Sermon Painting Promo

In March I’ll be presenting on Sermon Painting both at BibleTech09 and at ABCNJ’s regional training event (which bears the unfortunate acronymn COAL).  I’ve been told that Sermon Painting is a rather unusual way to make use of a digitial projection screen, so I thought that I would give people a taste of what it might look like in a promotional video.  Enjoy!

Digital World, Analog Pastors

Shelly Palmer, a media guru, has recently been advertising a one day seminar called “Get Digital” in an effort to help people make the transition into the digital marketplace.  The idea is a good one.  So good, as a matter of fact, that I made the regional pastor of ABCNJ aware of the offering.  Now, Shelly is putting these on for corporate America, so the cost of the seminar is out of reach for the vast majority of pastors – our Regional pastor, however, though that maybe we could create something similar which catered to pastors.  Why would I  consider doin such a thing?

Because I’ve met too many pastors who are digitally ignorant and think it’s no big deal that they are this way.

Look I realize that I’m a geek, in fact that’s one part of my dual-character class, so I’m not expecting to have every pastor in the country dropping to the CLI at every opportunity  (or even know what that means).  As much as that would be nice, I’m not expecting it.  On the other hand, the Digital world is the one in which we are currently living, so pastors need to be able to be familiar with the ideas behind the tools being employed in this communications revolution.  Otherwise, how are they going to be able to help their congregants ask necessary questions regarding the tools they are using in their daily life?  The simple answer is, “They can’t.”

Look, we live in a world where a plane crash-landed on the Hudson, came down in once peace, and everyone walked away from alive and well.  This was a story I first saw posted on Twitter.  In fact, through twitpic I saw a photo of the passengers from an angle that no “bit” news source would get, it was a picture taken by a man on the ferry that picked up the first group of passengers.  This is changing the way we live and pass on information, and the majorty of pastors I’ve met can only scoff at the stupid-sounding name, “Twitter.”  Folks, we’re missing the boat here.

So that’s my dilemma, how do you create a seriously developed  event to educate pastors about the opportunities and pitfalls that exist in the digital world.  What do you think pastors must be aware of if they are to fulfill their calling as teachers in the Church?

List you answers below.

Just For Fun

I love the Regional Pastor for ABCNJ.  He’s intelligent, engaging, loves Jesus, and has both raised the bar of expectation for the region and helped people discover that they could vault those expectations (because Jesus empowers us to do so).  As a matter of fact, the only thing I have against him is that he’s a fan of New York sports teams.  Heck, even the most spiritually discerning people have a blind spot.

Well, our beloved Regional Pastor has a sign on his office door which says, “Parking Reserved for Yankees Fans Only.”  Seeing as the Yankees are golfing at the moment I thought I’d issue him a temporary parking permit on behalf of our Region’s Phillies fans.  Being a gracious, intelligent, and humble man, he actually hung it up.  Below you’ll find an image of the permit, and proof that it’s hanging proudly on his door.

A nice act of temporary sanity

The actual permit

Informative Conversation

This past Saturday I was manning the “Technology in Ministry” booth during ABCNJ’s annual session.  I had many good conversations with folks about how technology can be used to connect people, and some conversations that left me kinda down.

On the good side, people seemed to be genuinely happy to have the people from their congregations directly contacted by the Region.  Pastors seemed relieved that they could actually have the burden of being sent mailing after mailing from the region (which need to be read, passed on, and the read again before they could move on any initiative) – instead every member of their congregations who is willing will get direct e-mails from the region (entirely “opt-in.”).  In addition to that, I was quite happy that so many pastors were interested in the free software CD that we’ll be sending to anyone who signed up.  It appears that many of them are concerned about the software that “so and so installed on the computer.”  When I told them we’d ben sending them a free office suite that could legally be installed on any number of computers they wished – their eyes popped out of their heads.  This made me glad.

I was, however, depressed by one conversation I had with a delegate.  An older gentleman read the “Technology in Ministry” title on my table, looked at me, and said, “Sorry that’s all beyond me.”

I don’t let things like that go.  I know that not everyone will be able to be an expert with technology, but I also know that anyone who decides to attempt to use some of the communications tools I listed at the table (blogging, e-mail, etc…) can at least make a basic use of them.  So I said, “No, if you want to use some of these tools you’ll be able to – anyone can.”

The man looked at me and replied, “Well, it’s more than I want to do.”

I responded, “Well, sir, I’m sorry but if you want to bringing the Gospel to people who are from generations younger than you – you don’t have a choice. This is where a lot of conversations are going on now and if you don’t make an effort you’re just cutting yourself off from a lot of people.”

He shrugged, “Well, I don’t need to do that.  I’m not a pastor.”

So, many good things – and one great example of what’s wrong with our churches.

Trip Home Video

I didn’t want to put this on-line until the folks at ABCNJ had a chance to see it, but now that they have I can share it with all of you.  Enjoy watching what happened to part of the ABCNJ staff on the trip from Fanning the Flame!