Remember back in the day when the phonebooks were used for more than booster seats and for the Power Team to rip in two?  When your answering machine message said “sorry I couldn’t get to the phone in time” and it made sense?  Back when Prodigy was the predecessor to AOL?  When the modem was annoying because it took up the phone line AND sounded like demons were trying to escape the 7 levels of hell?  Before Al Gore invented the Internet?  There was no such thing as Facebook, Myspace, online dating, church online or highspeed Internet.  Roadrunner was still the cartoon bird.  Email still had a hyphen in it.  That was then.

Now times have changed.  If you still have AOL people look at you funny.  Most people don’t know what a modem is anymore because of wireless.  Phonebooks are a huge waste of paper, space and time because Google knows all.  You can go to church online.  You can even go to small groups online.  Twitter and Facebook have become the best way to reach someone leaving Email hoping to stay alive.  Times definitely have changed.  Millions of people are using the Internet to find community instead of the old fashion ways.  I read a statistic that said in the past year about 40% of the adult American population use online dating services.  Now you don’t have to bump into someone on accident on the street corner or hit on a girl in the bar or marry someone from your high school.

Recently I had the amazing opportunity to hang out in person with several people from the online community I am a part of.  There were only three people of over 20 that I had ever actually seen in real life before.  I love that it is possible to have real supportive, loving, caring and fun community using the Internet!  I had such an amazing time getting to “meet” so many of my friends.  Yes, there are drawbacks, but they are still there for me.  They are connected with the things going on in my life.

I know there are doubters out there.  I know some people just can’t wrap their minds around having a real relationship with people that are only on the Internet.  Maybe for them that doesn’t work, but I am a firm believer that if you are truly seeking it out, it is there for you.  The other night was proof of that in my own life.

What about you?  Do you have real community online?  What do you use to stay in touch with them?

There are very few times in my life that I read.  Those would be my Bible, blogs, an occasional book and when sitting in a “certain” place.  I have never really been much of a magazine reader.  I more or less get the sports ones (Sports Illustrated, Surfer) and look at the pictures.  But as I was recently flipping through the most recent Surfer magazine, I started thinking about the demise of print.  It was revolutionary in the past, but how long will it hold on?

Newspapers used to be the “immediate” way to get your news.  Now they are a day late!  Magazines used to have the great articles and ideas.  Now they are a month late!  The Internet has just killed these things.  Twitter and Facebook have news as it happens.  News and sports web sites have in depth articles and interviews immediately.  Seems like it should be time to say goodbye to newspapers and magazines. They used to be great but then became mostly waiting room and bathroom readings. Now they aren’t even that anymore. Instead of racks for magazines we should have charge stations for our iPhones or iPads.  That would be perfect.

Do you sill read the newspaper or subscribe to magazines?  Have you moved to the digital age or are you still hanging on to print?  Just curious.

Back in the day when I had a Motorola Razr I thought I had the best phone.  I loved it!  It was so great.  I could have entire conversations with multiple people through texting without even looking at the phone (well maybe I looked to read responses)!  Then the day came to get a Blackberry.  Wow.  Stepping up in the world.  I could check my email!  Woo!  I had a Pearl and it blew away every phone I had ever had.  Then came the iPhone.  It took me a while to take the plunge because of the price tag, but then I found a better way through Craigslist and bought one.  Everything I said prior to the iPhone did not matter at all.  I could now see the millions of faults that every other phone I had ever had was composed of!  What joy!  Games.  Email.  Twitter.  Games.  Info.  Apps.  Apple!

The geniuses hanging out in Cupertino had done it again!  It is still to this date the best phone I have ever had.  Love it.  But with it comes an entire world of new decisions.  What apps should I get?  Is it worth it to buy apps?  Well, in my time with the iPhone I have determined that the paid apps aren’t necessary.  There are plenty of times that they would be nice and helpful and fun, but I still haven’t needed to buy them.  I actually have an iTunes gift card just waiting to be used for apps, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.  The free ones work just fine.  So here are my top 10 Free iPhone Apps!

1. YouVersion – The guys over at LifeChurch.tv have made a guy named Gutenberg seem like just a dude with a moveable type printing press.  Seriously?  Print Bibles?  What would you do with one of those!?  Downloaded by millions, tons of daily reading plans, 22 languages and 40 versions all in one?  Not bad.  Plus it is fun to sit on the front row at church and make the pastor think you are texting the whole time when you are really reading the Bible!

2.  ScoreCenter – Love it.  All MY scores, game updates, last play, stats, etc. quick and easy.  Choose your sports, choose your divisions or conferences, and choose your favorite teams!  It even gives you the start times in your time zone.

3.  TweetDeck – Yes, this Twitter app has it’s issues.  It crashes often.  It has a goofy bug in it that if you are commenting on a Facebook post and receive a text you have to restart the phone to get out.  But to be able to have a feed for the people I choose is awesome.  To be able to have a feed for the people I choose from Facebook is EVEN BETTER!

4.  EliminatePro – I suck at the Halo, 007, and on-your-own-fighting-against-other-people-with-better-skills-and-know-how type of games.  But this one I love.  The games are short and it can be operated with only two buttons.  The graphics are decent and the guns, splattering noises, and other upgrades are a blast.

5.  Touch Mouse – This I could have used long ago!  We bought cables so that we could use our TV as our computer monitor for things like Hulu and Skype, but it was really annoying and almost not worth it to have to get up to go to the other side of the room every time something happened or needed to be changed.  This gives us complete control over our laptop while being absolutely lazy!  It even has three buttons, two finger scrolling, tap to click and a keyboard thrown in there, too!

6.  Shazam – If you are like my wife, you like a LOT of music but have almost no idea who sings what.  I am the opposite.  For some reason I like the music quizzing.  We don’t play that game much anymore.  Shazam is perfect because when you hear a song you don’t know, you turn on the program and it listens to it for you and tells you what it is!  The only drawbacks are that if the room is very noisy, a lot of the time it won’t be able to make out the song and that it won’t understand live songs.  Bummer.

7.  ShopSavvy – I just started using this app yesterday.  I love it.  I almost bought a couple things at Best Buy but used this app and realized I could get them for half the Best Buy price elsewhere.  It also tells me where!  So now I have my choice of several online and local stores to choose from.

8.  Lose It! – Hi!  I’m brookjames.  This was me a year ago.  I was a size fat and then I tried Nutrisystem Jenny Craig Hungryman Atkins South Beach Subway Taco Bell Throwing Up Weight Watchers Lose It! and I lost 35 lbs.!  Yes, it is a little detail oriented, but if you really want to be serious about losing weight, this is a great way to do it!  Thanks to Lose It! I weigh less that I did in high school 10 years ago.

9.  Words With Friends – I was unsure if I should put this in my top 10 but I went ahead and did it.  As of right now I am using it a lot.  When you were young did you kick the foreign kids’ butts in the Spelling Bee?  Did you always get 100%’s on your vocal tests?  Me either!  But I like to play Scrabble (for some reason)!   This makes it super easy to play and you don’t have to worry about the baby chewing, swallowing, and choking on the letter Q (although we would all rather the letter Q go ahead and get digested…stupid letter).  But note that the iPhone is not a good substitute for the baby’s chew
toy either.

10.  Facebook – I never have been much of a Facebooker, but I’ve had a page for a long time.  Despite my efforts to stay away, everyone and their dog (literally) has a Facebook account now.  So, it is still a great way to talk to my friends that live in Arkansas…except we don’t really talk much on there.  It’s a great way to talk to all your friends that you just saw a few minutes ago!  The app is great and works well.  Upload pictures, comment on things, check fan pages, chat, stalk people, become friends with people you really aren’t friends with but want to see if their child turned out to be the demon child you always felt like they deserved, etc.  It’s good stuff.

Runners-up: WordPress, Surf Report, Family Guy, Redbox, Wikipedia, ShopShop, AppDeals

What are your favorites?

Throughout the blogoshpere there seems to be one consistent question.  How do I get more traffic?  Whether you are starting an online business or giving your business an online presence or writing for your church and most anything in between, the question remains.  What can I do to make my online presence more valuable to people?  How can I drive more people to my page?  While there are many ways to answer this question and many ways that I have discovered, that isn’t what I really want to focus on today.  I’m thinking more of how does this question apply to ministry blogs and self-promotion.

We are all human.  Part of being human is having to deal with the issue of what others think and the desire to be liked by others.  I think we all struggle with this to some degree.  And this issue is no different in the blogging world than at school, work, or the gym.  Each writer wants his or her work to be appreciated and liked.  Once something is written or created, the writer now has to help others find this creation.  One major way for online writers to feel that their work is being appreciated and enjoyed is by the website statistics.  There is good information out there to learn from.  You can find out where people are reading from, what they click on the most, what they search for the most, how often the come to the page and so much more.  But then the writer has to make sure they don’t fall into the trap of putting too much emphasis on the stats.  Obviously this is a different scenario for those selling things, but for ministry it is something to think about.

If you are not careful, it becomes very easy to pay too much attention to your blog stats or number of Twitter followers or Facebook friends.  It becomes too easy to forget the reason your site is there in the first place.  It is no longer about the ministry or what is being written and read.  At that point why are you blogging anyway?  I have found myself there before.  I become worried about how many people are coming to my page or how many people just stopped following me on Twitter or if anyone is a fan of my page on Facebook.  I forget why I started doing this in the first place.

Another very related issue is that of self-promotion.  Once your page has been created, there is a necessary amount of promotion that must be done in order for anything to happen with your page.  But at what point is there the line that is going too far with the self-promotion?  Is it wrong to Twitter when you have a new post?  If not, how many times is it ok to push your site?  Is it wrong to link your page?  Is it wrong to sign your blog up on the blog database websites?  Is it ok to have your website be your name or should it be something more generic and churchy?  Or can you chalk those actions up to desiring to see God work through another avenue in your life and hoping to impact someone else’s life?  I think I can see both sides of the coin here.  On one side it is annoying and a deterrent when someone pushes their page too much, but on the other side, if they don’t push it at least some, people won’t know about it or they will forget about it.  What kind of impact can you have if no one knows about your page?  What kind of influence could you have on God’s people if you did promote it?

For me, I know that I would love to see the Lord use my writings and thoughts to impact people’s lives.  Kinda part of being a pastor I guess.  Maybe it’s just my way of preaching so I don’t have to get up and talk in front of people.  If the readership I have right now is doing the max of what God has planned for this blog, then so be it, but if there is something bigger in the future for this blog, that’s ok too!  I just want to use the gifts and resources that I have been given to impact the lives of those I might come in contact with.  I pray that God would help me see that this is a tool for Him to use and not an ego booster.  I pray that I can move past the “what do they think” and “did people like that” and help fight the stereotype that being a pastor at a church is basic narcissism.

For the past several months, my Twitter profile picture has been shaded green.  As I write this it still is.  On June 12th of this year, the nation of Iran held elections in which there was alleged corruption and which was followed by weeks of protests by the people of Iran.  The Iranian government used brutality and forced out all reporters as well as banned the use of the internet to the population.  Not really the actions of innocent people if you ask me.  The protests were extremely intense for quite a while.  Even as late as November 4th there were still protests not only taking place but being met with police opposition.

Normally I don’t jump on this sort of support.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am all for freedom and true elections.  I mean that I usually don’t change my Twitter picture or do something like that to show my support.  I understand for our own elections and the thinking behind outwardly supporting those, but for something across the world in a country that doesn’t really want the Western world to “fix” their problems, I’m not entirely sure that it does much supporting.  But, that’s ok.  I did it anyway.  So it has been there for almost 5 months now and the other day someone asked me why I still have that green picture on Twitter.  This got me thinking.

How many times do we outwardly support something but really don’t do anything about it?  Granted there may not have been a ton that I could actually do for Iran, but was I really willing to actually do something if there had been?  It is really easy to change our profile picture to be green or have add a Lance Armstrong badge to it or join 400 different clubs and causes on Facebook, but what does that really do?  Well, I don’t know about you, but I try not to add badges or join causes just because I saw it or someone suggested it to me.  I join the cause because I believe in it.  I join because it means something to me.  I don’t wanna do it just because it’s the thing to do.  There is no point in that.  I don’t know what I can do about the craziness in Iran, but every time I see my green Twitter picture it reminds me of what has and is happening there and reminds me to pray for them.  But I’m not perfect.  It doesn’t always work that way.

What about you?  Why do you add badges, change your profile picture, join Facebook causes, etc.?  Are you like most of us or do you really find ways to support those causes?

Several years ago when Facebook was just starting, I was pretty sure I was never gonna have a Facebook account.  I actually did really well for a very long time.  I made it well through the years that you had to actually be a college student to have an account.  I made it through the years of having to be a college or high school student to have one.  Then I became a youth pastor and realized, I had to get one because all of my students communicated through it.  I got it then and haven’t looked back since!

The truth is, though, that I really don’t know what I’m doing on Facebook.  This has become more evident to me in the last few days.  I have never really done a ton with my Facebook account other than comments, messages and twitter.  Really that’s about it.  I uploaded my first picture to Facebook a few days ago.  I don’t know if I was just having a stupid moment, but I couldn’t figure it out and it took me forever and a little help to get it.  Apparently I was looking in the wrong place.  Another thing I haven’t figured out yet is the NetworkedBlogs part of Facebook.  This is an app that helps bloggers connect their blogs and Facebook so I thought it might be a good idea for me.  I use it a little (actually a tiny bit) but that’s it.  There are pages you can do things with and widgets for your blog as well as promoting and stuff, all of which I haven’t the slightest clue how to do.

So, needless to say, I am learning Facebook about 5 years into having an account.  Good times.  It’s pretty bad that I can learn Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and how to self host a blog, but Facebook eludes me.  Maybe I should hire a junior high girl to teach me how to do all this stuff.  Man I sound old.  Wait.  No.  I think in this case I prefer just stupid.  Yeah, that’s better.  I guess it’s time to learn to read again.

Yesterday I received a comment question about my post Revolutionary Thinking.  It was a great question and I thought I would take the time to answer it!  Stacy asked…

I heard somewhere that only 1 in 4 college students who went to church with there parents choose to go to church on there own… why do you think that is? Do you not feel that all of this technology has made the apparent need for relationships decrease?

I can’t say that I have actually heard that statistic before, but it really doesn’t surprise me.  Many times kids go to church just because that’s what their parents do and a lot of the time it doesn’t ever really make it from something that they do to becoming their own faith and something that they are.   Then enter college and the freedom that comes along with it and no one is there to make you.   It happened to me (not quite the same reasoning, but still).  I think it comes down to whether or not they are able to make the beliefs their own instead of just what their parents told them.

As far as the technology goes I think that the technological world that we live in is what is causing the isolation, if you will. The more texting and chatting and emailing grow the less we feel the need to interact with humans all the time. I believe we were made to interact and those things were intended to be tools to help that, but in many cases they seem to be making it worse. I mean look at junior high girls with unlimited texting plans. They now are closer to each other and know more details about each other than they ever could before and its immediate!

Now add church to the technology mix. For sure online church isn’t perfect. No church is.  There are definitely some difficulties.  With some great timing considering I wrote yesterday’s post a couple days ago, on the LifeChurch.tv blog, Swerve, yesterday they talked about some of the limitations of having church online.  Their big things were baptisms, communion, accountability, and personal physical needs.  I am not sure that church online is the end all.  LifeChurch.tv (the one I know the most about) really pushes people to get into LifeGroups or start them.  They also encourage “watch parties”.  Church online could be just the start of your relationship with Christ.  Maybe after a while of going to church online you start going to a LifeGroup or find a church home.  I think that is the next step.  It’s just like joining the church isn’t the end.  There are still more steps to take.

So I guess my answer would be yes, technology in many ways does seem to be pushing people farther away, but I don’t think that our need for relationships could ever be gone.  And then when you add church online, BabelWith.Me, Twitter, Facebook, and more to it the world can seem to get farther away.  But I think BabelWith.Me, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are all tools to help people get connected.  If all we do is sit on those all day long then we are missing the point.  Same with church online.  It is a reaching tool but not the finish line.  Maybe one day we will figure out better ways to reach people, but I am just glad we are thinking outside the box to try to do so.

To reach people no one is reaching, you must do things no one is doing. ~ Craig Groeschel

I know that this may smudge some people’s Pumas, but  I’m gonna talk about it anyway.  I think my biggest beef with church in general is that we don’t adapt very well.  For too long we have been spending so much time trying to figure out what the culture of the times is doing and trying to be relevant.  For too long we have been trying to play a game of catch up and not understanding why we always feel behind.

I have been so guilty of this myself.  When facebook and MySpace exploded, I dodged!  I didn’t wanna be “that guy”.  Then one day when I was trying to figure out how to be relevant to the students in the youth ministry I was pastoring it hit me.  I have to be willing to try things and look to those newfangled gadgets the young whippersnappers were into.  Ok, so maybe I wasn’t your grandmother, but still I didn’t see it until that day.  Without a facebook or MySpace page I was not going to be able to really get into these kids’ world.  Ever since then I have been trying to at least give things a shot and now Twitter and blogs are a big part of my daily connecting, stretching and growing.

Unfortunately, it seems that many churches act like I did when I was trying so desperately to keep my world the same and not change it.  We aren’t willing to lead and end up waiting for someone else to do it and then try to catch up.  On the flip side, there are a great number of churches that are willing to trying anything and everything to reach the world.  There are some incredible things happening in many of these churches across America that I desperately pray catch on with the rest.  Cutting edge Biblical tools and systems that maximize efficiency and data are revolutionizing how many ministries work, learn and grow.  Churches are mastering the internet as it is undoubtably the medium of the future.

There are two things that I have experienced and think will play a HUGE part in creating culture and I’m seriously excited about!  One is an amazing chat tool called BabelWith.Me.  Now people from all over the world can speak their language and it be immediately translated into the language that you speak!  I have had conversations with people speaking Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew!  The other is Church Online.  I have spoken with many skeptics, but I have seen these online communities effects.  I have been to church with people from 25+ different countries while sitting at home in my underwear!

We as Christ followers need to step up and create the world’s culture.  God created us to be creative people.  We need to stop being the followers or worse yet just sitting still.  Let’s stop doing things because it is the way we have always done it and do things because that is the way people today are hearing and responding.  Let’s stop trying to be relevant and set culture.  The message of Christ is always the same, but the methods are what have to change.  I pray that I will have an open mind to trying new things and doing old things in new ways to reach out to the world.  I pray that I will be able to help my community think outside the box and reach out in a new way.  I pray that we as Christ followers will stop getting caught up in religion and start using the love of God to lead the world!

Recently a friend of mine told me he was thinking about creating a blog.  He wanted to know what tips I had for him and how to make it good.  He isn’t the only person.  I actually had parent tell me a little bit about their plans to start a blog as well.  So, I though to myself, why not help them all out and post a blog with many of the tips and thoughts that I have about how to make your blog successful?!  So here goes!  I hope this helps you all out!

WordPress vs. Blogspot – I am not going to go into detail about which site is better because they both have their pros and cons.  Also, I have already done so with my post BS or WP? That Is The Question.  But I think the main thing to keep in mind is that while it isn’t hard to change links, people are lazy and don’t like to.  The best thing to do is to start a blog and stick with that same site.  If you have read my blog from the beginning you know that wasn’t the case for me.  Take your time.  Think through it.  Then get your site.

Posting – People seem to like to read blogs.  That’s good for us bloggers.  So capitalize on that and post!  Do it often.  If you do so regularly you will keep the traffic (readers) coming back all the time!  If you don’t post much, people won’t come back to it.  They may for a while, but eventually they will lose interest in your site and move on.

Find Your Niche – Many people like to read blogs on specific topics.  They go to certain blogs for different things.  They may go to Stuff Christians Like for their fill of laughing at the goofy things that Christians do.  They may go to Kara-Kae James‘s blog to read about the first year of marriage or weddings.  They may go to Swerve or Church Relevance to read about church innovation.  Or Stuff White People Like to laugh at white people.  Or maybe just to check out some really awesome pictures (probably my favorite site) at the Sexy People Blog.  Personally, I am not good at this.  My mind is completely too scattered and all over the place to really find a niche.  So I would be willing to bet that my blog isn’t reaching its full potential because of this topic specifically!

Link Love – Every blogger likes to see that people are reading their blog.  They also love to see that other bloggers have linked them too!  There are a couple good ways to do this.  You can link them in the posts as you talk about them as I have done in the Find Your Niche section.  This lets people follow the links to whatever you may be talking about.  There is also something the blog world calls Link Love or Blog Roll.  This is what I have right here to the left of this post.  If you look to your left you will see all the blogs from other people that I follow.  I wanna get them traffic and give them props too!  Get them to add you to theirs too!

Keep It Fresh – I’m not talking about just the topics or what you write about, although fresh and new posts are good too.  There are lots of ways you can keep it interesting.  Catchy titles are always good.  Many web sites show just the titles of a blog post so your title needs to be able to catch someone’s attention.  Use pictures!  Some people are like me and suck at reading.  We need pictures to keep our attention and give us a nice change of pace from reading words and then re-reading those words because we realize that we didn’t really read the words.  Change up the way your blog looks.  Some sites work better for this than others, but if you have a way to do this, change it every once in a while to give people a change of scenery.

Comments – Comments are second to hits as the blood line of your blog.  You want comments!  Good ones, bad ones, supportive ones and negative ones.  They are all good.  Do what you can to get people to comment on what you write.  Go to other blogs that you read and comment on their posts.  Many bloggers will in turn comment back on your blog.

Twitter/Facebook/MySpace – Use other social networks to drive traffic to your blog.  When you write a new blog post update your status on the other networks and let people know there is something new there!  People will come check out what is new!

Patience Is A Virtue – Be patient.  The whole world won’t find your blog the moment you start it!  It will take a little time to figure all of it out.  It will take people some time to get you linked or to bookmark your page.  Don’t get discouraged!  Keep writing!

For those of you that have blogs, what tips and thoughts would you add?  What has made your blog successful?

Well, here goes nothing.  I’m really not sure why I am starting this other than for the fact that I really don’t want to start on my next project at the moment and have to stop it without being able to finish by the time my band gets here.  As the title says, I am new to this, and frankly have always tried to keep away from this crap (i.e. – blogging, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter).  But I always get talked into joining them for some reason or another, except for this time.  Maybe this will be fun.  Maybe it will be a good way to pass the time or to pretend like I’m working.  I don’t know, but I think I want to give it a shot.