Christian Social Networking - Linked in Jesus

The Change We Need in America

Lee — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:52:46 +0000

The Change We Need is not political - it is revival! Repentance from sin and turning our hearts wholly to God.

This week, Christian.com is proud to be a sponsor of the Revival Conference in Atlanta, which you can watch live on-line.

‘Fireproof’ Demonstrates Strong Demand for Christian Media

Lee — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 23:17:57 +0000

The new movie Fireproof, from the makers of Facing the Giants and starring Kirk Cameron, is demonstrating once again the strong demand for media with a Christian perspective.


The first movie Facing the Giants made by brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick and the congregation at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, cost $100,000 to make (largely do to the unpaid volunteer actors and production crews from the church) and grossed over $10 million in theaters.  With a bigger budget of $500,000 for Fireproof, plus well-know actor playing the lead, Fireproof is doing even better and is already surprising the Hollywood elite.  One early number from Fandango.com indicates that the movie is getting 41% of their tickets sales!
What is most interesting to me is that, normally in business, when there is a strong demand for a product or service, the market rushes in to meet that demand.  But that has not been the case with Christian media.  The Passion of the Christ showed the Hollywood establishment that the 90 million Christians in the U.S. should not be ignored.  And since then?  Hollywood has still mostly ignored us, and gone on making the same films filled with immorality at worst, and at best, a secular world-view completely outside the world-view of most Christians.  The good news is that this is an incredible opportunity for Christians, such as the 3,000 members at Sherwood Baptist Church have discovered, to create Christian media and find great success in the marketplace.
There are many other examples of this.  My wife just finished the novel The Shack, currently on the NY Times best-seller list.  It was written by a Christian and the story is from a Christian world-view.  The authors could not find a publisher who wanted it, so they self-published the first 20,000 copies or so (not sure the exact number) until a publisher finally took interest.  In music, American Idol has showed that America’s tastes in “stars” are more often the church-worship-leader-type than anyone in the music industry imagined.  And on-line…well, a year from now I hope that Christian.com will be the success story everyone is talking about!
So the opporutunity is tremendous.  Ever wanted to make a movie?  Go for it!  What about writing?  Christians are buying books they can relate to.  And if you have skills in web development and social media, at Christian.com we are looking for a select few to help build the best Christian websites and social media in the world!
So what are you waiting for?  Let’s get after it!!!



Use Podcasts to Grow in your Christian Walk
Lee — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:24:11 +0000
As a young Christian as a teenager, I grew tremendously in my walk with Christ and knowledge of the Bible through listening to audio tapes. Today, many Christians are discovering the world of podcasts and how they can get “God on their iPod” to grow and be encouraged throughout the week.
A podcast is similar to a radio show, or an audio recording on a cassette, except instead of listening on a radio or tape player, you can listen to podcasts on your PC, on the web, or on your iPod or other MP3 player. One “podcast” is actually a show- a series of episodes that are posted on-line. This video is an excellent explanation:

I believe strongly in the importance of the use of podcasting to help Christians grow closer to Christ and in their understanding of the Bible. At Christian.com Media Group, we have invested in building Christian podcasting websites. I have already blogged about SermonCast, which through a partnership with another great company is the by far the best value for churches in an online media management solution, and over 7,000 churches and ministries are using the service. But we also have another great site that I haven’t mentioned here before that helps connect Christians with great Christian podcasts. That site is Godcast1000.com - the premiere Christian podcast directory.

I had someone tell me that listening to some of the sermons and podcasts she found on Godcast1000 has changed her life and helped her grow tremendously as a Christian. So if you have an iPod or MP3 player, you should definitely find some good Christian podcasts and subscribe to them. If you don’t have an iPod, you can start by listening to many of the podcasts on-line or through the free iTunes player from Apple.
Happy listening!



What are you doing right now?
Lee — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:30:40 +0000
So I’ve been using Twitter and Facebook Status Updates (e.g., “What are you doing now?”) for awhile now.  If you are not familiar with them, these “mini-blogs” or as they are official called “tweets” are a way to use the web and your mobile phone to update others on what you are doing.  This is fairly new and, as with most new technology, tend to be adopted by Christians and non-Christians alike without any questions regarding their implications.
What I have noticed is that some people use tweets to try to impress others.  They only tweet when they are doing something “important”.  Perhaps tweets reflect real life, and so it could be argued that the same people who go to great extent to impress others in real life are the people that use tweets to try to impress on-line.  But in my limited observations, I have been surprised that some people I think are “real” in person seem to be the ones using tweets to impress on-line.
Some might argue that you should not read into tweets at all, and perhaps I am wrong in attempting to determine intent and motivation for tweets, when perhaps all someone is doing is just sharing what they are doing.  But I think tweets do give an indication as to personality, motivation, etc., and as we start to connect and communicate in this way, it becomes the way we get to know people and the way they get to know us.  None of us ever took at class on “proper tweet ettiquette” or were told when to or when not to tweet, so it is a very interesting social phenomenon to observe.
I recently heard a sermon by on of our church staff, Libba Tullos, about the importance of getting real with others, taking off our masks, and forming real relationships.  The sermon was about letting people in, and letting people get to know you.  So my point with my recent “Lee is going to the bathroom” tweet is that as we Twitter and tweet, we should not be out to impress.  We need to “take off the mask” and be real with one another.  And as we read the tweets of others, we should never feel inferior or that we don’t measure up, because Jesus died for each of us and we are all special in God’s eyes.  And we all go to the bathroom.



SermonCast - Church Podcasting Made Easy
Lee — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:19:16 +0000
Pastors are realizing that while only a few mega-churches can afford to preach their message to the world through T.V. and radio broadcasting, almost any church can have a world-wide podcast. And young and old alike, people are not buying cassette tape players or even CD players- they are buying iPods. For emerging churches, podcasting is the new medium of choice.
But even though it is affordable, podcasting wasn’t taught 10 years ago in seminary or Bible college, so many pastors who are not technology-savvy may not know how to get started.   SermonCast makes podcasting easy and affordable!
SermonCast is a service that specializes in podcasting for churches and ministries. SermonCast.com helps churches get started easily by providing a sermon player that churches can easily add to their church website. Through SermonCast.com, pastors and youth pastors turn their sermons into podcasts without the technology hassles, so they can focus on their message and ministry.
Audio and Video options are available.  To find out more about this powerful yet easy-to-use podcasting system, visit www.SermonCast.com



Goodbye, July 2008 - Hello Future!
Lee — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:22:42 +0000
So if you ever think “maybe I should buy two social networking sites and merge them together…that shouldn’t be too hard…”, please take it from me…THINK AGAIN!
It has been a very long month.  Merging HisHolySpace.com and FaithitUp.com together and then relaunching as Christian.com, and trying to merge two leadership teams, redesign the site, etc, etc.  In looking back I am still glad we did it, but really glad to be done with July and moving on to the future of Christian.com!
Hey, we did something this month that I am 99% sure has NEVER been done before- united two large Christian social networking communities together!  Many thanks to Jeff B, Jim, Ankur, D.D., GC, Jennifer, Matt, and many others who worked with me on this and helped make it possible!
The “Pre-Beta” site is now live…now I can turn my eyes to the future and get back to work on the (already very cool) “Beta” site that is in development.
So Goodbye, July 2008…I will always remember you for the month that was the launch of the Christian.com “Pre-Beta” site.




China passes U.S. with Largest Internet Population
Lee — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:23:28 +0000
This week the China Internet Network Information Center published stats that show for the first time, more than 253 million Chinese were on-line in June. The estimated number of Americans on-line in the same period was 223 million, according to a report by Nielsen Online.  Internet penetration in the US is at 71 percent, whereas in China only 19 percent of the country are on-line. In China he growth is is up a staggering 56 percent in one year and is expected to reach 490 million by 2012.  95% of Chinese that are on-line have broadband access.
This is a significant milestone.  The Internet can be a vital tool to reach the 10/40 window with the Gospel and help disciple believers in the most unreached countries in the world.  China alone has 1.3 billion people!



Listen to HHS Radio show about Christian.com “Pre-Beta” site launch
Lee — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:08:52 +0000
Jeff Broderick and I discuss the merger of HisHolySpace.com, FaithitUp.com, and Christian.com and take calls from community members. Click the play button to listen…





New Christian.com Site Launch this Week!
Lee — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:21:48 +0000
This Friday, July 11th, HisHolySpace.com and FaithitUp.com will join to form the new Christian.com community- the premiere social network for Christians! This unprecedented merger of Christian on-line communities will be discussed on a live webcast this Thursday evening at 9:00 p.m. EST U.S.




Christian.com to Relaunch as the Premiere Christian Community On-line
Lee — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:57:17 +0000
Normally I am going to keep my company blog (at blog.christian.com) and this blog separate, but this announcement is a big one, so I am adding it here as well.
We just announced that we are going to merge recently acquired sites - HisHolySpace.com and FaithItUp.com - to become the starting place of the new Christian.com social networking community.

 
If you are not already a part of a Christian social network, please consider joining HisHolySpace.com…soon to be part of the new Christian.com!
Here is the announcement…
It is with great pleasure that I am announcing something that has been several years in the making, and has already involved thousands of hours of hard work and prayer by myself and many others.
In some ways the journey for me started back in the mid-90’s, but in other ways it is only now beginning. I envisioned an on-line Christian community, a “social network”, many years before MySpace or Facebook were in existence. Finally many years later, in 2008, we are getting ready to finally launch Christian.com, and my goal for the site is ambitious yet simple…to build the best Christian social network in the world.
But not just a social network. The site should be more than a “Christian Myspace” or a “Christian Facebook”. We can do better than a copy-cat of a secular site, and the vision is much bigger than that. Christians need something special on-line, something unique, something…God-ordained. And it has to be something that the community builds- not just me. I am committed to the community - the site members who want to be a part of this vision - coming together and being a part of designing and building Christian.com. It will not happen overnight, and will take some time and a lot of changes and improvements before we get it right. But I think the outcome of the process will be something truly unique in Christian history- a community of millions of Christians worldwide “linked in Jesus” and growing together in spiritual maturity and in love for Christ and for one another.
I hope that you, too will catch a vision of what is possible in the days and years to come…
Imagine a world-wide community of millions of believers, encouraging one another, praying for one another, and engaging in the journey of life together…
Imagine a place that a young believer can come and be walked through a simple process of discipleship, as they grow in their knowledge of God’s Word and in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ…
Imagine a site where each member of the Body of Christ is doing their part…”he who teaches, let him teach; he who exhorts, in exhortation…” Where we are Christ’s eyes seeing people for what they can be in Christ, we are Christ’s arms open wide for the hurting, and we are Christ’s legs running to the prodigal son who has returned…
Imagine a place where unbelievers can come, wondering if they will find hypocrites, division, and condemnation, but instead are pleasantly surprised to find people filled with God’s love, diverse yet working together in unity, and are drawn in by seeing “something different about these people”…
Christian.com is arguably the best Christian domain name in the world, and is something I am honored to be entrusted with. Having the opportunity to purchase the domain was nothing short of a miracle, and God’s provision of resources has been miraculous as well to bring us to this point over the last several years. Many have come alongside to help, and we believe that together we can make Christian.com not only the best Christian domain name, but the best on-line Christian community in the world!
So that is a little about the vision for the future…so how do we get there? That is the question this blog will explore and report on over the next days, months, and years.
So welcome to HisHolySpace.com…soon to be the new Christian.com…and to the journey of building a global community of Christians unlike any other!
God bless,
Lee Raney

Founder and President

Christian.com