Rich’s Travels

Just saw this from Singapore and had to post it here.  OIC (Online Intentional Conversations) is a great way that Singapore is leading the world in doing online ministry for university students everywhere.  This is a great video.  Make sure you go to their website as well!

I just came across this article this morning from Fox News. No surprise here that someone has decided to place their faith in Christ or that this person was from another religion, but some of the things that this person said in his interview of how he came to Christ is important. Check out these excerpts from the article:

“JONATHAN HUNT: Why, after 25 years, did you change?

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: I believe that all those walls that Islam built for the last 1,400 years are not existing (sic) anymore. They don’t recognize this. They built those walls and made people ignorant because they’re afraid. They didn’t want people to discuss anything about the reality of Islam, about the big questions of Islam and they asked their followers, the Muslims, ‘Don’t ask about those certain questions.’

But now, people have media. If the father closes the door for his daughter not to leave the house, she’s going to go behind her computer and travel the world. So people easily can get information, knowledge, searching (sic) engines, so it’s very, very available for everybody to study about Islam, about other religions. Not from the Islam point of view, but from other points of view.

So for the next 25 years this is for sure going to make huge change in the Muslim and the Arab world.”

So, for the next 25 years lots of students in the Middle East will be logging on to their computers searching for the truth. The question is.. who will be there to answer their questions when they ask? I sure hope it will be someone who loves Jesus.

My kids are big fans of the Discovery Channel show “Mythbusters.” The guys on the show tackle common myths that we all might think are true putting them to the scientific test to determine if they are true or just a myth. Every time I go out of town I make sure to download a new episode for the kids and myself. I watch it while I’m on the plane so that I have am ready when I am bombarded by their questions from the show.

My favorite Mythbusters myth is called “Penny Drop”. Basically, the myth is that if you drop a penny from a tall building, such as the Empire State building, the penny would be going so fast that if it were to hit someone it could and would kill them. Result??? Not true. The myth was “busted”! It might hurt, but it certainly won’t kill you. In light of this show, I thought I might do a set of myths about the internet and campus ministry and why I think they are busted myths.

“The Terminator Myth.”

One of the greatest films of all time (at least if you are a guy) is “Terminator”. The basic plot of the movie is that our society is too dependent on computers as they are entrusted to run everything so that humans don’t have to do anything. My point is that computers don’t do ministry, people do. Computers are just a tool to help humans get things done better. So why don’t we apply the same thing to ministry? After all, if computers could do ministry all by themselves, we could just build robots to share the Jesus film and pass out Bibles in extremely closed countries. They could get arrested and even beaten, but we could still program them to continue to share the Gospel with people and provide information to others. Computers don’t build movements, people empowered by the Holy Spirit do.

“Geeks Rule”

This myth is that as a leader I delegate trying to do campus ministry on the internet to the IT (Information Technology) Department. After all, it is dealing with computers and who better to run our internet ministry than the IT department? However, this myth gets its origins from myth #1. Ministry is still ministry and you should put your best ministry leaders to lead. IT guys certainly do ministry and their help in getting the systems and structures in place to help your internet ministry is invaluable, it’s not wise to delegate the entirety of internet ministry to the IT Department.

(Rich with Egyptian on skype call to Malaysia)

Skype is a great tool for communicating with people around the world. Have a skype account and a microphone and a high speed internet connection and you can have a phone call with anyone in the world for free! So, while I was in Egypt we had a call between some of our leadership in Egypt and some of the leadership of our internet ministry in Malaysia. The goal was for the Malaysian leadership to ask some of our Egytians questions how they do some of their ministry on the internet. It was a fun time watching Egyptians and Malaysians ask questions in English (after of course, conferring in their native tongue of Arabic and Chinese) about ministering to students on the internet. I enjoyed being the “Middle Man” and connecting these 2 groups for their conversation.

However, that was not my only reason for being in Cairo. I also had a chance to meet with a group of Arabs who do ministry on the internet. We worked on improving our websites as well as creating connections for students who ask Christ to come in their life on the internet to continue in their spiritual journey by being followed up and receiving information on how to grow in their new faith in Christ. Through the everystudent site when someone indicates a decision for Christ we see 70% of those students click on our follow up site startingwithgod. That statistic is amazing! In all my years on campus, I never saw 70% of those who came to Christ in an evangelistic meeting want to be followed up! Thus, www.everyarabchristian.com has been created and launched and connected to some of our other sites.

Having a little fun in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia

I had a phenomenal time in Malaysia for a conference run by students from all over South East Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines to name a few). Excited, empowered students actually given the opportunity and challenge to reach their campus and country for Christ make for a powerful chemical reaction. I was honored to be there to promote winning, building and sending students through the power of the internet. Thanks for praying for me. I was also able to make a stop on my way back to Singapore and meet with the campus team there. They also are doing a phenomenal job of leading a way of thinking that is really new in student ministry. While I was in both places, I am finding some common trends in some of the places I visit:

1) We have a big gap right now with our staff leadership and their understanding of the internet. It’s not their faults, but we (I include myself in this group) are not “digital natives“. Click on that link, this is a great article that provides a detailed explanation, of a digital native. but the bottom line is that our students are being led by people like me who are digital immigrants (those that didn’t grow up with computers, cell phones and high speed internet). We don’t naturally think in those terms, but still think in terms of face to face meetings as the only way for something to be real.

I think it is akin to ever talking with your parents or grandparents about when they were little and their home received their first telephone. Many people said that you can’t have a real conversation with someone by just talking into a box, you have to actually drive or walk over to that person’s house. You and I don’t doubt that we can have a real conversation by talking into a box and we do it everyday. We grew up with a telephone in our house. We can’t remember when we didn’t have a phone in our house (although I can still remember calling the operator to place a long distance call and having them dial the number for me!).

Digital natives (another great read on how this new generation thinks and learns) are the same way, except they can’t remember when they didn’t have a cell phone or high speed internet in their home. This is increasing even in non-Western countries. Did you know that students in Malaysia all walk on to campuses with their laptops and a free high speed wi-fi network all over campus? Part of my challenge as a digital immigrant is to not only learn more of the digital native culture and how to reach it, but how to teach my fellow digital immigrants the same! Not an easy task. Hopefully you can teach an old dog new tricks!

Digital natives of South East Asia!

2) Today’s student that is involved in Christian ministry is being led by a digital immigrant (or if they don’t have a computer or cell phone maybe a digital castaway). How this works in ministry is that the leader trains the student (very correctly I might add) how to do evangelism. They knock on a student’s dorm room or approach a friend from class and ask them their spiritual beliefs and if they have any questions about the Christian faith. What’s wrong with that??? Again, absolutely nothing.

However, it is very limited in its approach. Both student (the Believer being trained and the student being approached by the Believer) spends 3 1/2 hours online a day (on average). Could the staff involved in Christian ministry challenge the trainee to approach the student in cyberspace? Unfortunately, the answer is usually no. The digital immigrant staff just doesn’t think about that approach or doesn’t believe it is a legitimate form of ministry. The consequence??? The student is only trained in one way of evangelism. When I was at this conference in Malaysia, I was struck when we asked students if they had any non Christian students they were “friends” with on social network sites (facebook, myspace etc.). Many of them looked at us dumbfounded as if to say, “Of course.” When we asked them if they had ever tried to share their faith with them in a chatroom or on a blog or via email, they all said, “no.” Why we asked. The response, “We didn’t know we were allowed to, or it never occurred to us.” We put in practice what is modeled to us. These students had only seen their staff share their faith face to face, so that’s what they put in practice. Hopefully, that will change in South East Asia!

3) The good news in all of this is that our digital immigrant staff are no longer asking the question of whether or not reaching students is “legitimate” or “real“, but how do I lead it? Great question. The main thing that I try to tell our staff is that they don’t have to be an expert in the internet in order to lead.

I think that is a fallacy among many of our leaders is that they have to be the expert in order to lead a strategy or a way of thinking. Good leaders delegate that to others who lead and give them the freedom to lead. Hopefully our leaders can give the freedom and create the environment for our students/digital natives to lead!

I’m off to Cairo Sunday the 8th of June to have some of these same conversations. Stay tuned!

Don’t forget to go to: www.everystudentresults.com for the latest information and much more!

I was able to spend a day with some of the Singapore staff. They are thinking the right ways as digital immigrants! Keep up the good work Singapore!

I’m off to South East Asia today. Pray for my time there as one of my teammates has had to cancel at the last minute. I will be talking with students there about how to set up an internet (virtual) ministry in their language. We don’t want to just win students to Christ, but build them up and send them to the world using the power of the internet. Whatever we come up with has to be able to come along side the local face to face ministry that is physically on campus. It’s not a separate thing. I’ll let you know how it goes!!!

Interesting survey that someone passed on to me about what teens want in a church.

Here is the article:

What teens want in a church

This is a great article that I saw recently from Chuck Colson. He is a big hero of mine. I believe he is right on in what he is talking about here.

You can sign up to receive Chuck Colson’s daily commentaries here.

This is a great article that I came across (actually a friend of mine sent it to me). I encourage you to read it (especially if you have teenagers!)

“Screenagers”
What You Can Do to Penetrate Their Hearts
Dr. Tim Elmore / www.GrowingLeaders.com

Several months ago, we hosted another focus group of students (ages 16-24) and asked them: What are your preferred methods of communication? We thought it was a good question. After all, we’re all about trying to connect with this Millennial generation–so we thought we’d ask just how they wanted to receive our messages. Their response shouldn’t have surprised us.

Their top eight methods of communication are:

I want you to notice a few things about this list. First, note that email is last on the list. One student described email as “a way to communicate with older people.” Second, with one exception, this list moves from more personal to less personal in nature. They want something customized not generic if they’re going to pay attention. Third, and most importantly, these students prefer a “screen” for six out of their top eight favorite methods of communication.

The Screen Age
Every generation shares common characteristics. However, each generation is defined by some shared elements in their developmental years. The primary elements that define a generation are:

Today, the delivery of almost every one of these elements share one thing in common–they are driven by a screen. Call me the master of the obvious, but students want to interact with a screen. In fact, we’ve begun to call students “screenagers” because they are more at home in front of a screen than watching a talking head on a stage. They want a personal message, but want to control how intimate and vulnerable they become. They like the option of signing off when they wish.

The fact that text messaging landed at number one on the list tells us a lot about students today. Bear with me as I venture some observations about why text messages are the preferred method of communication:

1. Text messages represent very current communication.
More so than voicemails, a text means I need to interact now about something relevant to you.

2. Text messages are generally sent from someone you know.
Unlike phones, you generally don’t get a “wrong number” or generic call on a text message.

3. Text messages are brief and to the point.
The person texting doesn’t waste words; in fact, they usually abbreviate the message.

4. Text messaging is in your control. The receiver can stop when they want to.
This kind of control is attractive to students today. They want communication on their terms.

Students today are inundated with messages, from every side. I believe they’re most likely to respond to a text message because it allows them fast, current, relevant communication with friends–but at a safe distance. They like intimacy without a lot of vulnerability. It sounds like a paradox and perhaps it is. I believe this is but one of several paradoxes that exist among Generation Y. Consider this. This is the first generation who does not need authorities to access information. Why? They have screens. However, they do need authorities, like you and I, to help them process that information. We can interpret it for them. This is our challenge.

That’s what an event called “Screenagers” is about. This summer, “Growing Leaders” is teaming up with Chick-fil-A to host a National Leadership Forum. Our theme: Screenagers–Equipping and Unleashing Generation Y.” We’re going to wrestle with these very issues. We would love to have you bring some team members and join us for an interactive two days, June 26-27, 2008.

This will be the most significant event we have hosted to date. We’ll hear from author and futurist, Dr. Leonard Sweet; Paul Litten, founding partner of Leadership Forward; two Chick-fil-a executives, and myself. We will unpack the latest research on this generation, then interpret it and provide an interactive time to develop a plan to reach the hearts of this new generation.

This is an intimate gathering with limited space, held at Chick-fil-A Corporate Headquarters. If you’d like to join us, you can register now on our website: www.GrowingLeaders.com/NLF08 .

This basically means that a student would rather read a book than send or receive an email!

Looks like I’m just one more old person looking to reach the “younger” crowd!

There are 2 new great websites that I wanted everyone to know about. One is called www.everystudentresults.com Don’t wait for one of our newsletters to see what God is doing through just this one site. This has all of the stats per country (visits and decisions) per month. You can read stories as well as get an idea of how a country builds a site. Fascinating!

Everystudentpromotion gives you ideas of how you can promote the site to others and how we are encouraging our students to pass on the site to their friends. You’ll find power points, sample adds and all kinds of things to give you an idea of how students use these sites to reach their friends for Christ! Enjoy and maybe you can use it as well with your friends!