Just wanted to let people know that Catalyst Conference is happening right now in Atlanta.
Their podcast has outstanding interviews with Christian leaders.
Here is their website:
Here is a report from the second day by Skye Jethani from Leadership Journal at the Out of Ur blog:
Live from Catalyst: Day 2 Play by Play: Updates all day from the mega-conference in Atlanta.
A number of church leadership bloggers I watch are there:
Andy Crouch – Culture Making
Brad Lomenick – Catalyst Conference
CatalystSpace – Catalyst Conference Blog
Craig Groeschel and Bobby Gruenewald – LifeChurch.tv:…
Dave Ferguson – Velocity
Ed Stetzer – LifeWay Research, author, EdStetzer.com
Mark Batterson – Evotional, Thoughts on Life and Leadership
Out of Ur – Leadership Journal's Blog
Perry Noble – Pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson,…
Seth Godin – Blog
Tim Sanders – Sanders Says
Tim Stevens – LeadingSmart
Tony Morgan | one of the simply strategic guys
I have written about Twitter in the past but for those of you confused about what it is, this is a good example of what it can do. Yesterday Skye Jethani wrote, "This is definitely the largest ministry conference I’ve been to. At least 12,000 people in the arena." Currently, lots of these people are using their Blackberries, or iPhones, etc. in the arena to access the internet and jotting quick notes about what is proceeding. See http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23Catalyst08 Some of these people include the church leaders bloggers from above: @ahc, @perrynoble, @tpmorgan, @timastevens, @edstetzer, @MarkBatterson, @daveferguson, and @OutOfUr.
By the way, it is also interesting that Twitterers @edcyzewski, @jasonclark, and @DanKimball are at 3 different Christian leadership conferences in addition to Catalyst.
I have added my "Twitter badge" to the right column of the blog. Essentially, these are short 140 character (1-2 line) updates on what I am up to. If it isn't important to blog about, I will jot it down in Twitter.
As I recommend about 80 blogs to follow — (See http://www.andyrowell.net/andy_rowell/2008/03/church-leadersh.html. I also have another post that includes all of the blogs I subscribe to. I use Google Reader to follow blogs) – I also would recommend the people I am following on Twitter. See http://twitter.com/AndyRowell/friends
Twitter is fun if you want to see in real time what people you are interested in are thinking. For example, I had fun seeing what people are thinking about watching the presidential debates or during a conference like Catalyst or Willow Creek's Leadership Summit. It is also just interesting hearing about people's lives. But it has its flaws as well. It is easy to miss things.
Facebook is much more personal in that the people I am friends with are really real life friends whereas the people "following" me and I am "following" on Twitter are generally not people I know well in real life.
Facebook is also much more flexible in that you can post much more information easily. I appreciate the "notifications" in Facebook so I don't miss ways people are trying to communicate with me.
Still, I respond most reliably to email.
One last comment on Twitter. If you are going to Twitter, say something interesting or significant. If it is really trivial, just skip it. Twitter is for the more trivial but not the completely trivial. Perhaps Facebook status can have very insignificant stuff.