You know it's going to be a bad day...

... when the FBI shows up at your church, early in the morning.

Actually, though, it wasn't a bad thing at Church of the Resurrection up in Kansas City.



The FBI was using a building that COR is no longer using for a little bit of training. There have been a few days when I've considered lobbing a stun grenade into our building, too.

IT as Ministry

I'm sitting in Atlanta reflecting on the past three days, spent at the Church IT Roundtable in Houston. Several things spinning in my mind.

- A 3:15am wakeup call is just wrong.
- This was a group of very, very smart people. What was interesting is how entirely eccumenical IT guys are. There were folks from all directions on the theological landscape, and it didn't matter even a bit. Information was shared, concerns discussed.
- Mike Gold from Willow Creek is doing some fascinating research on the sociology of social networking, and the impact it will have on the church. Of particular interest was his parallel of the construction of a new building, and the design and deployment of a virtual church environment.
- There are a number of folks like me who are straddling the communications/media and IT fence. And IT gets in the way of their creative work too.
- The ChMS market space is about to get crowded. ACS has figured out where they need to go. Shelby and Arena are, well, Shelby and Arena. The new Microsoft CRM based solution looks very, very interesting, and also extremely pricey. That is of course unless Microsoft figures out that the churches are a huge vertical market segment. Kevin McCord and crew have the best theoretical framework I've seen. Now they have to build a product. Still, I think F1 is the way we will go. But it's nice to see all of the options up close and personal.
- Virtualization is here. Not just in servers, but in storage. Just one more thing to get a handle on and understand.
- Things are the same all over. The same user struggles, same budget pressures. It was interesting to hear the technology guru of a MAJOR church was looking for a backup/SAN solution, but didn't like the pricetags he was seeing.
- First Church is right on the edge of our capacity and capability when it comes to IT. Much more growth and we will be forced to grow in IT as well. Fortunately there are a lot of tools available that make that growth less painful.

Most of all it was cool to be with guys for whom it's not just bits and bytes. It really is about empowering ministry for their staff.

Thanks so much to Tony Dye for organizing the roundtable. Thanks to Jason Powell for the inspiration to make the roundtable happen in the first place. And a big THANKS to Chris and all of the crew at Sugar Creek Baptist Church for incredible food and hospitality. We'll see everyone in the fall at COR.

Running Each Other Down

I'm getting bored with it.

At least here in Wichita, I've seen a flurry of church promotions that are subtle (or not so subtle) shots are other churches. And before you even go there, there are no "sour grapes" here. This is about what is effective, in a Kingdom sense.

Pointing out a competitive differentiation is a good thing, but the worst way to do it is to run down your competition. How about talking about who you are. How about talking about what you bring to the table.

When you infer that other churches suck, or that other churches are boring, you might see some bump in attendance. I think you do just as much or more damage. Folks in the world look at us and shake their heads, because we take so many shots at each other.

"For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us."

So what works? What's the right way to promote?

Just tell your story. If the contrast between what you do and what other churches do is so great, you don't need to comment on it. Just tell your own story. That's what works in the long run, and for the Kingdom as a whole.

Headed For Houston

I'll be heading for Houston tomorrow afternoon, to participate in the Church IT Roundtable. One of the amazing things that Internet has brought about in the past three or four years is making it a lot easier for people with similar needs and interests to connect.

The Church IT Roundtable is a great example of that. The folks who will be in Houston have connected through blogs over the past few years. The first roundtable was last year. They're hosted in churches, which makes it a cheap event. Vendors are invited and are pitching in significantly, so almost all of our meals are covered.

Thank you to Tony Dye and Sugar Creek Baptist and all of the others who have worked to put this meeting together. I know it will be valuable to me.

HP Pre-Sales Service Rocks

Just had nice experience. We've made the conversion (almost completely) away from inkjet printers to workgroup lasers. For small volume areas, we've been using (successfully) the HP 1320 series. They've been a good choice, which I'm sure is why HP is discontinuing them!

The only issue we've had is printing on note cards. It's an 80 pound stock, and too heavy for the 1320's. I'm looking for a printer that will handle it.

So I jumped online and hit the HP site. They offer online chat and I tried it. In five minutes, I had my answer. Props to HP. Great customer experience. I'm glad to be their customer.

Now if I could just find a color printer that will handle 12 x 18 and a 100 pound stock for less than $4K I'll have it made!