today is, my prayer & hope, the end of the line for auburn's winning streak against my beloved crimson tide. not much more to say except, let's play some football.
Roooolll Tide Roll!
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November 2008
November 29, 2008
November 27, 2008
east nashville eats : pied piper eatery
some time back i shared of my friend jenny who opened up pied piper creamery. entreprenuership, or an inability to work for someone, runs in the family. now my andy, my little adoptive brother (he was 12 when i first started hanging with him) has opened up his own restaurant, pied piper eatery on 1601 riverside drive, nashville, tn 37216 with his sister becky. i got a preview of the menu the week before he opened it looked awesome. judging from some of the reviews others agree. this one i thought was great.
Grizzly said he'd heard they have good veggie burgers there so I
decided to give it a shot. Let me tell you, this was absolutely the
BEST veggie burger I've ever had! I hardly ever use superlatives (let
alone in association with Nashville cuisine). But, I was absolutely
blown away! Andy Piper makes his veg-burgs from scratch, no pre-packaged, store bough jammies for him. I think he mixes brown rice, beans (I'm Puerto Rican, of course I like it), beats, mushrooms and a
bunch of stuff I couldn't figure out. I'm guessing it's a proprietary
secret. I got the mashed potatoes as a side and was totally knocked
out by them too! Red Russet (?) potatoes w/the skins still on, very
chunky style is my absolute favorite and Becky & Andy totally nailed
it.
November 26, 2008
November 25, 2008
convenience fee? : how have i been missing this?
after the national youth workers convention i wanted to get a nice meal. well, the timing didn't work out to do a big going out thing, so erin ordered what has become our stand by meal. some folks call it comfort food. anyways, not only was the person who took our order kinda bitchy to erin, they told us it'd be an hour (what!) well, since we were heading home from the office we didn't leave right away. when i get home what do i find? none other than the pizza guy. so i went scrambling for a check, we payed the guy, but in looking at the bill i notice a $2 "convenience" charge.
uh, where did this come from? where did the idea of 'free delivery' go? anyways, the more i ponder it the more i am going to be calling dominos or roma's pizza now.
November 24, 2008
November 22, 2008
david crowder band : national youth workers convention
its been a busy day, we had a run on walk-ins at the labyrinth so i missed out on mark yaconelli and the morning session. its okay, he forgave me.
been uploading some of the photos from last nights session, this is one from david crowder band that i liked. you can check out more from the national youth workers convention here.
November 21, 2008
labyrinth : nywc '08
just a quick posting of a photo of the labyrinth where i am working a bunch for this national youth workers convention. at the moment it is quiet as folks are at the first general session. business will pick back up in a little while. till then, get gander at more of my photos from nywc '08 in nashville.
you can follow the crazy twitter action as well, or live general sessions if you like.
November 20, 2008
national youth worker convention : day one, set up day
today was set up day for much of the national youth workers convention. i was part of the labyrinth team, which is a first for me. i'm pretty excited to be a part of what folks experience within the lines of the labyrinth. this particular one is called the 'prayer path' which has guided audio. i don't particularly care for that part of it, i'm a classical labyrinth guy. this one is considered a contemporary labyrinth as well. i went though this labyrinth for the first time some 6 years ago & it was a powerful experience.
after finishing up with most of the labyrinth we got our lunch on, nothing major there. we did a major exploration of the various sauces available to you at chick-fil-a.
once we were back it was sanctuary set up time with lilly lewin. this proved more difficult than imagined. the room was sorta ordinary but with a bunch of doors and angles it was hard to make some focal points that didn't look out of place. some rigged up drapes & a few moves of our main altar we think we found a spot that evokes a little bit of the spirit for the many contemplative practices and hours of prayer.
ran into some great folks today, which is the highlight from getting to set up & prepare sacred spaces. eli roogles & i got reacquainted. we first met last year after being like the only two peeps who twittered the convention at that time (there are a lot more now). i got to meet jenn roogles too who mistakenly thought i was the drummer for the david crowder band last year (he must get mistaken for jack black too). finally, after i don't know how many years, i got to meet andy thompson when he & adam mclane stopped by the labyrinth to say hi. ran into old tennessee pal john stephens on the street, then in front of the ys store. on the way out i got a quick chat & hug with mike king as he was doing his traditional 'walk the crowd.' lastly, but who i didn't get to spend time with was chad crawford who is from the baptist church in my church's town. the neat story with chad, is that he & his family were displaced from hurricane katrina & he was the youth leader that was brought to nywc and given the royal treatment by the ys folks last time the convention was in nashville. he's a cool guy, but i needed to meet with some other folks to get my car out of a parking garage. there are other fine folks i ran into and met,
home now
check out my flickr set from the nywc '09 nashville for some more images of the convention
November 19, 2008
pembrokeshire coast walk : mile 90
no, its not me. i wish. erin & i actually looked at doing some of the pembrokeshire coast walk when we were there back in '04. this is my aunt and uncle doing the trek. they sent some pictures of the coast walk and it has me missing the uk. not sure when erin & i might make it back. till then i'm living vicariously through the uk contingent of family via our electronic means. their latest correspondence.
Hello everyone, from a very dismal West Wales...........everywhere is just
so soggy!
I thought I'd drop you all a note to keep you up to date with our progress
doing the Pembrokeshire Coastal Walk to raise money for CRY............... we
are HALF WAY!! ('ish),
anyone with a map or Google, our last stop point was Martins Haven.
Due to an original typo on the Just Giving website, it did appear that we
had fixed a completion date for sometime last summer, which has caused
some confusion because we never ever had a target date as this is a first for
both of us:(far too dangerous to commit to an end date!!).
So, to recap, we have walked around 90 miles so far, and we will of course
let everyone know as we approach the finish at Amroth. Hopefully, the
going will be easier for the last half, some of the inclines we've negotiated so
far almost called for crampons!!
However we have thoroughly enjoyed every single day of our walk (especially
when they're over!) and it's made us realise how so priviliged we are to live in
such a glorious part of the country.
I'm enclosing some photos of the trip so far to give you a taster!!
(Any probs opening them, or if you want a full size version (I do own a 1.3
megapixel camera you know!) please get in touch!) To see them
chronilogically, look at them from the bottom up (If you see what I mean!)
All our love
george and glen
November 18, 2008
November 17, 2008
some time ago : reminiscing the blog
as part of my forth year of blogging i'm digging into the archives..
apparently four years ago i really discovered the joys of wireless, so strange to think of life without wireless now.
some three years ago jonathon and i put our monastic worship'y skills to the test with a service for the general board of discipleships young adult summit. best part about that, when we did the dramatic 'slam' and cut off the music someone put out gasping 'oh s%#!.' that was a worship first for me.
i finally finished 7 days with thomas merton and his complexities of war & peace. i don't remember that being a very popular post series, but it sure was fruitful in my spiritual life.
cooler still, three years ago i was blogging my days at the last national youth workers convention in nashville. day one i helped set up prayer stations with lilly lewin and others. day two was finishing up prayer stations and then overall observations of the conventions. day three i played hookie & day four was more about personal prayer time and my buddy eric coomer. day five continued a trend of skipping things, but was more centered around my day with spiritual director.
two years ago this might have been the coolest collaboration in a long time
November 16, 2008
November 14, 2008
tweet patterns : i do work
this seems to be a new thing roaming around the net. a graph chart on your twitter patterns. i felt like recognizing that have a very low twitter rate during my critical times of the day. you can also check out the wifey's twitter pattern.
November 13, 2008
November 12, 2008
November 11, 2008
my veteran family : we honor you
today marks veteran's day. there are many folks in my life to recognize for their service to our country, but today i will lift up my own family folks. i am the odd man out (myself & my sister) who has not joined in with the service. i think i'm too wimpy for it.
my little brother shawn richardson. many might remember his first tour through Iraq where he kept a running blog. he is still in the army national guard for tennessee. he has been serving in the army reserves, active duty, or national guard (as an officer) since he was a junior in high school. last i knew he was a 2nd LT but was looking to move up in rank at some point (not sure if that point has come around yet). he is slated to return to Iraq at some point in the future, but no definite plans are set as of now.
my older brother david richardson. he broke from tradition and gave his service to the marine corps. he participated in the first gulf war. he was stationed on the tripoli, i believe, which hit a sea mine during the war. i like to play with him & insist that he did very little during that time. all his pictures that i saw were of him and his buddies playing volleyball on the beach in kuwait. i know that isn't true, but its fun to tease him.
my dad, william richardson jr. his service is more of a mystery to me. not something he talks about much, and believe me, he tells enough stories that if he cared he would have told them by now. dad was in the army, and as i know it was inbetween major wars. i think that is a good thing, dad is way to peaceful in my eyes to be a soldier. sidenote: he also claims to have been golden gloves, i don't see that one either, but it did take a number of years before i could get the upper hand on him in the dad/son wrestling air boxing match. dad had a number of friends who were a part of Vietnam & i remember visiting the veterans memorial and sketching in a few names.
to the men folk in my fam, i salute you! please shawn, don't critique me on my salute, i know by now that i don't do it right. love, -gav
saint scholastica : love the story
its kinda funny to me. my movement into monastic practice came with stories of and the rule of Saint Benedict. lately i've found myself loving stories of his sister, Saint Scholastica. this is a fav.
One winter night, Benedict's sister, Scholastica, was awakened by a song bird. How can this be, she thought, and she lookd out the window of her cell. Three naked men were dancing in the monastery garden by the light of the moon. One whistled like a bird and made her laugh. The men were fair to look at, Scholastica thought, but she knew she needed more rest before the prayers of the day.
Kneeling by her bed, she closed her eyes and sleepily said a prayer for the men - if they were men - that they might find shelter, clothing, and rest for their dancing feet, and if (as she suspected) they were demons, that they might return from where they came.
When she awoke, her cell was filled with the scent of roses. Where the men had been dancing a rose bush had sprung up and was blooming in the snow. It bloomed all that winter and blooms to this day.
Kneeling by her bed, she closed her eyes and sleepily said a prayer for the men - if they were men - that they might find shelter, clothing, and rest for their dancing feet, and if (as she suspected) they were demons, that they might return from where they came.
When she awoke, her cell was filled with the scent of roses. Where the men had been dancing a rose bush had sprung up and was blooming in the snow. It bloomed all that winter and blooms to this day.
November 10, 2008
youth room remodel : story of a pew
we are finishing up our third phase of our reimagine project at hendersonville first united methodist church. what started out at remodeling some of our space became 'thecorner' our reimagined youth ministry.
we are excited about the changes and lots of good things are happening. yesterday we had an open house for the greater church community and our elder pastor told a story about the pews we had. we bought these pews from beersheba assembly grounds. they were sitting in the basement of their old chapel on the property.
as the story goes, a pastor in that area built these as a start to having a school up on the plateau. so not only is it neat to use some old furnishing and give them new life, but to have something that reflected the church's mission to reach out to those in need is pretty cool to me.
more photos from our reimagined project & finishing up youth room remodel
November 08, 2008
ministry 2.0 : agoraphobic church by david foster
agoraphobic church : keynote by ministry 2.0
- some shifts in the church that david has seen
- fundamentalism
- seeker sensitive
- new shift, our methods don't work. cool methods only go so far
- have growing culture that knows not pharoah
- fragmentation, each person can start a movement. lots of 'mini-movements'
- we have methodological freedom & technical power to advance the church from agoraphobic stage
- agoraphobia, fear of the marketplace
- fear of open space or ideas
- as people of the church we are zenopobic, fearful of stranger
- mission miopia, greatest mission that churches have is survival. a mission of survival isn't very inspiring
- if we only go after the churched we are only hitting a shrinking population
- wall-less, wireless, worn-out
- we live in a day with the death of distance. bricks & mortar are no longer defining
- nimble simple lean are the thing of the future
- a mobility that redefines sacred space
- how does an entity survive being open only one hour a week?..
- wireless, anyone everywere anytime
- worn-out, live in a culture of intense complexity
- we can't explain it in the same old world words
- (talk on varieties in life reminded of this malcolm gladwell ted talk)
- you gotta come when we are open & hear what we have to say, no longer
- marketing is now content
- how do we use tech to leverage our message. the gospel is our core message
- not sin management (from dallas willard)
- its one thing to have the tech equally exciting to have content that matters
- more open to dialogue, less open to rhetoric
- if we continue our walled in gardens we will loose 'the race'
david foster is pastor of the gathering a church plant in cool springs area of tennessee
ministry 2.0 : at the core of social media by stephen anderson
at the core of social media : workshop session at ministry 2.0 technology conference
what is social media? the process of using interactive web-based tools to establish community
- why? what do you want to accomplish? in being part of social media
- dangers of failure to planning ongoing engagement
- at the heart of the tools is conversation
- a wiki is where people collaborate on a document, not a forum
- www.wearemedia.org social media site for non-profits
- people move tools, how to design to keep people
- there are people who create content & those who spectate
- participation, openness, conversation, community, connectedness by chris brogan (download his latest ebook, fish where the fish are)
- "we are not sure who'll have time to moderate it?" are you really ready?
- do you want to be a platform for people to participate in that open conversation?
- how business sees this
- broadcast : we tell you what to think of our service
- interactive : tell us what you think of what we tell you
- social media : tell each other
- characteristics of all the tools, at the center is people
- ideas & beliefs develop on experiences and trust
- what makes something a good experience?
- accomplishment
- exceeding expectation
- saves time
- task accomplishment
- the experience itself
- packaging
- brand
- 3 broad groups to experiences,
- the core interaction describes the 'thing' (product or service) being purchased
- the presentation layer describes secondary elements that have a direct effect on our perceptions
- the communications layer describes those attraction efforts which an indirect effect on perceptions
- two halves to the model
- the top half is the company space and all things that can be controlled by the company
- the bottom half is what a user can create/work with
- mix of rational & emotional
experiences and trust
- what builds trust? what looses trust?
- experiences are the currency of trust
- trust makes social life predictable, creates a sense of community,...
- community depends on trust
the church needs tools
- that connect people globally and locally
- help people group around shared interests
- make it easier to share with the ...
tools
- shared corporate gathering via ustream
- twitter or small groups or missionaries
- blogs, share your heart
- etc.. start with you needs and then find the tools
these are some things i'd like to accomplish at, through or for my church: (my generated list)
- develop pride in the ministry and message of our community
- have extensions to relationships from sunday to sunday
- inform parents and key players
- play some role in developing apprentices of Christ
- have familiar grounds to have tough conversations
- challenge the status quo of the church
- inspire others
categories
- facebook, myspace, bebo, hi5, ning, linkedin are social networks to connect people to other people
- digg, del.icio.us magnolia, stumble upon are social bookmarkings and collaborative filters
- wordpress, blogger, typepad are blogging platforms
- pbwiki, wikispace, wetpaint are wikis for collaboratives
- socializer, friendfeed, socialthing, profilactic are lifestreams and new to landscape
- skype, thinkature, stixy are collaborative communication
- forums or messageboards
- podcasts & videocast
- content communities are youtube, slideshare, where people gather around content
- shared events eventful, zvents, google calendar where you can share things that are going on
- livecast are live video like ustream
- microblogging is twitter, pownce
tips
- follow jeremiah owyang
stephen anderson is the vice president of design at viewzi. stephen promises to put his slides from this session on slideshare.
ministry 2.0 : driving traffic by chuck russell
driving traffic, to your church website : workshop session at ministry 2.0 technology conference
- you want to get people to come back, over and over again
- make the site the primary vehicle
- q? "how'd you make the transition from the printed to online newsletter" answer, "we just did it. we do have a once a month paper publication that is more storytelling of missions or ministry etc."
- forward compatability vs backward compatible. we make decisions on what we want to be about
- once you put everything on the front page, nothing is on the front page. people couldn't see it, lost in the mix. find the middle road.
- task based organization, what are using coming to your site to do?
- "highest real estate of a site is the top left"
- new to church is highest ranking, email newsletter 2nd, media and calendar are the sticky things that bring people back
- if it is on the bulletin then it goes onto the website homepage as featured item
- navigation structure of site. jargon and organizational thinking in navigation. use words that are understandable by others (ex. journeys, don't know if is youth or whatever). navigation shouldn't be done according to the organization of work.
- organize content according to users, not church structure
- consistency across the site is critical. having different structures for different parts of the site is frustrating for users
- search-ability of site. larger site need better search-ability. if smaller the structure needs to be stronger
- "don't make me think" book on search-ability
- integrate with the core values of your church. make sure everything goes in with your mission & purpose statements and movement of the church.
- tie to your discipleship values. integrate all throughout the site. putting in the message
- web credibility project, what is appeal of your site
- integrated brand position with your site. get content past peoples filter by being consistent across mediums
- develop a content maintenance plan. how are you going to keep all this going and up to date. chuck uses a weekly communications schedule. all the stuff that needs to be done that week (micro level). need to keep the site up to date to keep folks coming back.
- cross promotion (thinking like oprah). on her website she's promoting her tv show or radio show. on the radio show they promote the web site, etc. crucial to how you think about promotions
- business cards need to have the web site address. bulletins need to promote site, etc.
- in all flyers have short cut links to your promotions. they don't always have to just promote the homepage. www.sitename/ministry/ build that culture. children's ministry has its own domain name, but it just directs back to page within the site. domain names are cheap. can be printed on flyers, t-shirts, outside of church building, etc.
- newspaper ad, everything we do has the website address. we don't do ads in the faith section. we put in the sports or finance sections.
- direct mailer, has times and website for services. put prominently. do a /specificneed url for the message you are getting out.
- the web is a fast medium, people don't want to wander around your site (church & corporate site wise, youtube a bit different)
- email newsletters a primary driver of coming back to the site. it used to be really long and content heavy. now its short and links to information on the website. people scan & click
- email aquisition strategy, if you sign into the attendance pad you get the pastor emails and wednesday newsletter. also have online web site sign up. if you sign up for an event we don't put you in. will put you into specific event emails if attending those.
- social media, have people link back and help drive traffic back to you. blogs, facebook groups, individual and ministry blogs, podcast of sermons, etc. the more ways you are out there, the exponential the effect.
chuck russell is leadership development director at church of the resurrection in leawood kansas outside kansas city (that was for you chuck)
ministry 2.0 : seo/sem by chuck russell
how search engines work : workshop session at ministry 2.0 technology conference
- search engines go out and crawl the visibly accessible web. things that are not intentionally blocked by passwords or 'don not crawl' commands
- search engines read text, imagine a blind person reading. can't view images.
- they hold cache's or copies of the text.
- clicking 'cached' on search results gives clue why a particular page showed up so high.
- results circulate around relevant and popularity
- relevance is about the amount of content
- popularity is about the traffic & linked too the most
- if you put out a brand new site it might take 3 months to make it to the top of search engine because of popularity. need to get found.
- identify the landing pages of your site that you want people to find
- optimize a 'new to...' page for new visitors
- don't have to drive people just to your homepage
- drive traffic for singles ministry. think search for 'franklin singles'
- what are the most seeker oriented activities? what are the draws? the entry point
- cor, uses a lot of paid search around Christmas & Easter
- optimizing your code, get up on w3 standards. the better your code is or standards impliant the better you will show up.
- brainstorm search terms
- the obvious are the 'church' hits the folks who are church shopping
- wordtracker paid service, will give you some info on word searches to help optimize
- how many key words do you want to manage for
- using analytics can give you an idea of what people are searching for
- title tags
- the things that show up at the top of the browser is the first thing crawlers see, optimize that to the key words you need
- for every page you have you want to optimize that tag
- meta tags
- used to be the way, but is moving away from that depending the search engine. google doesn't put much stock in it
- the description tag puts in the blurb in the search engine results. its text the search engine will see but it is not something you see on the site. say something interesting to get people to click on it
- body text
- the number of times a particular word shows up 'density' gives more optimization
- want to do that without sounding non-sensical
- tricks to use white text or microscopic text that is not visible will get you banned
- link building
- popularity comes with traffic and inbound links
- google webmasters tool
- blogs are great for inbound links
- press releases and stories in online newspapers
- link:"site name" will give list of
- the language of the incoming link matters
- advanced lp's (landing page)
- using special landing pages with large use of keywords, then point people off to things they want to see.
- use this for the long tail
- paid search
- google adwords, pay for the click. mailings we have no clue the results of return, they say about 1%. on adwords you have very targeted audience
- facebook, has so much data based on the people profiles, demographics, activity and can be targeted to those folks
- roi, return on investment can exponentially pay for itself if someone shows up and stays
- local search
- claim your business, free
- plug in with that
- can put in videos that are on youtube
- any time you have the opportunity to put out text that you can control you need to do that.
- directories / tools
- submit your site if it is happens to not be there
- google web master tool is important to have in use
- analytics, google analytics is free, you can really get in and understand what is going on on your site
chuck russell is leadership development director at church of the resurrection in leawood kansas outside kansas city (that was for you chuck)
November 07, 2008
youth room view : almost there!
we are in the closing stages of our 2nd to last phase of our reimagining project for our youth space and youth program. its been a longer road than i hoped but its coming together nicely. today we received our new chairs, which i'm stoked about. i wasn't so stoked having to haul them into the building and up three flights of stairs, but its hard to get help at 8am in the morning on short notice. its done now & my sweat is starting to clear away. off now to get photos for our walls. we have black & white gallery going in and then will also have photos from our last year of ministry.
ministry 2.0 : tech stuff for church folk
tomorrow i am getting up early and heading south of town to participate in the ministry 2.0 training & workshops. if you are in the nashville/middle tennessee area you should come join too. there are still spaces available to jump in. those outside of town. i'll probably be live blogging what i can, much like i did for barcamp nashville.
November 06, 2008
catchin up : the link love
i'm finally getting back around to catching up with folks in my blogosphere. some links that i felt interesting enough to share.
- the image comes courtesy of we blog cartoons, via the reverend mommy, in honor of what joyce our cleaning lady generally finds of mine.
- fourth story media, a new way of storytelling
- what marketers can learn from the obama campaign. i might suggest checking barack 2.0
- marketing and talking to teens
- church metrics, free church tool for keeping track of your peeps
- its a googly world now, by len sweet
- my buddy lilly's new book is out. so stoked for her! go buy it!
- check out 'the age of conversation book' with possibly longest list of authors from around the world.
- i generally have had to use my own technology because the church was way behind my own stuff. apparently the mil generation just wants to use their own stuff.
- fresh expressions is going through some leadership changes.
- giving some blogosphere love to olive our elder methoblogist
- i am briefing myself on how to take the best photos for national youth workers convention a few weeks from now.
- asbo Jesus is as it again, battling the atheist, God takes a break from church, emoticon church
- population trends you need to be aware of in your church
- an interesting look at the value of youtube
- how does one motivate creative people?
- logos vs brand, which one actually matters?
- now i am thinking i need to do a newsletter...
November 05, 2008
things gavin
Recent Posts
- Room in the Inn Foot Clinic at Project Homeless Connect
- Brooks already in Advent Spirit
- Wedding Day : Kingdom Moment
- birdseye view of you @nywc #nywc
- welcome to tennessee
- New RSS Feed
- Moving Day for gavoweb.com
- Photo of Week : Sorta'
- Photo of the Week : Brooks at the USS Arizona
- the Difference between North Shore & RAD
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