In collaboration with our friends at The SoulCare Project, we have been building towards the announcement of the 2011 Giving of Life Grant recipients.

It has been an incredible journey to see so many ministries come forward and share what they are doing for the Kingdom. As their fans and supporters have come to GivingOfLife.com, hundreds of thousands of votes have been cast. When the 50 ministries with the most votes were revealed on November 4, both myself and the rest of the GOL Committee knew we were going to have our hands full as we began interviewing ministries to determine who would receive each grant.

Through an awesome time of prayer and thought, we all came together and ended up on the same page. As a result, we are pleased to announce the following grant recipients.

• $50,000 – Heartline Ministries
  Serving in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to provide physical and spiritual health and empowerment to women and mothers in community.

• $20,000 – The Simple Way
  Restoring an urban community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

• $10,000 – eXile International
  Providing trauma care to war-affected children and former child soldiers in the Congo and East Africa through art and expressive therapy.

To see their responses and to see the additional 17 winners, visit GivingOfLife.com/Winners.

To learn more about the Giving of Life vision, go to GivingOfLife.com. Also, follow us on Twitter and Facebook to learn about a unique opportunity to win an all-expenses-paid trip to serve alongside one of the Giving of Life ministries. To help fuel grants for future ministry recipients, please visit our website and click the Donate button on the bottom right.

“But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ.” Philippians 3:7-8

Knowing Christ is the pinnacle! Everything else is just icing on the . . . turkey. This November recycle your blessings. Let your gratitude be known in your community. Give because you have received. Share because you have more than enough.

We are equally grateful that you are here. A huge thank you to our clients and team members for giving us the opportunity to serve, grow and walk with you. And thank you to our families for being so supportive (and patient)—day in, day out.

“The decision to stop development of the Flash Player plugin for mobile browsers was part of a larger strategic shift at Adobe,” writes Chambers. “One which includes a greater shift in focus toward HTML5, as well as the Adobe Creative Cloud and the services that it provides.”

But what does this mean?

While nobody truly knows what will happen to Flash as a result of this, I am reminded of the day that Wal-Mart announced that they would stop offering HD DVDs. Without a doubt, that played a major roll in solidifying Blu-Ray as the high definition solution for consumers.

As Parr at Mashable outlines, it is clear that Apple’s firm resistance to adopt Flash on their mobile devices has had a big impact on Adobe’s decision. You can read more about why Apple always resisted Flash in Steve Job’s message that was posted on Apple’s site in April of 2010.

At Resonate, we have always resisted Flash on any of our sites even prior to the mass-adoption of HTML5 (which still isn’t “done,” btw). While there are many development arguments either way, we echo many of the statements made by Steve Jobs (minus the app development side of it since we aren’t . . . well, Apple). There are simply better ways to build great websites.

“While Flash will be around for many years to come, it’s clear that even Adobe thinks HTML5 is the future. Flash’s days are numbered.” – Ben Parr, Mashable

What do you think?

This year, the Catalyst team is pulling out all the stops, bringing in guest speakers like Andy Stanley, Priscilla Shirer, Dave Ramsey, Mark Driscoll, Blake Mycoskie, David Platt, and more. As an off-shoot, they’ll also offer break-out sessions under these labels: activists, engage, perspective, storytelling, influence, and missional.

The point? To challenge ministry leaders and teams to shun status quo, push the boundaries, and redefine the playing field—all in Jesus’ name and according to His Word.

We hope you can join. Not just because you’ll be blown away by all the goodies they have in store, but because we’ll be there too! We’ll be passing out T-shirts at our booth and if you stop by, you can enter for a chance to win a fully custom ResonateSites website*—valued at $5,000!

In addition, we’ll have a second booth set up for GivingOfLife.com, where ministry leaders can sign up to win a $2,500 grant.* They will also be able to apply for one of 20 additional grants including up to $10k, $20k or even $50k so their ministry can give even more life. It’s a
sweet deal.

Lots of exciting stuff coming up, right? Right.

Hope to see you in Atlanta!

*Only Catalyst 2011 attendees are eligible.

Never before has there been an adequate source for churches, ministries, and missional organizations to reference and work through various communication challenges. Fortunately one man, Tim Schraeder, deemed this a worthy task. Schraeder wanted to create a compilation of thoughts from ministry’s “best.” Outspoken has over 60 authors, including our own Kerry Bural, who cover a broad range of topics related to church communication including branding, design, leadership, words and stories, technology, creativity, outreach, and personal growth.

As Steve Fogg describes it, Outspoken is a book about “66 church communicators sharing their ideas about communicating the greatest story ever told.”

Check out this great excerpt from the introduction:

This book is a collection of thoughts, ideas and principles that are shaping and inspiring the way some outspoken church communications leaders are leading communication in their churches, from churches of 25 to 25,000, from Des Moines, Iowa, to Sydney, Australia. Throughout these pages you’ll be challenged to think through how your church is communicating and consider new ways of thinking.

The end goal of this book is to engage you in an ongoing conversation about the role of communication in the church. It is our prayer that these thoughts will frustrate, educate and motivate you and your church to communicate, with uncompromising clarity, the
truth of Jesus.

Outspoken is being released today at the STORY conference in Chicago. We are stoked that a piece like Outspoken has been put together and we are so grateful to be a part of it.

Want to see more? Check out the Outspoken website, download a sample of the book and keep up with news and updates on Twitter @OUTSPOKENbook.

So what is it?!

Giving of Life is a unique grant initiative for evangelical 501c3 ministries who give life to others every day. Bottom line: We are giving away money to people who give away life.

It’s a collision of innovation and funding through a simple online process—no frills, zero red tape.

Ministries and organizations interested in applying can visit GivingOfLife.com, share who they are and how they give life, and upload a short video. Done. That’s it. Some great ministry leaders and organizations have already jumped onboard to apply.

For those who would like to support the ministries, helping out is fast and simple. Just go to the Browse section and vote for your favorite ministry (or ministries). The ministries with the most votes by November 4, will be reviewed by a qualified panel and three of those ministries will receive a grant of 10K, 20K, or 50K.

And now . . . thanks to some incredibly generous friends of Giving of Life, we are so pleased to announce that an additional 17 grants of $2k have been added for a total of 20 grants! This means that 20 different ministries will be chosen to receive funding to support their efforts.

That’s huge!

You can follow Giving of Life on Twitter and Facebook to connect with ministries and help support them in attaining votes so they are one step closer to receiving the funding they need to continue their work. More than 450 ministries have applied and 85,000 unique visitors have cast nearly 50,000 votes.

Join the movement to give life to those who have become life-givers around the world.

If you would like to get more info or you would like to help financially support Giving of Life, shoot us an email at connect@givingoflife.com.

Let me paint the picture for you. It was Thursday before Good Friday. I thought it would be a good idea to look at the cross from a design perspective and pose a question to a non-Christian audience: “Is the cross the most powerful and iconic logo/symbol ever?”

I posted links in some graphic design groups asking the question purely from a design perspective, not from a faith perspective. The conversation in the group was going really well until someone clicked on my bio and found out that I actually worked at a church.

The resulting firestorm that came out of this person’s discovery surprised and disturbed me.

Because I was a Christian, I had lost the right to be heard. My voice was no longer a voice of professional discussion, but of a religious zealot who was pushing ‘religion’ on an unsuspecting group and somehow trying to convert them by stealth.

I’m a guy with broad shoulders and I took the feedback and abuse and rebroadcast my actual intentions.

I’ve seen this happen time and time again and not just in the blogosphere, but also in the media. Here are some principles I think churches can learn when trying to engage in the media and the public space:

1. Be prepared to be shut down
   No matter how honorable your church’s agenda, some people just don’t think the church has a right to be heard. When you stick your head out into the public space you have to be prepared for people to try and shut your message down.
2. Engage with those who are trying to shut you down
   Try and reach out to those who are working against you. Explain what you are attempting to do and bust the misconceptions or bias’ they may have about your church’s message.
3. Be aware of people’s suspicion
   Almost everyone I meet, as soon as I mention that I work at a church, they initiate the awkward silence followed by a generic, non-threatening, polite inquiry about what I do and people hastily try to turn the conversation away from ‘religious’ stuff. The average Australian unbeliever—and I would venture to say American unbeliever as well—is uncomfortable with Christianity at best. At worst, they are suspicious.
4. When your church engages with the media and the public space, make your agenda as clear as possible
   Don’t have a ‘secret agent’ agenda of trying to convert a school by going in to help out. If you are helping a school out, help them out because you want to make a positive difference. People are smart enough to see through the bait and switch.
5. You have to demonstrate experience in the area you are talking about
   When you engage with the media you will earn the right to be heard if you can demonstrate you are doing something about what you want to talk about. For example, my pastor earned the right to be heard in the papers talking about atheism because he was once, himself, an atheist. Our church is well received by our local schools because our chaplains and youth workers are already there doing some great work and making a positive difference.

Over to you: What do you think? Have you seen the shift in society’s response to the your church’s message?

So often in our interactions, we run into issues of perception that are inhibiting leaders and their teams from being as effective as possible. Individuals who perceive that their role is confined to X, Y and Z are being held captive by their perceptions which makes it much harder to advance and take ministry to the next level.

Scott sets the stage to celebrate diversity within the church simply by changing the way we perceive “church.”

How can we, as the body of Christ, war against misperceptions and change the game?

I am looking forward to finishing Scott’s book in the days ahead. Have you read it? What are your thoughts about the topic of perceptions in the church?

Purchase the book.

Our friends also said they enjoyed the experience. Will they be interested in going again? What happens next?

Here are a few unrefined tips to help you optimize your church’s Easter followup:

1. Do exactly what you promised.
   In many churches, a guest registration card was requested and collected sometime during the service. If you promised guests that you would not contact them or do any followup with them, then don’t. If you told them you would pray for them, then do.

   Whatever you said you would do should happen. No more and no less.

2. Intentionally pray for guests.
   One of the most powerful (and often overlooked or underrated) things you can do is intentionally pray for your guests. Through prayer, God moves them. But, He also moves you.

   As you pray, your desire to know and genuinely relate to them grows and your openness to how Jesus wants to use you and your church in their lives expands.

   Regardless of your system(s) for tracking with guests, prayer should emerge as an important element in relating to your community. Oh, and don’t some ministries need to look at creative ways to get younger members/volunteers involved in praying for others? Maybe you need to blow up your existing structure and build something that looks radically different moving forward. Who wants to take on that one? ;)

3. Cultivate members and volunteers to see themselves as connectors.
   No one in your church is more capable of connecting with neighbors and friends than your members and volunteers. They either have existing relationships or the opportunity to develop relationships much more easily than those of you who serve in any “official” ministry capacity like pastors, directors, etc.

   Pay attention to those who are gifted as connectors and give them the support they need. Validate their desire and efforts to hang out with the unchurched and encourage them to do so. Too often, they are underutilized and unappreciated.

   Equip, empower and release them to foster relationships with unbelievers and those who have not yet connected with Christ or the body of Christ. After a big event like Easter, it is especially important that you give your members and volunteers the tools they need and cut them loose.

4. Reinforce movement in the right direction.
   When you see any effort toward connecting with the community, pause long enough to recognize and celebrate that effort. Volunteers and members need to sense that you care about their work and that what they are doing is helping fulfill the church’s vision and mission. Affirm even the smallest attempts to connect if you want them to grow in this area.

Your “followup” should be purposeful, organic, comfortable and guilt-free. At the end of the day, it should still be all about building relationships.

“Turn around and shake someone’s hand.”

“We’re glad you are here.”

Each of these are phrases anyone would hear on a typical Sunday at AnyChurch, USA.

At one particular church I visited recently, I heard these typical greetings but then I also heard something distinctly different.

During each service, the pastor greeted everyone and welcomed them to the church. He introduced himself and his role but then he went one step further. He told us we were “safe.”

He went on to explain that he was glad we were there and recognized it could be the first time some had ever walked through the door of a church. “And that means you probably have questions. So,” he continued, “let me explain what you can expect.”

This may not sound like a big deal but it’s truly an important distinction from the “norm.” For most of us in ministry, it’s easy to lose sight of what it means to know nothing about a church service, praise song or offering. If we desire to create a “safe” environment, it’s common to assume that we’ve not only succeeded but that it’s being communicated effectively and often.

The pastor’s approach brings to mind three important things that every ministry should remember and be intentional about:

1. Be clear on why you do what you do.
   Help everyone understand the mission of your church . . . in a language that someone who has never been in church (or has been wounded by the church) can understand and appreciate. Religious jargon won’t relate to these visitors. In addition, your regular attenders need the valuable reminder of the mission and purpose of the church as a whole. It engages them as well.
2. Explain what it means to be safe.
   Many visitors are skeptical, particularly of “church.” The underlying question of “what do you want from me?” is looming in their minds. Make it clear that they are free to be themselves and their presence is important to you. It’s also important to ensure they understand what you will do with any personal information they may provide. Think safe.
3. Realize ministry promises are carried out by everyone in the ministry. Here’s the real kicker: any statements can be made from a pulpit but it is how those phrases are carried out that really depends on the people sitting in the pews beside your visitors. “We’re glad you’re here,” comes to life with every smile, handshake and conversation. It begins to mean something.

The Sunday morning “welcome” happens each and every week and it is a huge opportunity to start a relationship on the right foot while reinforcing the core DNA of the church. Those few moments must be as intentional as every song sung and scripture read.