I’ve finally moved into the ranks of people who have actually read their copy of Pagan Christianity, by Frank Viola and George Barna. And I’ve also got to the point where I have the energy and time to get back to blogging here at Postkiwi, after 3 months of relaunching Duncan’s TV as The Inspiration Room. So here goes with my summary and, after the break, my critique of the book.
Frank wrote the original version of the book back in 2003. He aims to challenge most of the practices of regular American Protestant and Pentecostal worship, claiming that they are postbiblical, postapostolic and mostly influenced by pagan culture. Joining him for the January 2008 edition is George Barna, following up his critique of the Protestant obsession with Sunday morning worship in Revolution.
I agree with the need for critiques of what have become standard church practices: the church building with the concept of “sacred space”, pastor’s chair, stained glass windows, Gothic cathedrals, steeples, pulpits and pews, the Sunday morning order of worship, altar call, written liturgy, choir anthems, the concept of a contemporary sermon, the concept of clergy and laity, contemporary ordination, title of pastor, special standards of clothing for church attenders, special special clothing for celebrants, tithing, clergy salaries, collection plates, ushers, infant baptism, sprinkling rather than immersion, baptism separated from conversion, the sinner’s prayer, use of the term “Personal savior”, the condensation of the Lord’s supper.
While the critique provided by Frank and George is in many cases over simplified, the point is clear. Nearly all 21st century church practices are human inventions, developed in the years since the writing of the Scriptures we claim to be based on.
Frank often says that he is no armchair theologian. He time and time again refers us to the practice followed in the fellowships he has been connected with, in which members spontaneously choose songs, share insights and concerns, and pray for one another.Frank’s focus reminds me of The Open Church, published by James Rutz back in 1992.
This week I took a break from normal routine and checked in for a dental operation, taking out an impacted wisdom tooth on one side and an infected molar on the other. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for years. I just had to save up enough money, or credit, to go through with it. I had the first three wisdom teeth out when I was 25. My memory of the time has dimmed but I do remember now the same kinds of discomfort, swelling and pain that I’m experiencing now. However this was my first ever operation under general anaesthetic.
Having a few days of work has been a bit of a bonus though. I’ve had a chance to wade through past posts at The Inspiration Room Daily, the new incarnation of Duncan’s TV Ad Land.
I’m going through each post and standardizing style and layout. Youtube videos look so much better with the WP Youtube plugin. Earlier I made the mistake of setting out headings within my posts with the h2 tag. That’s was OK with the template at the time, but with the installation of Bobv3 I’ve been caught out. So I’ve been updating to h3 in every one of the 2600 posts. Groan! While I’ve been at it I’ve been removing all evidence of eminimall coding (I was not impressed by their move to cheap and nasty advertising deals). And to top it off, I’ve had the task of changing images to their new directory addresses on theinspirationroom.com/daily. I’ve taken the opportunity to weed out small images, replacing them with one bordered image at the top of each post.
All the hard work is worth it however. To create an imprint in the search engines I have to make The Inspiration Room Daily distinct, different to the posts found at Duncan’s TV. I have automatic redirection working, using .htaccess coding, but I need to increase the new blog’s page ranking from 0 to the 5 I had before.
I’ve registered The Inspiration Room Daily with Technorati, Google Sitemaps, Google Analytics. The MyBlogLog and Sitemeter stats were able to be retained - keeping the same profile but changing the URL. However setting up the RSS feeds at Feedburner requires subscribers to change their feed readers.
I’ve just started offering TIR Daily rss feeds by daily email. Seems to be working OK judging by the number of people subscribing.
If you have Duncan’s TV or Pacific Highlander listed on your site, it would be really helpful if you update the link to theinspirationroom.com/daily or postkiwi.com. I’m getting ready for an email to all my contacts, explaining the changes.
In the meantime, it’s a menu of jelly, icecream, yoghurt, mashed banana, soup and smoothies. It’s not too bad.
It’s now a week since Wordpress 2.5 was released. I’ve managed, without any dramas, to upgrade all twelve blogs at www.duncans.tv and www.postkiwi.com.
Dashboard, rather than the first in the menu, is now a small link at the top of the screen.
Menu on the Left
Write, the first item on the new menu, now has the options of post, page, and link.
Manage, the second item on the new menu, has the options of post, pages, links, categories, tags, link categories, media library, import, export, backup.
The best thing about the latest upgrade is that we can access quickly all posts, published posts, and drafts. We can access posts by months and categories.
Design and Widgets
Presentation has changed to Design. We have the option of changing themes, editing themes, and working with sidebar widgets, as in the latest version of 2.3. However now we can name text widgets, cutting out the need for guesswork when editing. However the drag and drop facility has been replaced by an ‘add’ link. Which means that temporarily removing widgets, or moving them from one sidebar to another, is a real pain. Once the widget is on the sidebar the only options are editing or deleting. For some reason my text boxes including Feedburner RSS information cannot be edited or deleted.
Comments
Comments is now a menu in itself. The number appearing above the comments menu refers to the number waiting in the moderation queue. Comments awaiting moderation are now highlighted, but not separated on to another screen.
Menu on the Right
Settings (was Options), Plugins and Users menus have been placed on the right hand side of the dashboard.
Time has to be calculated manually for daylight saving. But here in Queensland we don’t have to worry about that!
Discussion options include the capacity to allow for Gravatars - pictures associated with commenters.
The permalink structure now caters for tags as well as categories.
Miscellaneous includes predetermining the sizes of uploaded thumbnails and medium pictures.
Plugins Settings
The Plugins, as in the latest version of 2.3, inform the user when a more up to date version is available. You have the option of downloading the plugin for yourself and transferring via FTP, or upgrading with one click of the mouse. Clearly if you have customised plugins, you’ll want to ignore the invitation to automatically upgrade.
Technorati Tags or Internal Tags?
The default for Wordpress is internal tags, with a widget for a tag cloud included. To tell the truth, for all my work on including Technorati tags over two years, I have had very very few visits or clicks out as a result. I’ve now chosen instead to use internal tags to increase the searchability of my sites. So, for example, you can now search for all posts referring to Guinness at Duncan’s TV Ad Land. Mind you could do that with the search engine before. However I can now reduce the number of categories on my blogs.
I’ve spent the last week going back through the archives at Duncan’s TV Ad Land, entering tags and tidying up posts. So far I’ve covered everything from 2003 to 2006. Just 2007 and 2008 to go!
Categories
The Categories menu is no longer on the right side of the post as you edit it. It’s below, under Tags. This may say something about the priorities of the Wordpress community. A useful tool here is the ‘most used’ option which shows the top 10 categories in order of usage.
Related Posts
It seems Wordpress 2.5 assumes that Related Posts plugin is installed. No big drama. Just remember to activate the script in the settings to make sure it’s working.
Save, Preview, Publish
The Preview This Post, View This Post, Save, Publish options are all on the right hand side of the post being edited, along with quick links to ‘manage all coments’, ‘manage all posts’, ‘manage all categories’, ‘manage all tags’, and ‘view drafts’. Status includes Published, Unpublished and Pending Review. When editing an already published post or page, as soon as any changes are saved you have the options of continuing to edit, viewing the post/page, or returning to the view from which you started editing (archive or single page).
The Pending Review option is designed for shared blogs - identifying posts that need a look from others before publishing.
Why Blog? Is blogging a toy or a tool? Bailey strongly recommends that churches only invest their leaders’ time in blogging if it is genuinely going to be useful. He suggests that blogging can be used for sharing news, casting vision, reaching out to the community, connecting staff with one another, volunteers and church members, learning from others, spreading the Word.
The book includes practical chapters on getting started, building a better blog, pitfalls to avoid, using RSS feeds, and podcasting.
I’d recommend this book highly to any church leaders considering launching a blog or improving the effectiveness of their online work. The tip I picked up and intend to use is including a disclaimer “these opinions are those of Duncan Macleod and not his employer”.
There are 25 posts to check out here. Your challenge is to take a look through them all, leaving friendly and helpful comments. Would you like to join this happy team of contributors? Read my earlier post on the ins and outs of the Carnival of Australia. The next edition will be in two weeks time,
Noric Dilanchian presents Australia’s first 11 in performance and valuation - Dilanchian Lawyers posted at Lightbulb, saying, “The vast majority of books on business success are either humdrum, American or fail to recognise that in many respects Australia is different. In this respect one standout, now in its second edition, is The First XI: Winning Organisations in Australia (John Wiley & Sons Australia, Sydney, 2007). However, its chapter titled “Comparing our findings with other studies” provides reasons why it is a good thing that the book’s discoveries are not startling.”
Megan Bayliss presents What we do at Imaginif posted at Imaginif…, saying, “Attending a professional network recently I was faced with how out of touch I have become with a non computer based audience. Several colleagues mused around not knowing what it is I do anymore because I do a lot of that weird computer stuff. Point taken. But conversely, do you know what the talk doctors of Imaginif do off line? This is who we are and what we do in the office of Imaginif:”
Suzie Cheel presents Random Acts Of Kindness posted at The Abundance Highway, saying, “Last Sunday was Clean up Australia Day, so one might expect that there would be less litter around. I have continued on with my randon act of kindness each day we go to the beach. Mondays we usally go with a plastic bag as there is always more cans, paper cups, and often half full water bottles on the beach.”
Family
Carole Fogarty presents The Emotional Cost of Clutter: posted at THE HEALTHY LIVING LOUNGE, saying, “We all have an emotional attachment to our stuff. Sometimes healthy and sometimes very unhealthy. The trick is to take an honest look at everything t”
Two from Craig - as his first submission just missed the last deadline.
Craig Harper presents Just Another Life. posted at Renovate your life with Craig, saying, “Have you ever thought about your funeral? I have. Mine that is, not yours. Sometimes I wonder what it will be like. Who will be there, what they will say. Good stuff or bad? Will it be a sad or happy occasion? Will there be three people or three thousand? Or fifty perhaps? It’s certainly not something that I dwell on (that would be creepy), but from time to time (usually when I’m at a funeral myself) I let my mind wander and consider what that day might be like.”
Duncan Macleod presents One thing leads to another at Borders posted at Duncan’s Print, saying, “Borders Asia Pacific is helping customers make the connections between genres with a print advertising campaign, “One Thing Leads to Another”. Asia is connected with design and sculpture in an impressive hairdo. Travel is connected with D.I.Y. on the back of a motorbike. Automotive is connected with House and Home and Baby Names in the back of a Volkswagen Kombi.”
Duncan Macleod presents Schweppervescence Burst in Slow Motion posted at Duncan’s TV Ad Land, saying, “Schweppes has launched a campaign in Australia bringing new life to the branding concept of Schweppervescence. The ‘Burst’ campaign consists of five videos using slow motion cameras at 10,000 frames per second to capture the final moments in the trajectories of water balloons.”
Travel
poetloverrebelspy presents The Art of Being a Gracious Houseguest posted at Less Than a Shoestring, saying, “Travel on a Shoestring Carnivals highlight budget travel tips and destinations around the U.S. and the world. We would love to feature your posts on Oz hotels, restaurants, museums, churches, hikes, daytrips, parks, whatever! Submit by the third Wednesday of each month.”
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That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Australia using our carnival submission form.
Every two weeks Australian bloggers collaborate to create “Carnival of Australia“, a selection of posts on a variety of topics. This coming week’s carnival will be posted here at Pacific Highlander. I’ve already received a good number of entries but, as they say, the more the merrier.
Carnival of Australia is a place to celebrate the diversity of thought and opinion of Aussie bloggers and bloggers who blog on Australia. All topics are welcome from Aussies living here or overseas and from visitors to our diverse country. NO adult content, or abusive and racist comments. One submission per site please. If you keep two or three sites, you can submit one article from each.
Submission categories are Culture, Food, Politics, History, Outback, Environment, Family, Indigenous issues, Slanguage, Travel, Technology, Business, Music, Helping a mate, Mates, Animals, Literature, Sport, Current Affairs, and Walkabout.
Deadline for entries is Monday (March 10) at 11 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. Submit your post/s here.
Hubspot has recently upgraded its free website grader, www.websitegrader.com, offering analysis of websites in terms of search engine optimization, connection to the blogosphere, social mediasphere, recruitment of regular visitors, and competitive intelligence. I’ve tried the tool out with www.duncans.tv (DT) and www.pacifichighlander.postkiwi.com (PH) with some really useful results.
1. On-Page SEO
A. Metadata should include title, description, and ten or less keywords. I had 11
B. Heading summary - using heading formats helps search engines
C. Image Summary - using alt=”xxxx” HTML - I was caught out by the feedburner image. Fixed now.
D. Interior Page Analysis - using keywords and description - needs work.
E. Readability Level - both sites are at Graduate School level (postgraduate)
Off-Page SEO
A. Domain Info - the grader looks for domain registration age and days to expiration, saying that search engines factor domain stability. I’m encouraged by the report to set up a permanent redirect (301 redirect) between www.duncans.tv and duncans.tv
B. Google PageRank (5 for DT and 0 (should be 4) for PH)
C. Google Indexed Pages (1540 for DT and 715 for PH)
D. Last Google Crawl Date (Feb 18 for PH, Feb 21 for DT)
E. Alexa Traffic Rank (Top 0.52% for DT, Top 5.4% for PH)
F. Inbound Links (46,217 for PH, 54,867 for DT)
G. DMOZ Directory Entry found for both
H. Yahoo Directory found for DT but not PH
I. ZoomInfo entry found for DT but not PH
Blogosphere
A. Blog Analysis - looks for evidence of a blog (I think it’s looking for a page with the word ‘blog’ in it.
B. Technorati Ranking (Top 0.02% for DT and Top 0.24% for PH)
C. Last 3 blog articles are shown with Digg links and other inbound links
Social Mediasphere
A. del.icio.us bookmarks (106 for DT and 0 for PH)
B. Digg.com Submission (12 submissions & 57 diggs for DT)
Converting Qualified Visitors to Leads
A. RSS Fead - found on both sites
B. Conversion Form - found on both sites
Competitive Intelligence
A. Keyword Grader. DT ranks at 52 for tv adverts, 100 for television advertisements and tv ads.
B. Score Summary. Duncans.TV came out in the top 2% (98/100). Pacific Highlander in the top 5% 95/100).
Aussie Bloggers is a forum site designed, obviously, for Australians who blog. Topics covered by the 163 members so far registered include getting started in blogging, hints on Wordpress, Blogger and other platforms, social media, promoting and monetizing your blog. The people are friendly and open to newbies and pros alike.
The nominations are now open for the 2008 Bloggies, an annual blog award run since 2001 by Nikolai Nolan of www.fairview.com, in Detroit, Michigan. Anyone can nominate their favourite weblogs in thirty categories. Nominations close on Friday, January 11, 2008. The finalists will be chosen by three panels of 50 voters between January 13 and 18. On January 22 the finalists will be announced and voting will be open again to members of the public until January 31. The winners will be announced sometime between Sunday, March 9 and Tuesday, March 11, online and at the Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, USA.
The Categories for 2008
Best Web Application for Weblogs
Best Australian or New Zealand Weblog
Best Asian Weblog
Best African Weblog
Best European Weblog
Best Latin American Weblog
Best Canadian Weblog
Best American Weblog
Best Photography of a Weblog
Best Art or Craft Weblog
Best Food Weblog
Best Fashion Weblog
Best Weblog About Music
Best Gossip Blog
Best Entertainment Weblog
Best Sports Weblog
Best Weblog About Politics
Best Computers or Technology Weblog
Best Topical Weblog
Best GLBT Weblog
Best Teen Weblog
Most Humorous Weblog
Best Writing of a Weblog
Best Group Weblog
Best Community Weblog
Best-Designed Weblog
Best-Kept Secret Weblog
Best New Weblog
Lifetime Achievement
Weblog of the Year
The Blog Carnival of Australia is a fortnightly collection of blog posts, often focused on a theme, submitted and collated by volunteers, and organised by Megan Bayliss of ImaginIf. Categories are Culture, Food, Politics, History, Outback, Environment, Family, Indigenous issues, Slanguage, Travel, Technology, Business, Music, Helping a mate, Mates, Animals, Literature, Sport, Current Affairs, Walkabout.
Duncan Macleod posts on life, faith and culture in Australia, drawing from his involvement in the creative industry, the Uniting Church, the blogosphere, generational research, the emerging church and life on the Gold Coast.
Frank wrote the original version of the book back in 2003. He aims to challenge most of the practices of regular American Protestant and Pentecostal worship, claiming that they are postbiblical, postapostolic and mostly influenced by pagan culture. Joining him for the January 2008 edition is George Barna, following up his critique of the Protestant obsession with Sunday morning worship in Revolution.
Why Blog? Is blogging a toy or a tool? Bailey strongly recommends that churches only invest their leaders’ time in blogging if it is genuinely going to be useful. He suggests that blogging can be used for sharing news, casting vision, reaching out to the community, connecting staff with one another, volunteers and church members, learning from others, spreading the Word.
