This is a new online collaboration tool I recently tested. It has it’s unique advantages and disadvantages, and in some ways it works like Google Docs, but it provides a little more immediate traction. No signing up or signing in required, no passwords, no downloading and installing software, just click one button and instantly you have a collaboration “pad” – an etherpad. They offer a paid version and free version.
I used it to collaborate remotely with an associate before and during a conference call. We used it as a scratch pad to write the rough draft of a document. It worked like a charm!
Imagine the potentials for foreign/second language learning and teaching with this!
Jesus and Operational Planning?? Huh? Is this some kind of weird oxymoron? Let me explain . . .
Operations can be used as a word to described various administrative and functional tasks.
When I describe the role of operations and how we need many more full time missionaries to devote to operations jobs, people sometimes roll their eyes and think “that’s not real ministry.” Dealing with numbers, planning logistics, expanding communications capability, handling repetitive financial tasks, tracking health care benefits, providing back end technology support and on and on. It can sound very boring. And often times it is overlooked.
Operations is all about ministry. Ministry and operations are intrinsically linked.
Jesus cared about operations. A careful examination of the gospels shows an incredible amount of detail went in to carrying out Jesus’ work. No doubt He strived to impart his love for people AND his methods for serving people to his disciples. His heart was to serve and not to be served. So I can surmise that the Master did share the details of His plans for serving others. He must have cared about operations.
If Jesus did not care about operations, then why did He? . . .
Choose fishermen and a tax collector to be his disciples? Men who were very “get it done” type of people. Men who thought, lived, slept and breathed the language of business of the day. Men who constantly grappled with the bottom line. They knew how to run a tight ship (literally).
Have the 5000 and 4000 crowds organize themselves into groups to sit down and experience a miracle? Not to mention the “distribution plan” he put into action by telling the disciples “you yourselves give them something to eat.”
Care about His transportation plan on His entry into Jerusalem? He sent disciples to retrieve a donkey – causing them to invest valuable time when they only had a few more hours with Him on earth.
Give orders for the disciples to make detailed preparations for the passover meal? Details that could have seemed trivial to a leader of his stature.
Direct the apostle Paul – via the Holy Spirit – to invest much time and energy in crafting detailed letters of instructions to early church leaders? Letters which have laid a foundation for church growth for centuries.
Planning, financial systems, transportation, logistics, communications – even using the technology of the day (papyrus letters) – all of these were put into practice by Jesus and the disciples. Certainly, He loved people more than the methods or plan, but He did have quite a plan for serving others.
Thanks to several of you who have been praying. We wanted to give you a brief update:
In May David’s Dad suffered what appears to have been a mild stroke. The doctor sent him to the hospital for an MRI to confirm what happened but he was not admitted to stay overnight.
Thankfully the effects have not set him back too much. And he has now had a couple of weeks worth of physical therapy to restore a little mobility – that helped.
Unfortunately the doctors said to “probably expect more” of these types of mild strokes. He has been struggling with Vascular Dementia – somewhat akin to Alzheimer’s – for over five years. Supposedly strokes are one thing that “goes with the territory” of this disease.
Thanks for praying for Mr. Babby – as everyone calls him – his real name is Larrabee, but reportedly his sisters could not pronounce ‘Larrabee’ when they were young so ‘Babby’ stuck instead. Pray too for Mrs. Joanne – David’s Mom – as she daily serves and cares for him with strength and patience that the Lord is providing. She is doing a fantastic job.
Last year we did a big survey – asking ccci missionaries around the world to tell us how they are using technology to build God’s Kingdom. Since then other smaller surveys have been conducted which also provide some interesting trends:
Our missionaries are moderately to highly connected via the Internet. Regardless of country or location, most spend a minimum of 3 hours a day online. A significant percentage is online approximately 5 or more hours a day. * See our recent post about internet availability even in Rwanda
Overwhelmingly, our missionaries believe Internet access is important or very important for building a spiritual movement.
To a large degree, movement builders use email, mobile phone and text messaging as primary (not supplemental) tools for movement building.
Social networking sites, such as Facebook and blogs, are used very frequently and have become primary tools for movement building activities.
A large percentage pointed to the need for more education, training and awareness of technology strategies and tools when asked what should change about the way we build spiritual movements as a result of the way technology shapes the world today.
Check this out: Recently my friend Keith got an email from an associate traveling in Rwanda. This person had expected to find virtually NO way to connect to the internet but . . .
“This place in Rwanda has wireless internet!!! I have no idea how widely they have it at the hotel, for example, I don’t know if it reaches my room. I’m in the meeting room at the moment. This is amazing. The “shower” in my room is one where you have to stand in a bucket. That is, adding a shower to the room was an afterthought. It does have an instant hot water heater in the shower head, but it didn’t work this morning. So, a bucket shower with a water heater that doesn’t work but with newly installed wireless access point!”
Short answer: Yes! Well, technically, “almost yes.” There are a few remaining areas on the planet where humans can not have digital contact with other humans. But if some large venture capital plans pan out, those remaining areas will disappear by the end of 2010.
Did you know that over 1.2 Billion people in the world actively use the internet? That means 1.2 Billion people view a web site or search the internet regularly, if not daily. I am one of them.
But, something MUCH more significant than the above statistic is this: Over 4 Billion people on the planet subscribe to a mobile phone service – over 4 Billion cell phone users connect every day! That means that no matter where you travel in the world today, if you were to walk down the street there’s almost a 60% chance that any man, woman, boy or girl is carrying a cell phone! And this number is only gaining ground hand over fist.
Of course, some would argue that there are still big “dark zones” or areas of limited coverage. As mentioned above, many mobile companies and internet service providers are racing to close these gaps. Literally racing. They see the potential profit in increasing their subscribers by a few million or billion.
This race certainly makes things more interesting for people and groups who want to leverage the power of digital technologies to increase the Lord’s Name on the earth. Take a look at the specific areas where some companies are targeting to “close the gaps in coverage” by 2010. It strikes me that these countries and areas are also some of the least penetrated with the gospel. Hmmm, the Lord may be up to something here:
