A “bend in the road” on the way to Disney World

Part of my motivation for my self-imposed blogging exile has been developments after I left Indiana to come to Florida. I have shared privately with some of you and it is now time to share with the rest of you.

As I said earlier this summer, I came to Florida to join Wycliffe Bible Translators. Due to a number of reasons, I did not start my new position at Wycliffe in September as originally planned. This turn of events gave me an unexpected opportunity to think and to pray about God’s will for me to serve Him in missions.

I’ve spoken to other ministries here in central Florida. Most recently, I spoke to Chris Larson, Senior Vice-President at Ligonier Ministries, and I was encouraged to see how far Ligonier has come in a relatively short time! Neil Cox has told me how conservative Ligonier had been with "old media" so I was impressed to learn from Chris how Ligonier has managed to change its approach, e.g. social media and iPhone app, in the last year or so. I am intrigued by the potential of new media to encourage communication and collaboration among the reformed theology community. Until attending the Together for the Gospel conference last spring, I wasn't even aware of Ligonier or the reformed theology community and as I've learned more from R. C. Sproul from attending St. Andrew's Chapel as well as from Ligonier, I have been stunned to realize how much needs to (and CAN) be done to get the word out about historical, orthodox Christianity. As I've had the opportunity to be part of St. Andrew's faith community, I have been taken back (and Aback) to the Christian faith which I knew as a youngster and which has somehow eluded me during my adult life. As long as organizations such as Ligonier depended on old media to tell its story, I would have likely missed this opportunity altogether! Younger believers who don't necessarily have any previous experience with orthodox Christianity are even less likely to learn of it as they depend on old media even less!
I'd like to help to "fix" this so I've been praying and thinking about how God would like me to "finish well" by helping to tell the story of historical, orthodox Christianity by first organizing its adherents and then finding ways to broaden that community.

I have “storified” this story.

I’m going to Disney World!

No, I haven’t won the Super Bowl. I’ve done even better as I’ve found my dream job as Director of Internet Strategy at Wycliffe Bible Translators in Orlando, Florida beginning in September. How did I get to this point?

Some time ago, I attended a regional conference of the Finishers Project which encouraged me to seek a ‘second career’ in Christian missions. It has been my intention to do so since I was motivated by a conversation with George Verwer of Operation Mobilization (OM), a missions agency with which my wife Laura served. At least a decade ago, George was intrigued by the Internet cafes in north Africa which offered a means to share the Gospel with people in that part of the world which has always been difficult to reach with the Gospel. Subsequently, I wrote him an email suggesting other ways by which the Internet could be harnessed for missions and even suggesting that OM “needed” an Internet strategist. Thereafter, I had a few conversations with OM, but nothing happened because neither of us was ready yet to create and fill such a position.

Over a year ago, I became aware of a similar position at another Christian organization so I visited them to discuss the position, but it wasn’t a good fit because I was no longer willing to manage staff after stepping down as department chair of CIT@IUPUI.edu three years ago. That organization needed someone to manage a new Internet initiative and when I last checked, that position is STILL open!

In late August, Laura was on the OM-USA Web site so I looked around and discovered a job posting for a Web strategist so of course, I was encouraged because Laura has always hoped to serve with OM again. By September 11, we were in Tyrone, Georgia (south suburban Atlanta) with our daughter Tabitha to explore this opportunity. As a result, we applied to join OM-USA and virtually completed that process (short of being approved) by November, but for a number of reasons, it wasn’t God’s will for us to join OM.

I spent the month of December “mourning” but at the end of December, I did another of my social media aggregations for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s triennial Urbana missions conference because IVCF really doesn’t “get” social media. During Urbana, Wycliffe Bible Translators caught my attention with its social media activity so I figured Wycliffe “gets” it and in January, I called Ruth Hubbard, a Wycliffe Senior Vice President, who I’ve known for many years because we attended the same church here in Indianapolis. As a matter of fact, Ruth’s social media lifestream during Urbana especially caught my attention because she used so much media (she originally joined Wycliffe as a graphics designer) and this was my first aggregation in which I “got” audio and video myself!

Ruth told me she’d “ask around” Wycliffe to see if anyone might be interested in me joining Wycliffe and in March, I heard from Joe Snyder, Wycliffe’s Vice President of Information Technology. Spring break was coming so I decided to go to Florida (something I NEVER did as a student ;-) to visit Wycliffe and as a result, we were encouraged and applied for membership in order to make the move so Tabby could start high school in Florida since she was going to change schools anyway after middle school. I was especially encouraged because Joe agreed to create a position for my “dream job” and he allowed me to play a major role in crafting my job description although Joe got it right by himself anyway!

Well, we got it done with God paving the way and we were notified recently that we have been approved for membership and that our financial resources which God has provided are sufficient for us to be partially self-supporting so I can be on the job by September less than six months after initiating the process! Missionaries will tell you that many of them have had to wait years to go to the mission field while they raise financial support and that can be very discouraging. As a matter of fact, partnership development (raising financial and prayer support) is much of the Wycliffe training course Equip in which we are now enrolled because our membership approval came in time for enrollment in the current training class.

So we ask for YOUR prayer support and we will be posting our prayer requests to a social media resource which I’d started and stopped (didn’t want to count my chickens before they hatched ;-) so it isn’t ready yet. Of course, I wouldn’t refuse any financial support to fund experiments with premium versions of social media services and for incidentals like domain name registrations. On a more serious note, I don’t qualify for Medicare YET (I’m NOT “that old” :-) and I do still have to put Tabby through college (she’s sad she probably won’t get to go to Purdue now unless she does go to vet school) I’ll figure out how to do that after Wycliffe gives me my ministry account numbers.

The adventure has just begun and we’re certainly looking forward to it! Isn’t God good?

The “story” of my life

Challenged by Chris Brogan to blog about the importance of story in my life, I will share part of a story which I have been keeping to myself. For some time, I have felt a calling to devote myself to helping Christian ministries to harness social media to fulfill the Great Commission. Accordingly, I have been applying to mission agencies to join as an “Internet strategist” missionary so I have had to share my salvation testimony as part of the application process. Needless to say to anyone who has done so, sharing one’s testimony is “telling the story of one’s life” in a way that demonstrates how Jesus has impacted it. Also, for anyone who has shared his testimony in evangelization, it becomes very clear that the testimony is likely to be the most compelling if it is genuine because it cannot be refuted although the person being evangelized hasn’t YET been moved by the Holy Spirit!

While I’m talking about story-telling, I’d also like to say that I have been inspired by the stories of missionaries who have been serving and the impact of their work on the lives of those who they have been sharing, but that will be the subject of another blog post.

Amplifying the message via aggregation

In my previous post, I indicated I would explain how “a missions agency could amplify its message beyond traditional Web content by engaging its prospective recruits, donors, and other constituents via social media” and in my subsequent reply to a comment, I promised to do it this weekend. Since the Colts won the football game, I have no more “excuses” stopping me.

Let me preface my remarks by making clear that I am merely outlining a CONCEPT which I have NOT tried to implement YET. To bear much fruit, this approach depends on a number of prospects and donors being active in social media, whether by blogging, tweeting, or otherwise creating user-generated content. I haven’t tried to measure how many people are blogging about a people group or otherwise expressing what God has put “on their heart” via social media. I DO know that this number is growing as more people engage in social media and as it becomes even easier to generate content via a dazzling array of Web 2.0 services. To me (and many others), this is the phenomenon of Web 2.0 which offers so much opportunity!

Let me illustrate the concept with the example of blogging as the means for users to generate content. Only today, I started creating another social media aggregation since the Haiti earthquake happened several days ago while I was busy setting up my course which uses social media for learning. Having gotten my students started, I can now devote some time to assemble user-generated content about the Haiti earthquake. As I do so, I have no doubt I will find many people who have been blogging about Haiti even before this tragedy. Some of these bloggers are NOT (YET) missionaries in Haiti. Those of you who serve with missions agencies which work in Haiti ought to try to do at least the following: comment on their blog posts in order to get to know them and to let them know HOW they can help. When you comment on their posts, be sure to AGGREGATE your comments using BackType. You can see an example of this aggregation in my BackType profile. This aggregation is an example of what I meant when I claimed “a missions agency could amplify its message beyond traditional Web content” especially if many commented on behalf of the same missions agency which can be easily accomplished using BackType with some coordination. Not only would the prospective missions candidates and donors be touched (just ask any blogger how they feel about comments), but the missions agency could also publish these comments as evidence of its heart for Haiti!

As I said earlier, I haven’t (yet) tried this myself because I am not (yet) affiliated with any missions agency. This is a hint that I would welcome the opportunity to help a missions agency with its social media strategy!

When it’s OK to be about ME!

A recent comment I made on The Student Branding Blog prompts me to write this post. As the past year has come to an end and the new year begins, I had resolved to put less effort into personal branding because it seems so self-centered! During the past year, I have especially put a lot of time and energy into crafting and polishing the many Web resources which I have created to support my diverse interests from politics to teaching and learning. I feel that these efforts have been appropriate because they have contributed to my students and other constituencies about which I care very much.

On the other hand, I have put considerable effort into “building my personal brand” via Web sites such as my online identity which summarizes my online activity. Among many other sites, it points to my domain DrThomasHo.com which portrays the many facets of my online life. This view clearly reveals what I care about and that’s precisely the point I’m trying to make!

For example, it’s clear I have a range of interests which span Indianapolis, human rights, and Christian missions. In creating each of these resources, I have met many others with similar interests as is evident from mechanisms such as the Twitter lists which I maintain or merely follow to enable me to keep in touch with these people. For that matter, you can tell a lot about me (or any other enthusiastic user of Twitter lists) just from this one narrow aspect of my online identity.

Admittedly, few other people are as active as I am or as willing as I am to reveal so much about myself via my online activity, but my point is that we do know so much about anyone who merely uses social networking (a large group of people) or blogs (a growing number of people) Especially if someone blogs or even regularly comments on blogs, we can learn a lot about his passion as well as his opinions on the subjects about which he is passionate. Using search engines, alerts, or other Web-based data mining mechanisms, it is easy to identify such people for purposes of recruiting them on behalf of a cause such as Christian missions which is the case which prompted my comment which I referenced at the beginning of this post.

As a matter of fact, a missions agency could amplify its message beyond traditional Web content by engaging its prospective recruits, donors, and other constituents via social media. I will develop that notion in a subsequent post.

To close, I encourage YOU to tell us about YOU! Those of us who care about the same things which YOU care about and who “know” how to…are listening!

Happy New Year

The beginning of a new year is a fitting occasion to launch a new blog and the beginning of a new “decade” (although my new microblog post disputes that assertion) is even better!

With a theme inspired by Laura Ho, I will use this platform to share my thoughts in several categories; e.g. education, politics, economics, religion, and technology; which span my wide spectrum of interests. Mostly, I will be “scratching where I itch” BUT I hope that I will be “scratching where YOU itch” or I hope I may even get you to “itch” in some places where you haven’t been!

In any case, I intend to be leaving a legacy in some measure again inspired by Laura’s example. Beginning this year, our family will be using her Bible studies and I hope these posts will also serve so noble a purpose!

I welcome your comments and I’ve even incorporated Skribit to solicit YOUR suggestions for topics on which I might post.