Sometimes I have a problem slowing down. I feel like if I am not “busy” I am not being productive. But I think I have come to the realization that breaks are necessary. My family and I are heading out of town tomorrow for 2 days for a little vacation. We’re renting a condo up at Eagle Crest resort near Bend, OR. This will be the first vacation (apart from visiting family) we’ve taken since our Honeymoon almost 5 years ago.

I knew I would look forward to this vacation, but the closer it draws near, the more and more I am finding that I NEED it. I am in need of a refresh and recharge. I need to unplug and spend real quality time with my family. That’s so much more important than being “productive”.

Have you heard of the Pomodoro Technique? What you do is work non-stop on one thing for 25 minutes, and then you take a 5 minute break. Then, you repeat that. And again. And again. There are two things that make this technique powerful:

1. The Work
2. The Break

There is incredible power in focusing on work and not allowing yourself to be distracted. But there is also a huge benefit in the break. When I allow myself to break from my work and loosen up (even for 5 minutes), I end up being much more productive.

So, my encouragement for you workaholics out there — take a break! Go hug the people you love.

I recently finished a project for West Salem Foursquare Church in Salem, OR (my home church). It was awesome working with the lead pastor and the youth pastor to pull this site together.

The former site was build with Joomla, but we decided to migrate to WordPress to allow for greater flexibility and ease of use.

This site was built from the ground up with community in mind. Social media is quickly becoming part of the culture of WSFC. The front page features the church blog, a live WSFC Twitter feed, a Vimeo video intro from John Fehlen (our lead pastor), WSFC Flickr Feed, and links to the WSFC Facebook page.

Apart from the web design and development, I also shot and edited the staff photos.

This has been one of my favorite projects to date, and I look forward to seeing how the website progresses in the months to come.

Visit the West Salem Foursquare Website.

P.S. Big shout out to Bo Lane who designed the new WSFC logo and shot/edited the front page video.

I was sitting in Starbucks this morning when a young guy came up to the counter. When the Barrista asked him how he was he grunted and said “I hate Mondays”. He couldn’t have sounded more pathetic if he wanted to. He acted as if waking up Monday morning was like a trip to the electric chair. If you hate what you do each week so much — DON’T DO IT!I understand that my comments may be ignorant of his situation, but his words forced me to think. How many people wake up each day dreading going to work? If this is you, then what are you doing about it? Are you trying to get out of the rut you’re in and start doing something you love?

I am still working a couple days each week doing web/graphics for an athletic club. I don’t hate that job, but I don’t LOVE it either. I love helping churches design and build amazing websites. That’s what I’m excited to wake up and start doing. So I’m working my tail off to build my business and eventually be able to focus solely on that.

Here are a couple great books that I’ve read recently on this topic:

• 48 Days To The Work You Love — by Dan Miller
• Crush  It — by Gary Vaynerchuk
• The 4 Hour Work Week — by Timothy Ferriss

When you love what you’re doing, you don’t hate Mondays anymore!

Mine is 17.

Your magical retweet number is the amount of characters you need to leave at the end of your tweet in order to get retweeted. It will be different based on your Twitter name. Here’s how I came up with the formula for the magical retweet number:

There are two main ways people attribute a tweet when retweeting:

• RT @username:  Message
• Message (via @username)

The longer of the two is “Message (via @username)”, so we’ll use that.

The above retweeet attribution takes 8 characters ” (via @)” PLUS the amount of letters in your username.

The Formula

8 + Characters in Your Twitter Username = Magical Retweet Number.

• 8 + VinThomas = 17
• 8 + JoshHemsley = 19
• 8 + BoLane = 14

You get the idea…

So if you want to get retweeted, make sure you know your Magical Retweet Number!

Taptu is a mobile search company based out of the UK. They recently contacted me to redesign their blog. Their goal was to integrate the blog with their overall branding and incorporate the various social media tools used by the company. Some of the features of the new blog are:

• 3 Column Layout (with optional 2 column and full width templates)
• Social Media Integration
  • Twitter Feed
  • Flickr Integration
  • YouTube Featured Videos
  • Delicious Feed
• Coded for Search Engine Optimization
• Maintained Taptu Branding/Design Style
• Built upon the 960 Grid System

The guys at Taptu were great to work with. If you haven’t checked out Taptu for mobile search, make sure to give their main site a visit as well.

» Visit the Taptu Blog

I was recently asked by Cynthia Ware from the Center for Church Communications to be a part of a small group of creative individuals across the country to help support and promote ministry comm professionals. I am excited about this opportunity to help those who are spreading the gospel through creative means.

The CFCC is behind many great projects (the most popular being the Church Marketing Sucks blog). They are a great community of folks dedicated to being a resource to those in church communications.

The group so far is made up of some amazingly creative and passionate individuals:

• Vin Thomas (Portland, OR)
• Danielle Hartland (Erie, PA)
• Vince Marotte (Austin, TX)
• Rich Kirkpatrick (SoCal)
• Craig Littlejohn (NorCal)
• Cameron Ware (Dallas, TX)
• Tim Schraeder (Chicago, IL)
• Brian Wurzell (Phoenix, AZ)

I am excited to be a part of this network, and I hope to use this role to help ministry comm professionals in the Northwest.

If you’re in church communications and I don’t know you, please leave a comment or email me. I would love to connect and see how I can help support and promote what you’re doing.

Many companies (churches and ministries included) are anxious to build a great website, but have not thought about strategy. They have grandiose ideas about what their website will look like, but they have not thought about the purpose behind the website.
I have been thinking about this subject a lot lately, and I want to start writing some thoughts here about ministry web strategy.

Here are a few questions brewing in my head that I hope to explore through this blog:

• What elements should be part of a church website (podcast, blog, forums, etc).
• How can we effectively communicate our church culture through the web?
• What role does social media play in ministry websites?
• What tools can we use to gauge the effectiveness of our strategy (Analytics, User Testing, etc)?
• What role does identity and branding play in web strategy?
• How should the church be investing in the web?
• What tools are available to help build a more effective ministry website (CMSs, Media Tools, Podcasting Services, etc)?

Does your organization have a web strategy? Or are you just flailing around the web like a fish out of water?

I don’t market myself as a logo or postcard designer. I try to stick to websites. But when my church (West Salem Foursquare) asked me to design this logo and postcard I was more than happy. This is for a young adult group that is going to start meeting this year.

Since we bought our new home in October, I have been working from my home office a lot more (as opposed to local coffee shops). There are some great benefits to working from home. Here are a few items that made the transition easy for me:

1. A Good Desk

I used to have a rinky-dink desk that barely supported my laptop, monitor, and keyboard. But for Christmas I went out and bought myself a nice big sturdy desk. This has made working from home a lot easier. I now have plenty of room for all my stuff and I don’t feel cramped. I got mine at World Market.

2. Airport Express

If you aren’t familiar with the Apple Airport Express Wireless Router , you are missing out. This wireless router is like any other, except it’s better. It allows you to print, listen to music, share files, and surf the web wirelessly. It’s great, and works on Mac and PC.

3. Keurig Single Serving Coffee Maker

My wife and I have had our eye on the Keurig Gourmet Single Cup Home Brewing System for a couple years. We finally broke down and made the purchase this last year. It has been such a great buy. This machine allows you to make single serving drinks with the push of a button. If you’re like me, the last thing you want to do first thing in the morning is brew a pot of coffee. This machine allows you to get your hot or iced beverage fast (and for about $0.38/cup).

4. A Big Monitor

I love my Macbook Pro laptop, but when working from home I use a nice 23″ monitor to work from. Actually I run both monitors, but I only run Tweetie and Pandora on my laptop. When doing web design, I like to have a bigger monitor. The best part is that they’re getting super cheap. You can find a 24″ HD monitor for less than $200.

5. Pandora

If you’re a music junkie like I am, you will love Pandora. It is a free service that lets you listen to Internet radio based on your favorite artists. Other options for Internet radio are Last.fm and Grooveshark.

6. The Chair

I bought a $99 office chair from Costco when we moved into our new house. It was OK. But when I sat in the Equa XR I almost died of comfort. I returned my cheap chair and haven’t looked back. If you’re looking for an amazing chair that offers incredible support (not to mention it won TIME Magazine’s Design of the Century Award), look no further than the Herman Miller Exua XR.

7. An Amazing Family

By far the best part of working from home is being able to spend more time with my family. They are incredibly understanding and give me plenty of space to work. My favorite part of my day is when my 2 year old daughter comes and knocks on the door to get a kiss and a hug. I love eating lunch with my wife and kids. If my family wasn’t so great, working from home might be more of a curse than a blessing.

So there are my recommendations. Do you work from home? What items would you add to this list?

• Built using WordPress
• Invitation Form to invite people to rally behind the cause
• Area to share prayers on the site
• Built using the 960 Grid System

Visit the 7Fourteen Website