So after much evaluation and conversation we decided that we needed to make some changes to the way we communicate. This involved making some tough calls about what would stay, what would go away, and what would change. Stopping: The biggest change in our communication was the stopping of our weekly newsletter. The newsletter had been our primary communication channel …
Reorganizing the arts suite
I'm a fan of how change can impact productivity. Yesterday my assistant Matt, our January intern (Ryan), and I reorganized the arts suite. It was really an excuse for a major cleaning – vacuuming under furniture, throwing lots of crap away, etc. I wish we'd have taken before and in process pictures. It actually occurred to me to turn on …
Communication Shifts Part 3: Evaluation
We learned four main things when we started to actually evaluate our communication. 1. The process we had in place was painful for everybody. Event promotion required several forms and talking to numerous people. If somebody got left out of the loop an event didn't end up someplace (web site, bulletin, newsletter, preworship slides, etc). The communication team was frustrated …
Communication Shifts Part 2: Old Ways
We communicated in a lot of ways. There wasn't a lot of coordination among all of the media. A shotgun approach evolved as pieces were added over the history of the church. We were using: Newsletter – Our weekly newsletter, The Story, has been mailed for 52 years. Newsletters mainly included event information, but also had a pastor's letter, prayer …
2009 in Three Words
@terrystorch and Shawn Wood tipped me off to a great post by Chris Brogan about goals for 2009. Last year I set very specific goals and did a very poor job of meeting them. I really like the approach of setting broader thematic goals rather than specific action oriented goals. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to keep these goals …
Communication Shifts Part 1: Introduction
Over the past several months we've been making some substantial changes in the way we communicate as a church. Last summer we did a fairly extensive review of all the media we were using and the effectiveness of each medium. What we discovered was fairly concerning. We felt like we had been communicating effectively, but people kept telling us they …
ProPresenter Remote
Renewed Vision recently updated ProPresenter and made available a remote application that runs on the iPhone. I got a chance to use the remote in a real environment on Christmas Eve during the runthrough for our 11pm service. I've got to say overall I was very impressed. It let me flip through slides for the band without having to sit …
Mint.com
A few days ago I signed up to use Mint.com for tracking spending and budgeting. We had Quicken in the past, and basically never used it. Even with most stuff importing into Quicken automatically it would take several hours at the end of the month. The result was that we basically went months without doing any real work on tracking …
Slumdog Millionaire at the Moxie
Last night we went to see Slumdog Millionaire at the Moxie. If you haven't seen this movie yet you absolutely should. It's a great story about an orphan in India, the girl he loves, and his experience on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The film is very well done, directed by Danny Boyle (Sunshine, 28 Days Later, Trainspotting) and …
MAX 2008
I had a great time at MAX this year. It was probably the best conference Adobe has put on in several years. Each year I make claims that I may not come back next year because of disappointment. After this year I have no plans to miss MAX next year (although I don't like it being in LA). Usually I …
50,000 Shoes in 50 Days
Just took part in the 50,000 Shoes in 50 Days challenge. I would encourage you to do the same. It’s pretty amazing that for $5 you can send two pairs of shoes to people who’ve never had shoes. It just takes a couple of minutes. You never really think about how important shoes are, because we wear them all the …
Coolest Birthday Gift Ever – Cheese Making Kit
My birthday was this weekend and Sarah got me what is probably the coolest birthday gift I’ve ever gotten. The gift being a cheese making kit makes me a pretty big dork. We’ve been on a kick of producing our own food whenever possible (going on three months of no bread buying). We joined a farm-share coop. Our milk comes …