Monday Matters – church 2.0 presentation

Jim,

Thanks for making your presentation from the Leadership Summit available! Is the video you mention in the presentation available online? Thanks again.

Because of Him ~ Terry

Jim,
I had the pleasure of participating in the first discussion group on Saturday. One of the subjects you touched on briefly was the use of open-source software, which I refer to as community developed software. There is something very Christian about a community of people working together on a project and then freely sharing the results of their labor for the benefit of all. Web 2.0 is all about developing on-line communities of people with common interests.

Your presentation also touched on the problem of having two congregations, one that is highly engaged with technology and the other which is not. The challenge then is to figure out how to use technology to reach those who are engaged and motivate them to reach out to the members who aren't, thereby forming a single community of faith.

At the risk of bringing politics into the discussion, I must say that for the past year I have been involved in one of the campaigns. Although on-line fund raising is an important part of the effort, the most important part is using Web 2.0 technology to build an on-line community and then giving them the tools and motivation to reach out to the remainder of the voters who mainly get their information through old media, i.e. newspapers and TV.

I believe that we can learn a lot about how to use Web 2.0 by looking at what works (and what doesn't) in both the open-source and political arenas; we are all in the business of building community.

Hi Jim,

Good list of resources. You might like to add Ning to the group (if you haven't considered it already). It would be a great way for groups to work on projects, discuss ideas. I'm using it with my students at Deakin University here in Melbourne, Australia.

Ross, thanks for the suggestion about Ning...we have used it for some presbytery stuff in the past. Good resources.

John, great to meet you and have your participation and ideas during the presentation. Your questions and challenges about technology can be kept in check by remembering, as you suggest, that all of this is about building community. If that goal is kept at the forefront, then the web2.0 tools will be used to serve that goal....we're not doing this stuff just to use the tools but to serve the purpose of building community.

Thanks for the kind words, Jim.

And thank you so much for your resources. As I said before, I was hoping to take your seminar. This makes up for it!

Jim, another website I've found helpful is Geeks&God at http://geeksandgod.com

Jim,

Enjoyed the discussion on web2.0 on Saturday--thanks for adding the list here, as well. I'll work on lurking less...