...so that she can stay connected as a family and effectively reach each community in our postmodern world.

Do you agree with this statement? If so, why? If not, why not? 

This is my working thesis statement - which means I might change it - for a case study assignment in my Transforming Contemporary Culture class at Fuller.

For this case study, I am supposed to select a cultural theme that is relevant to my current ministry, analyze the interplay between the two, and then propose an alternate, missiological approach. I will be analyzing how the church is currently engaged with social media, and then discuss how Semper Vita plans to engage. If you'd like to learn more about Semper Vita, check out the blog site at www.sempervita.org.

MySpace. Facebook. Classmates. MyYearBook. Bebo. LiveJournal. BlackPlanet. Hi5. LinkedIn. Tagged. Reunion. 360.Yahoo. Imeem. Friendster. Orkut. Flixster. Fubar. Tickle. CafeMom. Xanga. Yuku. Twitter. Ning. UrbanChat. AsianTown.

As of February 2008*, these are the top 25 social networking sites - and 84% of online consumers belong to at least one online social network. Needless to say, there is a whole lot of social networking going on.

Since I'm relatively new to the ConversantLife community, I would like to take a moment and learn more about your social networking habits, specifically:

• Which social network(s) do you belong to?
• Why did you join the social network(s)?
• Which one(s) do you keep up with and which one(s) are gathering web dust? And why?
• How valuable is social networking to you? If it all went away tomorrow, would you care? 

Have you seen the latest American Express commercial with Ellen Degeneres and Beyonce? If you haven't, you can check it out below.

The ad centers around a common phrase from the 80's - have your people call my people - which clearly makes the ad more entertaining. I mean, who says that anymore? If you do, well...hmmm... Today, it's all about text messaging and social networking - directly - with our own network of BFFs. 

When I think about technology and the church, many churches are still living in the Have your people call my people age, while the rest of the world is planning to cu@12. It's a crazy and exciting time we live in.

Hi, my name is Tamara, and welcome to my blog. I invite you to join me as we talk about the recent (and not-so-recent) kewl technologies that are out there. We'll also take a look at ways the church and faith community - perhaps your own - take advantage (or not) of these technologies. That discussion may get a bit spicy because there are clearly those that believe technology is a secular thing and should be avoided at all costs.

If there's one constant about technology that trumps all others, it's this: change. We can be sure that whatever technology is cool and useful and popular today will be replaced by something that's cooler, more useful, and more popular tomorrow. It's just the way it is.

With truth it's different. Unless you're a relativist, truth doesn't change. We need to know that what's true today will still be true tomorrow. We also need to know that the content we access, whether it's on a printed page or in some kind of electronic form, is trustworthy.

At ConversantLife.com, we are committed to both technology and truth. We are using the latest technology to present trustworthy content by a team of passionate and knowledgeable communicators, all the while inviting our users to comment and post content of their own in the form of news stories that have faith implications.

Okay, this guy is really, really smart. And yes, I really want to try this at home (click through to watch).

Yup, you saw that right. He just took a normal laptop computer and turned it into a “tablet pc.” And in this video, he does cool “Minority Report” like tricks using the same technology.

Nothing makes nerdy guys like me say “whoa” more than surprising uses to everyday technology. Call it the “MacGyver syndrome.” For you youngsters in the audience, MacGyver could take an orange peel, a hairclip, and a stopwatch and create, well, just about anything he wanted.