Tag: encounterthis.com

What’s behind these community groups?

I’ve asked everyone in our community groups at encounter to take a couple minutes and either fill out an online survey or a printed version of the survey regarding their experiences in their encounter community group.

I’ve received some of the community group surveys back already – (they were sent out roughly a week ago)

A few interesting things so far… (from the current respondents).

  • 87% are married
  • 75% have children
  • 75% learned about their group from a Sunday morning announcement
  • 87% attend their group regularly (3-4 times a month)
  • 100% attend encounter – 100% attend frequently
  • 75% have attended encounter for more than a year
  • 87% have been a Christ follower for at least 3 years
  • 62% rarely or never attended church growing up
  • 100% are involved in other encounter ministries
  • 100% would recommend their group
  • 67% have invited at least 1 person to their group
  • 100% would rank the quality of their group 3 or higher on a 1-5 scale
  • 50% would rank the quality of their group a 5

I have a feeling these results have come primarily from one or two groups, so it will be interesting to see how the rest of the results turn out and if there’s much variation. I’d also be interested to see how other churches score.

(re)Quote for the day

I was looking through some old blog posts of mine this morning and came across this quote:

“Consider the possibility that a church should own no property at all”
Larson, Osborne, The Emerging Church (1970), p51

Posted March 24, 2006. Almost one month before Phil and I walked into encounter for the first time. Funny how God works things out.

Twitter in plain English

The folks at CommonCraft have put together a great basic video explaining Twitter in plain English.

Great stuff. I know my mom reads my Twitter feed (per some of the questions and conversations she brings up) but I think she reads it via the Casa de Blundell news feed – not going to the Twitter site per-say. Wonder if I can ever get her to sign up and start Twittering during the day…..

If you’re interested, I’m jdblundell on Twitter.
My best friend, (that doesn’t live with me) Matt, is Medicmml.
My buddy Thomas is headphonaught.
My good friend and pastor Brian is at Brian12345678 (although you won’t get much out of him).
You can get encounter news via encounterthis.

Anyone else out there that I should be following?

BTW – I love the simple video CommonCraft did as well. Nothing with fancy computer graphics – just fun paper images moved around with their hands and fingers.

From Sunday

Unfortunately there was some sort of weird problem with our audio recording of Sunday’s encounter service. So the podcast hasn’t been posted yet. Hopefully we’ll get it fixed and post the podcast within the next week.

Brian did find the video we watched Sunday over on YouTube. Here it is. Good stuff…

“…when I say share I’m not talking about every tactic you’ve used on me in the past, like judging my every move, telling me I’m a bad person, pointing fingers, giving me disgusting looks. And my favorite is when you tell me that I’m lost. I don’t even know what it means to be lost. Do you really think judging me is going to make me change? Would it make you change?”

From the encounter blog:

The video was part of the conclusion to the “inverted” series at encounter sunday. the ultimate inversion happens when our life is given away completely for the sake of Christ and demonstrated in giving ourselves away completely for the sake of the gospel.

The fact that we have to be reminded of the needs that exist beyond our own life shows how quickly and easily we default to self. We think its all about us. Inversion calls us out.

The one who inverts his life to this degree discovers a new meaning and joy to life. He does so out of love for Christ and others and not out of duty or demand. He finds great delight in serving instead of being served, going last instead of first, giving instead of taking, being humble instead of proud, forgiving instead of holding on to bitterness.

God, invert us!

Social networking and the church

So I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not – but there’s this phenomenon going on around you – Web 2.0.
I don’t know that anyone’s really settled on a definition of this new wave of Internet sites but I think everyone can agree on what it’s not – stagnant, outdated websites that simply push information onto people, rather than allowing them the opportunity to pull the information they want/need.

Think about sites like Flickr, YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, Wikipedia and Twitter where there’s a broad wealth of information and content that is typically user driven and user created. No more Mr. Corporate America telling people what they will and can’t read. Users are sharing content and connecting in new amazing ways.

Last week as Laurie and I were out and about I received an update via txt message from my mate Thomas over in Scotland. He was watching the final episode of 24, Season 6 with his wife.
I commented that I knew more about Thomas than most of my friends who live within a 30-45 mile radius of my home — and Thomas and I have never met in person. Thomas later commented that he knows more about Laurie and I than he does our next door neighbor – maybe a good thing and a bad thing.

As part of my job here at DCCCD we’ve been discussing our district’s and specifically our department’s Intranet presence. I was forwarded an article (must be a member to read) yesterday from Communication World that suggests most Intranet sites are built around early 1990 standards, not the new Web 2.0 ideas. I would hardily agree – at least of the few that I’ve seen.

Most companies chose to block Web 2.0 sites and applications from their users – I’m sure Laurie can give you an earful on how annoying that is for her where she works. She’s now blocked from visiting our own personal blogs and sites at work. She has to use a work around by using a VNC viewer to access the web over her computer and our DSL at home – very clever on her part.

The article in Communication World also suggests that because these Web 2.0 platforms work so well, people are finding their own work arounds for sharing information and building communities – even work related communities.

So what about our churches? Do we know folks we’ve met through Myspace or Facebook better than those around us at the ultimate community – our own church? And can churches use Web 2.0 ideas to build community – or should they?

After reading the article in Communication World it occurred to me, there may also be some Open Source Social Networking software out there. Sure enough – there is.
I found Elgg which looks like it’s super customizable (and also appears to have their entire website built around a Wiki). Could churches use software like Elgg to build their website, or at least expand on their current website? Or should churches simply build communities around social networks that are already out there?

I tend to believe we should be where the people are – not pulling them into separate realms or worlds but I don’t know. Maybe something like encounterSpace or iencounter would be beneficial. Right now our average attendance is between 180-250 each week. By far MySpace seems to be the most used social networking site used by folks at our church. We have 75 MySpace friends, we have 21 members in the encounter Facebook group and 4 or 5 people who have submitted photos to the encounter Flickr group. But would those numbers increase and communities form on a separate network “exclusive” for encounter folks? I don’t know. I participate in a semi-social networking site for geocaching but I don’t typically seek out other geocaches on places like Facebook and MySpace. Yet while my university offers an Alumni Social Networking portal, I’m more likely to connect with folks from UMHB through MySpace or Facebook. What do you think?