Tag: online

Jelly Telly is online

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Phil Vischer (creator of Veggie Tales) has started a great new online venture in recent months :: Jelly Telly.

On his blog last year he walked through several of the big problems facing kids and media – specifically Christian kids and Christian media.

One of the problems he points out is that Christians are defined by what we hate – not who or what we love.

…there has been a price for this political focus. Today, 80% of non-Christians in America have a negative view of Christianity. When asked what word first sprang to mind when the term “Evangelical Christian” was mentioned, the number one answer from young adults in America was not “loving” or “self-sacrificing,” but rather, “homophobic.”

He also points out that most Christians aren’t really living out what it really means to be a follower of Christ and that Protestant Christians can no longer define “grace.”

So issue number one – we need an education.

Since God has given Phil a passion and a burden for kids, he naturally wants to begin this education with kids (hence Veggie Tales).

Issue or problem two – there’s no platform for Christian Media. There’s no American Idol, Nickelodeon or Disney for Christian media creators to launch their characters from. People aren’t walking into Christian bookstores like they used to and with the constant barrage from other media sources the Christian media content is quickly getting drowned out.

He also mentions that without platforms to launch media from, the creators aren’t likely to create the content. Sure a 24/7 cable network for kids would be great, but as Phil mentions, it could easily cost $100 million to get off the ground.

So along with these issues and the fact that Phil seems to feel the tugs of an “upside down King and Kingdom” interested in doing amazing things with Mustard Seeds (my words not his), he’s launched a new online network for kids.

I’ve checked out the site and I think it has a lot of things going for it…

First off, I like that (so far) they’re not trying to sell kids a bunch of products. I’m guessing that may change in the future as you have to find sponsors for any successful venture at some point. UPDATE: From the February news there might be a subscription service setup in the future – Phil suggested a $3 a month subscription possible but there are other ideas in works as well.

Secondly, they’re using video to tell God’s story. I’m always going to enjoy that.

Third, they’re using a medium kids are familiar with. What kid these days doesn’t know how to surf the Internet?

Fourth, they’re starting small. Like I mentioned before, I think God is about the Mustard Seed and doing things in an upside-down manner that the rest of the world may not understand. The web is the perfect launching pad for whatever God may have laid out for Jelly Telly in the future. As a friend told me this week – the Internet is the new Roman road. The network is already in place for sharing God’s story – we just have to put it to use.

Now personally, I’m not typically a big fan of “Christian alternatives” to everything the world puts out (i.e. “Christian music,” “Christian movies,” “Christian video games”) but I think this may be more inline with a real need. I personally like to believe that God’s truth can be found in everything but I can’t expect an eight year old kid to see that or understand it either. I think that at this point in my life I’d rather know that for the kids I care about, they’re getting that truth in easy bite-sized packaging without having to decipher it from all the rest.

Check out the site and/or bring a kid over to check it out for you. Let me know what you think.

And in the meantime, here’s a quick “About us” video for all the parents…

Things I’ve learned from Twitter (in the last 24 hours)

What we do

I was sharing with my life, Laurie, the other night that it’s amazing how intentional folks are on Twitter (and many on Facebook) about relationships.

I can send a txt message to 30 people and I don’t typically get any responses. I can share one message on Twitter – and within minutes 10 people from literally around the world let me know they’re praying for me. (UPDATE: I don’t mean that to say that folks who get my txt messages don’t care — see comments — but to hear or see someone actually say it does me good. I guess that’s why one of my big love languages is verbal/encouragement 🙂 ).

You really do have to be intentional about building relationships on Twitter. Otherwise it probably seems really pointless and a waste of time.

If you’re not into building relationships – you probably wouldn’t care that Jonny Baker is planning to live blog from an emerging worship conference in Oklahoma City.

Olly says girls have skills when it comes to putting on make-up in all sorts of situations.

Tripp Fuller and Chad Crawford scored an interview with Phyllis Tickle to discuss The Great Emergence. I’m looking forward to hearing the interview on their Homebrewed Christianity Podcast.

Mark Batterson is working on a new book – and likes to do it early in the morning.

Many people are still super buzzed about Obama’s election. However I think things are a little different for my friends over on Facebook. Does that make Facebook more conservative and Twitter more liberal? Or is just my friends?

Kevin Hendricks has written over 12,000 words in the novel he’s writing for nanowrimo.

Bruce Wagner has created a network at unitysocial.com. Looking forward to checking it out in a few minutes.

Sara Jane is going to UMHB’s homecoming this weekend.

Thomas went to see Sigur Ros last night while his wife stayed at home making Christmas cards and many of us on Twitter gave him a hard time about it. Today he found out he’s hosting a quiz for his team at work.

Trucker Frank is loading his truck in Shakopee MN, where it’s snowing a bit and then he’s heading to KC.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! If you’re still reading this, you should probably be on Twitter. If you’re not – well then I’m talking to myself – and my friends already on Twitter ;-).

re: How M. Scott Peck saved my life

Finished Not the Religious Type last week.

My friends are going to hate hearing the stuff that I too to heart from this book. 🙂

Stage 1,2,3,4…

Bounded sets and centered sets…

Living a life where we daily listen to God…

Great stuff!

If you’ve got time today, the author of Not the Religious Type Dave Schmelzer will be chatting online at Abunga.com about his book and views on religion both as a pastor and former atheist today, Oct. 29, from 2-3 p.m. EDT for anyone who wants to join in.

The chat will be held at Abunga.com/AuthorsAtAbunga. More details are available in our news release at: http://alrcnewskitchen.com/abunga/docs/flash/081023_dave_schmelzer.htm.

I also understand that the chat will be archived so folks like me who have to work during that time can check it out at a later point. And… I’m hoping to chat with David in the next week or so for an upcoming episode of the something beautiful podcast.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

The beauty of Twitter

Here’s one of those great articles I wish I had written. From @jontangerine… (HT to @stealingsand)

I like Twitter because…

It reminds me is that human beings are still tribal. As an example, if you check your own address book, or think about your family and friends, they probably number no more than two hundred people. We may have more in the book, but it’s rare for our intimates to be greater than two hundred people. Our networks are geographically dispersed these days. Even if your network is mostly in one location, people are so busy living that it can be difficult to stay in touch. Twitter is a facsimile of living and working in proximity for me, and provides something unique, too

Jon touches on a few things he’d like to see on twitter. I’d ditto those as well and add that I’d like to see easy ways to track physical locations as well. There are other social networks that will track your location. BrightKite will even alert you when other users or friends are in your area. A very cool feature indeed. But there’s not a good BrightKite app for Blackberry yet, so that’s a bit of a bummer for me and will probably keep me from switching anytime soon.

I also find this line from Jon’s article interesting, “but it’s rare for our intimates to be greater than two hundred people.”

I think that’s true in so many arenas of life. I only follow 66 people on twitter (and leave the SMS/txt message updates off for all but maybe 5 people) and while I have over 300 “friends” on facebook I really only keep up with/track half of them (if that). But of course it is nice when something catches my eye from those other 150ers and I can get updates on them as well.

I also see the 200 people limit playing out in churches/workplaces and more. It’s really hard to get to know more than 200 people or so in any regular setting. Even if there are 15,000 people in a room, do you really know more than 200 of them? Can you know more than 200 and build real relationships with them?

I think that’s what I love about online communities like Twitter. I know 10xs more about folks like @Jess_Hays and @sgalloway since they joined Twitter than I ever learned about them just seeing them for a couple hours on Sunday morning. The same goes for folks who constantly fill out surveys on Myspace. I learned tons of things about folks in my tribe thanks to them taking some time to be intentionally open.

What about you? What makes Twitter beautiful for you? Do you agree that it’s rare to have intimate relationships with more than 200 people? Do you think that number is much higher or less?

re: Social networking and the church

the city

Found some more info on Mars Hill’s social network, The City:

The site is being built around physical communities not as much as around online communities.

One of the design principles of The City, which has guided virtually every decision we’ve made, is that the physical is more important than the virtual. This subtle but significant difference provides the foundation for understanding how this new thing is going to work…

On my Facebook page, I’ve got dozens of friends. Of those friends, I would imagine that about one third are actually in the Seattle area. The other two thirds are people literally all over the world. While there is a certain cool factor in having a virtual Rolodex of everyone I’ve ever known, is there anything more to it than that? Sure, if I’m planning a trip out to one of the areas where they will be, it’s rather convenient, and I get to find out that my college friend is eating a ham sandwich (a la Twitter), but that doesn’t change my life or their life for that matter. When you’re trying to build an intentional community, Facebook just doesn’t cut it. There are too many off topic, off mission sorts of diversions that the game aspect of the site dominates any mission it could try to carry.

Now, Facebook can be incredibly missional for the 1% that choose to use it as a mission field and network specifically with that in mind, but I’m trying to think along the lines of how you get the 80% to that level. The framework will either make a compelling community, or it will not. I don’t believe Facebook ever will do that for the 80%.

More specifically they’re building the site around physical neighborhoods.

Simply, your neighborhood is everyone that lives near you. Pretty basic eh? So why is this a cool concept? Let’s look at a concrete yet fictional example.

John is a community group leader in Ballard; he hosts his group just a little down the road from the public library off Market. He’s got a relatively new group with just five folks in regular attendance. He invites people to his group regularly, but they live all over the place! Ballard draws people from all over Seattle (and beyond), and finding the right people has been tough.

Jim is new to Mars Hill. He attended his first service, stopped by The City kiosk afterwards, and signed up to be “connected”, whatever that means. The volunteer that helped him was nice enough, but Jim doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do next. He lives near the old firehouse on Market, in fact, he works as a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coach at the studio there. If only John knew Jim was in his backyard…

This is where the ‘neighborhood’ thing I checked into the code this morning comes into play. John would see in The City that a new guy showed up in his neighborhood (without having to dig for it), maybe The City would even say, “hey, you’re the closest community group!” and John could reach out to Jim with a couple of clicks.

Love it!

re: Social networking and the church

Here’s some more Intranet/Social Networking info from across the pond:

Robin Farr, editor of the employee intranet for the provincial government of British Columbia, is humanizing the way it communicates with its employees.

She does this by continuing to transform the government’s intranet from the neglected, dull afterthought it was less than two years ago into a living Web where 30,000 employees can see themselves talking about their jobs, find ideas to make their work easier and more fun, shop for bargains, buy and sell personal items, send e-cards to colleagues for a job well done, and more.

Farr has done all this with a staff of three, including herself. She does most of the writing, and until recently did it all. She manages a videographer and one Web administrator.

The employee response is spectacular. The site averages 170,000 hits a month—a 2800 percent jump in traffic—among the 30,000 province employees.

How did she do it? In hindsight, it’s simple. Conversing with employees like ordinary people through video and even archived content.

Read the full story