Reflections on an amazing beta test of the NewSpring Web Campus

NewSpring has a history of launching things before they are ready. I guess that’s our way of making sure that we’re desperately depending on God.

Joshua hit the wall

At 2 a.m. Sunday, NewSpring’s creative director/web strategist/sometime front-end coder, Joshua Blankenship, had admitted defeat.

The all-important chatroom on the NewSpring Web Campus wasn’t functional. Joshua told me later he wasn’t expecting that we could move forward with our beta test at all. Next week’s launch was looking iffy, too.

God had other plans.

Today’s web campus “private” beta was successful beyond everyone’s wildest dreams.

What started out as a closed test broke-out across Twitter world in an unplanned way after someone in Overland Park, Kan., twittered about it.

We decided to embrace our “public” beta, and we ended up with nearly 250 visitors in our two services. We saw only a few minor issues, most of them user-interface related, and most of them known beforehand.

It was tremendously encouraging to receive so many positive reviews from our techno-evangelist friends in the “Big C” church.

But from the campus pastor’s point of view, I was even more amazed — and humbled — at how brilliantly our video production and web staff and 20-strong volunteer team performed today under considerable pressure, without much practice, with a total unity of purpose.

From the beginning, our volunteers — most would admit not being technologically sophisticated at all — were willing to believe on faith that God was in control of our Web Campus and would bring glory to himself through it. More than one volunteer shed tears of joy today when they finally saw what was possible.

Video producer Will Rodes (left) and Web genius Joshua Blankenship working the web campus chatroom

Volunteers Tim and Rhonda Evatt

Volunteers Micah Swift, Elaine Payne and Lynn Whitfield

Amid all the techno-chatter, there were some amazing stories:

• We had two people watching from hospital beds who received encouragement and prayer.
• We had one couple burst into tears while they watched video of baptisms in the web service stream.
• We had another person, struggling deeply, stumble across the campus while randomly surfing and receive comfort and prayer from two others who had experienced a similar heartbreak.

The web campus ministered to people. It was authentic. It was grace.

All I can say is “Thank you, Jesus!”

I don’t know how I got to be in this place and in this time, amid an extraordinary, unexplainable move of God. I’m all too ordinary. All I can do is praise God for his grace on me, and our church, and beg that he continues to shine his face on our ministry.

We had nearly 200 salvations today at NewSpring’s three physical campuses, bringing the year’s total to 650.

Join with me in praying that, with the help of the web campus, the number of those placing their trusting in Jesus for the first time will be multiplied by 1,000 times this year.

Filed under: community, ruminations, social media, volunteers, web campus , community, evangelism, icampus, icampus rollout, web campus, web campus rollout

NewSpringers “get it” when it comes to our web campus

I can see why the concept of online church would make some people cautious.

I understand that folks are skeptical about whether you can have true online-only community.

And I expect some folks to be plain dismissive.

But as I pointed out in a comment on Church Crunch recently, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response I’ve gotten from regular church members here at NewSpring about our web campus.

When I cast vision Sunday to our launch volunteer team (of all ages, backgrounds and technical aptitudes, mind you) that the web campus is a legitimate way to do church, I braced for at least some resistance.

Zip. Nothing. Nada.

Thought you might want to read some of the encouragement I have gotten from them via email.

“I am so excited about our new web church. I think it is going to go through the roof.” – Cheryl

“For years I’ve heard people say (who were tired of standard church) we watch (TV preacher) for church .. webcampus will offer much more to people in that position, I’m excited.” – Mike

“Looking forward to this spectacular ministry” – Gloria

“At first I didn’t really know what to think about it (except that I wanted to be a part of it in some way) but now I am just really excited to get it cranked up” – Micah

Yes, NewSpring Church is awesome.

It has awesome, can-do, ready-for-anything members who believe God is HUGE and wants us to use everything at our disposal to round-up his lost children.

That’s the answer for why we’re growing like crazy, in case you’re wondering.

But you knew that already.

Filed under: volunteers, web campus , icampus, icampus rollout, web campus

My icampus update video interview with Tony Morgan and Joshua Blankenship

We’re about a month away from the anticipated launch of the Internet Campus.

We’re getting excited about moving from planning and preparation to execution.

Here’s a quickie video featuring myself and our Creative Director Joshua Blankenship responding to questions from TonyMorgan, which was originally published at TonyMorganLive.com.

Enjoy!

Filed under: web campus , icampus rollout

Experiencing LifeChurch.tv (and lamb fries)

I’m still recovering from my weekend visit with most of our CommTeam to see our friends at LifeChurch.tv in Oklahoma City.

We started with a 3:30 a.m. flight Saturday. We got back midnight Sunday. Back-to-back meetings both days. Tiring.

Our goal was to make sure we had covered our bases on all the technical and production issues involved in streaming our services for our  live worship experience online, which is set to launch in January. LifeChurch has had two years’ experience running an Internet campus, with hundreds in attendance at each of 7 live experiences each week.

NewSpring already has a great relationship with LifeChurch. We collaborated on the OnePrayerinitiative, and NewSpring Senior Pastor Perry Noblewill be part of LC’s latest endeavor, videoteaching.com. LifeChurch’s famed digerati team, under Terry Storch, has a stated goal of becoming the open source technology provider of choice for the global church, and we also forsee chances for a lot of technical collaboration in the future.

The trip was worth it. We’re all set for launch. I’ll write in more detail about what we learned in several upcoming posts.

The highlights:

• making a guest appearance on the Mogulus Live Experience post-show with Campus Pastor Brandon Donaldson, online community pastor Tony Steward, and having the chance to handle a couple of live prayer requests from online attenders. Intense!
• Seeing LifeChurch.tv’s global operations center, which felt like being on the set of 24.
• the unforgettable experience of eating lamb fries at Cattlemen’s steakhouse (Only our fearless leader Tony Morgan refused)
• a kinda late night discussion at McAlister’s Deli with Will Rodes, Brandon, Tony Steward, LifeChurch.tv internet groups pastor Robert Davis, along with LifeChurch digerati Sam Soffes and LifeChurch IT guru Mark Burleson.
• the return flight from Dallas to Greenville-Spartanburg where Tony Morgan, Joshua Blankenship and Zac Smith. We discussed several ideas about using a social media strategy to get folks into their Bibles. Maybe one of them will become reality someday.

We at NewSpring love the idea of collaboration. We figure that no one has a monopoly on good ideas. All of us are constantly relearning what we think we know, and few of us have the resources to fully actualize our vision. And most of us recognize the value of learning from each other’s mistakes.

Ministry synergies are real and abundant. I’d encourage everyone to find a ministry that shares your philosophy or demonstrates excellence in an area that matters to you and learn everything you can from them.

And even if you can’t afford an in-person visit, twitter, email, video chat will work just fine.

Filed under: web campus , icampus rollout