Kyle Adams
A native Hoosier, I left the cornfields behind to major in art and computer science at Calvin College. Though I graduated in 2001, the learning hasn't stopped, having worked in a variety of programming and UX-related positions.
I've also spent the last several years learning all about the joys and struggles of becoming a parent. I have two young children keeping me on my toes. During the summer we enjoy the outdoor beauty of the Lake Michigan lakeshore, while the lake effect snow provides plenty of snowmen, snowball fights, and other winter activities.
Posted in: Wi-Fi — Make it Secure
I have mixed feelings about wifi security. Up until about a year ago, my personal wifi was open and I was in good company: security expert Bruce Schneier wrote a short piece on why he also kept his wifi open.
The good news since then is that consumer router technology has progressed to the point where it's possible to run both open and secured networks from the same router. This option, frequently called a "guest" network or a VLAN, lets visitors to your church (e.g., a guest band) hop on easily without having to track down and share passwords. At the same time, the church's computers can remain on the secured, encrypted network, safe from any shennanigans on the public network.
Some consumer routers (e.g, Netgear's excellent WNR3500L) support guest networks out of the box. On others you can install the open source DD-WRT firmware to add guest network capability (though networking expertise is recommended). DD-WRT also has the option of requiring visitors to agree to terms of service before getting online, similar to how many public wifi spots currnently work.
Security and accessibility are frequently at odds, so give some consideration to how you want your wireless network to be used before securing it.
Posted in: Twitter and the Church — Just Another Internet Site or a New Way to Engage?
We host a Serve missions week through Youth Unlimited every year. In past years we've used Twitter to provide, brief, up-to-the-moment updates from the work sites, with the idea that friends & family back at home could follow us and be especially keyed into what their loved ones are experiencing. With that said, my experience has been the uptake on Twitter outside the tech savvy community is still relatively low, especially compared to Facebook.
Posted in: Were can I find guidelines and procedures for streaming worship services?
I'm curious if anyone's tried converting a CCTV feed for internet streaming. We've got a CC camera in the back of the sanctuary. Right now I'm looking at using a Viewcast Osprey 100 for capturing the composite video and Flash Media Encode to encode it for Ustream.
Posted in: Were can I find guidelines and procedures for streaming worship services?
Yeah, I had Livestream in my "you need to check this out" set of browser tabs after your previous post :-) Sure looks pretty awesome - can't wait to give it a try!
Posted in: Fear and the Nashville Statement
To be clear, what Jonathan did was point to a characterization of Article 10 by Denny Burk, the president of CBMW. Given that CBMW created the Nashville Statement, any writings they have on the topic should be treated as more than simple characterization. Just as we treat the Federalist Papers as providing more insight into the intents of the Constitution, rather than as a third party's characterization.
The fear is CBMW's. Packer signed the document. Therefore the he is implicit in the fear, even if it is not something he personally feels.
Posted in: Fear and the Nashville Statement
OK, so let's table the term "fear" for a moment. Would you also agree that Article 10 is a conversation killer?
As an aside: there are many names on the Nashville Statement who I like, respect, and read. That's part of why this hurts so deeply for me. I feel betrayed by people I trust, and wonder if they'd question my faith.
Posted in: Fear and the Nashville Statement
We both agree that, at some point, decisions often need to be made in the interest of actual progress; however, the decision ought to come out of discussion and reflect the church community's discernment. Which raises the question: what was the nature and extent of the conversation that led up to the Nashville Statement?
If I understand you correctly: "hate and fear" is a judgment about someone's internal state, therefore ad hominem?
Posted in: Fear and the Nashville Statement
Another problem I have with Article 10: it singles out "homosexual immorality or transgenderism" as a litmus test for Christian or not. Why not simply (as they did in other articles) use the phrase "sexual immorality" there?
As I read Article 10, if I believe having an affair is OK, I can still call myself a Christian (albeit a sinful one). On the other hand, if I am undecided about the sinfulness of homosexuality, not only am I sinful, but I'm not a genuine Christian.
Why the discrepancy?
Posted in: Fear and the Nashville Statement
The Nashville Statement is intended to be a clarification of a Christian view of sexual morality; from the Preamble:
"Therefore, in the hope of serving Christ’s church and witnessing publicly to the good purposes of God for human sexuality revealed in Christian Scripture, we offer the following affirmations and denials."
Consequently all sexual immorality is well within the scope of the statement, unlike homicide, burglary, or embezzlement.
As for the litmus test, I refer back to Denny Burk's blog post about the statement:
"Readers who perceive Article 10 as a line in the sand have rightly perceived what this declaration is about."
CBMW's view is: if you disagree with the statement, you're on the wrong side of the line in the sand. Sure seems like a litmus test to me.
Posted in: Churches Can't Get Non-Profit Google Apps Anymore?
Interesting. I can completely understand why companies want to differentiate between various types of non-profits. I just hope that Google considers adopting Microsoft's approach of setting up a separate program for religious organizations.
Posted in: Churches Can't Get Non-Profit Google Apps Anymore?
I've seen this more and more in a post-9/11 world. Businesses are shying away from supporting non-profit organizations that prosthelytize. No business want to risk having their product linked to a radical extremist. Some organizations, like Microsoft, have a separate (but still very good) license for religious organizations. Hopefully Google will consider having something like this, as well as grandfathering in existing religious customers.
Posted in: What's Going on? Using Google Calendar on Your Church Website
We use Google Calendar for our church web site (calvin-crc.org), but when I looked at Google's options for embedding the calendar there was nothing that really integrated well with the site's minimalist approach. The HTML provided by Google wasn't very customizable, both in specifying what data to pull and how to show it, and it didn't support the hCalendar microformat. Supporting the microformat was important to me because it makes it easy for search engines to find and link to our events, making it more likely internet users would be able to find our information.
Consequently I wrote a Javascript library, UpcomingJS, that talks with Google Calendar to get the list of upcoming events but displays it on the web page in a very flexible format. The library is very easy to use, as most sites can get up and running in three steps. On the other hand, it is also customizable, making it very easy to integrate the generated list of events into your existing site.