The New York Times reported some key census data  relating to marriage and family make up that fly in the face of how most churches do ministry in America.

Are you currently married and have kids? You probably don’t feel like it when you are hanging around church people but the fact is that you represent only 20 percent of the population of this country. This is the demographic that the local church has always targeted and done well to minister too.

But what about the rest?

Speaking from personal experience this is what I have seen:

Singles?
We make them feel like they aren’t fully a part of our community until they get married.

DINKs (Dual Income No Kids)?
The slow moving culture of Church has no place in their active lifestyles.

Divorced and Still Single?
We ostracize them from community and all too often force them into another relationship doomed to fail.

Single Parents?
We don’t invite them to be a part of our families (it takes a village).

Seniors?
We leave them to populate dying churches rather then find a way to let them belong to our community.

It’s easy to sit back and raise questions but what are the answers? What is next for the Church in this reality?

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Brent is an incredible person and you should probably follow him on Twitter. He is at Table Rock Fellowship in Oregon.

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John spoke at Verge in 2009 and I just dug up this video. This talk is a look at the foundation of what Gateway Church is about.

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Eric Schmidt of Google fame said that more content is now being created in 48 hours than from man’s beginning until 2003.

Wow.

That is a huge piece of information that should haunt you in some ways and motivate you in others.

Take a look at your church and the content that it creates.

Most likely your church creates most of it’s content for consumption on Sunday morning in a live group setting. Worship. Talking head. Maybe a video. Some churches also produce content in the form of books and curriculum. There’s a good chance your church has some web presence and maybe a blog. Churches are catching up on Twitter and Facebook.

(more…)

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M2live is a fantastic group that is helping bring together ministry leaders in web, social media and communications. Tomorrow I’ll be on with Matt and Erin at 11:30 Eastern time. That’s 10:30 Central and  8:30 for you west coast peeps so get out of bed and in front of your computer.

Head on over to M2Live to check it out

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Odds are you get social media. Of the 7 or 8 people that read my blog most of you are very into social media.

But if by chance you’re not, and you either live in the Des Moines area or are looking for a reason to go there (I keep hearing awesome things), then the Be Deviant Social Media Summit is for you. Even if you are a social media guru or ninja or jedi or whatever…then you should check it out too.

Go to the super awesome website they have set up…it’s sweet.

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I have mentioned in a few blog posts and tweets here and there that we are planning a road trip around The Intersection and on Wednesday we will be bringing some fresh content to The Intersection site and announcing the road trip.

I’m excited to let you know that my good friend Rich Kirkpatrick will be joining Justin Girdler and I as we head out of Austin in the early morning hours of September 2oth. Details to come on Wednesday; watch for Tweets and posts.

A little about The Intersection

When I first was tasked with formulating a vision and a strategy for the Internet Campus at Gateway Church one of the first realizations I had, and the others around me confirmed, was that an internet church experience was not something that a non Christian was going to be into as it doesn’t line up with what they are used to on the web. Internet culture is fast paced and sound bite oriented and not one that is geard toward sitting through an hour long church service online.

We have decided that offering a more sound bite based experience that works within the realities and limits of internet culture rather than serving up a normal church service on the internet could have a deeper impact in the internet culture and The Intersection is the first step in this strategy.

We are starting with a blog and using a lot of video content, some we’ve create, some repackaged and some pulled from around the web. As we start to develop a community we will begin more live experiences and looking to deploy even more websites that are even more targeted.

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I loved Echo last year and I expect it to be even better this year. As cool as the breakout sessions and keynotes are, the best thing I expect to take away from Echo are the conversations that I will get to have with leaders who are right in the middle of the same things I am in the middle of.

Internet ministry leaders usually have to settle for a few sideshow breakouts at most conferences since we don’t have our own national gathering…I would say that Echo has become THE gathering for internet ministry.

I’ll be leading a conversation on Internet Ministry

Church in Two Minutes: Delivering a Complete Story on Internet Time
The internet and social media are fantastic platforms for spiritual content, but we have to redefine what a ‘church’ experience is for the internet. We can’t simply serve up the same content that we deliver in a real life experience. This is an amazing opportunity to redefine how we communicate the Gospel to our culture and I think we haven’t quite nailed it.

This will not be a presentation, but an open conversation, so come prepared to ask questions and help us come up with some answers. After all, even the veterans of ministry on the web have only been at it a few years.

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