#echo09 | Phil Cooke Notes

A brand is: A compelling story

Choice: The world is a choice

• In a media driven culture, visibility is just as important as ability
• You can’t brand a lie
• Being different is everything
• Stop thinking ‘mass’ and start thinking ‘niche’
• Understand the power of a name
• Speak the language of design
• Lose the lingo
• Culture is more important than vision
• Find the overarching theme for your life and work
• What drives you nuts?

‘Its not just who you are, its how you’re percieved that counts’

Web camp rocked your face off

Web camp was everything I hoped it would be and a great start to this incredible endeavor we are starting. Here’s the notes from the wiki:

9:00 – Introduction and Spiritual Framework – Vince

• http://www.deltronecho.com/2009/07/24/church-on-the-internet-the-vision/

9:30 – Team Generated Discussion #1 – (RC – Targeting Profile | what does an internet citizen look like?)

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007184 – Why people go online

http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ah8mk6j9scwh_37gxv3mk5m – Internet Citizen presentation

http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/Generational-differences-in-online-activities.aspx – Activities online by generation (short verion)

10:00 – Team Generated Discussion #2 – (Betty Blake Churchill – The Voice of Gateway)

• Church resources example – http://open.lifechurch.tv
• Attend | Connect | Serve | Grow | Lead

10:30 – ‘Front Door Spaces’ – Vince

“Front Door Spaces” – places to get people discusing religion online in meaningful ways, and eventually leading them to something deeper that has the same feel, specifically the Gateway Internet campus. Meeting people, engaging in their lives, and getting connected.

• themysteryisthetruth.com
  • Podcasts
  • Movie nights (probably once a month) – community experience (ala 24, American Idol, …)
  • Next steps:  gathering content, needs writers, how do you deal with moderation
• prayerlabyrinth.com
  • Similar to the old style prayer walk, small actions that put significance into a prayer (e.g. throwing pebbles into a pool, adding a note to a bucket, etc)
• twelveeleven.me
  • Developing for Rami as a platform.
• Others
• Servemob – flash mob for serving/giving to people – kiva/micro-loans
• Caringbridge/care calendar/relational tithe – being there to support people who are hurting, healing
• Goodhappened.com – anti-fail blog #goodhappened – photos/videos/updates of social good that happened in your life or around you
  • Cross-linking to to servemob to get folks doing more when needs not 100% met
• How can build community frameworks for Gamers/Guilds/Rockband?
• Confession destruction – collect them (anonymously, like postsecret) and destroy them
• Layer VOIP  on these sites in appropriate places:
  • Group prayer as a station in the prayer labyrinth
  • Mysteryisthetruth – weekly live QA, recorded, streamed, and available 24/7 as a podcast/audio download
• Positive version of F* my life – LMF – quick notes about positive things that happened in their life.

11:30 – Team Generated Discussion #4 – (Karin – Authenticity – What Does That Look Like For Internet Churches)

• Learning to ‘listen’ online

12:00 – Internet Campus Vision, Framework and functionality

• What does it mean to have ‘church’ on the internet?
• Launch schedule
• Leadership Roles
• Spiritual Growth Strategy

1:00 – Lunch

Church on the Internet | the vision

The vision is coming together for the Internet Campus at Gateway Church in Austin, TX. At this point I have a very broad vision for the internet campus as we begin to gather some some people and some momentum.

The Reality
The internet is, for all intents and purposes, not unlike any community that a church planter might consider as a mission field. Yes, there are some obvious differences that often take center stage in the conversation but I would like to start by putting those aside. We all realize that there are some mandates in scripture for the actual physical gathering together of believers that we should not ignore. This is true, but we also have a mandate to take the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. So I say this; lets take this thing as far as we can and see what God can do.

What We’re Not Doing
It also needs to be said that what we are not doing is simply re-broadcasting the worship service from Gateway Church. Just like any Gateway campus we need to take the Gateway Church mission, vision and values and apply them to the community that is being targeted.

Church Planting Basics

Become a Part of the Community
When we plant churches in physical communities the first thing we do is become a part of the community. At its most basic level, we need to move there before we can have a church.

This is the first step for the internet campus too. We need to ‘move’ to the internet first and foremost. So the question is; what does moving to the internet mean?

Pre-Launch
Generally we start with some ‘soft launch’ experiences that give us the opportunity to try out our technology and fine tune our programming before the official grand opening.

Grand Opening
The official launch of the church plant. Marketing and word of mouth are all timed to peak at the grand opening.

Implement Leadership Strategy
Once the church is launch the next thing is to draw leaders out of the crowd that has been gathered.

Spiritual Growth Plan
Once we have some more leaders in place the spiritual growth strategies can be implemented.

More Outreach Efforts
The cycle comes back around again as we move the leaders and members of the new church toward evangelism efforts.

So here are the questions:

1. What does the ‘target’ person look like in the Internet Community?
2. What does a ‘gathering’ look like in the Internet Community?
3. How far are we going to take this?

Twitter + work = get fired? Not anymore, SpreadTweet saves the day

With the massive pile of Twitter clients to choose from, here is yet another and it is genius. SpreadTweet looks just like an open spread sheet in your favorite spreadsheet application. Which is perfect for getting your tweet on at work.

Coming project | everything is spiritual

We are launching a site that will essentially put any and all forms of spiritual/philosophical/metaphysical thought into one place. The site will give a balanced look at any and all belief systems with out being antagonistic to any of them.

The purpose is to build a community that is talking about spiritual things with the intent of injecting Christ into it.

We want you to contribute. We are looking for content contributers.

here’s the application:

RSVP for summer web camp ’09

Its probably a good idea for us to know how many people will be attending so that I can have enough goodies and also make sure the location will work.

So, fill this out. Don’t you love filling out web forms? If you need more details, GO HERE.

WoW: It’s Where It’s At

WoW, for the uninitiated, is World of Warcraft, the most successful online game ever devised. If it’s not where it’s at,  at least it’s where almost 12 million monthly subscribers are.

That’s a lot of people. And that’s a lot of people that are largely not being served by any Christian organization that I’m aware of. It’s pretty well untouched by Christians, as is most of the gaming community.

I’ve been a guild master and a guild officer in a WoW guild for about three and a half years now (a “guild” is your online family, the folks you spend all your time with, and I’ve been dubbed “guild mom”).  There are several Christians in my guild, which I find interesting but not coincidental.

Part of the eccentricity of any gaming community is that you have to know the language, and know it well, to be accepted. You must be a gamer, and a gamer inside that game, to have a certain level of “street cred.” In my particular case, I don’t eat and breathe WoW like a lot of my guildmates, but I know the lingo and can relate. I genuinely care about the lives of the people in my guild, and I ask about them. I’ve met many of them in real life.

For me, these relationships aren’t virtual; they’re as real as my “real life” friendships. I talk to these people on a VOIP server almost daily. I’m privy to details in their lives that only their spouses and closest friends are (and sometimes not even those). I am friend and confidante, because I am willing to put in the time, listen, and care. I’ve asked several people if I can pray for them and have never had anyone say no, even those I know to be agnostic at best. In a few cases I’ve shared God’s love. It’s believable, because it comes from the guild mom, who clearly already loves them.

What’s your mission field?

What we’re not going to do

As we gather thoughts, pray prayers, listen to God and formulate a vision about what an Internet Campus is, I can tell you right away what its not going to be:

We don’t want to simply broadcast the Gateway Church service. If that’s all we wanted to do, we could have that up and running this weekend.

As I share the early vision of this awesome project with a lot of people that thought keeps popping into my head.

Get Stuff Done | Xinha Here!

I love Xinha Here! because I am lazy and hate typing more code than I have to. Its a great tool for people like me who spend a lot of time working in CMS type apps and you keep the built in WYSIWYG editor turned off.

Facebook Developers Garage | Dallas

Andrew and I are heading up to Dallas on Friday June 26th to check in at the Facebook developers garage. I t should be a great time to learn, network and most importantly hang out. Oh yeah…and lots of driving.

anybody wanna go with?