MEDIA SALT

The Future of Technology?

By Cleve Persinger Thursday July 2, 2009

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Chris Ediger (@chrisediger), an old cohort from my days at LifeWay, is now directing the Internet development and operations for GiANT Impact.

I read his blog, In The Thin Places, pretty regularly. Yesterday’s title, “The Future of Technology,” got my attention.

Chris was asked by LifeWay to write an article on the future of technology for an upcoming publication. That’s a hard topic. It got even harder when he “remembered that the article isn’t going to be published until next spring.”

Take More People With You

By Eric Murrell Wednesday July 1, 2009

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Missions is part of the life-blood of the Church. It’s been a huge emphasis at Long Hollow for as long as I can remember, and it seems like we’re adding more projects and trips every year. In the old days, folks would leave for a trip, be out of touch for weeks, and then return with great stories of life change. Wouldn’t it be great to stay more connected with these trips as they happen?

By leveraging some common new technology, you can turn your trip into a ministry opportunity for many more people than actually boarded the plane. Folks back home can pray for issues live as they’re reported from the field, and provide encouragement in the form of feedback to blog posts, photos, tweets, etc. All of these great social technologies allow more people to experience the journey along side of you.

Goodbye Web 2.0; Hello Web Squared

By Cleve Persinger Tuesday June 30, 2009

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Are you ready to “geek out” today?

Usually Eric writes the geek posts, but I’ve been reading about a topic that I’m glad I can introduce before he gets a chance. Sucker!

From the guys who coined the term “Web 2.0,” at O’Reilly, comes a brand new concept for the future of the web. Enter “Web Squared.”

Communicating Quickly

By Eric Murrell Monday June 29, 2009

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With urgent announcements, it’s always a good idea to have a plan in place to get information out there. Some circumstances this weekend gave our staff a unique opportunity to give our communications strategy a test run.

This year’s student camps for Middle School and High School took place over the last week and a half (we’re hearing awesome stories of life change at both camps!). As Middle School Camp wrapped up, our staff received reports of a bug going around among those returning from camp and some of the families at home.

As the weekend progressed, we heard more reports of the bug and decided that Sunday services would need to be canceled as a precautionary measure to prevent more folks from getting sick. This gave us the unique challenge of notifying the 5500+ folks that attend a Long Hollow campus on a given Sunday morning (parents had already been contacted days earlier to make them aware that a bug was going around).

Thankfully, the nature of social media can make it much easier to spread this sort of announcement these days. Here’s the strategy we put into practice.

Friday Four: Office Toys

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Sometimes you just have to take a break. It can melt your brain to sit at a desk for hours on end (especially in the tech field where you’re editing video or writing code), and you’ll burn out quickly if you don’t give yourself a little time to recharge your batteries and have some fun.
I’ve [...]

Is Your Pastor a “Social Media Slacker?”

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A lot of people equate senior pastors to CEOs.
UberCEO, a blog that “follows, comments, reports, and discusses everying about the CEOs who influence the business world,” surveyed CEOs from Fortune’s 2009 list of the top 100 CEOs to find out how many of them were using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, or were blogging.
The results were [...]

The Missing Link

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Despite what my wife may tell you, I consider myself to be a very organized individual. I have all of my important papers filed into folders, know where all of my clothes are (most of the time), and keep a meticulous desktop on my MacBook Pro. As long as it makes sense, I’ll make every [...]

A Church Billboard Campaign Idea

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“Pop Goes the Church,” by Tim Stevens, is an awesome read. I definitely reccommend it.
Ultimately, the book encourages The Church to get out of its comfort zone, and leverage pop culture to “reach out to people in the language of their lives… with words, sounds, and images that speak to them.”

Jumping in to jQuery

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Now that Summer has arrived and things are really beginning to heat up, I’m always looking for an excuse to stay in the AC on a lazy afternoon. If you’re like me, one of the best things to do in the summer is to learn something new.
If you’re a developer, I highly recommend that you [...]

Friday Four: Favorite iPhone Apps

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I remember lining up for my 1st-generation iPhone like it was yesterday.
I arrived at my local AT&T store at 5:00 AM thinking I would be one of the first in line; to my surprise, I was number 18 in line, and many of the folks in front of me were surprisingly clean-shaven and well put [...]

The most important part of your day

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There have been numerous mornings, in my career and ministry, where I have dreaded walking into work because the tasks for that day exceeded my knowledge and bandwidth. It’s amazing how different those same days ended up when I spent time with God.
Seriously, I’ve actually told God on multiple occasions that I needed him [...]

We Don’t Have a Crystal Ball

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… but sometimes it’s fun to try to predict what’s coming next. Ever since I was a little boy, trying to imagine the future was always fascinating to me. I was obsessed with the attractions at EPCOT growing up (I still am!), and many of my favorite movies involve wild dreams about where we’ll all [...]