Suburbs Are a Changin… With roughly 1/2 of the United States population living in the suburbs – the suburbs are changing… Lines between communities are becoming less and less clear.   Most suburban communities have an aging population.   The need for amenities to service the “Boomer Generation” are going to become much more prevalent.    It is believed the Senior Citizen generation is going to increase 36% between 2000 and 2019.  The move for mixed-age neighborhoods is happening – and with the current economical state of the programs to assist the elderly is in question – The church needs to prepare not only to assist with this aging generation – but also the people who are taking care of the generation.  The senior population is expected to expand as much as 70% in some places like the South East as well as the Western Moutain region.   Boomers will not want the old style of ministry… is your church prepared?

Colors are a Blendin… I believe the 2010 census vs the 2020 census will show a dramatic shift in the U.S. population.   While today the diversity is not as culturally blended as many would lead you to believe by 2020 the pre-school and grade school population will see this crossover.   Churches need to prepare to have programs that speak to the needs of a culturally diverse community – including new and different types of ministry to children and their parents.  These younger generations – and their parents, like all cultures, want to share their lives (both spiritually and communally) with people of like interests, life stages, languages, etc…  Let’s face it folks – as homogeneity changes so will the needs of the community, as people are blended the needs to speak and be culturally relevant is going to become more difficult for the church – specifically in ethnic terms.   People will still gravitate towards those that are like them…  Is your church preparing to be a blended mix?   Red and Yellow Black and White – They are Precious in His site… Jesus loves the little children of the …community.

Numbers are a droppin… A great friend of mine holds the patent on a fantastic technology that allows you to control a computer from another location from your own… Sadly – this technology has not changed the fact that people still will travel for business.   Most churches watch attendance numbers and believe if more guests are attending – then attendance will likely go up.   (While this is true… so is the inverse)   If a church looses members than the number in attendance will remain the same… OR WILL IT?    As the business world changes, so do the attendance behaviors of the church goer.   This past year I traveled quite a bit – the membership in the local church did not change (well until recently due to a move…) but my attendance had.

There are a number of churches such as Granger Community and Church of the Resurrection that are boldly moving forward with development and build out of online communities.  The churches that embrace the ability to be in communion and fellowship online are perhaps the only ones that have an understanding of the attendance metric.   People are looking to remain active in the church however due to work and other issues – the ability to attend the church building is changing drastically.

Why does a church look at attendance as such an important number?   Because faithfulness to the local church is one of the key components one can use to measure Christian discipleship.  Is your church preparing to begin doing more than a pod-cast?   Is your church preparing an online community where interaction (a technical term for fellowship) can take place?

Gettin it Done or Strategically Doin IT…

Churches generally fall into three categories:  Churches that use technology to get things done & Churches with a Missional Technology Strategy and those that don’t use technology at all.   We will focus on the first two here however:

• Churches that use technology to get things done do not use the tools to actually disciple folks – but rather to assist them in that process.
• Churches that have a Technology strategy build teams that empower them to do ministry online.   They utilize the Internet and other technologies to help introduce others to a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.

Does your church view Technology as a missional strategy?    Does it see technology as a way to empower people and the ministries in the church to reach others… and perhaps even build new ministries based on technology to perform this task? or   Does your church consider the IT Staff as pastors or just a necessary expense?  If your church does not move towards using technology to help introduce others to a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ your doing more than just missing the boat…

If your stuck and wish to learn more – visit www.CITRT.org and ask the folks @ the Church IT Round Table …

Working with people in distant lands one would find it difficult to translate languages to be able to communicate.   Enter www.BabelWith.me  A great tool from the folks over @ LifeChurch.tv

If you are the parent of a child, especially one in Home School perhaps, and wish to allow them to extend out of the 4 walls of the house, your town, your county, state and country – This is an excellent tool.   Imagine being able to give your child the ability to chat with multiple pen-pals from around the world – perhaps in the mission field.  Until recently – this was very difficult due to the barrier of language.

Perhaps what makes www.BabelWith.Me so nice is the fact that one does not need to sign up or register.   Simply go to the site and begin your chat.

Imagine the impact for ministry, the impact for foreign students…

• Musicians Sheet Music (and words pushed if needed…)
• You Version Notes & Biblical Text (preach right from the pad)
• Get rid of prayer books and hymnals… place iPads and WiFi in the pew – into the home…
• Translate the Bible in real time – have a concordance (or 10 of them even) right @ your disposal…
• Write an app and control the sound board, cameras, lighting…
• Give them to the Welcome teams – have interactive maps,
• Child Check in stations – real time wifi collection to a db application – During emergencies they could be used for attendance and security checks
• Google Wave Client for conferences?
• Push out premium sermon content – the added extras, additional biblical texts etc.
• No one that knows sign language on staff today?   That’s okay – listen and type out the words for those who can “read” them in real time.
• Cheap information Kiosk’s

Can you add to these?

Today’s storms have made it almost impossible for many to make it to the traditional family outing… Candlelight service @ their church.  All across the Central US – from Oklahoma & Minnesota to Texas and beyond – a huge winter storm has caused many pastors to cancel their Christmas Eve Services… And while some churches have been open… many chose to stay home vs. go out and brave the weather…   For those who have left the comforts of home – they have been stranded … or worse.

The CITRT Team jumps into action and implements a number of  safety projects to help folks stranded, to give people a location to tuck in during the storm if they can’t make it home … (Awesome #CITRT folks especially @sidburgess ! )

LifeChurch.tv – Did an awesome job providing an online Church service and a True Christmas story – (http://live.lifechurch.tv )   While viewing I noticed not only were Americans watching – but also were 22 other countries

Church of the Resurrection, out of Leawood KS had folks from as far as Alaska in the US as well as many other nations watching… Bangkok Thailand, and even on a cruise ship.  Rev. Adam Hamilton noted that even a family in Jinan China joined in. This goes a far way from 200 folks for COR’s first year in a funeral home (yes I said that right) … and now are reaching Thousands…
Doing a real quick chat with @rezlive (Ian Beyer) I was told that missionaries in Rio De Janeiro were actually watching and worshiping.

In the midst of a Blizzard and an Ice Storm – Christians all over are celebrating something that is bigger than what will be under the tree…  If you are asking about the real meaning – please visit www.Jesus.net – and for those of you who missed church, perhaps life got in the way… it is not to late.

Granger United Methodist places a unique theatrical worship service online. . . Beginning @ 11PM Est.

From 4 district styles – from the Very Contemporary, to the Traditional , the blended and even the Theatrical – no matter if you are snowed in … there is an option.

Won’t you celebrate the Reason for this Season?

Salvation-Topology

We are in the process of bringing on Phase 2 of the VineHosting Data Center, complete with our new R1Soft Bare Metal Restore Servers (another blog post perhaps) and our new Virtual Infrastucture.

Since we now have so many more servers than we did in the past – and we have exhausted all the cities Paul visited in the Bible, the names of the sacraments, etc…  I reached out and asked Ian what they were doing -

He got to joking a bit – saying they used all Dr. Seuss themes @ an old employer (not sure if he meant Sun Microsystems or Sprint…) anyhow – pretty funny stuff.   Imagine that – us having Thing 1 and Thing 2 …

I sat down and had to write up an assignment for my seminary class on the vocabulary of Salvation… and suddenly thought … WOW there it is…

The Servers Host name is Salvation:  its guest machines are:

conversion, substitution, reconciliation, propitiation, remission, imputation, adoption, justification, sanctification,  glorification and regeneration (thats the PXE Booter…)

Our R1Soft Servers are called Preservation and Redemption.

Now If I could only turn this in as an assignment instead of the long term paper… I would be happy as pie.

And of course – I still have all these other servers to do…

I guess I could use a few other examples – imagine getting a welcome email being told your on the purgatory server…

What are you using for a Naming Convention?

I believe many churches will soon be taking a turn towards the virtual. Who would have ever thought of virtual church, but it is becoming a reality in the 21st century. Yes – it is hard to touch, love, and hug – but in this day and age with text, voice, video chat and other social networking tools like twitter, facebook, youtube, etc – fellowship is just a click away…

Soon – You can worship from any remote location with just an internet hook-up and the web address of your own church… (are they ready ?)

Tags: InternetChurch, online church, Church 2.0