Thursday, September 22, 2011

Communication Revolution by Terry Storch

Terry Storch gave a talk at MinistryCOM 2007 entitled "Communication Revolution." In this talk he highlights how our culture is slamming into the traditional ideas of the way churches operate. He list the top five impact points as:

1) One Way Communication vs. Participatory Conversation - No longer is the expectation that you will tell me what I need to know. I want to be part of discovering what I need to know.

2) Service Times vs. On-Demand Content - Our world will not wait for us. They want the content when they want it. We need to provide access so that can interact with content at point-of-need.

3) Walls vs. People - We have tended to think about church inside the building. We need to move the practice of church out into the community.

4) Going to Communities vs.Being in Communities - The way we think about missions and outreach needs change. We need to change from going to communities to becoming involved in the communities we want to reach with the Gospel.

5) Asking People to Just Invite One vs. The Power of One Inviting Everyone - Addition through just bringing one friend is not overcoming the attrition churches are experiencing. We live in age when one person can invite so many more to experience Christ. We need to find and equip those people.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Computer's Illision

The adage that computers do not impose their ways upon their users is misleading, because it hides an imposing destiny in a guise of instrumental neutrality. By reassuring ourselves that the computer does not impose its ways upon us, we have already succumbed to the imposition of its destiny. The computer, for example, promises greater freedom in creating and organizing data in accordance with our goals and purposes. Yet computers can only be used in a limited number of ways for creating, storing and classifying this information, thereby forming the goals and purposes that it purportedly serves in an instrumental manner. The resulting ‘freedom’ is illusory, because the computer, like any technology, constrains the range of choices its users can make within the limited parameters of its imposed destiny. More broadly, particular technological developments and application permit certain forms of civil society and political community while excluding others.

From Human to Posthuman by Brent Waters


Thursday, September 8, 2011

Stranger in a Strange Land

Below are the Power Point slides for a talk I gave on how Christians have interacted with culture.

Stranger.gwgifa.9.11 [slideshare id=9181700&w=425&h=355&sc=no]
View more presentations from John Shapiro

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Growing with God in a Facebook Age

On Wednesday nights, I am leading a study entitled Growing with God in a Facebook Age. Here are the first two presentations from the series:

Growing with God in a Facebook Age [slideshare id=9007770&w=425&h=355&sc=no]
View more presentations from John Shapiro


Tech savygod.gwgifa.8.11 [slideshare id=9165038&w=425&h=355&sc=no]
View more presentations from John Shapiro