kylegilbert

I recently updated my personal home page and when I was finished, I recommended the same format for my friend and leadership mentor, Dan Novak.

The graphic in the background is a social network diagram – one of Dan’s specialties as he consults with churches and other companies that want to improve communication and cooperation across their organization (If you were a part of our West Campus, you’ll remember that he did this sort of thing with our group before we launched).

I’m sure that we’ll end up doing more with his site in the future, but this is a cool start.

This past week I finally got around to updating Josh Whitehead’s blog, and I think it turned out pretty nice.  It’s the same basic theme that he already had on there, but I spruced it up a bit.

You’ll need a wide-screen monitor to get the full effect.

I never thought that a video about Google searches would nearly make me cry. What a great example of engaging people’s emotions through media.

I’m a rather huge fan of the Faith Promise Internet Campus. We’ve added a third service at 9 pm, and this online ministry continues to gain momentum.

The ministry happening online continues to blow me away. Just this weekend:

• People were connected from four countries outside the United States (Canada, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and El Salvador).
• One family connected from their hospital room the day after their new baby was born. (Yay, Crass family!)
• One family connected while traveling on vacation to Disney. (I think to make the rest of us jealous.)
• Our worship staff connected while traveling home after the roads were closed on their way back from a mission trip in NYC.
• I spoke on the phone with someone who gave his life to Christ three weeks ago while watching the iCampus and now wants to follow up by being baptized.

And that’s just the stories I heard about this weekend. Many others attend anonymously until they are ready to take the next spiritual step.

My favorite part of the iCampus is that although the staff has provided this tool, it’s people leveraging their social networks via email, Facebook, and Twitter that has spread the word. If you haven’t already, you’re help letting people know about this would be appreciated and could even make an eternal difference in someone’s life. Just make sure that you include http:// so that the link will be clickable, and posting right before or during an online service is the most helpful.

To those of you who already play a part in spreading the word and who serve online as volunteers… thanks so much! You guys rock!

If you attend Faith Promise Church, you can hardly help but get into the spirit of personal evaluation during this time of year.  Both Josh and Pastor Chris start focusing their attention on personal growth and establishing their plans for the coming year (excellent post by Josh here).

I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon to let you know about a cool update to YouVersion (a free Bible website that is mobile enabled and supported with mobile apps) that now allows you to select from a variety of reading plans.  This is a very cool update, and if you’re a person who struggles with reading the Bible, I’d highly encourage you to take a look at their reading plans and find a good fit.  There’s nothing that will help you grow spiritually like the systematic reading and application of God’s Word.

If you’ve ever attended an Internet Campus and dropped into the chat room, you’ll probably like this video. It’s a parody done by LifeChurch.tv, and I recognize quite a few of their staff playing roles in the video.

Funny stuff! Thanks, LifeChurch.tv for your innovation and humor.

Last night I realized that it was time to update the KyleGilbert.com page.  In the photo above, you can see the old design and the new design format.

I like how it turned out for a few reasons:

• Larger and bolder fonts
• Clear focus on content
• Super monkey-huge photo
• Red hair

The new format is highly borrowed from flavors.me, and I would highly suggest it to anyone who’s looking for a cool and easy portal-style page.

My wife is an amazing photographer, and I love this picture that she took of me holding my son while we waited for a train.

Today was the day of group presentations at Faith Promise, and I have to say that I was totally blown away by the quality and creativity of the presentations presented by our staff today. Each had a unique approach and a fresh way of communicating their ideas.

My group decided to do almost the entire presentation through video, and you can watch it below.

(better quality video coming soon – Done, thanks to Matt James)

In case you weren’t able to attend our last First Wednesday service at Faith Promise (or if you just want to enjoy it again), this is the “Jesus in the Manger” skit from that service. The two guys carrying Jesus around are the Pastor’s sons.

I think it’s amazing how a short presentation like this can be so funny and yet also get to the heart of things.