I’m writing a post for the CCC Blogference and I have a question for you. 

Help a brother out….

If you are on staff with Campus Crusade (or another organization) what has been the most influential ministry experience in your life? Think….most defining moment for your development and experience of God. There’s no right or wrong, I’m just doing an informal poll.

Don’t be shy.

I’m excited to be a part of the RE-Think blogference coming up this April. It’s a brilliant idea to connect Campus Crusade staff and some other bloggers who are connected to CCC. Hopefully it’ll add to the spirit of collaboration and learning from one another. Stay tuned!

…but it can change your life. This is a guest post from my friend Jason Larsen who serves at Washington State University as the Operations Missional Team Leader for Campus Crusade…phew, that’s a mouthful! He’s a great thinker and loves harnessing the power of technology.

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I love my RSS reader (aka: blog reader, news reader, aggregator). I really feel like it has changed my life for the better. Let me tell you how.

“Ideation” is one of my top 5 strengths (from StrengthsFinder), and “input” is probably one of my top 10 strengths. Google Reader (the RSS reader that I use) allows me to follow the thirty-something blogs (and update-able websites) that interest me and allow me to flourish in my personal strengths.

Google Reader has allowed me to:

• Read about different strategies people are using in various ministries, businesses, etc.
• See great ideas in action (DIY projects, Technology uses, etc.)
• Be more productive by reading about new technologies / strategies that are available
• Be a more informed and effective leader because of the challenging blogs I follow
• Be in the know about friends I care about (the ones that blog but never call or e-mail)

Be informed about the latest local, national & global news sources I care about
What’s the best thing about all of this? It takes me less than twenty minutes a day, and I only have to go to a single web-page. Beautiful.

AND…one of the greatest features of Google Reader, is the search function. Within Google Reader, you can search the content of all the blogs you follow. This basically gives me a personal search engine that only searches the blogs (and websites) that I trust!

If you haven’t tried using a reader yet, give it a try. I would definitely recommend Google Reader. Here is a quick video that will help get you started using it.

What has your experience been using an RSS reader?

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You can read more from Jason on his blog.

Some thoughts…coming at’cha.

Lately I’ve been very intrigued by the idea of Leadership 2.0. But there are two barriers that are keeping us from experiencing growth in this across our organization (Campus Crusade for Christ). The first one is developing a culture of learning. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not all bad in this area, but continuous learning and asking invigorating questions must be part of who we are if our capacity for helping to fulfill the great commission is to be fulfilled.

The other area I’ve been thinking about is the idea of sharing. Do we share our ideas, strategies, goals, leadership perspective’s with our co-workers on other teams?

I don’t think so.

I get glimpses of what other team leaders are doing at various regional conferences and random face to face meetings, but for the most part I don’t know what’s going on with their scope and team. I don’t know what they’re trying that’s new and working well (or not well).  I don’t know what resources are influencing them and their team. I don’t know what they’re dreaming about as they seek to bring the message of Christ to students in their scope.

Don’t get me wrong, I know these men and women are busy (I’m one of them), and if we weren’t all followers of Christ they might flip me the bird when I ask them to do a little bit more. But the reality is…everyone has expertise and I want to learn from them. Are there simple ways that you and I could begin to share the wealth of knowledge that exists in our organization? Simple ideas like these or these.

Could learning to share increase organizational effectiveness and empower leaders that wouldn’t otherwise have the chance? I think it’s worth a shot. It might take an extra few minutes to share but imagine the resources that could be available to anyone who is launching/leading a campus movement all over the world.

Where have you seen value in sharing your expertise or learning from someone else who is sharing?

Photo courtesy of Enggul

I’m slowly becoming a fan of Google wave. If you haven’t heard of it, you can read more here, but basically it’s a tool for real-time communication and collaboration. I’ve used it about 4 times now and I’m slowly getting the hang of it and understanding the power of it. Plus it’s kind of fun (and creepy) to watch someone in another state type on your screen.

The best use I’ve found for it so far is project collaboration amongst our staff. But I know there could even be more uses. It’s a tool that has the potential to be immensely helpful for our large organization. I think we should get to know it.

Has anyone else used Google Wave in a way that’s been helpful? What’s the value of this web 2.0 tool?

FYI: You have to have an invite to use it. Let me know if you’d like one to start waving.

After a few hours of being over my head in self-hosted wordpress land I activated my new theme. It’s called the Standard Theme.  It’s from the 8bit people that is led by John Saddington who works at North Point ministries in Atlanta.

I admire what these guys are doing with the 8bit network. They’re creating a community of individuals that work in various capacities of ministry.  Check out all their sites, including ChurchCrunch and ChurchCreate for a glimpse into what their doing and perhaps some inspiration.

So far I’m loving how easy the Standard Theme it is to use and tweak. I like the look and I like how customizable it is. I also love the forums, where I can get easy help. If you’re in the market feel free to purchase by clicking on the picture.

I saw this on Seth Godin’s blog a few days ago and loved it. Does your life/ministry feel like this sometimes?

A while back I connected with Russ Martin, who serves as the operations leader of Campus for Christ (the campus ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ) in Canada. I thought I’d share how it happened, because it gives some cool insight into the power of online communication.

1. I wrote a post on video conferencing and somehow Russ found me and commented.
2. I tracked down his blog and various insightful and witty comments ensued.
3. We began following each other on twitter
4. I posted a tweet wondering if anyone had some contact management software recommendation. (I know…I’m a nerd)
5. Russ send me a message saying he would demo the software they’re using
6. At the scheduled time I logged into a Dim Dim webinar and was added to a Skype conference call with Russ and Josh on the operations team up there.

Interesting notes: Russ and Josh live a long way from me…I would have never met them if not for my blog. The first time I talked to Russ was after a lot of online communication, and by then I felt like I knew him already. All of the communication used was free!

Side note: Skype conference calls was way better the the free conference call service we’ve been using. You can tell who’s talking because of the voice indicator on your screen.

Does anyone else have experiences similar to this using social media?

Does the sheer difficulty of a task stimulate faith and expectancy of a great and holy God in you?

I heard this old story recounted by Dale Ralph Davis recently. An American shoe company sent a salesman to a foreign country. He had hardly arrived before he cabled for money to come home. His reason: ‘No one over here wears shoes.’ The company brought him back and sent another salesman over. Soon he cabled; “Send me all the shoes you can manufacture. The market is absolutely unlimited. No one here has shoes.”

The character of our God ought to make us an optimist in the shadow of seemingly overwhelming circumstances. Perhaps we should embrace the difficult task because we get to see more of God right?

This is a no-brainer right? How come I shy away from difficult tasks and embrace comfort so easily?

Photo courtesy of reutC