This weekend, we launched a new site design for Brighten Photography. This was a collaborative project where I occupied more of a development role that I usually do. I was able to sneak in a few design points, but mostly it was a customization of an existing professional theme with some design work that Brighten’s own Ben Harms had prepared.

Ben was a lot of fun to work with, which you’ll be able to tell by spending time on the site. Looking at all those pictures made me want to go back 15 years to have Ben and Whitney shoot my wedding…but I don’t think they were even teenagers then.

Never accept and be content with unanalyzed assumptions, assumptions about the work, about the people, about the church or Christianity. Never be afraid to ask questions about the work we have inherited or the work we are doing. There is no question that should not be asked or that is outlawed. The day we are completely satisfied with what we have been doing; the day we have found the perfect, unchangeable system of work, the perfect answer, never in need of being corrected again, on that day we have made the greatest mistake of all.” — Vincent Donovan, quoted by Brian McLaren in A New Kind of Christianity

A few months back (hard to believe it’s been that long, by the way), I wrote a few posts about my double life. It’s becoming more common to do a church start-up bi-occupationally — a portion of time for the church and an portion of time to the church and a portion of time to feeding your family. I’m learning about this on the fly, and working it out here in hopes it will be beneficial to others.

The last post was about the rhythm of my double life. Splitting time between two different occupations takes some structure and discipline in my schedule, but I think I manage that part pretty well.

In spite of maintaining a somewhat defined weekly rhythm, there is one challenge that extends beyond my ‘work time’. Neither of my jobs is a put in your hours and be done. I don’t go to an office; there isn’t a time clock. When it comes to pastoring, most are aware of this. But it is similar with my design work — as with any creative work, my brain keeps working out ideas long after I’ve let go of my mouse.

What I find is that both of these jobs compete for brain cycles in ways that a defined schedule doesn’t regulate. It goes through seasons where one might be more prominent than the other. The amount of ‘work’ time given to each might be the same, but one dominates the other in mind in the idle times…as I’m driving someplace or waking up in the morning.

Late in the fall, I went on a few different trips related to the pastor side of my life — smaller conferences exploring church mission in differing contexts. At one of them I was even a presenter. Along with this, design work was slower, and I was able to take some time to rework our church website. In other words, my extra brain cycles were able to swing toward my church work.

So far, 2010 has been a different story. I’ve had lots of design work come in, which has been a great relief after a slow fall. I still do design work in the afternoon, but it has taken a lot of energy. (I’m learning just how much the creative side of design takes out of me.) Most of my extra brain cycles so far this year have swung toward design work.

I enjoy both of these jobs, and they interact with each well in terms of flexibility and crossover. It may be that I’ll learn to regulate the pendulum better. But it also may be that this is just the nature of maintaining two roles. I’d be curious to hear how this has been for others.

I have a mild obsession when it comes to historical Jesus studies. So when I was looking through the IVP catalog last fall at potential books to review, The Historical Jesus: Five Views was one I couldn’t pass up.

Many in the Evangelical church world have been suspicious of academic efforts to recover the Jesus of history. THis is based on assumption that there is a gap between the true history of Jesus and the Jesus of the Christian faith. And it’s true that voices from both sides have propelled that argument.

Personally, I’ve found that diving into the history of and around Jesus has led to a much fuller understanding of who Jesus was in his time, and therefore what he means for our time. Our understanding of Jesus’ time has exploded in the last century, and especially in the last few decades. Yes, many scholars draw different conclusions based on their research, but learning how they see Jesus challenges and expands how I do.

The Historical Jesus: Five Views is a helpful introduction to the breadth of perspectives about Jesus. Five different scholars, representing a broad stream of thought, write introductory essays to who the Jesus of history was. After each essay, the other four write their responses. It is helpful to see not only how different scholars view Jesus, but also how others respond.

This week, we launched a new design for Restore Austin, a network which partners local churches and non-profits to stimulate individual, collective, and social renewal for Austin. Austin Mustard Seed has also connected with Restore Austin and I love the partnerships they are creating.

Matthew wanted to move from Wordpress.com to a self-hosted wordpress blog in order to define more of their own look and feel. This was a fairly quick and easy job, and demonstrates how a few customizations to an existing theme can define a unique statement for any blog.

Since I spend most mornings working from a coffee shop, I think it’s high time I shared my five favorite places to work from in Austin. (I know many have been on the edge of their seat waiting for this.) The main criteria to evaluate these coffee shops: convenience, work environment, and, of course, the coffee!

1. Sodade Coffee House
   The best espresso drinks in North Austin, almost always pretty quiet, and it’s less than five minutes from my house! Doesn’t hurt that the regulars and owners are all great people as well…except maybe for one guy. (And how could I not mention that it’s right next to TacoDeli?)
2. Caffe Medici
   The coffee rivals some of my favorite spots in Seattle and it’s a cozy spot to work from. Not so close to home, and the parking is sparse, but oh, the latte.
3. Thunderbird Coffee
   Not too far from home, another spot for a great latte. Work environment is a more up-tempo due to activity, but not to the level of distraction that you might find at a busy Starbucks. Bonus points for usually having the most interesting artwork and being open later. (east Austin location is good as well)
4. JPs Java
   I don’t make it here very often as it’s not convenient for me in terms of location or parking. Four different seatings areas make for a great environment. But most important? Zoka beans.
5. Progress Coffee
   Would be there more often if it were closer to home. Good coffee and work environment. Bonus points for the great signage.

I’m sure some will think me ridiculous for not including any spots in South Austin, but I don’t get down that way very often. I’ve been to a few spots that have a great atmosphere, but haven’t found any that live up to my standards for espresso drinks.

As I prepared for my last semester at Mars Hill Grad School a mysterious class showed up on the schedule. I didn’t need it to graduate, but I registered for it with no hesitation. The class was taught by Dwight Friesen and was called Kingdom of God and the New Sciences. The class came out of Dwight’s ongoing research on how scale free networks might shape how we understand relational connections in the church.

It was a fitting class for my last semester — serving as culmination and outworking of what I learned at Mars Hill. It helped me shape those thoughts into the form and structure that Austin Mustard Seed is becoming. The content of the class was based on Dwight’s research for a book he was preparing to write — a book that has now been published: Thy Kingdom Connected.

Reading through the book these past few weeks has been a gentle and encouraging reminder of what I hope my life and our church community can be about. The way of being the church that Dwight describes is a beautiful vision, and the passion that I experienced in person comes through in his writing as well. Dwight takes on a complex subject and makes it both accessible and applicable.

I’ll leave you with a few quotes from the book to sit with as you get a taste of Dwight’s heart. But before you move into those, let me encourage you to pick up this book if you are involved in forming or leading any kind of community. While it is written with church leadership in mind, I think you will find many of the principles apply to any organization.

———-

“Simply connecting while living in the way of Christ is how the kingdom of God transforms the world.”

“The goal of connective leadership is not to gain more links to increase the scale of your own influence, but to help those connected to you make meaningful connections that will help them find fullness of life.”

“Leading connectively in God’s networked kingdom is not about controlling, but shaping the contour of your network through linking and resourcing unto fullness of life.”

“Switching metaphors, pastors of Christ-Commons are like farmers. No farmer can make a crop grow. Farmers work the soil so it is nutrient rich; they irrigate, select seed, and maintain equipment; and they pray, knowing that their primary work is stewarding the conditions for God to produce life.”

“Churches exist so that the identity of the people gathering together, both as networked persons and as a community, are being formed by the good news in such a way that they actually go about their lives living in the way of Christ.”

“To determine how your church is doing, don’t gauge it by the individuals in your church, or even in comparison to what other churches are doing; go to God’s bigger narrative. How is your local faith community participating with God in God’s dream for the re-creation of heaven and earth? How is your church participating in the flourishing of God’s dream of abundant life for all?”

As I was working on the new aMS website this fall, I was curious about what information matters most to the typical visitor to a church website. I did an informal poll and got stats of the most visited pages from a handful of church websites. What follows (as I promised in a previous post about church websites) is what I learned from that data.

I should say this…there is nothing scientific about these results. The home page is by far the most trafficked page on every site. That’s assumed and it’s not included below. This is a limited sampling of churches. The majority, but not all, are located in Austin. The majority, but not all, comes from churches that are a few years old or less. Even so, I think these conclusions reveal wider trends that would apply to most church websites.

Most visited pages. These were the pages that were in the top 10 most visited pages in the majority of sites polled. They are listed in order of traffic as averaged out over multiple sites:

1. Leadership: A page listing the leadership, usually the staff, of the church. This was in the top 10 on every site, and was the most visited page on several.
2. Worship Services: A description of the service along with time and location. This page actually shared the same average ranking as Leadership, though it wasn’t the most visited page on any of the sites I sampled.
3. Weekly Schedule: A page describing the weekly schedule or rhythm of the church beyond Sundays, usually in terms of other events that happen on a weekly basis. Not every site had a page like this, but it was popular for those that did.
4. About: Some kind of general description of who a church is. This one is difficult to categorize because different churches frame this information in different ways.
5. Calendar: Near the bottom of the top 10 on most pages, but consistent for those sites that have it is a calendar page. This differs from the weekly schedule in that it provides actual calendar dates for the upcoming days/weeks/months.
6. Podcast: In the top 10 for every church that had a podcast, though usually ranked toward the bottom of the top 10.

Other popular pages. These pages weren’t as consistent though they were appeared in the top 10 on multiple sites. Again, these are in order of average popularity, though they were in the top 10 for less than half of the sites:

1. New Here: A page for people who are new to, or finding information about, a church. On average was the third most popular page for churches that have it.
2. Small Groups: Information about smaller groups that meet, using whatever terminology that church might use.
3. Mission/Vision/Values: Almost always separate from the Beliefs page.
4. Contact:: Most often, a general contact form of some kind.
5. FAQ:: you know…Frequently Asked Questions. (Todd Hiestand wins the most honest title award for this… Questions Christians Ask
6. Beliefs: The low ranking on this one surprised me.
7. Affiliations: A listing of denominational or network affiliations.

Many of the clients I design for come to me because they want a new website, or a new design for their current one. Often, my first step is to help them think through what they want that site to accomplish. A good website doesn’t just look good, but it makes it easy to find the information or interaction that the end user is looking for. There are still a lot of bad church websites out there, in terms of both design and content. My hope in sharing this is to help churches take another look at how effective their website may be.

At the beginning of 2008, I resolved to read more narrative/fiction, always having one novel or short story collection in my reading rotation. I came out of the year with no regrets, and continued this year. (And I plan to do it again in 2010 and beyond.)

Below is my reading from this year. The decision to read most of these was pure impulse as I finished the prior book, but I do notice that there is a general theme of broken people or broken societies trying to make sense and find redemption. I suppose that’s at the heart of any captive novel though, don’t you?

Last week, we went live with a new site design for Necole Marlow. Necole wanted a website to serve as a destination for potential clients for her work as a hair artist in Raleigh. It’s a simple site, designed mostly to feature photos of some of her previous clients and inspired by her business card.

Like most of my sites, it is built on Wordpress which will make it easy for her to create and update content for the site. I couldn’t be happier with it.