It’s the best and the brightest and their stepping up to the need in record numbers.

If you are a church, a mission agency, a missionary or a even a denomination and you are trying to get the next generation to “support” your mission’s program…your chasing the old paradigm.

They want to “engage”.

We know the needs are huge, but we had better provide massive numbers of “engaging” opportunities because they are going to out number the “supporter” generation in numbers that will change the world.

O3B

There are 6.7 Billion people on the earth. At the this writing there are approximately half of that world connected. It is certainly a passion of business and ministry leaders around the world to connect to this last frontier. But when?

Enter O3B Networks.

“At O3b Networks, our mission is to make the Internet accessible and affordable to everyone on the planet. We will enrich lives and ensure equal and fair access to information through ubiquitous, high-speed connectivity to the world’s content and applications.”

A partnership including Google that exists to connect “the other 3 billion”. Delivery in late 2010?

Wow. Then the question becomes, “what would you different if you could connect to the areas of the world that have never been reached?”

Then There’s Android

And if the world has internet access then how do they connect….

Meet Android

Just happens to be another Google venture that will allow a basic mobile handset to interface in comprehensive ways with the internet. At a very low cost, it seems that people in some of the most remote areas of the globe could connect and have access to unlimited content.

And so I have to ask…“what would you different if you could deliver content to the areas of the world that have never been reached?”