I read an interesting blog post today over at ChurchCrunch. Based on a federal court ruling, online worship is not a church.

Very interesting. I wonder if candidate websites are not politics, hence do not qualify for use of campaign funds to operate? If Amazon.com is not business, hence the discussion about collecting sales tax should cease to be an issue?

If activities are defined by traditional trappings, then where do we draw the line?

Update: Reading the full journal article here, which is written in a very readable style, is helpful and enlightening. A critical issue in the court’s opinion is that the worshipers were not associating together in some form. So if worshipers are interacting through messages, tweets, etc., then perhaps the legal definition is different. The article makes a very good note that legally-required board meetings of for-profits and non-profits are often conducted by virtual technologies.

This article has me thinking: Is Twitter a national mood ring?

So, I’m intrigued: Could Twitter be used to monitor the spiritual climate of a target area over time?

I know someone who uses Twitter to identify hurting people who might be more open to spiritual conversations. He uses Twitter’s geographic search to look for people in his zipcode area and nearby areas. He searches for words like “suicide” or “depressed” or “divorce”. He then direct messages them a short encouragement. If they respond, he engages in direct message ministry. Because they are nearby, he can invite them to his church, or to an event, or something more geographic.

This paragraph intrigues me:

In fact, other research groups have also begun to examine Twitter data and have demonstrated that it can be used to predict the box-office success of an upcoming movie. And Twitter data yields much more detailed polling when compared to traditional methods, enabling real-time feedback for issues that are of local, national or international interest.

This person first did this as a job for a local politician, finding prospective supporters and donors based on issues, filtered by the geographic area of the politician.

So, I wonder about spiritual issues. I wonder if it is a way to “measure” the impact of a billboard campaign or a Jesus Video distribution or other ministry strategies.

What do you think?

For all my friends connected to Texas Tech:

“I’ve worked at Cape Canaveral for 23 years. We have 3 more shuttle launches then my future is really uncertain.”

Gary was seated next to me flying to Atlanta. The end of the space shuttle program is hitting central Florida pretty hard. As I’ve written before, Delta Airline’s seat assignment system is God’s appointment system. So out of the 200 people on this flight, Gary was my appointment today.

I continued in the Explorer phase, finding out about his work, family, hobbies, interests. Gary recently flew in a World War 2 vintage airplane for 30 minutes of pure delight (which I’d love to do). He’s worked in the space industry for 23 years (which was an early dream for this engineer-in-budding ever since watching Shepard, Grissom, and Glenn on little portable TVs in my 4th and 5th grade classroom).

I asked how he was working though his future, handling the uncertainty. I asked if there was a spiritual aspect to his life.

Moving into the Guide role, I moved the conversation towards spiritual topics.

It turns out that Gary is involved in a good church fellowship. He is helping the 30 people on his launch team to work through meaning and purpose during uncertainties. We talked further during the hour flight.

So, my divine appointment wasn’t to help someone find God, but to help someone who is helping others during difficult times. You just never know what God has in mind until you accept the appointment and start Exploring.

(PS This blog post is being written using WordPress for Android on my next flight to Dallas. I have an empty seat next to me and the guy the next seat over has earbuds and a book, kind of looks like he’s hung out a do-not-disturb sign. Do I only have one appointment today? I have another hour or so to explore what God has for this leg of the journey.)

(PPS I was able to break through the earbuds and book. We had a very interesting conversation. He is a 30 year veteran pilot of major airlines, former Air Force fighter pilot, and recently separated from his wife. He was willing to talk about “theology”, but  he continually deflected my efforts to get personal about his spiritual life. But it was an appointment which I kept. I recall an early definition that success in witnessing is simply taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leave the results to God.)

I will be taking part in the 2010 Campus Crusade for Christ Blogference. What is a blogference? It’s a conference without the con. You don’t travel anywhere. You can attend in your pajamas.

The blogference is 13-15 April. The focus is RE-Think. I’ll be writing on the topic Self-Directed Leadership Development. Come on by and comment.

Brian explains more…

You can join the Facebook fan page here. You can follow on Twitter at @cccblogference.

We presented the mLearning project at a recent meeting of the heads of our schools of leadership around the world. Our development partner in the academic world made a very strong point, in a presentation of his, about the transition from academic labor to educational capital. His point is that under the older academic labor system, the cost of preparing a course was very low, but the cost of training thousands with that course was very high, based on a professor’s salary to teach students 25-50 at a time.

The newer model of educational capital reverses the this. The cost of preparing a course is high, but the cost of using the course to train thousands is very low.

At this conference, Dr. Richard Pratt shared that Third Millennium is finding this to be true. The cost of producing their courses is expensive on a per-minute basis for final course material. That means a 30 minute module will be very expensive to produce, but it is very cheap to distribute on the Internet or even by DVD.

Our mLearning Project in East Africa is a pilot project to address several questions. One major question is how good is good enough for a distance learning course? The goal is transforming lives, not only transferring knowledge or producing quality courseware.

We will be creating educational capital with a desire to transform lives at the lowest cost possible so that we can create large amounts of educational capital.

I read a great article by Jay Lorenzen Kindle the Missional Imagination. Jay explores how to be intentionally missional as a way of life. Words that come to my mind are connect with others where they are as part of your normal daily activities. Engage with others God brings across your path. Look for persons of peace who are seeking and inquisitive. Volunteer with non-profits. Walk your neighborhood, for the missional value connecting with others not just the aerobic value.

I think I’m going to take a walk now, with missional eyes.

Does social media work? How can social media be harnessed for the Great Commission?

I just read an amazing story from two weeks ago.

November 9th: Jon Acuff, a copy writer in an IT department in Atlanta, explains how it began here in this original blogpost. God led him to start a project to raise $30,000 by 31 December for a kindergarten in Vietnam.

November 9th: Abraham Piper interviewed Jon as the project started here in this blog post.

November 9th (15 hours later): Jon Acuff blogs how the project has reached $24,000 on the first day.

November 10th: Jon Acuff explains how $30,000 for a kindergarten school in Vietnam was fully funded in 18 hours.

Another MinistryNet video which focuses on some specific strategies.

Ministry Net Student Ministry Ideas from Dennis Strellman on Vimeo.

Ralph Wilson is a pioneer. We learned together, separated by 1500 miles. I was getting started in this thing we now call eMinistry or online ministry. I was launching Leadership University, Origins, stonewallrevisited.com (since discontinued), World Religions Index, Leadership University in Spanish and other sites. I was helping other organizations like Probe Ministries, Reasons to Believe, First Things Journal launch their internet presence which we hosted in exchange for sharing articles.

Ralph launched Web Marketing Today. And his ideas gave tremendous lift to my leadership growth.

My first contact was an email newsletter. I understood the technology of the internet, which my engineering background. I understood the ministry skills of online ministry, having spent 15 years in field and media ministry. Ralph helped me understand the marketing of the internet. His practical marketing insights drip with integrity and purpose. I have helped many others build strategic plans for their internet ministry presence through the Marketing + Delivery + Response = Effective Internet Presence paradigm. (Thanks to friend Rob Williams who developed the diagram above.)

I wrote Ralph earlier today:

Congratulations, Ralph, on 15 years of excellent service. You and I started together in our internet foray. We both started in the 1994/1995 timeframe. Your marketing ideas shaped my application of internet media to our gospel-based mission expressed through our websites. I’ve recommended Web Marketing Today to hundreds of others. You’ve been a good and faithful servant to so many. Well done.