Tony Wheeler » Tech

Test Post iPhone

tony — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:18:04 +0000

Just checking out the iPhone app for WordPress. Seems to be pretty good. Features are light, but what more do you need from your pocket?

I’m using my computer less and less these days. This phone has been revolutionary for me. I can read my bible, track my fitness, track my finances, surf the net, get my email, and make phone calls. Not too bad!

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Amazon Unbox

tony — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:29:56 +0000

Amazon.com has recently been stepping up it’s efforts in downloadable material. Amazon Unbox is one of the newest ways to get T.V and movies online. It is legal and pretty inexpensive. As I fight with the idea of having television piped into our home, I turn to the internet to find out what options are available. Amazon hit the scene in the music download arena a few months ago and now they are going to video. There are a ton of videos that you can ‘rent’ for about a buck. No late fees, not hidden charges. You can subscribe to a whole season of your favorite show and have it automatically download to your PC or TiVO. If we are honest with ourselves, there isn’t that much good TV out there. I watch a few shows here and there and I would probably spend less money if I combined Amazon’s Unbox with the shows that I can watch online. Networks like ABC and NBC offer the current seasons of many shows for free online. This is how I have been keeping up on The Office, Chuck, and barely passable shows like Cavemen and Car Poolers.

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Grand Central

tony — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 02:03:46 +0000

A friend of mine, Jeff Bristow, invited me to join Grand Central today. Grand Central has recently been acquired by Google. What is Grand Central? Grand Central is this really cool site that offers you to have one number that can ring up to 6 different numbers, including your VOIP connection through the Gizmo Project. Why would that be useful? If you are required to move often and thus change your number often this is perfect for you. If you have a business who has a website or operates solely on the net, there is no longer a need for a separate line. You can set up Grand Central to show that the Grand Central number is calling so you know that exactly where that number is coming from. One reason why I think it is cool is that we are moving in the Spring, so I can now have an Orlando number that people there can call and not use any long distance time on their end. Pretty sweet!

If you want to check it out, I have some invites to hand out. Let me know if you want one! Leave a comment or email me!

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The Future of the Church

tony — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:06:59 +0000

I’ve been processing a lot of information lately regarding what the church of the future looks like. I’ve recently watched some videos on the LifeChurch.tv site centered around Life Groups that take place totally online. I was intrigued that there were women from all across the country, from Maine to Chicago to Ohio and beyond, that are in a Life Group together. They are members of LifeChurch.tv’s Internet Campus and traveled to the Oklahoma City campus for three of their women to get baptized. These women appear to be very involved in each other’s lives, using social networking, letters, phone calls and care packages to stay in touch and love each other. Their reasons for utilizing the internet tools ranged from being former members at the OKC campus to not having a church like LifeChurch.tv in their area (Maine isn’t known for innovative churches).

I was talking about this whole idea with my wife today. The idea that a church can be made up of people from all around the country can be a part of the same group, discipling each other and loving each other, it kind of mind bending. In a way, it is like the old days of AOL chat rooms or the old old school BBS (for the record, I never really experienced BBS, I’m not that g33ky). You are with like minded people who come together for a purpose. What is the difference between that or being part of a Life Group with a local church? If you are able to take the technology aspect out of it, there really isn’t a difference. A group of people doing life together. I have no doubt that the women in the group I described earlier do life together. They are on each other’s Myspace pages. They know about the struggles each one is going through. The argument that people might not be as involved in these Life Groups really doesn’t hold water because that same thing can be said for any gathering of people.

So what is the church of the future? There are many churches around the country that are planting multiple campuses and using a single teacher/preacher. Each of these campuses have a campus pastor or group of pastors on the ground who take care of the pastoral care and normal ‘church stuff.’ The difference is that the teaching isn’t always done by the campus pastor. Several weeks a year, in LifeChurch.tv’s campuses, the campus pastor will teach to the entire LifeChurch.tv Network. LifeChurch.tv really is just one of the churches using this model and doing it very well. Doesn’t this negate what God needs to say to the people locally? Maybe. Probably not, though. There are churches all over the country who have different preachers giving essentially the same message(sadly it is sometimes the exact same message that they stole from someone else anyway), so why can’t a preacher from OKC give a message to people in Dallas?

What would this look like in your area? Could you join LIfeChurch.tv’s network, plant a church and use the LifeChurch.tv messages and materials and take the area by storm? Does being a pastor of a local church mean that you have to preach the word on Sunday mornings? Essentially, doing church in this way is simply a different way to multi-site.
I’m just using LifeChurch.tv as an example. Some other churches that have some similarities:

Seacoast Church

National Community Church

Community Christian Church

Your thoughts?

Spam, Spam, Spam and Eggs

tony — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 19:43:04 +0000

Caught Spam

Akismet has caught 23,061 spam for you since you first installed it.

You have no spam currently in the queue. Must be your lucky day.

I last checked how much spam I had on this blog on 7-27-07. There were 10,000. As you can see, that number is now much higher. I gotta tell you, if you aren’t using Askimet spam blocker in your WordPress blog, you are nuts!

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10,000

tony — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 23:02:24 +0000

That is a big number. Can you guess what it is? That is the number of spam comments Askimet has blocked since I first installed it about 2 months ago. If you aren’t using something like this, then you have to wade through all the comments that wind up in moderation and then delete them manually. I’m pretty thankful for Askimet. If you aren’t on WordPress for your blogging format, I can’t help you except to say that GoDaddy has now made it even easier to use WordPress by using something called Metropolis. Metropolis basically installs a blog on your hosted website. It is literally as easy as pushing a button. I’ve done this for a store I set up using Zen Cart. Very simple!

Anyway…my tech advice for the day.

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Web Presence

tony — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 06:52:55 +0000

Is it just me or are churches that are not considered to be “hip” or mega or emergent not allowed to have a website that is at least mildly appealing. I was browsing through the non-denomination denomination that I grew up in (Church of Christ/Christian Church), just checking out the sites and I have to say that I am really disgusted. What I don’t understand is that there are many sites that offer open source templates for web pages that are at least a hundred times better than some of the stuff that these people are putting out there as acceptable. The church that for a long time was the largest church of the non-denomination denomination has one of the worst sites. I think that if you are tending toward “mega” church status that your site should as least be palatable. I can count on three fingers the churches (Meadow Park Church of Christ, Crossroads Community Church and New Life Christian Church) that have sites that are head and shoulders above the rest. Overall, I have looked at many church sites in the great state of Minnesota and I must say that there are very few that have a great user friendly interface that also looks good. People, text only pages are so 1994. Highlighting a mission trip from 4 years ago isn’t showing people what you are doing now. Visitors do not care about 3/4 of the stuff that some of these people are putting on their sites.

I have a core conviction: An organization’s website is their virtual front door. If you have a crappy website, I think that it tells people that you don’t care.

I realize these things cost money (in most cases). I also think that it is possible to do it on a strict budget. The church that I am a part of (Journey Church) has a webmistress that does all the work pro bono. It helps her hone her skills and it also helps the church by having a viable web presence. While I don’t think that Journey has the best website in the world, it is a functional site that is also organic. It changes and moves with the church.

What is the purpose of a church web site? Is it to connect the church family? Is it to inform people about what you do and who you are? My vote is for the latter. While I do think that a web space is a great way to connect the people in the church, I think that it should be done separate from the main Church site. (see Saddlebackfamily.com for example) I think that a church website should follow the familiar rules of who, what, where, when, why and how. The 5 W’s and an H. These things are really all that people need to know. Who are you? What are you? Where are you? When are you? Why are you? How do you?

My charge to you, o leader of today, is to step into the now while looking into the future. From what I can tell, the internet is here to stay (unless of course Al Gore decides to uncreate the internet), so lets embrace it!

Cliff’s notes:

Most church websites suck.
Having a crappy website is a bad idea.
It doesn’t have to cost a fortune to establish a web presence.
The main church site is for tire kickers.
Live in the now, man.

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