Link Roundup For January 16
Its Friday and these are the fun things you need to be spending the rest of your afternoon looking at.
Your Church Needs a Blog Editor
This blog editor could ask leadership to spend one day a week for 30 minutes writing a synopsis of the sermon or next step challenge. Then they take that content, format it and edit it for the blog, and post it.
Things that Get Under My Skin
If you've ever flown with your baby you'll love this webcomic/infographic.
Bloom Blanket
An amazing geometric shaped blanket that looks like it comes from the imagination of M.C. Escher.
Tony Anderson - The Sonic Architect
We use his music all the time for our videos. He has an amazing story to go along with his amazing soundtracks.
Magnetic Hangers
Hooks: good for pirates, annoying for clothes. The hooks on clothes hangers get caught in loose knits, get tangled with each other, break off, bend, and do all kinds of other irritating things. But what if we could get rid of the hooks altogether?
If you like these links follow me on Twitter for more of the same.
Three Ways to Improve Church Guest Services
One of my most treasured memories of high school was lunchtime. No, it wasn't the awesome lunch lady surprise or the super soft Otis Spunkmeyer cookies but rather a chance to get off of campus and go wherever we wanted.
Even though we could go anywhere, we had a few routines: Tuesday was Woody's Club at Woody's Wings 'n Things, Wednesday was Pizza Hut buffet and of course every other week, pilgrimages to my own house for "Ma Byers Chile."
My mom is the very picture of hospitality. Very few times growing up can I remember us going more than a few days without having someone in our home whether it was for a meal or to have a place to sleep. She loves having people over and people love coming over. My friends were no exception. Each time I would announce it was a "Ma Byers Chile" day there would be whoops a few "Ahhhh yeah's" and pats on the back.
And it wasn't all just for the chile. Our home was warm, inviting, and a place you always wanted to come back to. It was a place anyone could feel at home.
Its that same feeling I want desperately for the guests at our church to experience. As soon as you walk through the doors of our church I want you to feel at home.
It doesn't matter whether you've been here 1000 times or this is your first time, you are my guest and I want you to feel like you belong, like you're wanted, like you're home.
So how do this? We're not perfect and we're always trying to improve our the guest services but here are a few ways we make all of our guests feel at home.
Treat Everyone like a Guest
We never call anyone a visitor, a regular or anything else. Every person who walks through the door is a guest.
Multiple Layers of Greeters
I want every guest to be greeted at least three times before they've sat down. So we have people opening outside doors, people inside those doors and ushers at the auditorium entrances greeting every person they can.
Abundant Signage
Our building is pretty straightforward but anytime you're in a strange place even the most straightforward buildings can be confusing. One of the things we've implemented is printing a simple map of our building from an overhead view and labeling each of the classrooms. We hang these at the entrances. Its called Today at The Creek.
Bonus: Have everyone that volunteers in your guest services attend a different church at least one Sunday during the year. This will help them understand what it feels like to be a guest.
Obviously there are many more things you can do to improve your guest services and I'll be writing more about these in the future.
Link Roundup for January 9
Here are some of the interesting things I've found. Now they're yours.
The Master Counterfeiter
A GQ long form read profiling Frank Bourassa who made nearly over $200 million in nearly flawless fake $20 bills from his barn in Canada.
The 50 Best Documentaries on Netflix
I love good documentaries so this list is is super helpful trying to decide what to watch next. The one that should have absolutely been on the list that isn't is Kevin McDonald's Touching the Void. He documents the true story of two climbers and their perilous journey up the west face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985.
Has the Church Overlooked YouTube?
"YouTube is the most underrated and underutilized social network by church leaders and churches. When you consider that behind Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, the Church is missing a huge opportunity to be found in those searches."
A Really Cool Square Stand for iPad
We used iPads at our church connect desk and I would love to invest in these stylish stands. So many iPad kiosks and stands are ugly and boring. Not these.
The Great Escape Room
A real life escape adventure game with secret passageways, hidden compartments and clever clues. You are your friends are trapped and have 60 minutes to find your way out. This is a theme park attraction that looks awesome. Wish there was one closer.
Honest Book Covers
This link is a bit self-serving but too fun not to post. I photoshopped some hilarious book title tags on the actual covers to make them a little more "honest."
One Year Bible Reading Poster
Last year we made a big push for the people in our church to read the Bible together. To make this as easy as possible we adopted a one year reading plan with specified readings for each day.
The readings were available in the popular Bible App, in our own Creek Church App, and small printed cards people could pick up at the church.
We encouraged everyone to read for the joy of reading and not to feel pressure to "check off a box" by doing the reading every single day. We specifically did not want to guilt people into reading the Bible.
Over the past year we had a lot of success with numbers of people from our church posting on social media and having personal conversations about the Scriptures because they were reading the same passages as one another.
We are again pushing this out to our church, and this time I've made a poster with each day's readings. It's formatted to fit an 18x24" size frame (anything smaller and it gets really hard to read) and has a very simple and clean style.
Maybe next year I'll make it into a combination of reading/planning calendar for your wall.
Chinese Periodic Table of the Bible
A couple months ago I was contacted by a person from Hong Kong who had translated my Book of the Bible graphic into Chinese. I love the way that this looks and I am looking forward to working together to translate more of my graphics.
Click the image to download a high resolution version
Prints of the Chinese version are also available for purchase
Church Welcome Video
At my church my main responsibilities include communications and connections. The two often overlap and many of my projects have the dual purpose of communicating so we can connect with others.
We recently launched a new version of our website. One of the main focuses was to make everything as user-friendly as possible for someone not familiar with our church or church in general.
I've visited my fair share of churches and its always intimidating to go into a new place not knowing where things are. In fact I've pulled up Google Street View lots of times to make myself familiar with the surrounding area of a destination I'm going to.
With that in mind I wanted to create a video for new people to not just learn about what our church does but actually show them where things are. I wanted to answer questions like: What does it look like inside? Where do I go if I have kids? Where are the restrooms?
If we can give people more confidence about what they're getting into and get them excited at the same time then we've accomplished our goal.
One of the keys for this video was to shoot it live on a Sunday morning. I wanted potential visitors to actually see how everything looks and what is happening. We could have shot it in an empty building and controlled the environment more but you would lose a ton of energy and authenticity.
While we have a very talented film maker at our disposal (Stover Films – check out some of their other awesome work) you don't need to have professionals to do this. Shoot a simple video with your phone's camera. Visitor's having access to see what they're getting into would love you for it.
- We shot the video on a Canon C100.
- I wore a wireless lapel mic. (While we didn't use it on this shoot, the Rode Smartlav which plugs into your iPhone is an amazing and affordable option.)
- The music was licensed from The Music Bed
- Video was edited in Final Cut Pro X
- I color graded it using a VSCO perset in Adobe Lightroom
Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
Link Roundup
Each Friday I post really interesting things I found on the interwebs.
I now share them with you my friends.
Inside FiftyThree's New Office Space
The renowned maker of iOS app Paper just created their own office. This would be a fantastic space to work. Tons of natural materials, light and superior craftsmanship.
Send Your Own Personal Satellite to Space
Did you know you could hitch a ride with a Russian rocket to space? Neither did I but here is a site that gives you a schedule for major launches and how much it would cost to send up your personal satellite with them.
Rolling Stone Got The Inside Scoop On the Flappy Bird Story
I read this and did feel for the developer and had a better insight into why he took the popular game down from the iOS app store. [there is a bit of NSFW language]
Let It Go from Frozen [Metal Instrumental Version]
Next time my kids request the Frozen soundtrack I'm putting this on. Seriously, some amazing talent here.
Noah's Ark Movie Featurette
This short clip gives you a behind the scenes look at the movie and gives you a true idea of how big not only was the production ark (which they built to scale) but how absolutely massive the original ark was.
The Perfect Mini Golf Game
One of the rarest feats ever and a really intriguing short film.
I share other links and fun stuff on Twitter. Follow me for more!
The New Calvinism - A Timeline Infographic
My journey to the "New Calvinism" as all the cool kids are calling it, started with a short film.
It was the one where Rob Bell is for whatever reason hiking in the woods with his infant son under the threat of a rainstorm. The rain did come and as Rob in his awesome glasses ran John Woo slow-mo through the trees, I thought it was the coolest Christian thing I had ever seen. Of course consider the source. I grew up with emo Jesus flannel-graph and a Sunday night program called Eager Beavers...
While Bell's Nooma videos and early book Velvet Elvis ultimately would not satisfy my longing for something greater in the world of Christendom it did open the door for me to look.
And as I looked I discovered Mark Driscoll who taught me how to love Jesus and my family.
I found Tim Keller who brought the Bible to life in ways I had never considered.
I listened to John Piper who rather than shaming me into a love for God, was able to inspire a love for God by showing His absolute glory and beauty.
And through CJ Mahaney and Tullian Tchividjian I learned that the Gospel wasn't just for my salvation, but something to center my whole life on.
In short I am the poster child of the New Calvinist movement.
Tim Challies and I in our latest infographic take a look at the formation and life of this movement, that in 2009 Time Magazine said was "changing the world."
Click here or on the graphic to view & download a high resolution version.
RC Sproul Infographic
Today Tim Challies and I continue our fun series on modern influential teachers we admire. Previously we highlighted John MacAurthur and John Piper.
Tomorrow is R.C. Sproul's 75th birthday so we've prepared this infographic dedicated to his life and ministry.
The Humility of Christ Infographic in Spanish
Tim Challies and I have worked together on a number of visual theology infographics. One of the graphics we collaborated on was a visual piece depicting Philippians 2:5-11 where the Apostle Paul pictures the downward spiral of the humiliation of Christ that ultimately results in his glory.
Like many other infographics there were many requests for this graphic to be available in other languages.
I'm very happy today to be able to release this graphic in Spanish.
I was contacted some months ago by Derrek Wilson who was part of team working with some missionaries near Panama City. They had a need for some good biblical teaching resources and wanted to use some of my graphics. Generously, they offered to translate them into Spanish and then allowed me to repost them for download.
I detailed their story here which I would encourage you to read.