Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd by Gavin Richardson

ashes on your forehead : a little diddy for those with dirty foreheads today

this was just too cute. my buddy eric coomer sent it to me. i haven't checked out jonathan rundmans's other works, but eric says they are really good as well.

gold, silver, bronze : top methodist moments on youtube

so why not!

on monday i gave out medals for the top john wesley moments on youtube. figured i'd give out medals for methodism realized over youtube.. why not!

this list i couldn't help but get onto some of my soapboxes, so i hope you don't mind some of my subjective judging.. feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments

gold medal: the methodist clayride - i was pleasantly pleased to see this back on youtube. years ago i had a copy of it that i uploaded to youtube but was asked to take it down by a certain agency. i felt that was a real loss at the time because the video then created a lot of buzz and nostalgia amongst us methoblogger types. not to mention, its a great video for sharing the history of the methodist church. if i remember correctly it had over 15k views (mind you this was the early days of youtube as well). so i hope the clayride gets to ride on & as the methodist presses in the early days of the movement shared its stories, theology, sermons, etc. maybe you all can help share this gold medal of methodism.

silver medal : methodist amendments  maxie dunnam - whoa the scandal!! maxie gets the medal for this one because his video showed up on my radar first, though eddie fox put his up a few days earlier. these videos struck off the biggest abuse of the youtube medium by methodist pastors at large. seriously, lets take our sermoning communication medium to a media medium that is short, sweet, entertaining, and engaging (see how youtube community reacts by how they mashedup maxie). still, in the metho-nerd circles, this was scandalous to take the churches business outside the authorities of the general/annual conferences. which, may or may not be a bad thing.. not to leave them out, bishop jones & tex sample took notice and made their counter arguments as well. for stirring the pot and getting a whole lot of amendment mush on youtube, maxie gets the silver medal.

bronze medal : hallelujah chorus by mute monks - okay, this is silly, its only methodist because this one happened to have happened at a methodist church and the youth basically ripped off an otherwise other youtube sensation, but with a hit count of 100k and just observing the reaction of the congregation (or lack there of) and the pastor (what was that?) at what i assume was a christmastide service.. oh boy. bronze medal for having the cajones to try it pine castle umc

standing looking up : patriot guard - this a news report, from united methodist news (i assume), on the methodist pastor who helps with the patriot guard. for those that don't know what the patriot guard is there is just a simple search on youtube and you will get countless videos, some even by national news coverage. this gets the honorable mention for a couple of reasons, 1. it tells the story of how some have take their community into action for the forgotten and the fallen of our culture. 2. it has a pretty decent hit count (i have a version of same video on my youtube channel) which almost doubles it. yes, #2 is not nearly as noble as #1. 

so tell me who got robbed from the podium. there's lots to choose from

gold, silver, bronze awards : top john wesley moments on youtube

as i look over the church landscape & how they use technologies, i started wondering.. how is our church founder, john wesley, being represented on youtube? and with looking over all this (and the winter olympics in play right now), i decided to medal the top wesley moments on youtube.

  gold: john wesley chapel linebacker : the young folks at houghton college put this satirical parody of the terry tate office linebacker commercials together & they are just brilliant. involved a bunch of the students and some of the faculty. they reflect some of the core wesleyan theology tenants within the video mixed into a bunch of "ouch" and laughing moments. clear cut gold medal winner!

 silver: john wesley sermon, thoughts on war : mark topping is apparently know as a john wesley impresonator. this excerpt is taken from his dvd doing his shtick. the except is posted on the or more about the methodist church of great britain channel which has a few other cool videos. this sermon has the most hits of the excerpts. what i think is funny is quickly wesley would be run out of a pulpit in todays umc for preaching the way he did. the solid silver winner!

bronze: john wesley a heartwarming story : this is our dark horse that came out of no where in the medal podium to sang the bronze. i give you the history of john wesley via the confirmation class of first united methodist church of mercedes, texas. what are you doing with your claim the name curriculum? bet it is not as cool as a silent movie motif of wesley's life. anyways, this campy funny approach to sharing wesley's story is by far more entertaining than any of the other powerpoint movie presentations (though some of the foreign language, to me, ones were pretty cool).

standing looking on: relcaiming wesleyan tradition : yup, we tried to see if this thing could go viral for kevin some time back, so it had itself on the 'watch' list, but in the end, it couldn't pick up the medal. this little diddy by the gbod spins off the guinness commercials, which i suppose it okay since wesley had some guinness influence.

**look for the top medalists videos for the united methodist church. that's going to be a tight competition

for you liturgical nerds : little black spot on your forehead

couldn't resist posting this gem. what does one get when you combine the police with 40 days of lent? thanks ironic catholic

a heretics advent : how do you give thanks

A Heretics Advent from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

i read this little parable for our youth the first sunday of advent. we were coming off the thanksgiving holiday and it seemed poignant. i share with you to ask the same thing i asked of our teenagers. 'what are you doing to not live into this parable.

here's what i am encouraging you to check out.

• 61st Avenue umc & the last minute toy store: little ole’ 61st ave umc is putting together its annual “last minute” toy store to help families in hardship provide some toys, food, and sometimes a christmas tree for over 3,500 children here in nashville. toy store starts at noon on friday and goes thru Monday. join me on friday by driving yourself over. volunteer orientation starts at 12. The Toy Store will stay open till around 6:30pm when the last shoppers go thru.
• send a message of hope to our growing church in cote d’ivoire, west africa. there is a lot of need, and when there is need a little hope goes a long way. send some encouragement.
• check out advent conspiracy, get yourself aware of the conditions people live in outside your world. spend less, give more, love all!
• maybe you are just a cool person who cares
• volunteer at the community care’s fellowship or nashville rescue mission
• become aware of local and global issues.. maybe the world AIDS or water problem

making a splash in social media : its okay to loose control

i liked this little ted talk presentation on social media, in part, because it is short and tells a simple story. the learning point that i would suggest my church tribe needs to take a hold of is, "its okay to loose control" and that "no longer does the message come from the top down."

we can all think about how 'the world is flat' and everyone has an equal voice to traditional media institutions and powers & that was really scary to them a number of years ago (might still be). but if you embrace that others are talking maybe not just about you, but with you, then they are people to lift up and share the genuine voice/face of your ultimate cause.

but, the control factor comes into play.. 'what will they say next?' etc.. well, as someone who comes from a religious background, we say that one needs to have 'faith'.. yes, novel concept, but a good concept when one practices it. my experience though is that people really only have faith as long as it falls within their boundaries of human control. with that, we miss out on the possible beauty bound up in the mystery of individuals and community. i hope for a day when my tribe's structural institutions that helped it to get a certain status and size, see the way to get out of the way and have faith in its community to do something remarkable.

return to church : a few chuckles at ourselves

i had some great giggles today watching these videos on 'return to church' (tip from ian at youthblog). it had me thinking of some of the tricks that we are used to get people 'in the door' and that when presented with a disingenuous invitation people run quickly. reminded me of a nice quotable, "what you win them with is what you win them to." i will give this vicar some props, he's not just letting his church become a museum.

i am all a twitter about the news : bud adams gets me air time

so i was rather surprised last night when i get a call from one of my youth. i apparently was on the news.. or rather, my twitter was on the news. yup, christian who does the social media & news coordination for channel two read off one of my twitter postings about the whole bud adams show of guns. not sure what i'm talking about.. well, just watch the story here.

we're all gonna die : so who is your digital executor

saturday i spent my day at barcamp nashville 2009. barcamp is one of my fav days of the year. that along with podcamp are when i get to really hang with the geeks of nashville's tech community. one of the sessions i took in was dave delaney's session titled "we're all gonne die!"

i like dave's presentations because they are never quite what i expect them to be and his gift is that he doesn't try and cover everything in his braintrust. i say that's a gift. anyways, i recorded his session for your viewing pleasures with my notes & thoughts to follow.

Dave Delaney : We're All Gonna Die : BarCamp Nashville 2009 from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

my notes:

• what is going to happen to our content when we die?
• when die what to do with email, paypal, websites, domain names, web hosting fees, facebook, etc.
• facebook will close off profiles to new friends when someone is confirmed as having passed away, but will keep the account live for friends to visit.
• need a "digital executor," someone who knows all your stuff to keep your digital footprint going
• i see this necessity as much as leaving a 'digital legacy' much like the last lecture was from a dad to his children.
• facebook/myspace/blogs become a new place of mourning for a loved one or friend as they pass away. taking the place of the makeshift memorials on roadsides, fences, building walls, etc.

this was an interesting chat with erin after this, exploring the 'digital executor' idea. i'd thought of what might happen to all this stuff i do if i were to pass away. erin knows my passwords that i use and could figure out how to get into each account should she feel that need. however, her expression was, if you died i wouldn't want to mess with that stuff, so it'd be better to have someone to handle that stuff.

so i'm contemplating that.. who would you put in charge as a digital exector? friend, family member? someone you are close to or someone that is close to your wife/family who they are comfortable talking to?

chris brogan & trust agents : stories & philosophy of social media

today i spent my morning (and greater part of the rest of the day) with chris brogan. if you do not know who chris is, my quick description would be that he is the mayor of twitter & one of the most recognized people in the world of social media 'who gets it.' i stumbled across his blog some years ago and have been a constant reader since, many times sharing his postings via google reader or twitter. he's good stuff. so good, i even payed a decent penny to attending this sucker.

anyways, he has a new book out called 'trust agents' and was in nashville as per a promise in a psuedo book tour live web event. a crew of local tech geeks & other business types showed up to hear from the guru for a special 1 hour pre-web conversation with chris & then got to be front and center for the rest of the web event (which was an interesting thing to be a part of).

here is the footage i took from that 1st hour with chris. its on my mini tripod, so the angle is something you might have to get used to, but its doable. with that said, he's tall, but not nearly as gigantic as he looks in video.

Chris Brogan : Trust Agents conversation : Nashville 2009 from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

you can follow the twitter stream of thoughts and conversation by visiting #cbnash at twitter search. check in next week for some expanded thoughts off some of the footage i have from his live web session.

church in second life : religion and ethics expose

stumbled across this story covering the various church & spiritual experiences found in secondlife. i've chronicled here many times my happenings in secondlife. its been a few months since i 'hung out' there so it was like seeing an old friend as they visited the anglican cathedral and seeing other creative spaces that make up the imagination of the virtual world.

radical discipleship : shane claiborne at duke chapel

one of my youth sent me this.. its really great when your teens send you stuff.

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?

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

some things are still just fun : revisiting one of the things

as i am catching up on the blogosphere & other feeds i was reading up on josh browns continued dismay with social media. i get his sentiment.. it had me thinking then of some of the stuff that made the early onset of social media really great. wandered around the net a bit and stumbled back upon this viral video gem. it is still great to me & for many others i am sure.

it has me thinking, what gives some web sensation staying power?

monday music : stop motion video version

this was one of the more creative videos i've seen in quite some time. oh yeah, and gabe dixon band is quite good too.


The Gabe Dixon | Till You're Gone.

holy week worship video : worship tricks

next week we are doing our midday holy week services in our youth space (cause its' the coolest) and most artistically driven area and the pastors want to do some more experiential worship stuff. we'll do some prayer stations stuff for sure & some various smells. but what about our visuals?

i've pretty much sold myself on parsing this video stopping it through good friday & then showing the full thing on easter. i love simple & creative stuff. this is right up my alley

twouble with twitter : hilarious look at twitter

i get asked about twitter & why enough times that i am fine with saying, if your skeptical don't do it. i like len sweet's framing of twitter as passing on the town green. i've established some relationships, made a bunch of jokes, shared a ton of information, & wasted some time that was probably better off done somewhere else. adam cleaveland shared this hilarious video about twitter, on twitter, by the folks at current tv. as with most good satire, you need to know a bit of twitter to get the full fun, but even without that knowledge you'll be able to laugh at it. for a more serious look at twitter you can check out the 'twitter in plain english'

update: the folks at neatorama are having a bit of a slam on twitter after sharing this video

monday music : the new dj

if you haven't seen or heard kutiman through the blogosphere or cyber world in general. this is a song put together by mashing up a bunch of youtube videos of people playing instruments. the whole story can be found here. this is just fascinating, as well as the mother of all funk chords.

more explaination of technology & virtual community : shane hipps day

zach lind did this little video interview for his podcast expanding a little more on what shane was getting at with technology & the virtual community.


Shane Hipps and Zach Lind Discuss Virtual Community. from Zach Lind on Vimeo.

monday music : bit frayed

one of the newer bands that i am finding i really like is the fray. i've apparently been listening to them for awhile over the radio but never noticed. i've become that person you ask 'do you know?..' 'no' 'let me play them for you.' 'okay.. oh, i've heard them before'. not sure why i've become that person, but i have. same situation goes in here.

satan uses money : where are our priorities

i'm a real fan of lifechurch.tv's series of sketches where they chat with satan. simple, generally good theology in the idea of screwtape letters, witty, and the videos are put together well. i submit this one on how satan uses money in the economy.

monday music : loose my soul

shawn michael tipped me off that this video was being released. i'm not a huge listener these days to the ccm scene but this is one song that really have enjoyed since its release.

monday music : its a landslide

a little tip to jen lemen for weekend reminder of this haunting gem that i just love. at one point i was close to being able to play this song on guitar..

credit crisis in nutshell : modern economics that i can understand

one of the simpler explanations to the economic crisis that knucklehead like myself can understand. tip lifehacker


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

crazy or stupid : something to see to believe

i've been familiar with ice climbing before. when i was regularly going rock climbing & working at rei the idea of ice climbing was way cool, but being in an area that it rarely gets below freezing for more than two days straight it is not something i ever imagined doing myself. now i don't think i could ever imagine climbing iceburgs, but it sure is cool to know people try.

tip to espn

practical wisdom : getting away from the external drivers

this is a great talk given at ted just a few weeks back. so much i can resonate with. it is worth every minute of your 20 minutes.

warmth in winter : retreat highlights

i know you all might be bored of seeing all this warmth in winter stuff by now, but this was my life for the later part of last week. not to mention the 5 or so months leading up to the event. this was our retreat highlights video shown saturday night. i'm a proud papa in that the youth team we assembled shot it, cut it up, and produced the video all in the weekend. i will probably add a bit to the end of the video to put in the saturday night experience. i gave everyone the morning off (except shane who had to do song slide duty) so we don't have video captured of that.



Warmth in Winter '09 : Retreat Highlights from Gavin Richardson

where i've been : warmth in winter

wondering what i was up to last week (with only one posting and all)? well, here's a little glimpse as i was doing my normal stuff, but getting ready for our largest youth retreat, warmth in winter, we participate in. this is our friday highlights video my team of youth put together as part of the retreat.

Warmth in Winter '09 : Friday Highlights from Gavin Richardson.

superglue : its what holds a marriage together

i suppose i shouldn't be surprised. after all my ranting before about friendship first and the sex week challenge.

but again, i was really turned off by ed young's simplistic, and in my opinion, misdirected bond to marriage. now i get being on a talk show you get 5 minutes & colbert or stewart are the funny guys and you are to be the straight guy. within that 5 minutes they do allow you to get your point out there, but only briefly and it is your one liner. so to hear, "sex is the superglue to marriage." honestly, is that the best you have? even nt wright was better at explaining "life after life after death" in the resurrection than you were about a solid why for having sex 7 days in a row to save marriage.

 

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Ed Young

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war & christianity : the many voices

i found this little video looking for a psalters song. it has some interesting thoughts on war from people whom i listen too, contemporary and old school.

lost generation : coolest thing on

this might be one of the coolest, and most truth telling things i've seen on youtbue in a long time. its not long & you must watch the whole thing to get the impact. no, some lame scary person isn't going to jump up at the end (i didn't tell you to turn up your speakers did i?). tip comes from family friend meredith who sent to wifey erin (not sure what it takes to get on meredith's email list but)

thoughts on a experiement : social media & the methodist

updated: blake huggins has some thoughts to add & i, as seems customary, have comment

kevin watson, proposed a little experiment to the metho-blogosphere after i made posting on how our general agencies just don't get how to use social media. he has posted his observed results and some opinions about the experiment.

I was surprised that more than 25 bloggers linked to the video in some way on their blog. And I do think it is significant that simply passing on a video was able to revive a video that was basically dead on YouTube. A change from 44 views in 6 months to 715 views in 2 weeks is a significant change. I think that this experiment does show that there exists a significant group of Methodists who are willing to work together in some capacity to raise awareness and get the word out. The big question is: Get the word out about what?

i had some thoughts on the results, not to mention my idea of how general agencies need to target their mild marketing efforts.

like i mentioned to you earlier kevin. the next step would be to spread it around through people’s email lists. email is going to tap more of the mainstream folks versus the early adopts of the blog world.

some numbers can be low because we share information amongst ourselves. i had already seen the video so i wasn’t going to watch 25 times because 25 of my friends posted it. i also am not sure if the embed watching shows up in the views on youtube or that is just a ‘hit’ to that page. that would also keep numbers rather low as most folks embedded the video. i know i did that.

certainly the video didn’t go viral, but i don’t know if it has elements to that seem to be ingrained in a viral video. something that is familiar, humorous or heart tugging. the old gene cotton claymation clay ride history of methodism got a lot of traffic, until umcom told me to take it down, as people had some kindred tie to it. it was a good video, but for many it was more nostalgic to the soul. who knows how well that video would be doing now. i have some news story on the patriot guard, and westboro baptist, that seems to get a comment or two and a hundred or so views a day.

though the experiment didn’t go viral that isn’t the measure. the measure is that it is talked about and people are more aware of ‘reclaiming wesleyan tradition’ now. which, they might not have been before.

some thoughts

as for kevin's observation that views dropped after the 2nd week.. well, it wasn't the kind of video that so many people kept going back too to show off or laugh at again. months later i still go back and laugh at the nashville gas crisis (though it isn't as funny as it was that week).

what are your thoughts?

marketing shift : why old ways don't work

i was saying to erin last night, "i just get frustrated in how & why to i can't seem to communicate with these kids & parents." i was speaking of an information/logistic type communications. not a spiritual sense. with the all the different messages they get mine seem to get diluted. i know that our churches as a whole experience this problem & i'm pondering how i can find my way through and help communicate to my churches how they can do the same (a monumental task i believe). so with all that in mind, this little video, which i ran across in my reader (but i lost who actually posted it to 'tip' them), highlights the large shift of brand communication.



Scholz & Friends: "Dramatic shift in marketing reality from Michael Reissinger

remembering martin luther king jr. : not a tamed guy

one of the things i often wonder about martin luther king jr is how just about everyone has this warm feeling about him. his often highlighted 'i have a dream' speech is wonderful and captivating of ones imagination. but, that isn't his only speech and many are not so easy to stomach as being part of america. as a modern prophet he is dangerous to people, he speaks a truth that is hard to come to be honest with. he just isn't that tamed person that i often think people see of him. this is one such episode

caption contest & freebie : in recognition of inauguration day

inauguration day is always an great day. i know people have their reasons for this year being more special than others, but to know that we have a complete change of government leadership without violence or war is something to behold. so, in recognition of inauguration i've got this caption contest. cool thing, my completely subjectively chosen winner (and you can vote for who you think is best) will be sent a copy of my worship feast prayer stations cdrom project & maybe some more stuff, but i promise that one.

let the captioning begin!

monday music : for everyday

in honor of show tickets going on sale this week, i give you a little dave matthews band. he will be coming to town in april, but tickets will be on sale on thursday i believe. this particular song, 'everyday' comes off the album title titled after the song. what i find interesting is the video (not embeddable, fail!) which involves a guy randomly giving hugs looks a whole like the free hugs campaign.. hmm..

my interesting connection with dmb comes as i used to see them a lot. they came through tuscaloosa (the home of university of alabama) on the bar circuit all the time. they charged a huge cover, like 10 bucks (which is an investment for college student), but that is where the girls went so we all went. i remember sometime standing around in my fraternities television room waiting for dinner when all of a sudden a dmb video came on mtv... we all stared and then acknowledged that we'd never see them back at the local bars ever again.. and i'm not sure i've ever seen them live since.

monday music : love is here

i am not a big christian music aficionado, at least not anymore. its not that i don't like christian music, but it just hasn't filled my soul need. one group tho that i got turned onto this summer (when way of pilgrimage was using their stuff for discussion videos) i do find myself listening to more and more. they are called tenth avenue north. they could be super huge now, i wouldn't know, but they are reasonably new to me. i like their sound & they don't sound awkward moving tempo in their songs. i haven't done the dissecting of the theology of songs, so far i am just enjoying.