Internet Campus Update
Chat Highlights:
I miss my church (Gateway ) sooo much. Thank you for having this service for those of us that can’t be there. Without Gateway I feel so lost. Thanks for keeping me grounded and having this service online for us.
what a powerful message…I know the Lord is working in so many lives (mine included) thanks to the love and acceptance offered at Gateway!
Man, sometimes you hear messsges that just cut right to the bone. Thank you, God!
This is my first time attending the internet campus as I’m usually there, I must admit, it speaks volumes to the great ministries this church offers for wherever you are in Christ
I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect lesson for me today and I’m sure I’m not the only one
Filed under Internet Campus | Comment (0)just back from “in person” service…gonna watch the live stream again…awesome message
Chat Highlights | 1.31.2010
“Wow, I have been living abroad for the past few years, and using that as an excuse to lose my faith. This is great that I can hear such a useful message in my own language. Thank you! From Helsinki, Finland.”
“Man this is so great! I feel like im right there in the middle of it all! And I;m singing along right here in my house!”
“This is an awesome idea… I am not feeling well and was sad that i was going to miss church then I remembered this live feed had started and I rejoiced”
“I like my home church and love my church family, but it looks like I will forever be a part of Gateway. Today our church is closed because of icy roads. I thank you for your ministry online”
Filed under Internet Campus | Comment (0)“I’ve let anger and hurt to take over lately and boy have I gone astray. Thank you LORD for showing me clearly what I have been doing.”
Launch Day Update
We had some great chat going on during the internet campus inaugural experience. Here are some highlights:
“awesome, awesome, awesome! yet another way you guys are reaching out to ensure the relationship with God. it not about where you are, but that He is with you where you’re at.
YES!”
“LOVE the online experience!! Thanks Vince and team for getting this going and offering yet another way to experience God’s word and the great leadership of Gateway.”
“I wouldn’t have attended any service this morning. Thank-you.”
“joining online because i just had foot surgery and can’t make it in today. perfect timing for this launching if you ask me”
“I sense something profound has happened today! This could not have been easy, all the work that went into this was worth it.”
“Glad to see the whole Gateway experience go to the net. I have moved a little over 1 hour north and rarely get there, but going to gateway makes it hard to go to other churches.”
“there is an amazing anointing with this church model – a true sense of community, which is so difficult to truly get, virtually. i really felt like I was standing in a room bumping shoulders with bunch of people. thank you guys!”
Filed under Internet Campus, News | Comment (1)“Ironic: I just shushed my 3 year old so I could hear John talking about not paying attention to his 3 year old. Whoops!”
Our first live stream was a success!
We streamed three of the five Christmas Eve services live to the web this last week and it was a big win! For the most part we were using the Christmas eve services as a test run for our streaming setup. We didn’t do a whole lot in terms of promotion and marketing, mainly because we didn’t want to get slammed with too many people and have a problem with our gear or our stream service provider.
With that said, it was a huge success. We saw visitor from seven countries outside of North America and we had some great chat going on during the experience.
I can’t wait to launch on January 17th!
Filed under Internet Campus | Comment (0)Post on ChurchCrunch.com | Live or Taped?
Jump on over to ChurchCrunch.com to engage in the conversation of live or taped content for church online.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (2)Why Social Media is Critical to Your Success as a Leader…Right Now
Social media is dominating communication, leadership and marketing right now, if you don’t have a social media presence your influence will begin to shrink, if it isn’t shrinking already. As more and more of communications on the web begin to take hold in real life, almost exclusively because of social media and user-generated content, the sphere of influence that ‘real life only’ leaders have will begin to dwindle or at the very least require more and more resources to keep alive.
Rather than rattle off the statistics on the size and scope of social media, watch this video.
Here’s why social media is critical to your success:
Presence
How many people can you sustain one to one presence with in real life as a leader. For most leaders, that falls somewhere between 30 and 100. These are the people that stop by your office, have coffee with you, you talk on the phone with and you interact with on a personal level. A big misconception about social media is that it is only a medium for mass communication; this may be true, but it isn’t the point and if you view it this way you will fail. People that are active in social media are looking for that one to one interaction. With social media you can have quick but meaningful one to one interactions with people whom you otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to.
Influence
I don’t need to convince leaders that influence is something you need to value. You work hard to build a savings account of influence so that when it’s time to act on vision, you have people to carry out that vision. Influence builds on presence in that you need to have presence to build influence. It takes a lot of resources to have influence in real life, and it is rarely one to one.
Social media will give you influence into more peoples lives in a more personal way. Which is hard to comprehend because we don’t normally associate efficiency with quality relationships.
Networking
I can speak from my own experience. I have ‘people’ in every major city in America, and a few around the world. These are people I have a relationship with and we have presence and influence in each other’s lives. We help each other make decisions, starting small and as our relationships grow the trust does too. I have connections with people in similar leadership roles to mine, some farther along in their career that I learn from and some newer who look to me for advice.
Learning
As a leader you know that you need to never stop learning. Social media interactions will connect you to people and content to learn from that you at the least would be well behind the curve on or at worst, miss all together. The beauty of social networking is that as you develop more relationships and people in your networks get to know you, the content starts to literally find YOU. Daily I receive tweets and other messages from my networks with content that is very specific to my field and my leadership. When it comes to a new resource or book hitting the market, I don’t have to take a chance investing time in it that I might not get back if it turns out to be a dud, I can get a summary from a lot of people who know me before I invest my precious time.
Artists share inspiration, writers share stories, communicators share ideas and technologies, theologians sharpen each other and administrative leaders share techniques and resources.
Current Events and Culture
One hundred years ago when we only had newspapers, news got to the public that was a week or so old and as circulation and printing improved we were getting news that was only a day old. When television came on the scene we were now getting news that happened today. Blogs took news delivery to a whole new level and now we are getting news that is only a few hours old. Taking it even farther, social media delivers news that is happening NOW. Let me give you an example. I lived in Southern California and they have plenty of earthquakes there. When we had one, with in a couple minutes, because of social media, I knew where the quake was, how big it was and if my friends and family were okay. The ‘news cycle’ on social media comes and goes before CNN can even get a camera in front of a reporter.
The Leadership Web Presence Trinity
Twitter | your coffee shop
Twitter is the coffee shop, town center, library, park, water cooler of the web. It is the starting place for relationships. For most of us, this is our biggest network.
Facebook | your living room
Facebook is your living room, you will most likely only connect with people whom you have already established a relationship with. Whether these are people you know in real life or you first connected with on Twitter or because they read your blog.
Blog | your podium
This is your platform for sharing more in depth content that is very specific to your leadership role and to give people a deeper look into your mind and life.
Now get on it!
Google your name. Do you even exist on the web? If you do, is it content that you control that shows up? If you don’t, you’re missing out on the future of leadership.
Filed under Social Media | Comments (2)Internet Citizen | a definition
If the internet has jumped the gap from being simply a tool of communication to an actual community, then what do it’s citizens look like?
When we plant a church in a community, it helps to know what the ideal target person looks like so that we can speak into their life and meet their unique needs.
What spaces do they frequent?
What apps do they use?
When are they online?
What pop culture stuff are they into?
What kind of careers do they have?
What’s their education?
What questions should we be asking?
Filed under Internet Campus | Comment (0)We are live!!!
I was up until 2AM last night pushing the new gatewaychurch.com live. Everything is looking good. Just the usual DNS refresh headaches and some email issues.
So this marks the beginning of a whole new era at Gateway Church. I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish in the next few months!
Rock on!!!
Filed under News | Comment (0)