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.