As technology becomes more vital to the church world each day, communication within the church organization is critical.

Not only is there plenty going on but the people who need quick access to their important services, like email, calendaring, and documents are also on the go. Many churches do not have the resources to employ a full time IT staff and churches could cause volunteer burnout if those loyal servants are constantly having to do tech support.

There is a solution for that. It is Google Apps.

Google Apps is “cloud computing.” Rather than having all of your data stored on a server within your organization, it’s all located on Google’s own scalable server environment. Google Apps includes email, calendaring, document sharing, intranet websites, instant messaging, video and groups.

Essentially it’s a complete package.

Below are 10 reasons why you should consider making the switch: Continue reading »

Chapter 5 covered by Jay Caruso 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.

It’s interesting when a person asks to be a part of something, just how much it can impact them personally. I signed on for this group blogging project and had a chapter of the book assigned to me. John had absolutely no idea just how much this chapter would parallel my own life.

In Chapter 8, ‘The Dimmer Switch’, Shane discusses what he sees as a “hazard” with regard to conversion from non-follower to Christ follower. In modern culture, it’s common for people to recount the exact moment in their lives when they became Christ followers and often the implication is that if you cannot remember that exact moment, then there is a good chance that you’re not saved. Shane reminds us that the gospel writers don’t seem to be so concerned with that exact moment and in fact, it would be hard to pinpoint that exact moment for any of the disciples.

He attributes this in large part to the medium of print. He writes,

The print saturated mind is enamored with classification, categories, and elaboration.

He says while that is often a good thing (he cites God telling Adam to name the animals in the Garden of Eden) he says the “fetish” for categories can lead to problems when applying it to people and faith. We get too caught up in looking to place people into these particular categories such as “saved” or “unsaved”, “believer” or “non-believer” based on certain circumstances when in reality it can be far more nuanced than that.

Shane draws a contrast by using the examples of Paul and Thomas. Thomas followed Christ for three years, but still had doubts when Jesus rose again and actually wanted proof. Jesus offered it to him. Paul’s conversion was more stark. In an instant he became a believer when only moments before his heart was set on persecuting other Christians. Shane says that the Bible gives us two understandings of conversion but culturally, one is emphasized at the expense of the other.

So What Does It All Mean?

As I wrote earlier, it is common for people to recount their exact moment as Paul did. It wasn’t long ago that I bought into the cultural viewpoint that this is what it was like. That’s how you knew you were saved. However, I had a problem. I couldn’t remember that exact moment. I knew the place and I knew the year and I remember talking to the Pastor about it, etc. But if somebody asked me to give that exact date, I couldn’t do it. As such, I started to doubt my own salvation as a result. In making a long story short, after talking with my Pastor and getting some counsel from him, I was certain that I truly was a believer.

For me, I didn’t have the ‘light switch’ conversion. Mine was more of the ‘dimmer switch.’

So what did you think of Chapter 8 and do you agree that as a culture we emphasize “light switch” of conversion over the “dimmer switch”?

[Image from Enjoilife51]

This is a Guest Post by Jay Caruso.

Connections: Association, relationship, circle of friends or associates, or a member of such a circle.

One month ago, I had never heard of ChurchCrunch.com. Here I am now, guest blogging. I’ll get to how that came about in a moment.

A few days ago John wrote an entry where he said:

Sure, we’re passionate people passionately interested in our Savior Jesus Christ, but we have an opportunity to put our foot down and tell the blogosphere that there is a new motivation for blogging in town, and that’s the desire to connect with other people so that we may communicate an invaluable message.

We don’t do it for our own personal fame and glory, we don’t do it for money or to fill our pockets with stuff that “moth and rust will destroy,” we don’t do it “just for fun” (although it can be and is fun) because we are “on mission” to connect with others. We don’t do it just to market our church or pimp our ministry, we do it to raise up Christ.

Amen to that. The question is though: Who are we connecting with?

Continue reading »