mikeymo's place

People are funny.  They get all bent out of shape when Facebook or Twitter or some other service that they don't pay for changes some little thing.  The outrage is palpable.  "You moved my Events from the right to the left!  How dare you!   I'm never coming back to Facebook!!"  

Of course, they always come back.  The "outrage" is funny, as people feel that their favorite social media site is not taking care of its customers. Guess what: if you don't pay for it, you're not the customer; you're the product.  Facebook monetizes you the same way it monetizes me.

With that out of the way, prepare for real outrage.  This week's little tweaks are nothing compared to what's coming down the pike.  I've been previewing the new Facebook Timeline, the new way that the site will display information about you. Goodbye, Profiles!

Basically, Facebook has boiled your life (such as it is) down to a one-page collage of awesome!  The mystical algorithms churning away in a basement in Palo Alto (or a datacenter in Prineville, OR) decide which of the bajillion things you've posted on the site since you created your profile really tell the story of who you are, and adds them to your timeline.   And it works amazingly well.

My new Facebook Timeline

Your profile page will be divided into two columns, containing updates from your friends, maps of your favorite Places, batches of photos you've uploaded, A timeline on the right highlights significant dates... the last few years, when you graduated high school - all the way back to when you were born.  Select a year, and you see what was significant then.  And it's uncanny how well the Facebook servers can sift through the data of your life, and pull out key things to put out there, like a scrapbook of your life.

Now, of course, the privacy folks will have a field day, but all this stuff is in your profile anyway!   You don't like it, hide it! But for your friends and others who you want to share your life with, this is the most intuitive, human-memory-like way to do it.

I'm not sure how long until Zuckerberg and the boys roll out the changes on a grand scale.  It should be in the coming weeks.  But I can't wait.

The new Facebook Timeline is available to anyone now on their Developer page, which is part of every Facebook account.  By enabling it, you will be able to see what your Timeline will look like, and see anyone else's who has done it.  Only those who have enabled it can see others' Timelines; everyone else will see your old Profile.  Mashable has posted instructions here. 

Gmail does an excellent job filtering spam.  I use Gmail to manage all my email accounts, and don't have a care in the world about it.  I usually don't even look in my Spam folder, I just clean it out.  This one caught my eye, though, and had me laughing by the time I got done reading it.

I know phishing is bad news, and have seen some really clever examples.  But really, does this ever work?  This thing is like a bad pickup line.   Of course, there were 97 people on the distribution list, mostly in the UK, which is odd, as this email originated from an IP in Mauritius.  So maybe they got lucky.  

Ten Years.  In some ways, it seems like a long time.  At other times, it seems like yesterday.  But the daunting task of how to deal with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 has been on my mind, and the mind of other worship leaders, for quite awhile.

Bridgeport is in close proximity to New York City.  Gospel Light is a mere 54 miles from Ground Zero.  Many people from our city work in New York.  So it is very personal to us.  On that night, ten years ago, we had gathered at the church, because we had no where else to go.  Today, we came by choice.

Our goal in planning the service was to have a day of encouragement and hope.  Here's the setlist:

Opening:

Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) (Excell/Giglio/Newton/Reese/Tomlin)(D)

Main Set:

Trading My Sorrows (Evans)(G)
Blessed Be Your Name (Redman)(G)
Our God/When I Think About the Lord (Myrin/Redman/Reeves/Tomlin/Huey)(A)
Moving Forward (Houghton/Sanchez)

Offering:

All Around (Coffield/Houghton/Lindsey)(E)

Just before the main set, we played a video from the Skit Guys commemorating the date.  It seemed to fit well with what we wanted to say.

The real kicker in this set was "Moving Forward."  We started with a simple piano motif based on the bridge ("You make all things new...") which built over 8 bars, where the drums came in, and then I echoed with a big guitar riff over the piano.  (In retrospect, it was kind of early-80s Styx, but it worked.) But music aside, that song always connects with our congregation, and today was no exception.

Today was communion day, but during the reading before communion, Pastor Pedro stopped and made  an invitation.  A woman and her daughter came up and prayed to accept Christ right there, and then they took communion for the first time.  It was amazing and powerful.

Check out other September 11 recaps at The Worship Community 

Last year, something amazing happened.  Some great folks got together and created what came to be known as The Forge Conference.  ForgeCon'10 was an event like no other.  A worship conference designed for small- to mid-sized churches.  (You can read my reactions to ForgeCon'10 in this series of posts.)

ForgeCon'11 is about to kick off. I've been blessed to be asked to speak at the conference, as well as be in the planning team.  So what's there to look forward to?

This year's conference has a focus on what we're calling "Ancient/Modern Worship."  What does that mean, exactly?  We will be talking about worship history, ancient faith, creating sacred space, worshiping through trials, moving in the Spirt, songwriting, creativity, and measuring success. And of course, the technical training in guitar, keyboards, vocals, drums and sound.

Best of all, the Conference will again be held in beautiful Ocean Grove, New Jersey, birthplace of so many amazing, lasting hymns.  The dates are September 29-October 1, with a meet-and-greet the evening of the 28th.

More important than all of that, though, are the marks of the Forge Conference, the goals to which we direct everything: Facilitate discussion, foster creativity, forge relationships, fully equip the small church.

If you're looking for a conference that tells you how the lastest $20,000 digital mixing console will integrate with your stadium-ready line array to make one of your six ten-piece worship bands look and feel like Hillsong United - well, this is probably not your conference. 

If you're looking for help getting your little crew of part-time, volunteer worship musicians to not feel like they are fighting an uphill battle every week, to stretch your already-thin resources more effectively, to give your team a foundational understanding of the role they play in the ministry of your congregation - ForgeCon is for you.

Better yet, take the $800 it would cost you to register for Re:Create another worship conference and send eight people to ForgeCon.  You read that right.  Three full days of training, equipping, ministering, designed for you and your team.  A hundred bucks.  Actually, $99 if you register before September 23.  Lodging in Ocean Grove in late September is very affordable as well.  So go register and come!

Here's a partial list of speakers:

■Darrell A. Harris & Steve Tice (The Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies)


■Dan Wilt (WorshipTraining.com)

■Matt Boswell (Word Records artist and worship pastor)

■Jonathan Lee (Recording artist)

■Joe Day (recording artists and worship leader at Mars Hill Seattle)

■Mike Kim (Worship pastor and founder of Outloud Conference)

■Rich Kirkpatrick (worshipmythbusters.com and worship pastor)

■Pastor Scott Hoffman (Pastor and CAO of ocean grove camp meeting association)

■John Voelz (Pastor of Westwinds Church)

■Joel Klampert (Worship Pastor, Designer)

■Adam Fagan-Kela (Small groups pastor and spiritual life elder)

■Michael Mahoney (Childrens Pastor in CT)

■Doug Gould (CEO of WorshipMD)

■Sheri Gould (Conference Speaker/Vocal Coach and Consultant)

■Shannon Lewis (worship leader and in band Saint Lewis)

■Emily Schiavi (worship leader in Israel and NJ/NY area)

■Dunn & Wilt (modern hymns and sacred art)

■and many more!