• The world’s oldest known Bible is now online.
• Build a social networking site for your church with Cobblestone.
• Google looks to launch Chrome OS and become the new Microsoft.
• In honor of the late Michael Jackson, we give you the eternal moonwalk.
• CoTweet, the Twitter client all the major companies use, is now open to the public.
• Happy 500th Birthday John Calvin!
• Episode 12 of The COLLIDE Show

Happy Weekend!

Show Links:

• NewHope iPhone
• Codex Sinaiticus
• Derek Webb - Stockholm Syndrome
• Huruma Project

WorshipHouse Media Links:

• Fearfully Made - Media Fuel
• PowerPoint Sermons
• Bible Notes with Cliff

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You may have never heard of Pes (not to be mistaken for the candy Pez) but their creative stop motion is simply stunning and fun.

Water is such a fascinating liquid. (via shape+colour)

Echo is just three weeks away. Crazy. We have a lot left to do, but I’m really excited about it. In fact, here are 10 reasons I’m excited about Echo:

1. 1. The food. We’ll be serving up Chick-fil-A, Dickey’s, and Maggiano’s.
2. 2. Mark Steele is emceeing the event. He makes me laugh ’til I cry and cry ’til I laugh.
3. 3. I get to moderate a panel discussion that includes Bobby Gruenewald, Carlos Whittaker, Conway Edwards, Cynthia Ware, and Scott Hodge … and you don’t.
4. 4. I heard Echo keynote speaker Phil Vischer speak once before and it was awesome.
5. 5. Having a few hundred church creatives in the same room produces a great energy. It just does.
6. 6. Barton Damer is teaching a few breakouts and I’m going to try to learn some of his mad skills.
7. 7. Some Webquaintances (yes, I just made that up) will be there and I’ll get to meet them in person for the first time. I’m looking at you, Blaine Hogan.
8. 8. The space at Watermark Community Church is just beautiful. I feel like a better person when I spend time there.
9. 9. I’m still toying with the idea of unveiling a potentially fun and epic collaborative project to the Echo audience. My thought is that together we could create something that echoes long after the conference is over.
10. 10. You’ll be there. (Um, won’t you?) Perhaps between sessions we can work on an elaborate high-five for readers of the COLLIDE blog.

If you haven’t already registered for Echo, there’s still time. In fact, I can save you $100 if you use the promo code COLLIDE when you register. Grab a plane ticket or gas up the minivan and come to Dallas.

Berkun begins his shrewd analysis by saying, “While I like and use Facebook and Twitter, there’s enough hype and abuse of words like innovation, transformation and revolution around all things social media that a critique is warranted - if only to  take a shot at calibrating how people talk about this stuff.” From there, he offers several keen observations that should both validate the (wise) use of social media and temper the enthusiasm of those worship at its altar. Here are my four favorite thoughts from the piece:

• If anything has happened recently it’s not the birth of social networks, it’s the popularity of digital tools for social networks, which is something different.
• It’s wise to ask what each kind of media / marketing is good and bad for and work from there.
• If you are interested in quality, and not volume, then the size of your network matters less than the value of what’s in it. (Blogger’s note: A lot of us church leaders need to embrace that paradigm both on- and offline.)
  
• Blogs and Twitter have made self promotion, and self-aggrandizement, acceptable in ways I’ve never seen before, and I’m guilty myself.

There’s more where that came from, so read for yourself (again … if you won’t get mad at me because there’s a naughty word in the title). Of course, it bears mentioning that I discovered the link on Twitter and you’re discovering it on a blog–so no one’s advocating for a mass exodus from social media.

Happy reading.

What happens when two talented artists play ping pong with a .PSD? Phenomenal things. Phenomenal things like amazing artwork and support for Huruma Children’s Home in Kenya.

Barton Damer and Promise (Tangeman) Wurzell are putting their creative heads together and creating an original work of art that will be available for purchase in the form of prints and T-shirts, and all the money raised will go to Huruma Children’s Home. As they collaborate by sending a .PSD back and forth, they’ll post their progress on their respective blogs.

Bart has a more detailed explanation of the project on his blog here and he has posted the first phase of the artwork here. Whatever you do, keep an eye on Art For Huruma and do what you can to support this great cause. If you have any ideas about spreading the word about Art For Huruma, please contact Bart via alreadybeenchewed.net.

Get ready to be mesmerized. (via Motionographer)

More fun with stop motion and lighting. (via AVclub)

There’s something about bicycles and really big letters that just make me smile. (via motionographer)

Matthew Paul Turner’s letter to God (via MPT)

We’re off tomorrow to celebrate our country’s independence a little early, so we’ll see you next week. Happy 4th of July!

Show Links:

• iPhone 3.0 & 3GS
• Twitter & Iran
• MySpace staff cuts
• Bing
• Intensedebate.com

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When news of Jackson’s death began to break, millions flocked to Google and other sites for more information, and then to Twitter and blogs to weigh in on the catasstrophic event. Media outlets responded by playing MJ videos and discussing his legacy with distinguished guests while Yahoo ran the strange headline, “Jackson fans moonwalk, hold worldwide vigils.” In our world, only celebrities can inspire such devotion.

Just this morning, Erwin McManus tweeted about the toll the barrage of celeb deaths has taken on his city, Los Angeles. “LA has been reeling from the loss of celebrites-esp MJ.” And he’s right. People everywhere are genuinely upset about the deaths of people they’ve never met. Of course, the pop culture machine (fueled by TV, magazines, and the Interwebs) thrives on making certain humans larger than life and making those celebs are part of our daily lives (even though we aren’t part of theirs). As a result, losing someone we’ve adored for decades is difficult for some of us to bear. And then there’s the mortality angle.

With the excpetion of McMahon, the celebrities were relatively young. Mays and MJ were 50 and Fawcett was just 62. I wonder how many 40- and 50-somethings are taking stock of things in the wake of these deaths involving people their age. If any two factors make a person appear invincible in the eyes of themselves and others, they have got to be youth and celebrity. And yet here we find ourselves–even the youngest, richest, and most adored among us can’t escape death.

As our culture mourns the loss of its icons, maybe it’s time we give some thought to the influence of celebrities on our lives. Of course, it’s never a bad time to resolve to live each day to the fullest (and encourage others to do the same). In Psalm 63, King David wrote, “I will praise you as long as I live.” The implication there is that he knows he’ll die some day, but until then, he’ll live as he was meant to live.

How’s that for heavy on a Monday morning?

Want to be in the mag? Tell us in 1 tweet: What’s the last movie clip you used as a teaching illustration and what was the topic?

If you’re not on Twitter, or if you missed the tweet, feel free to leave a comment below–just make sure you limit yourself to 140 characters or less. We’ll pick a few Twitter replies and comments and feature them in our July/August issue, so let us hear from you.