Sometimes its great to just sit back, pull up Google Analytics and see just what’s bringing people to this site.
Apparently its NOT talking about emerging Christianity. My site visits have dropped each day since I started trying to explain it on Monday morning. Oh well.
So far this week these have been the top keywords/phrases used to bring people to casadeblundell.com:
Continue reading Fun with Google Analytics
As I mentioned last week, I’ve been reading “We Get to Carry Each Other – The Gospel According to U2.” A great read from Greg Garrett (who also wrote “Stories from the Edge – A Theology of Grief).
As a closing section in the book, Greg shares 10 spiritual lessons we can learn from U2.
I thought I’d share an additional 10 that I’ve learned along my journey as well. So here they are, in no particular order…
Continue reading 10 (additional) spiritual lessons from U2
WordPress is by far my favorite blogging software and I love the community that’s built around it and supports it. And I love even more that the developers have shown some love to BlackBerry folks by releasing a new WordPress application just for BlackBerry.
So if you’re seeing this – you can know that it works – and its awesome!
Woot woot!
Oh and I’ve included a photo from lunch yesterday as well (tacos from Fuel City in Dallas) ::
UPDATE: Was able to send this to my WordPress site – but it took FOREVER. Not sure if its something on the server side or the BlackBerry App. Will keep working with it.
Blake Huggins shared his thoughts on this great quote from NT Wright…
“It really is high time we developed a Christian ethic of blogging. Bad temper is bad temper even in the apparent privacy of your own hard drive, and harsh and unjust words, when released into the wild, rampage around and do real damage. And as for the practice of saying mean an unjust things behind a pseudonym – well if I get a letter like that it goes straight in the bin. But the cyberspace equivalents of road rage don’t happen by accident. People who type vicious, angry, slanderous and inaccurate accusations do so because they feel their worldview to be under attack.†– NT Wright
Blake continues…
I couldn’t agree more. Blogging is at the same time both great and dangerous. It brings out the best and the worst in us. I am grateful for the many friends that I have made through this platform but I get really put out with the slander and hateful words that are put forth under the auspices of speaking the truth or defending the faith, or whatever else. As Christians we have a great opportunity to have rich and robust conversation and to model what charitable dialogue and respectful disagreement might look like. At our best we do that well, but sometimes we blow it.
I totally agree with both. I’ve twittered and blogged several times in the past about how difficult it would be to go a whole day without complaining about something online.
Continue reading A Christian Ethic of Blogging
Wanted to highlight a few folks/groups that have really impressed me as of late in putting social media to great use for The Kingdom.
The first is Trinity Wall Street.
While their site itself is not full of social media tools – @headphonaught passed along a great way they’re telling the story of Jesus the Messiah today.
From noon to 3 p.m. today they twittered the entire passion story of Jesus’ last hours on the cross via GroupTweet.
via @tc226: This man befriends prostitutes, washes the feet of the poor – surely he is not a King but a blasphemer.
and the part of the story I’ve been meditating on today…
via @ServingGirl: Darkness and earthquake. I heard the curtain in the temple was torn in two. I wonder…
If you missed the story/play visit their twitter stream and scroll back to follow the story from the beginning.
Next, Church in the Cliff, which is just north of me in Oak Cliff has launched their new site built around lots of great social media tools.
The site itself is limited in wordy information. Other than the blog on the site, there’s only one other page on the site itself, a brief about us page.
The front page highlights their Flickr group, a tab/link to their Facebook group and one to their Twitter feed as well. They’re also using YouTube and a weekly Lifestream.
As a side note, Church in the Cliff has also come up with a great creative, transformative way to share God’s story this Resurrection season as well. They’ve put together an entire Stations of the Cross, using DART rail stations in Dallas. There’s a meditation guide on their site for folks and they’ll have their folks stationed at different areas to help add in the process. (although at the moment I can’t seem to find the PDF for downloading 🙁) .
Finally, I’d be amiss if I didn’t mention Mark Horvath (aka @hardlynormal and @invisiblepeople). We had Mark on our show a few weeks back. He’s putting social media to use in big ways, telling the stories of “invisible people” and the homeless and the media. Just look at his list of accounts:
So there are a few folks who are doing Kingdom (social) media well. Follow them, get inspiration and then find your own unique ways to tell God’s story.
Who else have you seen that’s putting social media to great use?
Back in January I shared an interview/chat I had with Adele Sackler (@existentialpunk) via Twitter. Well Thomas (@headphonaught) has one-upp’d me with a great chat he recorded for our podcast (@sbpodcast).
It was a great chat and we broke it up into two parts for your listening pleasure.
from the podcast:
this week we share the first part of Thomas’ conversation with Adele Sakler (aka existential punk). Adele grew up in a typical Protestant Christian family but in high school and college began to struggle with the issues between her faith and her attraction to other women. she’s now come to peace with the fact that she’s gay and a follower of The Way and she’s become a bold voice about her faith, her homosexuality as well as her Chronic Lyme Disease.
we realize that like many of our guests, you may not agree with Adele’s theology — she realizes that as well — but we invite you to take the time to listen to Adele’s story and hear her story for yourself. take the time to hear her story and view it and her as an entire package, not just shunning her for what you may not agree with. then we welcome your thoughts and comments. drop us an e-mail or phone call and let us know what you think.
So get on over to the something beautiful podcast, pour yourself a cup of coffee or Scottish Whiskey and listen in with your friends and family. It’s well worth it – imho.