On Sunday afternoon, my wife Shelly and I attended the launch of a new faith community in Phoenix, called Visio Dei. These alternative faith communities are becoming a viable choice for many who wish to live out the Christian faith in community and serve. At the end of this post I will include some links so that you can check these out learn about their ministries.

I met Pastor David Zook, when our children attended the same day care (Covenant Child Care). David is pastor of Morningside Evangelical Presbyterian Church they shared facilities with Covenant Child Care for many years. Morningside has had a long and somewhat troubled (loss of property and membership decline) history, but they seem to have a renewed spirit with pastor Zook’s guidance. It is encouraging to see an older congregation supporting this bold initiative to reach their neighbors with the love of Christ and take on the bold vision of transforming our city.

Morningside has brought on Billy Smiley as worship leader. Billy is an experienced and talented worship leader he has been nominated for Grammy and Dove awards and he has worked with some of the top acts in music, including his own band Whiteheart, Steven Curtis Chapman, The Newsboys, Amy Grant, and BeBe and CeCe Winans. I met Billy at Valley Presbyterian Church when he played with Scott Wesley Brown. Billy was also the worship leader for Covenant Community Church in Scottsdale. Visio Dei has produced a music CD that includes the Visio Dei vision. These are free if you would like to hear more about Visio Dei and listen to some great music. You may contact them at Visio Dei to request yours.

Visio Dei Introductory CD

The gathering was held at Radio Milano. This I believe is the perfect location and it created a warm and casual atmosphere. The restaurant is in a busy location so come early to find parking. The restaurant does not open until 5:00 on Sunday so the timing is perfect with worship music beginning at 3:00 and ending around 4:15. After the worship there was time for fellowship and yummy appetizers. If you wish you can hang around for dinner, walk across the street to La Grande Orange or have a glass of wine at Postino Wine Café.

One of the highlights for me was the presentation by Phoenix Youth at Risk (PYAR). PYAR provides a mentoring and curriculum to youth at risk. They gave a compelling presentation and one of their graduates shared her story. Talking about being missional and talking about transforming a city is all well and good, but action is what is needed. Visio Dei from the very beginning is going to be active in working in the community and they hope to have organizations like PYAR at each gathering to help their community find ways to serve their larger community.

Links of Interest:

Soma Communities

Adullam of Denver

Chrio Communities

I recently read in the current issue of WIRED (Wired 16.11) that the blog is dead. The word from Paul Boutin, a former Wired senior editor, is that the “blog age” is over. I have never been an earlier adaptor, but this is crushing news to this budding blogger. He titles his article: Kill Your Blog! I just launched my and before I could post anything meaningful. I discover I am too late.

“Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you already got one pull the plug.”

This is typical. My first job out of college was with a company who had outdated communications hardware. When I arrived the lifers told me, “You should have been here in the ‘70s.” Not what you want to hear when you start your career in sales.

I have been a fan of social networking sites like Facebook and I am now discovering the Twitter phenomenon. Boutin suggests that a blogger’s time would be better spent on these types of sites. What is the problem? What is wrong with the blogosphere? According to Boutin it is the volume of commercial blogs “tsunami of paid bilge” that are available in the blogosphere. The average blogger is not going to be able to keep up with a paid staff of writers doing nothing but maintaining the blog.

Boutin perfers Twitter and it levels the playing field. Twitter operates faster and twitter posts can be searched instantly and there is no delay waiting for the search engines to index them. I have a way to go before I am able to share my pithy 140 character posts on Twitter. I only have one person who is following me. The searchable feature is fun. I was monitoring the Twitter feed on http://search.twitter.com/ during the last presidential debate. It was quite entertaining, but I am unsure of the practical benefits.

Last week, I was at a rich media technology conference and I noticed that the lady sitting in front of me with her laptop open had 449 Twitter friends following her. WOW! Talk about your Twitter envy. I surmise that she is a devotee because she was making regular posts during the morning session. If you want to discover some practical uses for Twitter see this NY Times article.

I am not going to kill my blog. I really don’t plan to compete with the commercial blogs. Let’s toast to 2004.