FaithEngineer

It’s been quiet here on the blog for the last few days. During my normal blogging hours I have been working on the site design. I’ve been using the same graphics for a while now and since I can’t leave anything alone for long, I decided to update the theme the blog is based on. I wanted to switch to one that is sleek, clean, and easy to customize. The Standard Theme is a newer Wordpress theme that I chose for the updated look. It is a great premium blog theme and I plan on using this as a framework for the blog for the foreseeable future.  I still have some customization to do, but I think this is a great start. Here are some of the features of the new theme.

• it’s coded to be fast and meet current web standards
• it’s SEO Friendly (Search Engine Optimization)
• it has multiple advertising options built in
• it is easy to customize and style using custom CSS
• and it has a great community forum where you can find support

So far, I’m impressed. I was able to eliminate several plugins because of built-in functionality, and it just looks sleek and modern. Let me know if you have any problems viewing the site. Especially if you are on older browsers in windows. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

If you haven’t noticed, my blog has been pretty quiet for the past few weeks. It’s been a busy time with all the excitement of the Christmas season, and I have definitely been doing a lot of planning and thinking. For the first time in my life, I’m thinking through some long term goals. In order for me to be the best husband, father, and pastor that I can be, I am making some changes.

One of the biggest changes is the amount of time I use the computer in the evenings.  While it may seem minor, I am making sure I am fully present for my family. That means I am disconnecting from much of the tech world after I get home until the kids go to bed. Although, I’ve had much less time to work on the blog, there is no doubt that I am making the right decision. I will continue posting to the blog, but it will not be as frequent as in the past. My goal is 3 high quality posts per week. I simply don’t have the time to do more than that right now with the demands of a growing church and a busy family.  I will still be on twitter for other day-to-day thoughts, so you can follow me there.

I am also making changes in the way I take care of myself. I want to finish strong and I want to finish healthy.  That means I will be working out and eating healthier and taking more time off. I’ll share some more of my goals for the next few years in a future post. I am excited about the changes and I want you, my blog readers, to know that this site will continue to have great information about church technology, about ministry in a small town, and about the lessons I learn along the way.

In case you haven’t heard, the FTC is cracking down on blogs.  As of December 1st, bloggers must now reveal when they receive compensation or free products for review purposes.  I am part of several blogger review programs which provide free books, so I wanted to let you know where I stand.  Although I may receive and review free books from time to time, I am in no way required to provide a positive review.  I have the freedom to post my true thoughts, and I will always do just that.

I also am part of several affiliate link programs.  When you click on a product link or a site advertisement and then make a purchase, I receive a small commission.  So far, this has not really provided any income.  My expenses to run the site still far outweigh any income I have received from the affiliate programs.  If the site traffic increases, I hope to use this income to simply cover my costs.

I have a little trouble believing that this is such a huge problem for the government.  They are threatening fines up to $11,000 for bloggers who do not disclose these free products or marketing relationships.  As a follower of Christ, I want to be above reproach in everything I do, online and in the real world.  I want you to know that I will always be straight with you.  You will only receive honest and truthful opinions when I talk about a book or product. I have also created a page here on the blog with my full disclosure policy.  So thanks for hanging around and reading this post. It’s not my most interesting one, so thanks for being a loyal reader!

With the popularity of Facebook soaring, I have noticed people becoming very comfortable sharing all sorts of details about their life.  I would caution any Christian to think twice about posting status updates or photos that set a poor example for others.  What type of testimony do you have online?  Do I really need to know you went clubbing, or that you have a slamming headache from drinking too much, or that you took a quiz to find out that your a super stud with the ladies?  My point is that tons of people read your status updates (including your pastor), and that your online influence goes far beyond what you imagine.

I’m upset when I see church members post questionable things that I know our youth and others in the community will read.  And the problem with any social networking site is that you don’t have to worry just about what you say, but what others say about you.  Let me challenge you to use your online presence to set an example for others.  Remember, you influence far more people than you realize.

I feel like the guy juggling and trying to keep all the balls in the air without dropping any this week.  It’s been pretty intense, so my blogging has been a little slow.  I’m officiating a wedding Friday night, attending and helping lead a prayer service Saturday night, preaching Sunday morning, and then speaking before the Decemberadio concert Sunday night that we’re hosting.

After that, we’re helping with Praisin In The Park, our community wide Bible school from Monday to Thursday.  My phone has been ringing constantly, and I keep expecting Jennifer’s phone to burst into flames from all the ringing.  She has been the main organizer for the concert, and it’s going to be great. We’re expecting several thousand people, so there are a lot of details that have to be taken care of.  When I quit juggling for a minute, I’ll post more of my thoughts.

I started this blog back in July of 2006, and much has changed since then.  That was before I was on facebook, before I was on twitter, and before I was in full-time ministry.  My blog mainly served as a place for me to share my random thoughts about life and family.   I’ve been thinking lately about my online responsibility to share and minister.  It’s a little scary when I realize that I minister to more people each week online through my blog, facebook, twitter, and podcast, then I minister to in my local church.

After coming to that realization, I want to take my online responsibility seriously.  I have tried to make my blog more focused on things that would interest and help others.  I have decided to post and tweet less frequently, hopefully so I won’t waste your time or mine.  I will try to post at least once a day, but I won’t throw something up here if I don’t have something to share.

The internet has made the world smaller, but it has also increased the noise that we have to filter through each day.  My prayer and desire is that I can share and minister through what I post online.

I’ve been promising my wife Jennifer for a while that I would move her blog over to wordpress.  She picked out a cool template, and I quickly setup her blog on my Bluehost hosting account.  I imported all her old posts and comments, and everything seems to be working great so far.  I plan on helping her setup some more plugins, but it’s a good start. Drop over and check out the new look at http://www.jennimorris.com.  She blogs about the adventure and everyday life of being a mom and pastor’s wife.

Just reminding everyone that there is an easy way to stay current with my posts here on the blog. You can just enter your email address below and whenever I post an entry, you will receive it by email the next morning.

I attended the first meeting of a new local Christian Writer’s Group last night.  Even though I am not a writer in a traditional sense, I wanted to attend and join this JoyWriters group.   I enjoyed the stories and encouragement that Christian author Nancy Hoag shared.  But last night made me ask the question, “Is blogging the same as writing?”    The answer may not be as clear as you think.

I view blogging as more of a spiritual journal of my journey through life.  For the last several years, I have chronicled the ups and downs of my life.  I have written about leaving the engineering world to move into full-time ministry.  I have shared about the use of technology in church.  And I have shared my struggles and successes along the way.  I hope I have grown in my writing ability.

As a student, math and science were my best subjects.  But I always enjoyed writing stories.   When it came to reports and essays and poetry, my heart just couldn’t get excited.  But when it came to writing short stories, I always felt I had a story to share.  Maybe that is why I love teaching so much.   When I preach and teach, I share stories from my life.  People don’t want to hear illustrations from people they don’t know or can’t relate to.

But back to the question.  While blogging is definitely writing, it does have differences.  Writing for a blog forces you to be concise, not detailed.  There are many different ’styles’ of blogs, but most bloggers post often.  Typically blogs are full of ideas and unformed thoughts.  It has been interesting to see people like Seth Godin and Tony Morgan develop these ideas and thoughts into books.    But blogging can make you a lazy writer.  Since you are writing frequently, it becomes easy to skip the proofreading.  My desire is to grow in my skills as a writer, communicator, leader, and preacher, because I know that as Christians we have a message that the world needs to hear.  As 1 Corinthians 10:31 tells us, whether we write with pen and paper, or keyboard and screen, we should do everything with excellence to the Lord.

I’m a little late getting this posted from last week, but it’s better late than never. I hope everyone is enjoying the book and reading through chapter 4 getting ready for this week’s group. We had a great time discussing chapter 3 last week, and I wanted to share some of the quotes that stuck with me. Understanding the crazy love that God has for us is so important.

Here are the quotes that really stood out to me:

• My own love and desire for my kids’ love is so strong that it opened my eyes to how much god desires and loves us.
• Most of us, to some degree, have a difficult time understanding, believing, or accepting god’s absolute and unlimited love for us.
• When we love God, we naturally run to Him – frequently and zealously.
• Do we have “reverent intimacy”
• I don’t have to worry about not meeting His expectations.  God will ensure my success in accordance with His plan, not mine.
• God’s mercy is a free, yet costly, gift.
• The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time.
• The greatest good on this earth is God.

What are your thoughts on this chapter?  What spoke to your heart?  I pray that we will all learn how to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Posts in this series:

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8

I’ve updated my links page here on FaithEngineer.  I’ve included church technology websites, all the Cornerstone bloggers that I know of, and some great ministry websites that I visit. This list is always available through the tab at the top of the page or by clicking here.

What websites are speaking into your life right now?

Posts in this series

Part 1 – Why Make the Change?

Part 2 – How I Moved the Blog

I recently switched from the free Blogger.com service to a self-hosted Wordpress Blog.  In part 1 of this series, I covered the advantages and disadvantages of each platform.  To summarize, Blogger is a great free service if you don’t mind having limited options for themes and customization.  For family blogs or low-traffic blogs it is a good choice.  But if you really have something you want to share with a wide audience, or if you want to actually make money from your blog, then wordpress is the way to go.  I want to share how I switched and kept all the links to each post, called permalinks, the same.  By doing this, I didn’t loose any traffic from search engines and all my old links from other blogs and web pages remained intact.  I searched through many different blogs and tutorials and the best instructions I found were here(this link works intermittently).  Most of what I did was based on their help.  I did skip the part about installing a dummy wordpress blog on your own computer to test everything out.  I think it is an unnecessary step for most people.

So let’s get started, this is just a quick summary of the steps that I took.  These instructions were based on installing Wordpress 2.7.1.  If messing around with ftp programs, databases,, and templates scares you, then you might want to consider getting some help.  It’s not all that difficult, but it does help to have previous web design experience.

(more…)

I hope everyone is having a great week enjoying the snow. Our life group at Cornerstone is currently studying through book, Crazy Love by Francis Chan.   Each week, I will be recapping our previous meeting and talking about the current chapter we are reading.  This week’s assignment is to read chapter 2 and come prepared to discuss it Friday night.  Join in with your comments below.  The discussion is open to those who are not in our life group as well.

We had a great meeting last week, plenty of people and plenty of discussions.  We even got to see the newest addition to our group, 2 week old baby Caleb.  This book is already making us think.  The first chapter establishes a proper perspective of God.  When you recognize God for His holiness and power, it changes your perspective on how to live.  When we stop praying out of routine, and start praying out of love and a desire to spend time with our Father, we will hear from God clearly and regularly.

I really enjoyed reading the 2nd chapter.  When I initially read the book, this was the chapter that really grabbed my attention and got me interested in the book.   It’s one of those tough messages that we need to hear.  The chapter starts out by reminding us that we could die any minute, and it goes on to remind us that our life is completely about the story of God.  It reminded me of the opening quote from Rick Warren’s, The Purpose Driven Life …

It’s not about you.  The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness.  It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions.  If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God.

In James 4:13-14, we see that our life is short, that life is brief, and that it is up to us to make the most of it for God. On page 42, Chan gives us definitions for stress and worry.  “Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, or powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our lives.   Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace towrard others, or out tight grip of control.”   When I read that, it really convicted me of how much I worry and stress about things that aren’t important in life.  I also connected with the analogy that compared our life to a movie about God.  Our role is an extra in the story and we only appear for a split-second.  We are not the star!  So why do we live our lives as if we are the center of the whole universe?  The chapter ends with a simple quote, “Friends, we need to stop living selfish lives, forgetful of our God.”

Let me challenge you this week to slow down and look at the big picture.  Realize that you were created for God, and that he deserves our obedience and love.   Let me know your thougths in the comments below.  Also, here is the video overview from chapter 2.  You can find more information at the website for Crazy Love.

Posts in this series:

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8

Posts in this series

Part 1 – Why Make the Change?

Part 2 – How I Moved the Blog

I recently changed from the free Blogger.com service to my own Wordpress site.   For most people visiting my site, they may not even notice.  The links are the same, the content is the same, and the comments are all the same, but behind the scenes there was a huge change. Here are the reasons why I changed.

Advantages of Wordpress

• Multiple pages – I can add different pages for different purposes.  Currently, I have an about me, links, and archive page, but you can add anything.  It’s super flexible to build a simple or complex site.   I would recommend using it for a complete church or business website.
• Speed - Blogger was sloooooowww.   I had several javascript sidebar items on my blogger page and they took forever to load.   Wordpress is much, much faster to load.
• Control – I can host all of my own images and content.   I can access my database.  I can make any changes whenever I want to.  Why, because I pay for my own domain and my hosting.   I have unlimited file storage and data transfer through Bluehost.com for $6.95 per month.
• Widgets and Plug-ins - there are thousands of third-party apps that you can add to your wordpress installation. You are seeing the effects of several of them now.  The power is incredible.
• Themes – changing your theme on blogger is extremely frustrating.  On blogger, you have very little control without learning their xml structure for templates.  On wordpress, you have many more high quality free themes to choose from.  There are also very powerful and great-looking themes available at a reasonable cost from ithemes and studiopress.
• Support and Improvement – Wordpress is constantly adding new features and they have great support.  Blogger has finally started adding some new features, especially in their Blogger in Draft, but still they lag way behind
• Search Engine Optimization – Wordpress has many more options to help you be found

Advantages of Blogger

• it’s free
• it’s by Google

If you aren’t blogging yet, but want to start, I would urge you to consider starting from the beginning with wordpress.   If the cost is an issue, then you can get started with wordpress using their free wordpress.com service. It’s not quite as powerful, but it’s a good way to get started blogging. And the transition is easier from wordpress.com to wordpress.org.

In part 2 of this series, I’ll share how I actually moved my blog, keeping all the links, posts, comments, and permalinks intact.  Part 3 will have the details on how I customized my theme and added sidebar content.  And finally Part 4 will be about which plug-ins I recommend.

We had our first life group study tonight for Crazy Love. We had quite a few people who were unable to attend so I decided to post the videos here and also to use this as an online discussion group each week. Our assignment for next week is to read through the first chapter. You can add comments below if you have questions or if you would just like to share your thoughts. Think of this as a group discussion that continues throughout the week. I’ll add my comments on the chapter as I read through it again. And here’s the cool part, it’s open for anyone to add comments, even if you aren’t in our life group. If you’re adventurous, then you can check out an online book discussion with plenty of comments and discussion about the first two chapters of the book at this site.

Here are the videos we showed tonight. They give you a glimpse of what the book is about and who Francis Chan is. We had a great discussion time and I’m excited about the next 10 weeks. Also, our group will continue to meet at 7pm each Friday night. Join in on the discussion.  Watch all 4 videos in the playlist below.

Posts in this series:

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8