This week we’ve released a version of our new web site at fellowshipholden.com.
It needs a bit of work, but Mike has done a great job of helping us so far get it to where it needs to be.
Now, before we officially announce the fact that it is up and running, I’d like some help from you, my martyholman.com community.
You see, I’m not a big detail guy, so though I can help shape the vision of a concept, there are probably things I don’t see that need to be changed.
So if you get a minute and would like to help sometime in the next few days, please go to our new church web site, and offer any constructive changes you see that we might need to make before we really make it known that it is finished.
Thanks for your help with this!

Looking for your advice,

Marty

p.s.  here is a video of the band at the FC on Sunday.  Al and the gang rocked it out!

Sunday Morning @ Fellowship from Marty Holman on Vimeo.

I’ve been on my computer all day for the first time in a few weeks working on some things for my church.

How many hours a day would you say you’re on your computer?

The following is a post for Randy Elrod’s Watercooler Wednesday, which I try to particpate in each week, and by the way, you should too.

Recently I’ve had several people come to me and ask me what I think about technology and the Bible mixing.  I tell them I like it.  Technology, and specifically computers, make the study of the Bible very quick to find information we’re looking for.  But then they bring up other problems, like this one:

“What if I’m not supposed to be on the computer because of a limitation I have placed on myself, but that’s the way I typically read through the Bible?”

Now the obvious answer to this is to just open up the actual Bible and read.  I think, if one has given themselves a self-imposed limitation, that this is the best thing to do.  However, eventually, our lives are going to be on a tiny machine, and I wonder if that will be such an easy decision.  Like say in, 50 years or so.

Anyone ready to lay down the books and go “wholly machined” yet?

Earlier this week, I scooped up this phone from Verizon.  I think I like it, but I need you to call me to find out.  If you have my digits, feel free to call me this afternoon.  But not until then.  f you don’t have them, email me for them at marty@fellowshipholden.com.  My morning is packed.
Who wants to talk to Marty?

My rss feed problem has been fixed I think.  Please let me know if you are having any problems with it.  Thanks.

Welcome to Monday Moments! 

HERE are the guidelines. If this is your first time giving your “One shining moment, PLEASE take time to read them. It will save us both a lot of time.

To join me, do a post today (or a post you’ve written from last Monday to Sunday) sharing something tht has happened to you this last week - anything funny or interesting, crazy, fulfilled, too busy, hilarious, wistful, or any number of out of the ordinary happenings that made you happy or miserable last week.  Put a link in your post to this post permalink (not my general URL) and then put the permalink of your post (not your general URL) here at the end of this post. Thanks.

Tell me your “Inspired by the truth” story every Monday…

Yesterday, as I mentioned here, I encountered a virus on my computer the likes of which I haven’t seen for a for about 5 years.  I was doing some google searching on “authentic community” in preparation for the next four weeks at Fellowship, and I came across a web site that looked like it “could” be useful, with a video on the front page that said I needed to access a “Flash player” to download it. 

I’ve downloaded a flash player or a shockwave player or an adobe reader lots of times and just figured this was another one of those times, which it was not, because when I pressed the button, it brought up a popup that said I had let viruses into my computer and “do I want to run a virus scan immediately?”  The immediate answer, by the way, should be no. But in a fit of reaction, I hit yes.  Hitting yes to this,and not the first pressed button, was indeed the thing that released the virus onto my computer. 

Earlier I was thinking of a good way this could be used as an object lesson or as a point to make about life, but really I just remember how ticked off I was that I could instantly make that decision and allow a crappy virus onto my own laptop, and how I wasted a whole morning trying to fix this mess I created. 

So no lesson here today, except to be careful kids, of the buttons you press on your computer. It could end up being more trouble than its worth.

Until next time…

Last night watching American Idol, like many of you did, I came upon this commercial about the Macbook Air:

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=GBCfW9-hjKI]

I started thinking about all the Mac products, of which I only own an ipod, and the genius of the products and marketing.  You’re probably already thought or read about what the Mac is doing right, but I thought I’d offer my two-sense this morning in looking back, not only at this commercial, but at all the products they are putting out now.

I’ll use the SEC to help me out as I explain what I like about their product marketing.

S = Simple
This is the genius of today’s best marketing ads, and there’s probably nobody better than Mac.  With the letter i, they have transformed culture. 
They all work together with amazing consonance, yet each of them are simple, and easy-to-use.  This process not only occurs in their products, but in their marketing as well. The shape of a woman dancing and listening to headphones in vibrant color.  A cool “regular joe” on the same white screen with a big nerd, while the whole world watches on.

So simple, yet so genius.

The only complaint I’ve heard is by my friend Clay who spent almost a half hour of my life once telling me the evils of itunes not being compatible with other music programs, so you pay for the music, but only as long as your computer of mp3 player exists.  But that’s another argument.

E = Excellence
To be quite honest, I have yet to see a bad Mac commercial.  If you have, feel free to let me know, but as of yet, I haven’t seen it.  And while I’m sure that someone reading this has bought some sort of faulty equipment from Apple, as a rule, I’ve heard only good things about Mac products, from the Ipod to the IMac to the IRack. 

C = Coolative (this word makes me thirsty)
The design on Mac products are the stuff of greatness as well.  If it wasn’t, everyone, churches included, wouldn’t be following Mac’s as if they were gods.  So I’ve made up this word that explains the C and of course mixes up two other words.

Cool.  Mac is cool.  It’s the cool of today.  Tomorrow something better could and will come along, but today – today it’s the coolest.  It’s so cool by the way, it reminds me of that skit that Eddie Murphy did back in the 80′s when the cabbage patch kids were so “cool”. He played “Mr Robinson’s Neighborhood” and he was trying to sell a doll for $50 by taking the babys head off and sticking a head of cabbage on the doll.
Feel free to stick a once bitten apple on your computer and make a million!

Creative. There’s something about the Mac products and commercials that are cool, but one of the reasons that is true is because everytime I see one, it not only is the product of today, but it presents itself as the product of tomorrow.  Polished.  Shiny.  Retro. Slim.  Yet Simple.  These things are not just today’s products, but they look like tomorrow’s too, as can be witnessed by the commercial above.

I’m certainly not a marketing genius, and I don’t own stock in Apple either.  I’ve just become a fan over the last 5 years of things simple, excellent, and coolative.  Can you blame me?

I’m also going to try to post this blog on Randy Elrod’s Watercooler Wedneday.  never done it before, but it seems pretty interesting!

Until next time…

Carie has off school today.  Another snow day here in New England.  We’re eating cereal and she’s reading and I’m blogging this morning.  Some early morning apologies  to Dave Huey, avid reader of my blog from my MySpace page.  I forgot to paste it onto MySpace yesterday, and He wrote me this email, which I just had to share.  Nothing like “sharpening the saw.”

“Good afternoon,I am working on developing some daily habits in my state of being unemployed:

But I have some incredible news.  For those of you who are computer savvy, specifically in the form of html, I have finally found a solution to our problem using Fellowship One.  Yes, we had a slight problem.

The problem was that none of us on staff knew anything about html and that was the language that some of the stage 2 implentaitons like event registrations, online giving, small group management and volunteer management was all written in, so it was difficult for us to implement them.

But yesterday I was able to spend some time with Mike Burns, a friend of mine who now lives in Germany.  Mike shared with me some simple html thoughts and showed me correct ways to implement the features and move head with this excellent software known as Fellowship One.

This makes me happy, and it makes me very appreciative of good friends who I can both teach and learn from.  Who are you both teaching and learning from?

Until next time…