Giving up my iphone for this

I think I'd be willing to give up my iphone for one of these.

Link to the Pomegranate.

You should check it out too!

Thoughts on Intimacy

People have the means to connect in new ways. People connect with personal and more intimate information. This is changing us as a people. I'm not sure what this means for me or the church.

On my Facebook status I mention that I'm listening to Yo Yo Ma. Soon thereafter, an advertizement appears on the sidebar for Yo Yo Ma's new Christmas album. I mention the artist, "Band of Horses" and you guessed it. Horses appear in the advertizement.

Amazon knows books I might like better than I will.

Apple's iTunes Genius is built around knowing music that you might know. I've taken advantage of

Music is a tough one isn't it? Music touches the soul and here a computer is suggesting music I might like.

Intimate information either changes what we understand intimacy to be, changes us and what we consider intimate, or is a dangerous substitute. Or is some complex version of all three.

All the facebook "Happy Birthdays" in the world can add up to a personal phone call. Or a friend who takes time away and drops by.

Perhaps this is some kind of warped view I have, based on a value system I hold, or a way I was brought up that no longer exists.

OR perhaps we are experiencing a pseudo intimacy. We go through the motions, because we are supposed to, but we still have space between us. We are still alone, no matter how intimate the information.

Certainly it is good to say, "Happy Birthday" on Facebook, or connect with people online. People we haven't seen in years etc. This is good.

But it is a new intimacy. Intimacy like REality TV. It's real, we feel like we are getting to know people intimately, but we don't really know any of them. Intimacy in this sense is one more way to attempt to control the world around us. I wonder if it often objectifies others, and reinforces the idea that I am the center of the universe, that I stand alone, and everything I encounter exists for me. Ever text I read, every tweet, every facebook status, every genius suggestion, tells us two lies. That we are individuals alone in the world, and that we have a holographic steak in front of us as we are starving, and in need of nourishment, but every time we try to eat it, we find it has no substance. Thus, we are alone and we feel crappy about it.

This isn't to say that twitter, facebook, im, text etc are bad. It is to say that it's not neutral.

But then I could be wrong. What do you think?

High Noon

A friend of mine, Andy Mullins, has developed some pretty cool software. It's build for his Marketing and T-Shirt company to better care for his customers and increase pace and quality. If you own a creative company this might be a good solution for you.

Check it the software out here.

Here are some of his ventures. here. and here.

Fonts

This is pretty funny.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Sprint just a little longer

I'm Spring customer and I'm often having to apologize to my friends for all the dropped calls when I hit dead zones around town. I'm on my third Sprint phone and will be moving to a new carrier in November. (I hope. It's what I want for my birthday.) Anyway, it seems my phone is officially dead and I don't want to re up with Sprint.
Does anyone have an old Sprint phone lying around the house that they'd be willing to send me? I'd be happy to reimburse you for the shipping! And I can send it back when I'm done.

Thanks!

10 worst products for men...

10 worst products for men ever created. Not for the faint of heart.

Link

3G iphone

Eugene got to handle the 3G iphone proto-type. He has pictures here.

mobileme

simply incredible.

Link

Biblical Seminary Youth Ministry Certificate

I'm really excited about the opportunity to lead these courses. I've been impressed with Biblical Seminary for several years. John Franke is a brilliant and influential thinker on the faculty and Alan Roxburgh Has consulted them on what it looks like to become a missional seminary willing to engage a postmodern world. Word is that Tim Keel pastor here, has done a lot of work with them as well. I'm grateful to Todd Littleton for inviting me to join Biblical and Shapevine to facilitate these 5 courses. Here's the description from Biblical.

A master’s level certificate program offered by Biblical Seminary in partnership with Shapevine for the development of missional leaders around the world.

Developed by Mark Riddle
http://www.theriddlegroup.com

This fully online program lets you earn a certificate in youth ministry without leaving your current ministry context. The five-course certificate can be completed in less than two years.

Youth Certification Link

Have you seen this?

Shapevine Pretty cool stuff.

Polling Software

I thought this was cool. I'm sure there are some create folks out there who could use this kind of thing.

Link

A New Kind of Memory

This past October my friend Bill Wiseman died in a plane crash. He was apart of a local cohort and he was a local priest. I have memories of Bill serving us the Eucharist and always giving us his take on scripture. He loved the mystery of the Q source. I several good memories of Bill. But more than memories in my head, Bill lives on in another kind of memory. Bill was not only my friend in real life, but also my friend on Facebook and Bill's name also appears in my Entourage (outlook) address book. So when I send an email to my friends named Bob, or Bill, or Brandon, or Brian, it has a feature where it suggests each of their names. Bill Wiseman's name appears as a suggestion too. It gives me pause. I think about him. This has happened a few times and I've not yet removed him from my address book. After a while, I began to wonder if I sent Bill and email who would get it. On facebook his image and profile still exist. I assume this is because his family doesn't know his password and can't take it down. Or maybe they don't even know that he had such a thing. Or that the family and friends he had aren't technologically inclined. Regardless, Bill is remembered on facebook and in my email account. I also assume that Facebook has considered that a member might pass away and how they might handle this. Perhaps there are policies in place to handle this kind of thing. I wonder who decides if and when a profile is erased... and what does that mean for people who knew Bill. In the case of my email account, I haven't erased him yet.

Here's Bill's profile.
I'm not certain you can actually view it... but I'll give it a shot.
It creates an interesting situation. Has this happened to you?
What does it bring to you mind and cause you to wrestle with?

This is just plain cool.

I wasn't there. but this sounds really cool.
My friend Bobby over and life church and his team developed an interactive element to worship for the catalyst conference.

The cool factor for this is about a 10.

Link

Here's Bobby's description of what they did:

"Here is a quick post to describe who/what we used and explain a little bit about the technology involved, and also get ideas/feedback from all of you.

1. What is SMS?

SMS or “Short Message Service” (wiki) allows you to send short (160 character) messages to and from mobile phones. SMS is often referred to as “texting”.

2. What did you do with texting at Catalyst (for those of you who were not there)?

• Thursday morning we introduced YouVersion.com and asked that people text Bible verses (ex. Hebrews 13:17) about leadership to a 5 digit number (it’s called a “shortcode”). We then displayed in real-time the full verses that were submitted on the screens in the arena.
• Thursday afternoon we had people text (a,b,c or d) to the shortcode to vote on which song was their favorite “reverb” song. We displayed the results and the band played that song.
• Friday morning we asked people to text words that they felt described Craig’s session. It could be a word that described how it made them feel, or a words that were “take away” words from the session. We then displayed a tag cloud of the words people submitted at the end of the session.
• Late Friday morning we asked people to text their names or email addresses if they were committing to pursue radical integrity and grace. It was in association with the Deadly Viper book that was launched at the conference."

YouVersion

What do you think of this?

Link

Shane Hipps Quote

"I believe certain technologies preclude incarnational ministry. And the reason I believe that is because God became embodied in Jesus. And embodiment means human physical touch; presence. And there are certain technologies that disembody us, like video."

Shane Hipps

(Thanks to Out of Ur)

What does the iPhone really cost?

Apple Matter says that the total cost of owning an iPhone will be about $3,000 over the next two years.

I can't get over a couple things when it comes to the iPhone.
1. The price is crazy high
2. The network is crazy slow compared to Sprint.
3. The fact that they don't subsidize the phone, but still will charge $150 or $200 to cancel your two year contract.

Link

YouVersion - My thoughts

Here's a few thoughts on the new YouVersion of the Bible.

I really don't like the name. I think this will be a hang up for anyone who is a church leader who thinks the world and the church is already self-centered enough. The name may lead them toward the worst case scenarios of what a Bible like this could be.


I really like the potential something like this has for good.
I consider myself to be a technorealist and understand that technology is not neutral. Each new technology brings within it the potential for good and bad. It generally delivers both.

First the Good I think it will bring: I will do what Bobby mentions in his blog post. It will bring a personal narrative to the scripture that has immense potential. Though it will likely draw criticism from those even outside the church as more people suggest their wild interpretations of various texts.

I think more importantly it will give people an opportunity to level the playing field a bit for armchair theologians to engage with experts on what God is telling us. This then provides a platform by which folks from various walks of life can converge to discuss theology.

The Bad: Scripture was written in a particular context with a particular intent. YouVersion will further contribute to the problem of making scripture say what I want it to say to me, because God spoke to me in this verse and told me he wanted to give me a big hug. Frankly, the printing press has already taken done this, which is why I hear more and more pastor saying, we need to take the Bible's away from some people for a while.

It will likely contribute to people taking particular verses out of context with the rest of the text.

I think it's a grand experiment. We'll see if the good outweighs the bad.

I am hopeful that it will.

YouVersion

A week or so ago I had coffee with Bobby Gruenwald of Lifechurch.tv and he told me about what is now named "YouVersion"

This is the Bible with Web 2.0 capabilities.

He explains more here

Here's some of what he says:

"Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450. Four years later, he printed the first copy of the Bible using this new moveable type system. This accomplishment began what is known as “The Age of the Printed Book.” Over the following centuries, this technological advancement revolutionized the surrounding culture by making it possible for the Bible to be accessible to nearly everyone.

Currently, we are in the beginning of another revolution that is defined by the ability for almost anyone to publish content and quickly distribute it worldwide using the Internet. This revolution is at the center of what is called “Web 2.0.”

At LifeChurch.tv, we are working on several initiatives to leverage this revolution in our effort to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. Today, we are revealing one of the most significant and far reaching of those projects:

We’d like to introduce you to YouVersion.

YouVersion is a free online Bible that allows users to associate video, audio, images, text, tags, and links to other websites with any verse or series of verses in the Bible. Each piece of contributed content can be labeled as public or private, so the application can be used both as a personal study tool and a public expression of user-generated commentary. In addition to contributing content, Scripture can be organized by assigning user-defined “tags” to any verse of the Bible.

For users who are skeptical about whether the Bible has application for their lives, YouVersion provides a platform to learn from the experiences and perspectives of others from around the world in a non-threatening and easily navigated environment."


My thoughts in the next post

Today's Links while I'm at Scout Camp today

If you've never heard of the Simple Way, you need to visit their site. It's community of people who live simply among the poor to minister to them in philly. Yesterday there was a 7 alarm fire that destroyed most of their spaces for ministry and homes. visit their Website for Details


Do you know someone who is Always Late?

A great site for technology for educators and the rest of us.

Local TV Church Broadcast

The Local TV Church Service broadcast will die in the next few years. It would die today, if it weren't for elderly people who will never move forward to a new technology and for church leaders who believe that it is cutting edge.

In town I have a least one friend who does this. He's a great guy, who inherited a tv program in a mainline church. they record the service this week and broadcast the next. I've never really watched, even though I really like this guy, but I can't because of the camera angles and poor production.


The day of AppleTV and similiar technologies has brought a new day.

If these churches stopped paying for airtime on tv and put the money into higher quality video it would go a long way.

this is the new technologies for tomorrows nursing homes.