Way to go!
I just wanted to send a note of thanks to all of the folks who have worked so hard to clean up our environment, and make our appliances and utilities a little more friendly to our mother earth. I know there have been challenges along the way, and resistance from some quarters, but you really are making a difference.
Take for instance the toilet in my office. If it wasn’t for you and your efforts, we wouldn’t have the government making guidelines about how much water each flush was allowed to waste. And what a waste it was before! Of course, now that the water used in each flush has been reduced, it takes two flushes to get a “clean bowl” for the next person, which of course takes twice the amount of water. And I’m pretty sure twice the amount of water in a new eco-friendly toilet is more than the one flush it used to take in our non-eco-friendly toilet.
So, great job guys! You’ve really made a difference. Keep up the good work!
“What Would Google Do,” Part 3
So we’ve been discussing the 5 demands of the Link Economy, according to Jeff Jarvis’s book, What Would Google Do. The first demand was “First, you must produce unique content with clear value; commodity content will get you no links or Googlejuice.”
The second demand of the Link Economy is “you must open up so Google and the world can find your content. (If you’re not searchable, you won’t be found.)”
In my last post, I already discussed the importance of Googlejuice and the importance of creating content that isn’t simply a commodity. But now that quality content is created, what do we do now?
First, I realize that Jarvis is mostly blasting journalist and media companies such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal for putting their content behind a pay wall. If you prevent Google from indexing your content, they won’t send traffic your way (should Google be paid a commission for that service?).
But, this principle applies to churches and non-profits the same way. Consider this: the church’s entire paradigm hinges on constant content production. Every Sunday, the Pastor gives us a sermon, the Praise Team gives us music to worship by, Sunday School teachers… well you get the idea. We are constantly producing something. It’s stupid (and further, I believe it’s pure ignorant) not to share this content, especially when that’s the whole mission of the church!
But unless you digitize the content in a form that can be easily consumed (i.e. put it on the internet), all of that quality content is going to waste. Open it up! Put it on the internet! It’s not that difficult! In fact, the technology that we have today is making it easier and cheaper than ever to share our content all over the world. But unless we open up–put it on the net–Google will never index it and send us traffic.
The church’s entire mission is to share the Gospel. People are searching the internet everyday for that Gospel (even if they don’t know it). Churches complain when our attendance is off. But people are actively trying to get into our church–just through a different door. Open those doors up! Put it out there. People will find it! It may not be by the buss-load, but it will be found.
The third demand of the Link Economy is “when you get links and audience, it is up to you to exploit them, usually through advertising.” That one is going to be fun!
“What Would Google Do,” Part 2
It’s taken me forever to get back to this! There’s never enough time in the day…
So, in my last article, I quoted from What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis the Five Demands of the Link Economy. And I would like to go through each of those and how the church can possibly learn from them.
The first demand is “First, you must produce unique content with clear value; commodity content will get you no links or Googlejuice.”
Before we discuss how the church can learn from this demand, it’s important to understand what Googlejuice is, and what Jarvis means by commodity content. When someone says they’re going to “google” something, that means they’re going to go to Google.com and search for it. Googlejuice is basically where you, your company, or your brand, shows up in those results. If you have good Googlejuice, you’ll show up on the first page of search results, or maybe even the top 5.
The importance of Googlejuice is sometimes overlooked by non-profit organizations–especially those like the church who spend so much time, energy, and sometimes money (We pay more than $300/month for our AT&T Yellow Page ad) on marketing. The craziest part is that in monetary terms, Googlejuice doesn’t cost a thing! My generation and younger (30 and below) doesn’t look in the phonebook for a church. They google it. And if you can’t be found by Google, you might as well not exist. But to get Googlejuice, an organization or website must produce quality content. Quality content is linked to and shared. And that’s what gets you a decent search return at Google (or Bing, or Yahoo!). That’s Googlejuice.
Commodity Content is a little more icky. I say that because this concept can really hit the church right between the eyes. A commodity is basically a product (not a service) used by consumers. But as Jarvis uses the word, a commodity basically equates to mass production–a redundancy of the same thing, if you will. Content creation and consumption on the internet these days is pretty cheap. And that means there is so much, that it takes quality to really stand out. But, the reason this is icky for the church is because so much of what we do is the same thing: cookie cutter Christmas pageants, the same worship songs (or the fact that there’s no original worship songs in most churches), the same ole presentation. We bring a message of life that is the same yesterday, today, and forever. But the lackluster way we go about it has become dull and crusty–a commodity.
If the church (or, perhaps more specifically, a church) wants better Googlejuice, we must focus on quality. Gone are the days for overlooking the church’s online presence. Gone are the days of “cattle-call choirs” (if you don’t know what that is, consider yourself lucky). Gone are the days where hand-written signs on the church door is acceptable (yeah, that may be a little specific, but I hate those…).
We serve a God who will be returning for His bride very soon–and we are getting lost in all the rest of the noise. It’s time to step-up our game. It’s time to focus on quality instead of quantity. It’s time to allow the talents God has given us to truly shine so that He may get the glory for it. It’s time to create something of value.
Man, I’ve really got to step-up my own stuff if I plan to meet the standard I just called for…
The Second Demand of the Link Economy is “you must open up so Google and the world can find your content.”
Stay tuned…
“What Would Google Do?”
I’ve been reading on the Kindle recently a book entitled What Would Google Do, by Jeff Jarvis (http://www.buzzmachine.com-warning, he is not a Christian, so don’t expect his blog to be Godly). In it, Jeff explains how Google has changed the world. More accurately, he explains how thinking like Google is the key to the future for any business or organization. And I have to say, his reasoning is blowing my mind! And it’s got me wondering, what if the church could wrap our brains around these concepts?
About half-way through the book, Jeff explains to us how “the content economy made money by controlling and selling content. In the link economy, it no longer pays to sell copies of content when the original is just a link and a click away.” He further explains that this “link economy” makes five demands. In the next few posts, I would like to consider these demands, how they can be applied to the church and its mission, and get some conversation going around them (mostly because I know that I’m not smart enough to figure all this out on my own).
In the next post, the first demand: ”First, you must produce unique content with clear value; commodity content will get you no links or Googlejuice.”
Stay tuned…
Perspective
This post may be a bit long because I have a story to tell. Bear with me…
I enjoy my job. It’s what I love to do, in the environment I love to do it in. I work full-time at a church where my wife and I are Youth Pastors. In the past, I have been full-time, part-time, and volunteer (with a full-time secular job) during various seasons in the ministry, so I’m pretty well-rounded in what it’s like to work in the American church.
But the goal in all of those instances–full-time, part-time, or volunteer–is to win people to Jesus, disciple those people, and send them out to disciple others. That’s the whole purpose we do what we do. We use whatever talents, gifts, and passions that God has given us to that end, whether that means teaching, singing, or scrubbing toilets. And I’m not just talking about paid church staff. It’s what Jesus specifically called all of His followers to do.
But here’s the thing: sometimes we lose perspective. We get caught up in the work, or the secular aspects of our lives, and we forget what our purpose is. We get so bogged down in making sure that our lessons are just right, our kids have their homework done, our blog is kept up-to-date, or whatever it is that we do, that we forget to, like Christ, have compassion for the lost.
Case in point: for the past 5 or so weeks, I have been taking 2 of our teenagers through a discipleship program called Discipleship Plus. It’s actually a great discipleship course. I’ve been very pleased with the curriculum overall. I would say the only 2 real gripes I’ve had overall were the fact that there is no student editions of the book–only teacher’s editions–and that there are no digital resources to go along with it. Since there are no student editions, I only bought the teacher’s edition and had been teaching out of that. And when I say digital, what I mean is copies of the forms we use each week (such as the “Weekly Accountability Sheets” and the “Session Notes”), which all happen to be very generic forms simply with lines for writing and a title mostly. So, since that was lacking, I made my own to print and reproduce (which the book plainly stated that I could do without breaking any copyright laws).
Next, I created a small website for the program. My goals were: to provide a place where students could download their forms and print them out from home if they ran out, to re-iterate the assignments for the week, and to recap the main points of the lesson so that–and this was very important to me–parents could follow along and see what I was teaching their children, and hopefully encourage them at home using the same Scriptures and main thoughts that I had been teaching. That way we would all be on the same page.
Well, a few days ago, out-of-the-blue, I get a call at the church office from a man who at first did not identify himself. He had heard that I had been using the Discipleship Plus materials and wanted to know how I liked them, to which I responded with a favorable review. Next he wanted to know how long I had been doing it and how many kids I had. I told him around 5 weeks and 2 students. By this point, I simply assumed it was another Youth Pastor who was interested and just wanted some feedback. Finally he introduced himself as one of the authors. Of course, I thanked him for writing the material and that I was pleased with it, and he thanked me for using it.
Then, suddenly, he asked me to take the website I created for the program down. It was such an unusual request that I had to ask him to repeat it, and of course to explain why. He told me that it was against the law, that it was copyrighted, and I wasn’t allowed to post the material in any way, shape, or form on the internet. And I suppose he was right and I had no choice in the matter. I simply made the assumption that, since I was only putting bits and pieces on the site and usable forms for my students that I was discipling–the whole purpose the course was even written–that it wouldn’t be a problem. Apparently I was wrong.
Technically I was breaking the law, and I get that. I told him that I had no choice if those were his wishes–especially since I had no desire to embroil my church in a legal battle. But I had to ask him “why?”. Not the secular reason, because that was obvious. But, why would he want such a thing done when we were using it as a tool in discipling students, which was the whole point. We weren’t making money off of it. We weren’t taking credit for it. It was simply a resource to enhance the material for my students and their parents. And further, I explained to him that, like it or not, everything is heading this way: universal cloud access, meaning that everything would be directly accessible from the internet, with or without a fee. And I told him that I was willing to pay any necessary fees or to purchase 2 more books for my students if that would satisfy any usage issues. But these weren’t good enough for him. He simply wanted it down.
To his credit, he didn’t say anything mean or rude, except for one thing. I told him that I was very disappointed in his attitude towards my efforts in discipling students, and that he had lost perspective. His response to me was “Well we are disappointed in you too.” I can’t say I know what that means, whether he was speaking for himself and his co-author, the publishing copany, the government, or what. But apparently he was disappointed that I was doing what Christ told us to do in Matthew 28: to make disciples. And I was using his material to do it!!
So, that was a long story. If you’ve read this far, then I owe it to you to tell you my point. This Christian author has lost his perspective on things. He has adopted a secular mind-set so much so that it is more important to him to make money than to make disciples. Moreover, since we are a small church and barely a blip on the web, I have to assume that he was actively trolling the internet looking for copyright violations. Apparently it is that important to him.
And I’m not making excuses; I had no choice than to bring down the site. He was technically right.
So to use this as an example for the rest of us, we need to all take a step back every once in a while an examine our motives. Have we lost perspective as well? Have we forgotten that Jesus died not just for us, but for our next-door neighbors, our co-workers and classmates, and our enemies alike? Are we so concerned with carnal issues that it gets in the way of the Great Commission? Why is it that we are taking the time to work in the ministry? If you honestly can’t say that it is for winning the lost, then you need to take a break and regain your perspective. Don’t let the world steal your joy. Don’t let them warp your mind into thinking in the same terms as they do. I know I have been guilty of it before, and probably will again.
As for this particular author, I will not be using his material anymore. I do not want to support such disregard for the Great Commission from someone who should know better. In this case, the enemy has won. It really is a shame.
UPDATE: In my original post, I had used the author’s name. I decided to remove his name because I felt it might sound like an attack, and that isn’t my purpose.