It doesn’t take long when you’re trying to build a successful blog network to realize that nobody has written a book on the subject.

Truth be told? We could use one right about now. Don’t get me wrong, the hammer is down and we’re banging some juice on all cylinders. We have, almost literally, hit the ground running.

But success in this game is far from guaranteed, especially if you plan to play it with your cards facing outwards for the world to see.

And this, friends, is exactly what we plan to do.

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This is a Guest Post by Chris Ames.

Now we’re moving.

You’ve identified the undertapped resource of the online volunteer, and you’re ready to make it official with the right people for the job. The first thing I recommend is to terminate them. Right up front. Hand that pink slip across the table and say, “You’re fired.”

If you can get your hands on a Donald Trump toupee, then I give you +100 points for style.

That’s a bit overdramatic, but what I’m trying to say is that one of my best practices for managing online volunteers is to identify and set term limits for your online positions.

Ready for some schooling? After the jump:

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This is a guest post by Chris Ames

One of the advantages of an online ministry is the inherent asynchronous nature within which it executes. Historically, if you wanted to get something accomplished in a church or non-profit the expected modus operandi would be for the team to be centrally located (or at least available) during a specified block of time on a typical work day to collaborate synchronously with other living, breathing human beings.

And while some of this also translates into the world of online ministry, a good bit does not. I want to focus on that for a moment because it is a game-changer.

Ready to recognize? Read more after the jump.

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The Party

Registration is open to the first 100 who sign up. Please, be mindful and only sign up if you are certain you will be able to attend. Fill out an RSVP for each person attending. We can’t wait to meet you, the ChurchCrunch community, live and in person! Also, if you are interested in volunteering send an email.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

The Place

The party will be held on the patio of Land of a Thousand Hills coffee in Roswell, GA. We love this place!

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

The Charity

Any time a group of people meet, they have the opportunity to work together for a common purpose. We made it to 1 year, but Millions of people don’t live to see their 5th birthday. And why? Because they didn’t have access to clean, safe water. This is why we are simultaneously launching a ChurchCrunch Charity Water initiative.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

The Loot

Did we mention Michael Hyatt and Thomas Nelson’s generous gift of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller? I think we did. Did we mention that there will be the opportunity to score even more, church and technology related loot? Yes, I think we did that too. But we’re still sitting on the details for a later post. I think John may have said something about content generation being the crucial heartbeat of a successful blog. And we like to follow our own rules around here.

What are you waiting for? Register already!

UPDATED 10/1/2009: CLICK HERE FOR FREE LOOT INFO

Howdy kids, Chris (@dewde) here. I’ve just hacked ChurchCrunch and, in order to keep inline with the excellent information distributing spirit of this blog, I figured it’s only appropriate to share my insight with you, the lovely (and fetching!) ChurchCrunch community.

Here is how you, too, can hack ChurchCrunch.

1. Get a random call from Sue (@mrsbear), John Saddington’s wife, requesting your assistance in throwing ChurchCrunch a 1 year anniversary party during the week of Catalyst ‘09.

2. Secure collateral to ensure @human3rror is properly motivated to keep your hacked blog post live.

3. Create the dorkiest informational video on teh Interwebs about the EPIC BLOG STAR PARTY EXTRAVAGANZA.

4. Sit back and relax, delighting in the fact that @mrsbear has all the login names and passwords you need to access the ChurchCrunch admin panel and blog to your heart’s content.

5. Write this exact blog post that you are reading right now. Be sure to use the word “we” whenever possible in order to distribute blame/responsibility appropriately. Then tell everyone outright that this whole thing was @mrsbear’s idea.

6. Seriously, it really was. She’s totally making me do this. @human3rror, you’re my favorite. This is in no way, shape, or form, a retaliation attempt for this. Or this.

(But I think you and I both know that if it was… it would be an EPIC WIN.)

7. Fidget nervously and say a small prayer as you realize that your administrative access was limited and, technically, you still need @human3rror to publish this post. Technically.

If you’re reading this now, that’s how we did it! Enjoy!

Honestly though, this party is going to be TOPS. We are still firming up the guest list and loot overfloweth. Michael Hyatt (@MichaelHyatt ) and Thomas Nelson Publishers are giving away Donald Miller’s new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years to the first 100 people to RSVP (and show up to the party). And that’s just the beginning! Trust me when I say you are not going to want to miss this.

REGISTRATION OPEN NOW 9/25.

The details, once again

Date Oct 6, 2009 (Night before Catalyst Atlanta)
Time 7:30 pm
Location Land of 1000 Hills Coffee, Roswell GA

Come and hang with us as we gather to celebrate one year of covering the merging the church and technology here on ChurchCrunch.

Please help us get the word out! Tweet. Blog. Text. Email. Mime. Etc. See you October 6th!

UPDATE: Click here for RSVP details!

Chapter 3 covered by Chris Ames as part of our Group Blogging Project discussing the book Flickering Pixels by Shane Hipps. If you need a quick overview to what Flickering Pixels is about, please go here.

Sucker Punched

Immediately upon finishing this chapter I began to struggle with what to write here. I had information, but I wasn’t terribly excited about imparting it to you. So I went back and read it again and that’s when I was sucker-punched by a gem I had somehow missed the first time through. In one section, Hipps contrasts two stories from Greek mythology in which a common, rudimentary piece of technology was a significant influence in the ultimate, and contrary, fate of each main character. These seemingly unrelated stories belong to Narcissus and Perseus.

A Fundy, Snake-handling Christian’s Dream Date

Narcissus was a beautiful young boy who left a devastating trail of unrequited love in his wake. We all know Hell hath no cumulative fury like a gaggle of Greek women scorned so, inevitably, the gods grew tired of hearing them whine. They put a serious harsh on his mellow by cursing the young stud. While strutting through the forest one day, Narcissus came across a deep pool of water and noticed his reflection for the first time. He instantly fell in love with the reflected image and stayed there at the pool, staring at his bad self until he died.

Perseus was a young hero and an illegitimate love-child of the god Zeus. Medusa, who I like to think of as sort of a fundamental, snake-handling Christian’s dream date, was all up in the king’s kool-aid turning everyone to stone and whatnot. That is until Perseus shows up on the scene with a new piece of epic loot: a Shield of Mirrors (+10 Reflection, +8 Intellect, -100 Durability). Instead of looking at Medusa directly and perishing, Perseus protects himself by looking at her indirectly through the shield’s shiny, reflective surface. Then he lops her head off. Rawr.

Leverage

The common element in both stories was that victory or defeat hung in the balance, and the instrument, or medium, by which the story takes an unexpected turn is the article of ancient technology known as the reflection. The gods leveraged this technology to deal with Narcissus. Perseus leveraged this technology to deal with Medusa.

The previous chapter ended with Hipps doing a solid job of deconstructing the false belief that a message is always neutral with respect to its method of delivery. I agree with him on this point. A message is rarely neutral to its medium. This chapter takes things a step further and begins to skirt around the idea that technology is a medium, oh and by the way, it can be leveraged for good or ill.

For the remainder of the chapter, Hipps dissects what he refers to as the “4 Dimensions of All Media”. If, indeed, a message is interdependent with its medium, and a message can be influenced for good or ill by it, then it is positively foundational that one get a thorough understanding of media in general in order to better anticipate, and calculate, the influence it has on our messages. But that’s not what gave me pause as I sat there rereading the chapter.

Big, Sweaty, and Breathless Like a Prank Caller

What occurred to me was that my blog is a reflective surface.

It is a reflection of myself, sure. But it goes deeper. I spend an obscene amount of time priming and pruning and posturing in order to look like a “young beautiful boy” to the Internet at large. If my blog or your blog or even your organization’s blogs are collective reflections of ourselves, then we’re left with one big, sweaty, prank-call-breathing question. In two parts.

As Christians, are our blogs deep pools of water in the forest, used to make us drunk on ourselves, isolate us from the world, and curse us to a slow, absurd death? Or are they mighty shields that we use to defend ourselves, neuter dangerous monsters, and liberate others from a fate of eternal stone?