Scobleizer writes in his blog about visiting Fellowship Church in Dallas and discusses how they’ve used IT and technology to make people feel more welcome and at home at church.
He has some good points for churches and companies wanting to use technology to tell their story.
Make it easy for everyone to learn about you—on their terms. Scoble notes that the only thing visible from the freeway is the church’s url. Make it easy to experience your product’s special attributes. Scoble was given a DVD with an overview of the church. To get word-of-mouth advertising you need to be remarkable. 50 manned computer registration stations, all-digtal sound system, plasma screens everywhere, etc. Use IT to efficiently get close to your customers and take care of their needs. A high-tech system to register kids quickly and easily. If you want to be better, make sure you’re better from the first minutes of someone’s experience. The church makes a sports fan feel at home. If you want to be seen as bleeding edge, invest to be bleeding edge and do so throughout your company. They are the first church to film all their services in HDTV. Extend the usefulness of your plant. They make WiFi available to their congregation during the week. Design your systems so they never go down and can expand for future growth. they’ve got redundancy all over the place. Don’t be religious about technology, choose what gets the job done best for the least amount of money and staff time. While they heavily rely on Microsoft’s technology, they also use Macs and Linux when those platforms work better. When you become successful, bottle up what got you there and sell it to others. They sell their own software: FellowshipOne.
There’s bits and pieces there that each of us can use daily wherever we are.
Apparently a week or so ago, “my best friend” Shawn Michaels was interviewed before his match with WWE Superstar Edge (Adam Copeland). The brilliant journalist apparently mixed up The Edge of U2 with Edge of WWE. Way to go.
MARIA: Shawn Michaels, tonight you’re facing The Edge. Do you think you can win?
SHAWN: I’ll tell you what, Maria, I — did you just call him The Edge?
MARIA: [nods proudly]
SHAWN: …okay. You asked me if you thought I could win too, didn’tcha?
MARIA: [nods proudly]
SHAWN: I dunno, I guess now that I think about it, yeah! Yeah, I do think I can win. Especially after last week. You know something, Shelton Benjamin I have to admit gave me a run for my money last week. Shelton Benjamin, you are the finest piece of young talent that I have faced in this industry in the last 20 years, and you my friend have an incredibly bright future. Now that notwithstanding, someone’s future who is not looking so bright is … [points at Maria] The Edge! Haha! The name problems aside, he’s facing the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels.
Quality journalism there.
We had a discussion today in our office (however brief it was) about problems in journalism reporting.
This Monday, Newsweek magazine reported that a story that ran on May 9 was inaccurate. Now, an error in a news story is not that shocking, but the results of mistake is where the horror comes in.
The Newsweek article reported that U.S. military investigators had confirmed that personal at a Cuba detention center had flushed the Koran down the toilet as a means to get al-Queda and Taliban operatives to talk.
While it may seem harmless, 16 people were killed and more than 100 were injured in Afghanistan when angry protests were sparked from the report.
Desecration of the Koran is punishable by death in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and The Arab League have all condemned the report.
Now Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said he regretted that any part of the story was wrong.
“We extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst,” Whitaker wrote in the Monday, May 16 issue.
The magazine said that the information had come from a “knowledgeable government source.” Only now the source said he could not be certain he had seen the account of the Koran incident.
What does it say about our media, when we’re so pressed to get a news story that we find one “knowledgeable government source” to base an entire story on? What happened to being “democracy’s guardian angel?â€
For some reason, “find at least three sources for every story” still echoes in my head from my journalism classes.
Where have we, as the media, gone wrong?
Where did we cross the line that having an exclusive or keeping advertisers happy became the standard?
Why are we as a country more concerned with who testifies in Michael Jackson’s case or Kobe Bryant’s case, than the continent of Africa going up in flames with an AIDS crisis?
When did covering a congressional hearing on steroid abuse become more important than covering the thousands of lives that have been lost to civil war in the Darfur region?
Recent reports confirm that up to 400,000 people have died in Darfur as a result of the government-sponsored genocide. The New York Times reported recently that President Bush has actually asked Congress to delete provisions about Darfur from upcoming legislation.
Yet while this genocide continues to go on, the top stories online are, “Abu Ghraib abuser sentenced to six months prison” and “British lawmakers ask Congress to back off.”
According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, “News is the reporting of current events usually by local, regional or mass media in the form of newspapers, television and radio programs, or sites on the World Wide Web. News reporting is a type of journalism, typically written or broadcast in news style. Most news is investigated and presented by journalists (or reporters) and often distributed via news agencies. If the content of news is significant enough, it eventually becomes history.
“To be considered news, an event usually must have broad interest due to one or more news values:
Impact (how many people were, are or will be affected?)
Timeliness (did the event occur very recently?)
Revelation (is there significant new information, previously unknown?)
Proximity (was the event nearby geographically?)
Entertainment (does it make for a fun story?)
Oddity (was the event highly unusual?)
Celebrity (was anyone famous involved?)
“News coverage often includes the “five W’s and the H†— who, what, where, when, why, and how.â€
That last news value always upsets me.
So I think the real question is, who decides what the news is?
Does the public decide? With some of the phone calls and press releases I get, I have trouble believing sometimes the general public knows what news is. But granted, we are a hometown newspaper, where hometown events, however small, are important.
Maybe instead, managing editors and publishers who know the business side of the paper should decide what the news is.
Or maybe, we should leave it up to the wide-eyed, green journalism interns.
I don’t know for certain.
I don’t think anyone really knows. But we must keep the discussion open.
When the U.S.S. Maine was sunk in the late 1800’s, Stewart reports that the papers were more than willing to tell the story as they saw fit.
“The pairs blend of fiction, bigotry and jingoism became known as ‘Yellow Journalism,'” Stewart writes. “Later the term was shortened to ‘Journalism.'”
A free, honest and independent press is essential to democracy.
Without it, we might as well all take out lifetime subscriptions to the Thrifty Nickel.
“By removing the investigative aspect of investigative journalism, today’s modern media finally has the time to pursue the ultimate goal the founding fathers invisioned for news gathering organizations,†Stewart writes. “To raise the stock price of the media empire that owns them.â€
Well, I think the redesign is finally complete for the new Belton Christian Youth Center Website. I’m a lot happier with this version than the original I created around this time last year.
If you get a chance, browse through the site and see if you can find any errors or problems (and then be sure to let me know). A new website tends to always have bad links or other design issues, so let me know what you find.
If you want to get carried away, feel free to laugh at the old design and compare it to the new bright, colorful design.
I’d be amiss if I didn’t wish Kathryn a Happy Crappy Birthday. Granted, I’m sure no one really knows what that means, but that’s OK. Kathryn does and that’s all that matters.
This weekend was amazing.
I feel like I’ve been out of the loop all weekend. I don’t believe I checked my e-mail or the news or my regular blogs all weekend, but somehow I survived.
Saturday night the CWF had our “first show back” in Rockwall. It was amazing to be a part of, even if it was nothing more than the ring announcer.
I believe we counted approximately 250 people in attendance. We only had seats for 75.
And while everyone wants to critique their match and find the flaws, I really don’t care. I enjoyed five great matches, including a great Battle Royal and God used each person there.
15 people made decisions Saturday night, so no matter how many screwups anyone had, it goes to prove that when God is ready to work, it doesn’t matter how good we are or how bad we are – He’ll work.
So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty–handed. They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them. – Isaiah 55:11
For those of you keeping track, here’s a rundown of Saturday’s card:
The matches were for control of the CWF for the next three months.
Seven def. Michael Malick
Son of Thunder James Zebedee and The Zealot def. “Jesus Freak” Rob Vaughn with Tim Storm (DQ)
Jonah def. Phil “The Bishop” Barron
Shiloh def. Chris Idol
Battle Royal (last man standing) Winner: “Jesus Freak” Rob Vaughn
The New Blood won control of the CWF after the 2-2 tie and the win by Jesus Freak in the Battle Royal.
—
In the news:
Adding to his donation of $200 million in 2003, Bill Gates announced a pledge of $250 million toward the race to solve the world`s most pressing health problems through science and technology. The award will aid researchers as they tackle 14 specific public-health challenges in developing countries—ranging from the development of vaccines that need no refrigeration to creating a single staple crop to help alleviate malnutrition.
Here’s to putting your money where your mouth is.
Saturday is the big day. At 7 p.m. your fearless editor will make his triumphant wrestling debut as Dr. Blundell.
Well OK, maybe I should clarify. When I say my wrestling debut, I’m not really talking about ME wrestling.
It’s more like, I come in, tell people who the wrestlers are and get the fans worked up into a frenzy. I might even get to step into the ring once or twice.
Either way, I’m fired up. I’m almost as fired up as I was after taking my first body slam during workout last week.
And to be honest, I’m not so sure that I was fired up because I was thrown to the mat — or just fired up that one of my friends actually had the strength to lift my fat butt off the mat to begin with.
Way to go Storm.
So Saturday I’ll join a bunch of green wrestlers in the ring to show of our skills (cause girls like guys with skills) or the lack there of. But, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my short life, no matter what happens, the show must go on.
You’ve got to keep pushing ahead, even if your opponent literally knocks your head off or rolls over you and busts your mouth open.
You can’t get distracted by the rude kid in the third row who thinks your tights are sissy looking.
You can’t get down because your company truck breaks down at the intersection of I-35 and New Road — at 2:30 in the morning.
Oh wait – that’s a whole ‘nother story. Flip over to B2, maybe Allman will tell you about that, but that’s up to him.
You have to keep going when everything around you is crashing down.
Scripture says that when the spotlight was turned on Jesus, He was ready to stop everything. He anguished so much in the garden that drops of blood poured from his pores. That’s not normal. That’s extreme anguish. He cried out, “Father if it’s possible, take this cup from me.â€
But then He remembered, the show must go on. “I have a job to accomplish here and a silly cross is not gonna keep me from finishing my job.â€
He then prays, “Lord not your will but mine be done.â€
The show must go on.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.†– Ephesians 6:12
editor@beltonjournal.com
Oh and I ain’t dropping the belt. That thing’s 14 karat. I’m the champ!
Looking for something to liven up your church bulliten or publication, check out cartoonchurch.com. They have a number of great cartoons, including my current favorite, Born Again.
