I Smite You From The Last Pew

I found this rather humorous photo via www.passiveaggressivenotes.com.

When The Game Changes, So Do The Rules

Over the last five years, social media has developed into a professional role to aid businesses, politicians, non-profits, the arts and more. What's most interesting is to see how this "new" industry is changing the game - and how it's changed to fit particular organizations.

Today in the Examiner - DC's free daily - highlighted this career, and how some orgs have used social media in different ways.

It was neat to compare how two social media directors use Twitter in two very opposite ways. See, part of the challenge with tweeting on behalf of a whole organization is that, in some cases, you need everything approved.

New Media Director Neil Sroka runs the Twitter account for Secretary of Commerce Locke (@SecLocke). He says they've "cut down on a lot of red tape" but that "we have to follow procedure."

Lindy Kyzer, social media consultant for the US Army (@USarmy), explained that she has been encouraged to "be edgy" in the tweets. She used the account to report and respond to the Fort Hood shootings - as they were happening. "Our efforts would not have been as successful if I had an intense approval process."

Is one way better than the other? Who knows. But I think an organization needs to decide what fits best with the company culture - that's how they'll know how to best approach social media.

Blog Hopping (And My 100th Post!)

My inspiration to become a blogger started with Evan McBroom back in March 2009. I met with the church marketing entrepreneur at an Indianapolis Panera to learn about his career path.

I expected to do all the listening, but within the first five minutes I was the one put on the spot. He asked me point-blank: "So, what's your blog about?" Oops. I didn't have an answer. It was enough to get my hands to the keyboard and start whipping up an idea for one. Thanks for the inspiration, Evan! And here's what happened next:

Digital Disciple has been my primary blog to explore faith, media and ethics through the Meg Biallas lens. It started with coverage of first-ever conference: the Religion Communicators Council in March 2009. Since then, I've written about observations in technology, the future of journalism, musings on faith, and more. Thanks for reading it, too, because this is my 100th post for Digital Disciple!

I started Capital Comment in August 2009 to keep a running commentary of my adventures as a D.C. intern last fall. But all good internships must come to an end. I never believed I'd be able to resurrect the blog, but I have - and with good reason: I moved right back to D.C. for a job! I'm still working out some of the fancy kinks of Wordpress, but its been a great learning process for me.

My supervisors at National Public Radio let me blog for NPR's All Tech Considered, which covers technology and culture. I explained Facebook policy changes, wrote about iPhones that control smart homes, and even ticked off Google when I questioned if Google's free holiday airport wi-fi was truly "free."

Then in December, I met Gen-Y career blogger Heather Huhman on Twitter. She had just started a blog called the Classroom To Cubicle Project, driven by recent graduates and pending grads. That a fabulous experience - I read job hunting advice from my peers all over the U.S., and contributed what I'd learned in my search as well.

In my final semester at Butler University, I wrote a guest post for the admissions web portal. It was fun to take what I learned about social media from the NPR Social Media Desk and give tips to incoming college students.

And now? I'm a weekly blogger for The Bluevine Collective, a multi-author blog project funded by the United Methodist Church. It's run by two awesome church guys from Indianapolis - Pastor Stan Abell and Media Ministry Dude Matt Peyton. The project is experimental -- we hope to evolve into a place of spiritual growth and even a mode of worship. My most recent post sparked a series of comments about ...well, you'll just have to read it. We also take submissions - poems, commentary, musings - all of it!

Thanks for sharing the blogging journey with me!

A Techno-Human Balance

"Our life is half natural and half technological. Half-and-half is good. You cannot deny that high-tech is progress. We need it for jobs. Yet if you make only high-tech, you make war. So we must have a strong human element to keep modesty and natural life."

- Nam June Paik, modern video artist

TimothyJ.

"Proof In the Low-Fat Pudding"

Maybe it's my new-found love of Trader Joe's, or that I recently watched "Super Size Me," but I'm suddenly fascinated by eating habits.

So much so, that during a visit to a local DCPL branch, I found Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" on display. I checked it out.

Pollan attributes part of America's eating problem to our Puritan roots (those gosh-darn prudes):

"Like sex, the need to eat links us to the animals, and historically a great deal of Protestant energy has gone to helping us keep all such animal appetites under strict control."

Of course this is just a brief mention of Christian social reform, but I think it bears another look.

What if we (a) bought "real" food instead of processed food and (b) what if we took time to enjoy it? I realize both of those suggestions are hardly convenient, but I wonder if the long-term effects might bode better for us than the "easy" path?

One report - "Too Fat to Fight" produced for Mission: Readiness found a sobering statistic : 75% of young people who want to enter the military cannot do so for three main reasons. One of those reasons? Obesity. The statistic comes to include 27 percent of young people who are overweight. In other words, obesity is a concern for national security.

If you don't want to read Pollan's book, just take a look at the cover, which offers this simple message:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Religion On The Radiowaves

"Speaking of Faith," a talk radio show from American Public Media, got some great coverage from The New York Times this week.

Creator and host Krista Tippett describes her radio show as a vocation: “I get asked if I consider this show a ministry. I do like the word ‘vocation,’ a calling. If it is a ministry, it’s a ministry of listening rather than talking.”

That, friends, is the beauty of journalism. The focus is not on the storyteller, but rather on the story-maker.

Finally, I love how Tippett describes the religion beat:

“Religion is a touchy subject. You’re really getting at the core of people’s identities, an intimate place. This religious sphere in our public life is very charged, and I want to disarm that.”

Cavemen, Mountain Men and Cadets: Where They Worship

Sara Pulliam, online editor of Christianity Today, tipped me off to this sweet gallery of the "50 Most Extraordinary Churches of the World."

Want to praise God in a re-vamped Shell Station? Like a moss-covered cathedral built into a hill? A chapel built from sticks or tipped upside down? This site has it all.