Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd by Gavin Richardson

telling stories on missions : sharing experiences with congregations

how to use social media to share your ministry story with home congregation & ministry partners from Gavin Richardson

one of the things that social media has allowed myself & you the lay web designer to do is easily share missions, event, and other ministry experiences with our congregations and ministry partners. i know folks are starting to do this more & more, so here's some of the set up & tips that i've used in the past.

• site: have a website that you can do quick updates to. this might be a special wordpress site or typepad/blogger are all formats that give you ease in telling little stories or updates without having to know code or ftp information. you can even use twitter if you need. i also like to use flickr for posting pics & videos. so much easier to upload a batch than to put into a blog posting.
• connections: ask ahead if you can get wifi in the area or cell service, and which kinds of services. if you can get wifi (which is surprisingly much more common than not) its wonderful. next best is cell service & you can probably spring for one of the broadband connecting cards depending on your provider. next, if you can only find cell service you might tether a connection, or just plan to use a smart phone application. my iphone has applications for all kinds of blogging updates, or i can just surf the web browser.
• ahead of time: depending on my anticipated needs i'll set up a posting ahead of time. example: our experience up into appalachia last summer i knew there was no wifi options, so i set up a blog post with a twitter widget that i could send updates to. i gave a shortened url link to the one of the ministry secretaries that she could put into the prayer chain emails.
• hardware: if you have a wifi connection bring your laptop. if you do this right you can stay up a few minutes after lights out, do what you need to do and then close shop and move into the next day. one of my key hardware pieces is a universal card reader. the best 30 bucks i ever spent in ministry. if you don't take the pictures, no worries, borrow someones camera card download theirs and use them to upload. same thing with video. if you have one or more video cameras (we used a sony webbie flip camera and a harddrive camcorder for our bahamas trip this year) bring what cables you need for charging & downloading. if they use flash/sd cards then you just need your universal reader..
• mobile upload: most social media sites have mobile upload options. you need to have them in your back pocket. twitter has an email to post option, as well as twitpic (which will post to your twitter). so if you can send pics or video through your cell service you are good to go. flickr also has an email that will post to your account. have your mobile apps tested out and ready to go before hand.
• choose your portal: life on a missions or other ministry experience is generally filled with little downtime. if you are like me you don't want to spend your every minute telling others and not living into the moment you are in. so, choose what your portal is for sharing. do you want to write out stories? or, like we have done, take the photos and put them out there to tell our story. this year we went more immediate video doing some little one or two minute update videos. since we are photo/video heavy this year, we just used flickr. set up a trip set and gave out the shortend url then populated it as the week went on. boy have we ever populated that... most likely too much. if you want to just have the youth or adult participants write stuff for blogs, give them a heads up. sometimes though its hard for people to sit down and write, so you either need to tell them what to talk about or give them the whole week to work on writing to get into a flow. some folks though, write very easily, well & quickly, look for those folks, but not at the detriment of the experience.
• clean it up: once you get home, clean up some of the url updates, spelling errors, add captions, edit finished versions, add more content, etc. people don't need everything, they love to get a taste or idea of what it looks like & what is happening.

disclaimer/distribution: i've been asked before if i've gotten permission for posting photos and such. yes & no. i've put in our release forms that this is part of our group & i tell parents that this is what we do, so if they have issue we can remedy the situation. most of the times our parents are exstatic to see what's going on. how often do they get frustrated with their kid going to camp, only to return & asked "what happened?" responding "nothin.." with this, they know something did happen. now, we do take some precautions of not putting in names, certainly not full names. we generically name photos most of the time. i don't do uber tagging so it falls into the greater searches, but is usable for my own search. with flickr you can protect download of pics to just your contacts/friends/family which is helpful if you can get people to get a free account and 'friend' you.

bringing back the blog : an idea for the future

i basically took the month of june off from blogging, in case you didn't notice.. part was work induced, part was family induced, mostly though, i needed to take a break & figure out how to come back to blogging and feel good about it.

i figured to come back july 1st.. oh well.

the new ideas to the blog, will be to integrate more video commentary & teaching into my postings. this will mean less posting (which probably should have happened years ago), but hopefully a broader sharing of thoughts in not just the written medium but branching into video. we'll see how that goes. my goal is to integrate one to two postings a week in that format.

another spot too, as fillers to commentary, is to put in more practical looks into youth ministry & technology. its my calling & i've strayed way too far from it in the past few years getting caught up in some big church things. i still love the big church stuff, but i've been narrowing my 'responsibilities' and helping to distribute talents to some of the networks i've developed over these last 15 years of ministry so to tend to my flock God blessed me with more fully.

i might fall off what stool i was on in the big church landscape, but that is totally cool & totally necessary. not really sure how i got there in the first place, probably my own pride & ambition. regardless, i'm feeling really good going into this new phase of ministry & how to share it with others.

looking forward to reconnecting with you all again soon.

shalom

-gav

methodist amendment mashup : its what you get for going on youtube maxie

a lot has been said over the latest rage in methodism, taking your political viewpoints to youtube. one thing maxie dunham, who seems to have started this should have done his homework on is the concept of mashup's. cause buddy, you've now been mashedup. i think the fact that someone did this is brilliant, rather slanted, but brilliance as i am sure the egos that decided this vehicle was the way to go didn't see something like this happening.

instruction manual of life : so many ways

saw this via don heatley's facebook page. i find this compelling and certainly worth my 8 minutes of time to ponder. it is obviously directed at christianity, the church, and the bible

• the problem with challenging one's cupboard is that peoples identity surrounded by the things they organize themselves with. to express that someones meaning to life is wrong is threatening to their very sense of self. Christ isn't an arguement to win, but there is a better way, how does one help illumine that?
• i don't feel the bible is to be a book on the shelf (tho, admittedly it sits on my shelf more than it probably deserves. how much of an idol do we make of the bible?

long time no post : i do have a plan

hey all, as you can see i've been sort of on a blogging hiatus. a few things seem to have brought this on.

• i've been increasingly asked to do projects (and asked to be a part of a few) that are taking up what blog time i've had.
• church life (for which pays my bills) has been blessed with some great growth & renewal opportunities. the opportunities need a great amount of attention.
• family life, erin & i are expecting child (if you hadn't already heard) and some of the prep stuff for that is adding on
• i want to be a lawn master! when i was a kid i mowed the lawn.. now i am now trying to figure out how to grown lawn & flower beds & all the extras. i figure i can start to live out loving neighbor by having a kickin lawn. not to mention i get to see & chat with all the neighbor folks when i'm outside. its a good thing
• i've been twittering, probably a bit too much that is arguable, which has been a lot of my commentary and conversations in social media spectrum.
• i am playing more golf. more on that later. but its a good thing for me... well, when i play okay. somedays are just bad.
• there is probably more, but this seems a sufficient list.

with all this, i'm not killing or shutting down my blog. with the time away i have a new vision for trying to take this medium and use it to its fullest. i won't reveal the whole plan, but i will resurge again with posting regularly, but not daily. personal stuff is going to move over to our family site and i am going to devote this space to the projects, ideas, training, etc that i am becoming a part of.

God has really blessed me with some excellent understandings, some name recognition, and a the coolest community of people to associate with. so i cannot see a reason to not be a part of the methoblogosphere & cyber communities. thanks for hanging with me

shalom
-gav

not a bad view : still on vacation

this is our little walk out view from my room in saint michael's maryland. here for my cousin anton's wedding. apparently where the ceremony is at the house featured in wedding crashers. is that prophetic in some way?

monday music : my uncool favorite song

there is something about josh joplin that i really love. he's only had one marketable hit, but then again, the grateful dead only had one top hit song too.. anyways, i just love his obscure song "i am not the only cowboy." if i had to guess why, its resonates with me lyrically. i like the white boy psuedo rap stuff cause i might actually be able to pull that off. note: he does a lot of talking & joking before this song actually starts, ffwd to about a minute & half in.

 

social media love song : it aint no joke.. well, maybe it is

how can i resist a country music song extrapolating the ills of a man trying to meet a woman via social media. many thanks to john for unearthing this one

where faith is going wrong in social media : life without pants & a little bit of south park

the last of my four installments guest posting at matt cheuvront's "life without pants" blog on spirituality & social media is out for the world to see titled "where faith gets it wrong." i bring back some thoughts you've seen on this blog before, from my thoughts on why your podcast isn't reaching who you think it is to some of my ideas i shared at podcamp nashville. go check it out and comment on any of the postings. tell me i'm full of crap (i just might be) or whatever else your get to thinking about.

why i'm pulling for greg paulus : bunking an epidemic

if you are not a sports person then you may not know of the big story (before the nfl draft week) of greg paulus. greg was a star player for the duke university basketball team the last few years. before coming to duke though greg was a super star high school football quarterback. he is now, with his one year of eligability left as student athelete wanting to take his game back to football and the university of michigan looks like they will give him a shot.

as i've been listening to the 'experts' they are all skeptical and pretty much predicting that he won't make it as the starter or even show any sign of success. i suppose that's understandable, but i am really pulling for greg to prove all them wrong, but probably not for the reason you might guess.

as a youth pastor i have two entities that compete with me for our teenagers time and energy the first is school, the second is sports. when its school sports its compounded. (notice i didn't say that family competes with me.. that's another blog posting)

some 6-8 months ago i put together our calendar for the summer with missions and camp experiences. one of my girls, who is invested in what we are doing and loves the mission experience for junior highers was super stoked to go. its tearing her up now, that a few weeks ago the high school coach has scheduled soccer tryouts for the same week, the very first week of june (yes, soccer tryouts are june1-5th). my guess is that she will not be going on the missions experience, which i understand, but it continually bothers me when stuff like this comes up.

when i was a teenager i played soccer, skied (the snow kind), and played golf as sports go. i moved to new jersey from alabama during those soccer years and because my brother & i were unknowns by the local coaches we ended up not getting invited to the travel teams and spent three or four years of PAL league soccer. when high school came i remember starting training 2-3 weeks before the season and we ended up making the teams & eventually onto varsity playing with many state ranked players & a state championship. soccer stopped & skiing started then golf.. well, golf was pretty much year round cause that was my favorite, but i didn't start playing till i entered high school, rather late for today's kid. i then spent time at church doing bell choir, singing choir, youth group, even young life. we had family vacations not associated with any of that. never once did i feel pressure to have to compete or make decisions (at least hard ones) on doing one or the other.

those days were great, you got the importance of teamwork, competition, physical fitness, school pride, and personal self-esteem. somewhere along the years the thing that brought on good things has gone to such an extreme it has flipped on itself.

apparently now you need to compete in your sport or choose your instrument at an early age and give yourself over to the coaches & teachers or you will never be able to make the team/band whatever. i get that scholarships are a big deal, but scholarship is supposed to get you into school so that you can be well rounded & educated. in our environment today that doesn't seem such the priority. why are things so uber competitive? is it that important that we start our girls soccer the first of june. even worse, football before school has even let out in the last two months of spring.

i root for you greg paulus cause you might show some of the culture that you change your sport focus and still be 'okay' the world will not end...