In the house today... Warriors and Wikiers

These are just a FEW of the people at the cafe this morning. It's apparently becoming THE place to be on Saturday mornings, as some of the most unlikely people from all over the city get together and learn from one another...



Mary Walton is a prayer warrior in her Brookside neighborhood on the eastside of town, writes poetry, and has worked with kids by teaching them the Bible. So Mary and Sister Gail (Reaves) immediately 'hit it off' as they considered just how they might work together in the future re developing children's activities.



Her husband Donald is a artist -- displaying paintings at Victory Village Shoppes -- and now learning how to collaboratively work in the Indianapolis wiki. Here's a page we started this morning, re 'Heaven-bound Ministry'. We even toyed with adding a YouTube video to his page in just a few clicks. As an artist, Donald quickly understood the value of compelling 'media'.

We'll look forward to picking up next Saturday where we left off today.

Come join us, for "Ask Anything Saturday" at the cafe.

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Other new pictures in cafe photo-pool.

Ask Anything Saturday... Every Saturday

Definitely the cafe was HOPPING this past Saturday !!!



17 new photos of new folks in the cafe's photo-pool.



And the 'Ask Anything Saturday TV' concept is gathering a lot of steam. In fact, even beyond just our 30-minute internet-tv show that will start January 4th, the show is now scheduled in the national 'Media Center' -- and the associated Timeline of LIVE MEDIA shows re various initiatives among our cityreachers across the country. So go to our 'production wiki' for the show, and sign up to help with some week's production in early 2008.

[Major appreciation to Alex re the tv site, and to all our guys... Indy Christian Geeks -- an awesome bunch! Join 'em any Saturday at the cafe. Or once-a-month lunch at some other cultural cafe. Or wait til 'BarCampIndy2008' **LOL** (Not telling; don't even ask. *smile*)]

Working Magic On A Schedule

Christian illusionist Tom McCormick
works his 'magic' with the help of
'volunteer' Joe Whitchurch, Intervarsity.

Today at the cafe, the Transform Indiana ministry-networking coalition met for the 2nd Annual 'Indy Timeline' (2008) Planning Luncheon.

Christian illustionist Tom McCormick, a friend of the cafe's "Ask Anything Saturday" program took off his tech-hat and put on his top-hat, so to speak... and performed one of his slight-of-hand tricks. Unfortunately, his 'volunteer'... Joe Whitchurch (Intervarsity's grad-school rep) stole the show by working a little magic of his own.

The luncheon also featured a live webcam-interview with Steve Hawthorne, Waymakers.org -- headquartered in Austin, TX. Waymakers publishes the 40-day prayer-guide called... "Seek God For The City"... for the 40-day Lenten season. These prayer guides are used in congregations around the country... praying for transformation in THEIR communities. [There's still time to order a couple of hundred for your favorite church.]

But the whole point of the luncheon today was to somehow 'pull a rabbit outta the hat' for 2008, and find ways we can best COLLABORATE as we together carry out the Great Commission here in Indy. Or more to the point today... "We want to move beyond mere collaboration, and into COORDINATION for 2008." That is, we want to be intentional about finding ways to get disperate ministries here in Indy to feel & act more like a TEAM.

And every true TEAM has a team bulletin board, do they not? ...a centralized place for posting the main things. So we looked into our bag of tricks and pulled out a 'wiki'.... to use as a centralized filing place online. Thus we've started compiling considerable information on the Indianapolis page of the CityReaching wiki.... For instance, we've now built the 'Indy Timeline' in the wiki. After training folks today during the meeting, EVERYONE can edit it themselves, adding their events and linking to details at their ministry websites. Example: Our annual hands-on community-service week... "Faith Hope & Love"... now appears in the July section... with links to their site.

Several have now even created their own personal page, to practice with it... and to help everyone get to know each other more quickly. Examples: Ellen, Eldon, and Pastor Boyd. Some just use TEXT in their page, while others have figured out how to easily embed a photo, a map, or even a video-clip.

Moreover wikis are easily SEARCHABLE -- go ahead, try searching for something using the search-block in the upper RH corner of any wiki-page.

A major vote of appreciation goes to Scott Wilder for shooting a ton of video-footage today. We call Scott our 'Chaotic Christian' friend. [He's extremely talented at everything 'tech'... including video editing and training. Need him for YOUR ministry?]

Here are some new items at the cafe photo pool.
[more photos on the way... and some video footage]

Be sure and be with us at our next lunchtime meeting... January 17th... which will again return to the cafe. We'll be helping ministry leaders get familiar with YouTube, and be able to add any of its videos into the wiki. We'll hope to be working with some of the footage Scott shot today... So mark your calendar 'timeline' and stay tuned for announcements for the 1/17 meeting.

Anyone want to buy a slice of 1964 ?

Yesterday, during our time together which we call "Ask Anything Saturday", one of our cafe regulars asked... "How could I use the internet to help sell an old newspaper I have from 1964?"

As it turns out, he didn't just have ANY old newspaper, he had one from the day a young, brash Louisville fighter beat the reigning heavyweight champion of the world...


photo by Ellen Spencer

Cassius Clay, later to be known worldwide as Muhammed Ali, had just taken down Sonny Liston -- a fight that some of us remember from our childhood.

In the course of a few minutes, our newest 'new media' expert **way to go, Ellen** was able to take a photo of the newpaper and upload it to our UBcafe photo pool at Flickr. James is getting familiar with how easy it is to get a photo online and then use it in various pages around the web... eg., his wiki-page.

And we are now able to tell you about it here in the UBcafe blog site. That's the easy power of synergy at work.

So, does anyone want a slice of 1964?

Sister Victoria's Last Day...

Sister Elease & Sister Victoria

Today is Sister Victoria's last day working at the cafe. **sniff sniff** We're going to miss her for sure.

Click to get yourself a digital piece of the cake (and more). *smile*

Another great little video from CommonCraft... "Blogs"

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Learn more about easy-blogging, and other 21st Century capabilities... in the 'Internet Tool Kit'.

Or come by the Unleavened Bread Cafe any Saturday morning... 10am... and make friends with some hands-on geeks who would be glad to help you with your internet questions & capabilities.