Church Online for Small to Medium Churches with Brent Hodge
Brent is an incredible person and you should probably follow him on Twitter. He is at Table Rock Fellowship in Oregon.
Archive - April, 2011
Cultural Thermometer | prescription drugs
I’ve blogged in the past about the importance of church leaders taking the time to be current on issues and data that shine light on what our culture is like so that we can better meet the needs of our communities. Today WebMD published a list of the 10 most prescribed drugs in the US. I saw the link in my news reader and as I was clicking on it I was forming my hypothesis about what would be on it. I immediately had thoughts about ADD drugs and other psycho inhibiters and/or anti depressants.
To tell you the truth I was kind of shocked upon seeing the list and the fact that drugs like that weren’t even in the top 10. Take a look:
- Hydrocodone (combined with acetaminophen) — 131.2 million prescriptions
- Generic Zocor (simvastatin), a cholesterol-lowering statin drug — 94.1 million prescriptions
- Lisinopril (brand names include Prinivil and Zestril), a blood pressure drug — 87.4 million prescriptions
- Generic Synthroid (levothyroxine sodium), synthetic thyroid hormone — 70.5 million prescriptions
- Generic Norvasc (amlodipine besylate), an angina/blood pressure drug — 57.2 million prescriptions
- Generic Prilosec (omeprazole), an antacid drug — 53.4 million prescriptions (does not include over-the-counter sales)
- Azithromycin (brand names include Z-Pak and Zithromax), an antibiotic — 52.6 million prescriptions
- Amoxicillin (various brand names), an antibiotic — 52.3 million prescriptions
- Generic Glucophage (metformin), a diabetes drug — 48.3 million prescriptions
- Hydrochlorothiazide (various brand names), a water pill used to lower blood pressure — 47.8 million prescriptions.
A quick read through that list and it’s pretty blaring what major need Americans have. Seven of the ten are drugs directly related too or closely tied to conditions that are a result of bad diet. Granted some of them are also prescribed to fairly healthy elderly people dealing with issues that are more hereditary.
I’m not a health expert by any means but it is important to me and what I do to have a pulse of the people I intend to effect change in.
What can the church do to make a difference in this area? Locally? Nationally?
But even more so; why hasn’t the church been doing anything up until now?
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Context and Voice coming soon
I’m excited to let you know that the website for my new book, Context and Voice, is live!
I wrote the book because I firmly believe that the majority of Christ Followers, churches and especially church leaders are ill equipped to do justice for the greatest story ever; The Gospel, in our new media culture.
New media, the internet and our new small town/word of mouth culture presents an entirely new way of consuming content and spreading ideas that is vastly different from the way the church has done things the last 100+ years. The local church no longer has the authority in the community it once had as more and more people choose to get their Christian content from more channels than simply the one hour once a week gathering on Sunday morning.
Are you ready? Is your church ready?
This book will have more questions than answers, but I believe they are questions that are not being asked enough.
Stop by the site and sign up for an email reminder for when it releases in the coming weeks. I’ll also be looking for people who want to help with a internet book tour when it releases.
I can’t wait to get this conversation started.
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Cultivate Conference
What is it?
A conversation about communicating in and from church space. We have the greatest story ever told and we are behind the times when it comes to telling it. This is a gathering of the people that understand that and we are going to talk about changing the game.
Who needs to be there?
Teaching pastors, communicators, creatives, church planters, writers and anyone who wants to be better at communicating the Gospel in our current reality that is driven by new media.
Blowing Up Cultivate
Justin and I will be there doing what we do best; making a bunch of noise, facilitating conversation and bring people together to build networks that will continue the conversation.
Go Register now! It’s way affordable and flights on Southwest are cheap right now because they have holes in their planes.
Already attending?
Follow the #cultivate11 hashtag to get in on the conversation now. Also follow Justin and myself to get in on all the inside info including epic tweetups and gatherings.
More importantly you need to follow @blowupcultivate to get the most epic insider info while at Cultivate.
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Tweet of the week
This one made me laugh out loud:
Just made my son lunch. He wants Hod Gog. Thank goodness I speak two year old!
@Tiphers2
Tiffany Antoun
Follow Tiffany, she’s an uber creative person and married to the ever cool Ramy Antoun
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Web video and content abundance
Video is driving the web right now, but you already knew that. Check out this post that contains 101 very current facts about online video.
Here are the highlights that relate to the amount of video consumed online:
- Average video length online is 5:01 minutes
- Average person is watching 816 minutes of video per month
- 20% percent click away inside the first 10 seconds
- 33% have left by 30 seconds
- 44% have left by 1 minute
- over 60% have left by 2 minutes
- May of 2010 144 million viewers watch 101 videos each on average on YouTube alone
Let’s break that down a bit.
Any video you produce that is longer than 5 minutes is effectively longer than normal. You must have better than ‘normal’ content if you are asking viewers to give you more than 5 minutes.
If the average is 816 minutes and you are asking people to go to your internet campus that is more than an hour long each week, you are asking them to give you somewhere on the order of 30 percent of their attention for the month just to that. That’s a big ask.
When you look at the dropout data of users clicking away from your video it’s clear that your video must be remarkable in the first 10 seconds and any video longer than 2 min. must be exceedingly good or remarkable to keep the majority of people’s interest.
Although an older piece of data, the average viewer watching 100 videos a month on YouTube is probably continuing to climb at an exponential rate. In light of that consumption rate how much content is your church putting on YouTube?
In light of this data, what do you see happening with video on the web in the coming years?
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Tim Schraeder | Cultivate Conference
You may have noticed that I’m a little stoked about the cultivate conference. It’s very unique in that it will touch on some of the big vision and cutting edge conversations that are happening right now in terms of communicating in and for the Church. Most gatherings that feature “new media” or “social media” conversations tend to just lump it all together into technology and serve up some 101 level content. Cultivate will be different.
Check out Tim on Twitter and at his blog.
More Cultivate posts and video
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