Cultural Watercooler - Recently Updated Pages

2008 Recreate Ideas

shameonyoko — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:36:34 CST

We were all given a homework assignment prior to cre:ate this year. We dropped all our homework in everyone's take-home boxes. This page is designed to post a copy of your cre:ate homework assignment in digital format.

Internet Ministry

mike[ritter] — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:09:00 CST

Introduction

The internet is a fast-growing source for dissemination of religion and faith. Through standard websites, informational resources, podcasts, religious media, and email the internet is used to convey religious messages across a broad medium to an immense audience. This presents unique opportunities and challenges to those who seek to present their message and those seeking information.

The Interactive Web

The internet is a place of instant information. Gone are the days where websites were static business cards. Today, they are an avenue for information. The phenomenon is called web 2.0. With blogging, social networking, syndication, and subscription, people worldwide are communicating with each other more effectively.

Education and Evangelism

The internet is an effective medium for both education and evangelism. Each goal presents a unique motive. The education model presents information for consideration as fact. We look at this information as historical, statistical or explanatory. The evangelism model is presented to convince others to a particular point of view.

How effective the internet as a medium serves these roles is a point of discussion. Ideas can be presented and evaluated with ease on the internet, which lends itself to the former. However, intangible components to presenting one's faith to a person may be lost from computer to computer.

The challenge to education is maintaining reliability and validity of information.

The challenge to evangelism is maintaining relevance and a relational component.

Malicious Misinformation

Some users purposefully misrepresent information to mislead others online. This has occurred in situations where abusers alter something presented on someone else's website, impostors create websites (as parody or to do harm) that trick genuine consumers, and email hoaxes.

This darker side of the internet has made some people and organizations wary of using the internet to get or disseminate information.

Emerging Trends

Podcasting (or web casting) is becoming the "tape ministry" of the twenty-first century. With a relatively similar investment, a ministry can post its message online and syndicate it for a worldwide audience.

Blogging is more than a voyeuristic look into people's journals. It has become an effective way people and organizations disseminate their message.

Cultural Watercooler

mike[ritter] — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:28:41 CST

Gather round and let's talk about real life issues that we deal with as arts leaders and fellow creatives. Also, specifically when it comes to leading a group of artists in church-type settings...how can we collaborate to become better?

If we could gather around the table every day instead of just February at cre:ate...what would we talk about?

What are your burning questions?

What discoveries are you making online, reading, resources, etc?

What could our music companies (EMI, Word, Great WorshipSongs,Integrity, Vineyard) do to better help us?

What could cre:ate do to better help you?

How can Randy and those who have been doing this for over thirty years mentor those who are younger?

What else?

Transitioning Worship Styles

shameonyoko — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 04:57:26 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Official Philosophy Statements

shameonyoko — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:04:51 CDT

List your church's official philosophy of ministry statements or papers here. What do you want your people to know about what you do and how you do it? Help resource other churches who may not have a detailed statement.

Philosophy and Methodology

shameonyoko — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:54:59 CDT

The Why, What, When, Where and How of What We Do

Here is where we discuss our weekend worship gatherings--whatever we might call them--and other corporate worship events and worship disciplines. If you have a "Philosophy of Ministry Statement" or if you just want to banter, discuss, and share what your church is doing . . . share it here. This is also a place to ask questions about the theology behind the choices we make in crafting a worship "program" or "service." Discuss the freedoms we have to craft and shape our programs. Discuss the roles of those leading, facilitating, teaching, crafting, playing, singing, etc. Discuss the biblical models of corporate worship. What did Jesus mean by worshipping in "spirit and in truth?" Think of this as the cognitive, "heady" resource page. Lengthy, official Philosophy of Ministry statements or papers can be listed in this page's subpage entitled, "Official Philosophy Statements."

Read this

cynthiacullen — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:14:57 CDT

Share with us new reads that are challenging you as an artist on a personal level...share web links to articles or essays that you have read that have inspired you to think on a different level about our culture and the arts.

Aesthetic Photo Gallery

shameonyoko — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:42:36 CDT

Theological Plotline.	Prayer/Communion Wall.
Color Palettes.	Last Supper 1.
Last Supper 2.	Faux Trees.
Faux Stained Glass.	Making Faux Stained Glass.

Aesthetic Ideas

shameonyoko — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:10:14 CDT

The Art of the Matter

This is a place to share ideas on creating an aesthetically pleasing and engaging space for worship. Good art and aesthetics can bolster and augment what is happening in our worship environments. Yes, you can worship God anywhere. But, given the choice between a Costco and a Gallery . . . well . . .

This space is then dedicated to the creative ways we craft our worship environments so they are designed to engage, spur participation, create a sense of awe and majesty, spawn interactive worship, awaken the senses, tell a story, and point to God.

Discuss the ideas here and paste photos of your ideas/work/art in the Aesthetic Photo Gallery.

New Resources

randyelrod — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:13:16 CDT

A place to tell everyone about great new resources. There is too much out there for all of us to know everything.