the intersection of life and grace

A long while ago, Adam and I used to have fun putting together the  YMX podcast. Until a short time ago, I didn’t realize how much I missed it! Thanks to some great youth workers who podcast regularly for the youth ministry community, I had the great fun of participating in their programs as a guest.

The first reminder was in October with Tim Schmoyer, who hosts YMTalk at his website Life in Student Ministry. I was invited to talk about being a woman in youth ministry. You can click here to visit the page for that episode.

Then, last week, I was invited to chat with Josh Cook and Joel Diaz, two of the hosts of the YouthHacks podcast. We talked about ministry transitions, the National Youthworkers Conventions coming up in the Fall, and the newly redesigned youthspecialties.com. Again, had a great time. You can head over to the YouthHacks page to take a listen to the show.

None of these folks get rich podcasting, it’s something they do to benefit other youth workers in addition to their own full-time ministries. Support them with a listen (there are loads of episodes archived at their respective sites), subscribe if you like what you hear. Thanks to them for being a fun, free resource.

Following months of deliberation by the Federal Trade Commission and rumors throughout the social media marketing world, the FTC this week released it’s “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” to much buzz.  And, a little panic, I think, for bloggers, twitterers and facebookers who like to talk about their favorite goods and services, wondering what this all might mean for them.

It’s an 81-page document, in rather complex legal-governmental language.  You can read it by clicking here if you like [opens PDF document in a new window].

First, because I’ve fielded a few questions about this from the reviewers I work with on content for clients, I want to define what the new regulations say about bloggers – as I understand it. Disclaimer:  I’m not a lawyer, this isn’t legal advice, and if I learn something new about it, I’ll update this post.

Disclosure

If a company gives you product or money or any other kind of award or compensation in return for your posting about them or their product on your blog, Twitter, Facebook, or any other social networking site, you (the blogger) need to say so clearly.  The consequence for not doing so includes potentially hefty fines, but the report does not delineate what to expect for certain infractions, nor how specifically it will be enforced.

Now, if you review books, resources or music for another outlet, such as YMX, and repost your work on your blog with link attribution (as that site has permitted), you need only be clear that you were given the resource to review for that outlet.  It is pretty clear that product is given to media outlets to review, and you’re (in the case of YMX) reprinting with permission with link attribution.  If you link to your work on another commercial site from your  personal Twitter/Facebook, etc, it seems clear to me that you got something in return for the work (product or  some other consideration).

If you are an affiliate marketer – say for amazon, or referral link prizes, and the like – you need to say so under these new rules.  If you make money on it, you need to say so more clearly than ever.  Here is a good overview of the new guidelines from the corporate marketing point of view.

About this blog

Most reviews on this blog are reprints of my work for hire, primarily at YS/YMX. Those include links back to the original publication page.

A few times publishers or companies have given me books to review, or something to give away. While it was clear enough at the time, I will be more specific about that going forward.  I have never been paid cash for any post on this blog, or anything I’ve posted on my personal social networking accounts.  I intend to add a disclosure page to this blog to acknowledge affiliate relationships so there is no confusion.

All very formal, but I have no problem disclosing this if it prevents confusion on the part of others. Clarity is good, and assuring readers that my thoughts and opinions are my own even if I got a free book is something I’m happy to do.  It’s necessary to help people who research purchases on the internet tell the difference between advertising and customer opinion, because the line had become blurry. Ethics are important.

Now, if we could just get the same kind of clear public disclosure from politicians and lobbyists, I’d be thrilled.

Are you a to-do list maker?  Do you need a task manager that will remind you of items on your list in a way you won’t miss?  Wish there was a way to quickly manage lists for home and work quickly with minimum distraction? (My answers were: yes, yes and yes.)

A couple of days ago I came across a task management application called Remember the Milk.  It’s web-based, so it’s available no matter where I might be.  It integrates with my Google calendar.  It will accept entries through my account on the website, via email, text message, by twitter or instant message, or by a gadget on my iGoogle homepage.  It will remind me of tasks in any of those ways, as well. 

Best of all? It’s free. (There is a $25/yr pro version offering synchronization with additional devices.)

I’m still in the process of moving my lists into it, but love that it will let me have as many lists as I want.  It has a number of other features that I still haven’t gotten to explore, but I like what I see so far, and I’m looking forward to integrating it into my routine.

Ever gone on a trip that didn’t go so well? I knew you had; there are a million travel horror stories! YMX is sponsoring a contest that you are eligible to win as long as you 1. have a travel nightmare, 2. aren’t me or Adam. Here’s the info:

Every one of us has had a road trip that went bad. Maybe it was a trip with a church group or perhaps it was a family vaction. And since all of us have had a trip from hell, what better way to exorcize the metaphorical demons of that trip than by sharing that story with others?

The giveaway: Tell us your road trip horror story! Either leave your story as a comment or post a link to a story you wrote on your blog/website and leave the link in the comments section. It can be a short story (25-30 words) or as long as you like.

Who can enter: This contest is open to anyone with a road trip story! Keep them rated PG-13 or better. Make sure you leave a valid e-mail address so that we can contact you if you win.

The deadline: Entries must be posted by 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time on February 25th, 2008.

The prize: There are two prizes! We’ll do a random drawing of all the comments with stories or links to stories for a $25 gift card from Amazon.com. Additionally, we will pick our favorite road trip from hell story and that person will recieve a CD from our bookstore of their choice.

Go here to leave your story, or a link to your story, on the contest page at YMX. Remember, it’s open to anyone, not only youth workers or YMX members.

Yes, that’s what I said. Not only is there nothing for Christians to be afraid of in The Golden Compass, the first movie based on Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy, but there is a tremendous opportunity for Christ-followers to use something the avowed Athiest author intends for evil to sharpen their understanding of their beliefs as well as their ability to articulate them in words to which non-Christians can relate.

My son and I went and saw the movie on opening night; we arrived only a few moments before the previews and had no trouble getting mid-level, center seats without climbing over anyone. The movie’s graphic renderings of scenery, fantasy machines and animals is breathtaking. The acting is good, especially for the child actors, but not likely to win awards for any of the adults. The screenplay gutted the book’s plot of much of the anti-religious content, leaving largely fight scenes and adventure transitions with little character development.

Though much of the plot to which there may have been legitimate objection (to the point of caution, not boycott) was removed, there remained a considerable number of references to Christian doctrinal and scriptural teachings regarding truth, the soul, authority (and it’s use), science as oppositional to faith, and discontent with institutional religion, among other themes. Believers watching this film will have difficulty missing these references, and they form a wonderful basis for spiritual conversation.

The Golden Compass isn’t a movie for everyone, that’s for certain. It can be, however, a place where culture and God intersect in a way that Christ-followers can take an opportunity to talk about their beliefs via the questions the film (and it’s surrounding publicity) raise.

Tim and I had the opportunity to collaborate on a set of discussion questions based on The Golden Compass, and they are YMX’s free resource download this week. Click here to download this resource.

I may be late to the party on this, but I discovered macfun.com today thanks to a post at the MacWorld blog. It seems that macfun has expanded its game offerings (there are a lot there!), and is even offering freebies. I’m not much of a gamer, but today’s freebie, Big Bang Reaction, is a puzzle game that looked fun. If you click the image at right you can download it too, or browse for other fun.

The prices seemed reasonable, but you’ve gotta love that free fun, right?

In customer service news:

• No response from Mr. Bach at Microsoft Entertainment today. Yes, I reported the charge to my credit card company’s customer service department (and the agent was astounded at how we’d been treated as he initiated the complaint process) and will refuse the package when it arrives.
• While I was out of town at the NYWC, my daughter received a duplicate shipment of a racing swimsuit, which had a duplicate charge to go with it. One phone call to Warnaco (maker of Speedo competitive swimwear), 5 minutes of time, produced a credit for the product and they are sending UPS to retrieve the item at no charge to us. Apparently it helped them to uncover a computer glitch that duplicated a number of shipments they’ll be following up on. Not only did they correct their error, they thanked me for pointing it out. Imagine that.

Worship House Media is one of my favorite resources for motion backgrounds, illustration video and more because they have such a wide variety of content that’s well done and easy to search and preview.

Another fantastic thing about them is they are giving away a free download every day until Christmas. That means you still have time to get a bunch’o great stuff - just by clicking here, then looking for the WHM daily freebie icon on the lower right.

No matter what your age or spiritual maturity, handling anger in a biblical way – one that draws you closer to God rather than separates you from him – is both a high calling and human challenge.

We humans want to be right, we want what is fair (in our own estimation) and be found above reproach in all our dealings. However we often don’t succeed. I think that’s because we judge our own actions or responses by our intent – what we mean to say, what we feel emotionally, how we hope to to be received. The flip side? We take the other person’s actions at face value – how we hear them, what their emotions appear to be, and receive their words or actions based on the outcome. Of course, that is a generalization, but my personal experiences with angry people have borne out this theory.

This relational dynamic is even more difficult when it’s done in writing, and as we’ve found on YMX, is one of the major complicating dynamics in fostering online community. Today I read an article by Daniel Goleman which goes to the very heart of the issue. In Email is Easy to Write (and to Misread), Goleman describes an email interaction that wasn’t working, which was quickly and positively resolved by a phone call. He, the author of the book Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, goes on to say in the article:

The advantage of a phone call or a drop-by over e-mail is clearly greatest when there is trouble at hand. But there are ways in which e-mail may subtly encourage such trouble in the first place.

This is becoming more apparent with the emergence of social neuroscience, the study of what happens in the brains of people as they interact. New findings have uncovered a design flaw at the interface where the brain encounters a computer screen: there are no online channels for the multiple signals the brain uses to calibrate emotions.

Face-to-face interaction, by contrast, is information-rich. We interpret what people say to us not only from their tone and facial expressions, but also from their body language and pacing, as well as their synchronization with what we do and say.

Most crucially, the brain’s social circuitry mimics in our neurons what’s happening in the other person’s brain, keeping us on the same wavelength emotionally. This neural dance creates an instant rapport that arises from an enormous number of parallel information processors, all working instantaneously and out of our awareness.

In contrast to a phone call or talking in person, e-mail can be emotionally impoverished when it comes to nonverbal messages that add nuance and valence to our words. The typed words are denuded of the rich emotional context we convey in person or over the phone.

It goes back to what all my sociological and communications training and experience points to – complete communication is interpersonal rather than impersonal. This has real implications for online interactions which are by definition written and nearly instant, and is something we regularly bump into as we moderate the forums at YMX. Word choice, writing style, even a person’s history with other members in previous discussions and debates, all come into play. There are some folks who come across in writing as ‘looking for a fight’ on any topic, and others who choose different ways of expressing quite similar views. Not surprisingly, the latter folks interpret the statements of the former folks as personal or offensive. Sometimes they clearly are, and sometimes it is simply the limitation of the instant, written medium hastily composed and posted in the heat of their own judgment in the intention v outcome mode I described above. Very rarely have the moderators found real anger and intent to offend or retaliate behind those written words.

Because handling anger in all its forms is nearly a daily challenge for everyone, YMX offered as this week’s free resource a 3-page compilation of material (definitions, questions to ask yourself before reacting, scripture citations, and resolution models). While it’s specifically offered for youth ministers to use to create lessons tailored to their ministry context and help their students to recognize the dynamics of anger and of God’s way of anger resolution, it would be background material useful to anyone. It is definitely material that would help anyone to move closer to fulfilling the scripture in this post’s title, “In your anger, do not sin.” Click here to download that free material.

(ht for the Goleman article to TitusOneNine

One of the details that’s important to Adam and I as we look to the future of Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC is adding value for our members and advertisers alike. This week we’ve added two new sites to this ‘value added’ category: youthministryclassifieds.com and youthministrytips.com.

The first – youthministryclassifieds.com – is a free venue for buying and selling youth ministry resources and related items (electronics, professional books, and even list jobs). There is no specialized after-market venue for youth ministry goods, and we’re able to offer it at no charge. I can see this being a valuable tool for youth workers, but also for churches who want to make the most of resource dollars. No need to keep a curriculum you likely won’t reuse, resell it and find another all in the same location.

The next – youthministrytips.com – actually emerged from a conversation about features for YMXs revamped e-newsletter. One of the newsletter features I’ll compose weekly is, you guessed it, a youth ministry tip! We decided to put these on their own site, and make it possible for people to submit tips and tricks to share.

It’s exciting to be able to see a niche and act on it right away to better serve our youth ministry peers.

I get excited about free things, because, well, they’re free! Youth Ministry Exchange has launched a new feature and it’s something worth grabbing that’s actually free! And, it’s good, useful and youth ministry related!

This week’s free find is a pile of hugely valuable, totally customizable permission and release forms. Click here to check it out — you can even subscribe to the free content and have the goodies come to you, how cool is that?!