Mom Has a Wicked Curveball

Originally published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Moms and Sons, “Mom Has a Wicked Curveball” was reprinted on Beliefnet.com. It’s by DisciplesWorld contributing writer and mom Tanya J. Tyler, and goes out to all you single parents. An excerpt:

On the way to the park, it strikes me as singularly sad that this little boy has to play baseball with his mother. Not that I’m a slouch; after all, I was a softball star in high school and college, and I’m still a mainstay on my church and work softball teams. And it’s not that I don’t love baseball, because I do. It’s just that sometimes I wish my son had someone else to play ball with him. Someone male.

Read the full story here.

Social Monday: Can Twitter Save Your Church’s Soul?

The world is aflitter over Twitter. The micro-blog service seems to be popping up everywhere in our culture lately. From television news coverage of the Presidential debates to the first reports and images of the crash of U.S. Airways flight 1549, Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets have been getting a lot of attention and press. All of this attention, in my opinion, is absolutely warranted. These new social technologies are allowing people to connect with each other and share information in ways that we could have never imagined 20 years ago, and this has major implications for churches. 

When people are connecting, no matter what over, there is always opportunity. Corporations, our government, non-profits, and churches are all logging in to the social media world to try and tap into this wealth of warm bodies to win over as new customers, donors, and even parishoners. Personally, I have used Twitter to contact customer service about my cable television service, blogs to obtain information about everything from news to products to candidates, and my favorite podcast helps me decide which new gadget is my next “must have.” My own church, University Christian Church in Seattle, uses Twitter, podcasting, and blogs. Even Disciples World is using Twitter.  With all of the new possibilities new communications tools like Twitter have to offer, social media is the answer to our churches evangelism and outreach prayers, right? Not exactly.

While these tools are certainly wonderful, they are not magic pills to reach a new generation of people.  Setting up a Twitter account or Facebook page for your church will not automatically make your church attractive to the 20 something crowd.  Contrary to what we may wish, there is no tool or program that will make people want to come to our churches.  What makes people want to be a part of our church communities is the same today as it was 2,000 years ago — storytelling.  When we are able to tell our story (i.e. God’s story) to the world both honestly and relevantly, we tap into the same power that drew and continues to draw so many to Jesus.  It is from the telling of our story (who we are, why we are here, what we are like, etc.), not the technology itself, that tools like Twitter derive their power for churches.

So, how do churches go about telling their story using these new tools?  

First, churches need to become good listeners.  These new social media tools are all about conversation.  As we all know, the key to being a good conversationalist is being a good listener.  These new tools are not like radio or television where the goal is to broadcast a slick message to as many people as possible.  Instead, these tools focus on two-way communication.  Often times, these conversations are messy, silly, hard…anything but slick and easy.  They are, however, quite often meaningful.  Communicating like this outside of the church walls can be a new experience for churches, but it is not impossible.  If a church wants to begin using something like Twitter, the best thing for them to do is to start by seeing what other people and organizations are talking about and how they are talking about them.

Second, churches need to be willing to play.  Jesus told us that we must become as little children.  Social media offers churches a great opportunity to do just that.  When a church enters the world of social media, it will make mistakes.  It will do and say things that seem silly at times.  That is okay.  In order to be a good teller of its story, a church needs to be willing to speak like a human and not like an organization…and humans look a bit silly from time to time.  So go out and make mistakes…it is the best way to learn.

Finally, churches need to be honest as they tell their stories.  A church that tries to be something it is not will not enjoy much success in the world of social media.  If people sense you are not being honest, they will stop listening to you.  You don’t have to be flashy or cool to be relevant and engaging.  Your church’s power to attract people doesn’t lie in cleverly crafted marketing copy or cool graphics.  Instead, it lies in the power of God.  Trust that.

Social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, podcasting, or blogs are nothing to be afraid of for churches.  While the technologies may seem new and strange, they can be learned.  The heart and soul of these tools, though, is nothing new to churches.  Churches have been telling their stories for a long time now.  If your church chooses to use some of these new tools (and I hope you do), use them bravely and honestly.  Have fun with them.  And, above all, tell your story well!

Will Boyd is a social media and new media producer and consultant.  His company, Will Boyd Media Solutions, specializes in helping faith groups and non-profits navigate the world of social media, podcasting, and technology to tell their stories to the world.  He has worked with Sojourners Magazine, the Disciples of Christ Historical Society, Goddard College, the Disciples Divinity House at Vanderbilt, and others.  Will also recently finished a bachelor of arts degree from Goddard College focused on the role of new media and social technologies in the world of sustainable marketing.  Will lives in Seattle with his wife, a Disciples pastor.

Rockin’ the blogroll 2/19/09

What would Jesus do if he was at his favorite Mexican restaurant, enjoying a Taco Salad and catching up on some reading, and overheard a couple sitting nearby trying to convince a young man to join a nefarious pyramid scheme (as opposed to, say, a benevolent pyramid scheme?)  Well, I don’t know what Jesus would do, but now I know what Disciples blogger Dan Mayes did. I’ll let him tell you.

Katherine Willis Pershey, over at any day a beautiful change, admits an aversion to hipness, both in the church, and in the fabric store.

Mad God Woman shares a link to another great blog, Stuff Christians Like. It’s not just a one-off list; each item of “Stuff” has its own blog posting. And he’s up to #495: Wondering if We’re Worth Anything.  Another great posting there compares different Bible versions to G.I. Joe characters (still works even if you don’t know your characters). Another recent posts from the Mad God Woman: Mitres of Fire, Hazards of Habit, about one of the major mistakes pastors make. Rock on, preacher lady.

Meet PaMdora

The Vintage Purse, an art quilt image created by Pam RuBert and featuring PaMdora

Have you met PaMdora? She’s a recurring character created by Pam RuBert, quilter and artist extraordinaire. RuBert graduated from Disciples-related Williams Woods University a Disciples of Christ-related school in Fulton, Mo.

Rubert has won awards and attention for her work, and was featured in a PBS documentary and in the January-February issue of American Style Magazine.

Read contributing writer Robyn Graves’ article on RuBert here. Also, you can follow PaMdora on Twitter or visit Rubert’s website to view more of her work and check out the PaMdora’s Box  blog.

Social Monday: Church 2.0: Spider vs. Starfish – Part two

Last week, I threw a bit of a teaser out there, with this whole “Spider vs. Starfish” concept. As I’m sure many of you have lost hours of sleep, and perhaps have had a hard time forcing down a decent meal in eager anticipation of the follow-up, I figured it wasn’t fair to keep you waiting any longer.

The whole concept came from a book on business management practices, called The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom. The model presented here resonates with the idea I’ve had for a while now that church could learn a whole lot from the structure and governance of organizations like twelve-step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. After all, they have reached millions with virtually no budget, and they seem immune to economic conditions, flourishing while we institutional churches struggle to keep the doors open.

So what’s the difference?

I might help answer that question with another question; if you cut the head off a spider, what happens? We all know it dies, right? But what if you cut off the arm of a starfish? It just grows another starfish. Where you once had one, there are now two. In trying to stop it, you actually only made it stronger.

So, how many of our churches are more like spiders instead of starfish? I thought so.

Here’s where the advent of recent technology might teach us an awful lot. If Rebecca Woods will indulge me in the future, I’d gladly post some other blogs about using applications like facebook, podcasting and blogging to further our ministries, but for now, let’s consider them a little more systematically.

In particular, consider a phenomenon known as “Web 2.0.” This is much like the so-called “leaderless organizations” that Brafman and Beckstrom are referring to. They are viral in nature, highly adaptable and scalable, and relatively easy to manage because the users generate the content.

I’ll offer a few examples to clarify the differences between a 1.0 – or spider – model and a 2.0 – or starfish – system. Amazon, which has become a behemoth presence for online commerce, would be considered a 1.0 model. They have a product that they sell to customers, pretty much in the traditional model, despite their lack of storefronts. Though they’ve been successful up until now, they are depending on some basic truths about the market. If, for example, the cost of paper or transport fuel went through the roof, it would affect their business model significantly, or if a supplier shut down, they might be stuck.

eBay, on the other hand, is a 2.0, or starfish, model. eBay, as you probably know, doesn’t actually sell anything. All they do is create the framework within which people can conduct business. This means they can be a conduit for everything from sweat socks to automobiles and homes. If the price of gold plummeted and jewelry markets crumbled, people could just sell more baseball cards or used books on eBay.

Another comparison might be looking at the difference between the traditional military structure versus a network like Al Qaida. Though you can throw an entire military into chaos by attacking its senior leadership or supply lines, Al Qaida is hard to stop in one sense because it is a headless beast. You kill or capture current leaders, and a dozen more pop up in their place. The system is so adaptable, it’s hard to stop.

Our churches have been based upon a 1.0 “spider” model for centuries, and so far, it’s worked pretty well. But now, we’re surrounded by starfish like facebook, Craigslist, BitTorrent, MySpace, eBay and the like, and we wonder why it is that we, the institutional church, don’t seem relevant to younger people.

For starters, we not only don’t look familiar: we don’t even look relevant.

People may not be able to put their finger on it, but they know 1.0 versus 2.0 when they see it, especially younger people. There are consequences to being a starfish organization instead of a spider, such as letting go some control over the content exchanged within the system, but there’s great opportunity as well.

In future installments, I’ll discuss a few more ways in which we can employ Church 2.0 methods in our existing congregations, both with technology, and even on our boards and in our Sunday School rooms. But for now, look around you and see if you can start spotting the differences between the spiders and starfish, all around you.

Until next time!

Christian Piatt is the author of MySpace to Sacred Space: God for a New Generation, and Lost: A Search for Meaning, and he is a columnist for various newspapers, magazines and websites on the topics of theology and popular culture. He is the co-founder of Milagro Christian Church in Pueblo, Colorado with his wife, Amy. For more information about Christian, visit www.christianpiatt.com.

Disciples charged to bring unity to Puerto Rico

Contributing writer Ted Parks made this final report from Bayamon, where the Disciples of Christ in Puerto Rico concluded their Centenary Convention on Feb. 15.  Look for articles from Parks later this week on DisciplesWorld’s website and in the April issue of the magazine.

Puerto Rican Disciples crowned a century of gatherings as a body of believers Sunday afternoon with the closing service of their Centenary Convention in the Rubén Rodríguez Coliseum in Bayamón near San Juan. With music provided by a 300-voice chorus and the event potentially bringing together 104 Disciple congregations and six mission points from across the island, the 100th convention contrasted the first gathering, when the members of a handful of churches — the fruit of a still nascent mission effort by North American Disciples — also met in Bayamón. Though no official figures were announced, attendance at the Sunday event was likely more than 3,500 people.

General pastor Esteban González Doble preached at the concluding service, emphasizing once more the convention’s theme of unity. González explained that talking about unity should come as no surprise for a gathering of Disciples, with oneness a cherished and essential element in Disciples thought and practice. But the general pastor moved quickly from the importance of unity in general to the importance of unity for Puerto Rico, telling the convention that the island nation “urgently” needed a church that modeled oneness in a fragmented society.

After the general pastor spoke, the assembly observed the Lord’s Supper, with ushers clad in white shirts carrying baskets of pre-packaged communion elements up and down stairs to various levels of coliseum seating. General minister and president for North American Disciples, Sharon Watkins, led the benediction, her words translated into Spanish by Church Extension vice-president Gilberto Collazo.

Update from Puerto Rican Disciples’ Centenary Convention

An update from contributing writer Ted Parks, who is in Bayamón covering the Puerto Rican Disciples’ Centenary Convention.

Organizers of the Puerto Rican Disciples’ Centenary Convention held the Friday night service — focused on youth — in the Rubén Rodríguez Coliseum in Bayamón, the city west of San Juan where the convention began Thursday. Among those welcoming the crowd entering the stadium was “Discipulín,” a mascot dressed in a red felt costume shaped like the Disciples chalice with the familiar white cross for a nose.

Nearly 1,900 people attended the Friday youth service. Eliezer Ronda Pagán, the speaker — probably in his late 20s — preached about power, using references as diverse as the cartoon show ThunderCats, Alexander Campbell’s statement that division among Christians is evil, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have  a Dream” speech to encourage his young Disciples audience to see power in scripture as a divine gift enabling the church to work for oneness.

With “A Church that Lives and Celebrates Unity” the convention theme, Saturday’s program featured presentations by an “ecumenical panel” composed of the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Juan, a Church of God bishop, a Lutheran pastor, and the president of the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico. The Church of God and Lutheran leaders addressed ecumenical relations by telling their own very personal stories, both leaders describing how education and travel opened their eyes to the importance of unity.

In an emotional moment, Idelfonso Caraballo, the Church of God panelist, publicly asked forgiveness for his tradition’s failure to acknowledge other believers as part of the body of Christ. The convention audience at the Buena Vista Christian Church, host of the Centenary Convention, responded with applause and shouts of “Glory to God!” In another show of unity, Lutheran pastor Marysol Díaz invited Monsignor Roberto González to address her congregation during its next celebration of Reformation Day.

Puerto Rican Disciples’ Centenary Convention

DisciplesWorld contributing writer Ted Parks is in Bayamón, Puerto Rico covering the Convención Centenaria, which runs from Feb. 12-15. Here’s his first update.

The Centenary Convention of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Puerto Rico opened Thursday, February 12, in Bayamón, a city some seven miles from San Juan.

Having traveled in Mexico, and other parts of Spanish America, I have noticed the uniqueness of Puerto Rico when compared to its Latin neighbors. Many people I know are not aware that Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States and that Puerto Ricans are American citizens. Arriving on the island the night before the Convention’s start, I drove from the airport in the Chrysler I rented at Budget and ate “Moons over My Hammy,” an egg, ham, and cheese sandwich at Denny’s, where the menu was in English. I paid for dinner in dollars.

While the history of Puerto Rico constrasts that of other nations in the region, the spirit here — despite the heavy American influence — is like other parts of the Hispanic world I’ve visited. Worship is fervent, animated by the steady beat of the worship group’s conga drums. Puerto Rican Disciples experienced a charismatic renewal movement in the first half of the last century that they call the “Avivamiento,” and the transforming energy from that moment remains.

In Thursday’s opening meetings, Esteban González Doble singled out three Disciples churches celebrating more than a century of history, the oldest founded in 1900, the second, in 1906, and the third in 1908.

González was consecrated to a second term as general pastor on Thursday night in a packed service at Buena Vista Christian Church in Bayamón. The consecration service capped the first day of the historic Centenary Convention.

According to the Puerto Rican Disciples’ website, the first convention in 1909 marked 10 years of Disciples outreach in Puerto Rico, with the first missionaries arriving April 23, 1899.

Ted Parks also writes for the Disciples of Christ Historical Society, the Christian Chronicle, Associated Baptist Press, and other publications. He is an associate professor of Spanish at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn.

Journalist/blogger Philip Rizk freed

The Los Angeles Times and other media outlets are reporting that blogger/journalist Philip Rizk, taken into custody by Egyptian officials last week, has been released.

Rizk’s abduction and interrogation is not an isolated incident. As the Times reports, others who have challenged the Egyptian government’s policies and its stance regarding Palestinians have also been targeted. According to the Times:

The crackdown on bloggers and Facebook dissidents has intensified over the last 18 months. The Egyptian government, skilled at using detention and intimidation to silence its opponents, charges that certain bloggers endanger national security. The cases of Rizk and the other Palestinian sympathizers expanded the Egyptian security forces’ battle in cyberspace from labor unrest, radical Islam and economic problems to the larger Arab-Israeli conflict.

Rizk was an occasional contributor to the God’s Politics blog, updated by Jim Wallis of Sojourners/Call to Renewal and friends. He wrote about life in Gaza and the plight of the Palestinians, including the murder of Gaza Christian bookseller Rami Ayyad.

Rizk’s is a story worth paying attention to. Over the next few days, hopefully we’ll hear more about what happened to him while he went missing. According to freephiliprizk.org, he’s now home safe with his family.

Rizk’s imprisonment was also the subject of a massive web-based awareness campaign that included Facebook, MySpace, Jaiku, and other sites. Should this kind of social network activism prove successful, perhaps it could help in the case of Lori Berenson, an American imprisoned in Peru for over 13 years. DisciplesWorld contributor Heidi Bright Parales wrote an update this week on Berenson’s situation, which was also the subject of a 2001 Disciples of Christ General Assembly resolution calling for her release.

Social Monday: Church 2.0: Spider vs. Starfish – Part one

I’ve been asked a number of times to speak to various churches and other leadership groups about young adults, their relationship to organized religion, and their take on – and use of – technology. Unfortunately, church and technology tend to generally mix about as well as the football team and chess club. Neither the two shall meet, right? Who needs technology to find God, after all?

Sure, a few of us may have put up a screen to show words to our praise songs, and we may have even had a kid from the youth group throw together a website for us…which hasn’t been updated in about forty-seven years or so. As they say in the twelve-step tradition: how’s that working out for you? Folks generally fall into one of two categories. Either they are terrified by technology and want to have nothing to do with it in church at all, or they see it as some sort of silver bullet that, if aimed properly, will magically fill the now-empty pews with young families.

In truth, neither perspective is particularly realistic. For one, technology isn’t going anywhere, so by ignoring it, we risk making our churches even more irrelevant. On the other hand, if we hope that technology – or emergent worship, whatever that is, or a groovy website, or even a podcast – will save us from a fate we’re hoping to avoid, we may be putting way more trust into a handful of tools than they deserve.

Rebecca has invited me to contribute a few pieces to the NewsMuse blog, for which I’m honored and grateful. In future installments, I hope to share some ideas about how technology can be used to complement a vibrant ministry, as well as dispelling some misconceptions about technology, digital media, social networking, emergent worship and so many of these postmodern-emergo-hip buzz phrases we hear so often, yet about which we understand very little. So stay tuned to explore questions with me such as:

What exactly is “Church 2.0?”

Are you a Spider Church or a Starfish Church?

What do young adults really want from organized religion?

What the heck does it mean to be postmodern, and what is emergent worship?

Until next time!

Christian Piatt is the author of MySpace to Sacred Space: God for a New Generation, and Lost: A Search for Meaning, and he is a columnist for various newspapers, magazines and websites on the topics of theology and popular culture. He is the co-founder of Milagro Christian Church in Pueblo, Colorado with his wife, Amy. For more information about Christian, visit www.christianpiatt.com.