2010 – Three Word Challenge
By · CommentsHave you already made a New Years Resolution? I’ve never been one to make them. But, I read about making 3 goals for the year and narrowing them down to 3 words. That sounds a lot better to me. So here are the 3 words that I wanted to focus on for the year.
Deepen
I want to deepen two things. My relationship with God and my relationship with others. How?
- God – spend more time in prayer and Bible study
- Others – spend more focused time developing life long relationships with those I know.
Influence
I believe God has given me, just as He has given to everyone, the responsibility to influence those with whom I interact. I want to be strategic with my influence. How?
- Mentoring – I want to pour my life into 1-2 young men this year
- Leading – God had given me a platform; I want to use it to lead others to come to know Him and to help others become mature in their faith.
Opportunistic - “taking advantage of opportunities as they arise”
God is showing me, almost daily, that He is giving me opportunities that I can use for His glory. I want to take advantage of every opportunity that He gives to me. How?
- Be aware – I want to be more sensitive to His plans instead of my daily schedule.
- Look for opportunities – I plan to spend more time looking for opportunities than just going through the daily grind.
- Risk – I want to live more on the edge, taking risks for Him, not being so worried about me.
So that’s my three words/goals for the year. I challenge you to set some goals and narrow them down to three words. Let’s see just how much God can accomplish through/in us 2010?
Seth’s Blog: “Notice me”
By · CommentsThis is a great read and has many implications for the church.
Simplicity
By · CommentsWhat can we learn about usability…
Courtesy of Stuff That Happens.
This has so many applications for the church. How have you seen the church complicate what should be so simple?
Seth’s Blog: Mechanics vs. intent
By · CommentsThere are so many ways this also applies to the church. Take a moment and read Seth Godin’s latest post and let’s enter into a discussion.
Mechanics are important, no doubt.
More important by far is creating a desire to share. If people intend to share, they’ll find a way, the mechanics are just a convenience.
Pondering: Google Apps or Exchange
By · CommentsJason Powell, a friend of mine, wrote about a new wiki that he and a few other Church IT professionals have just begun. Below is the blog post describing what they are trying to do:
Switch from Exchange to Google Apps? Join the discussion on citrt.org
I’ve been pondering the switch from Exchange to Google Apps as GCC’s corporate email solution for over a year. While there are a couple of obvious benefits to switching to GApps, my team’s hesitation has been the overwhelming number of unknowns along with a number of features we know we’d loose. Getting answers to our unknowns has been a challenge … and in talking with other church IT peers we all have similar questions.
For non-profits, Exchange really doesn’t cost much, offers a ton of enterprise class features, and in our experience requires little day-to-day maintenance. However, we’re not married to Exchange and if there are solid and compelling reasons to switch we would seriously consider it.
To that end a couple of us got together and started a wiki page on citrt.org listing all the questions/concerns we have about Google Apps as an Exchange replacement. http://citrt.pbwiki.com/Google-Apps-Pros-Cons-Other We’ve already had 29 updates to the wiki page and it’s barely 24hrs old 
What about you? Do have Google Apps questions you’d like to have answered? A few of our church IT peers have made the switch already and we hope they’ll help answer our questions (they better!). Better yet, do you know someone at Google that can weigh in? Regardless, please join in the discussion.
We have also been thinking about making the switch from Exchange to Google Apps. If you have experience in making the switch, both good or bad, would you please share what you know and have learned. You can access the wiki here: Google Apps, Pros-Cons-Others
Our New Henderson Hills Brochure
By · CommentsTo my knowledge we have never had an “all church” brochure at Henderson Hills. It’s been one of those things that I’ve wanted us to do, but timing, money, expertise, etc have always kept us from doing one.
Well we thought that at Easter time would be a good time to have something like a brochure. So…we’ve been working furiously the last 5 weeks to create one that would capture Henderson Hills and help people new to take the next step. I’m very pleased with the results. Obviously, or I wouldn’t be sharing it with you. Check out the work below.
Krystal Harlow, one of our graphic designers, was responsible for this project. She knocked it out of the park! Great job Krystal. What are your thoughts?
I’ve said this was going to happen. I just didn’t know when it would happen. This year, for the first time, we have chosen to not advertise in the newspapers, but have spent the money advertising online and some highly read local magazines.
