His presentation is on social media. It’s quite fitting since he is the lead social media guy here at LifeWay. While I’m not at Marty’s presentation, I really hate that I missed it as well as Carol Pipes’ presentation as Minnie Pearl last night. I would have paid good money for that.

“@tobinperry: My friend & former boss @carolpipes is playing Minnie Pearl to kick off #EPA2013! twitter.com/tobinperry/sta…” // That’s my girl.

— Keith Pipes (@KeithPipes) May 2, 2013

It was epic from all reports. And someone at NAMB really needs to get Tobin a new phone. That pic looks like it was taken from a Motorola Razr.

But anyway, back to Marty. Here are some of the highlights from his talk today:

https://twitter.com/MartinFKing/status/329992277659361280

https://twitter.com/newschasr/status/329989659788726273

https://twitter.com/tobinperry/status/329989807394672640

https://twitter.com/DarrenSchalk/status/329991145860001792

https://twitter.com/DarrenSchalk/status/329991537029152768

https://twitter.com/XtremeBrent/status/329992673203216386

https://twitter.com/HeatherUSCWM/status/329994165301694464

https://twitter.com/DarrenSchalk/status/329994876768903169

https://twitter.com/MarkAtStandard/status/329997392667615232

Marty obviously paid this guy to tweet this (unfortunately very few people saw it though. I wonder if Marty will tell them why…):

https://twitter.com/authorstanley/status/329989186398588928

Even though this wasn’t from Marty’s presentation, it wins for best tweet so far:

https://twitter.com/thebrink/status/329985046033346561

Even if you’re (somehow) not a fan of Taylor, you gotta admit these are pretty fantastic songs. And the artists here show the versatility of the songs as well.

I Knew You Were Trouble

Three versions here. First is an Israeli children’s choir and orchestra– it is pure fun for the kids performing. Second is a beatbox version, and finally there is a completely reinterpreted version by Tom Odell. Three different styles. One great song.

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

I like this almost more than the original. Actually, no. I DO like it more than the original.

Another interesting version.

Begin Again

A fantastic, simplified version featuring vocals from Megan Nicole and Alex Goot, with the Piano Guys.

And here is the stripped down instrumental version from the Piano Guys.

From the story:

Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest book chain, warned that when it reports fiscal 2013 third-quarter results on Thursday, losses in its Nook Media division — which includes sales of e-books and devices — will be greater than the year before and that the unit’s revenue for all of fiscal 2013 would be far below projections it gave of $3 billion.

The problem was not so much the extent of the losses, but what the losses might signal: that the digital approach that Barnes & Nobles has been heavily investing in as its future for the last several years has essentially run its course.

A person familiar with Barnes & Nobles’s strategy acknowledged that this quarter, which includes holiday sales, has caused executives to realize the company must move away from its program to engineer and build its own devices and focus more on licensing its content to other device makers.

I’ve long thought that the Nook was destined to fail as a hardware device since the emergence of the iPad. It had a chance to survive against the Kindle and actually supplanted the Sony eReader as #2 in the marketplace.

But then came the iPad.

Amazon had a head start with the Kindle and the iPad had the iOS ecosystem. Nook had nothing but a declining brick-and-mortar retail store to back it up. Even when B&N signed on with Books A Million to distribute the device (which I think anyone can agree was extremely odd), it never really made enough of a dent in the market share owned by Amazon.

Once people became accustomed to reading on their iPad, the Nook was toast.

It does appear that B&N will keep up development of their app, for what that’s worth. But even that is struggling in the marketplace to gain a real share of the eBook market.

So to me, this comes as little surprise. It was only a matter of time.

Do you own a Nook? What’s your take on this news?

When I read the introduction to Unbelievable Gospel, I was hooked. It’s a short book (only 80 pages) and cheap as well (you can get it on Amazon for just $8) and I highly recommend it. Anyway, here is the intro. When you finish reading this, go buy the book and put some food on his table.

Evangelism has become a byword. It has fallen to the wayside in Christian vocabulary. Some see it sitting in the gutter; others walk by without noticing at all. Some have replaced it with missional; others have replaced it with social justice. Still more are aware it is there, but deliberately avoid it.

Why Is the Gospel Good News?

Why do we avoid evangelism? The answer to this question is half the reason I wrote this book. After witnessing across the globe for thirty years, being trained with all kinds of evangelistic tools, and making disciples in the local church, I have discovered a fundamental question is often overlooked—“How is the gospel good news to those we evangelize?” Evangelicals are proficient at rehearsing the information of the gospel but we often lack the ability to situate the gospel in the lives of others. We need to get into their skin, to understand how the gospel could transform the self-righteous do-gooder, the skeptical urbanite, the abused mother, the successful professional, and the strung out addict. It is true that, in the end, the Holy Spirit has the final say in convincing others that the gospel is good news. But it is also true that the Holy Spirit chooses to use what we say along the way.

The gospel is good news whether someone perceives it to be good to them or not. But the only reason we know is because we experience its grace-saturated goodness in our everyday lives. We know the gospel is good, not just in theory, but in the experience of suffering, parenting, dating, working, and so on. For instance, we know the gospel is good because it frees us from being a slave to other’s opinions, when through faith in Christ, we have obtained the opinion that matters most—God the Father saying, “This is my son. I am pleased with you!” This deep, undying love and approval of God the Father frees us from people-pleasing, over-working, spouse-impressing, self-adoring living. The gospel sets us free! The trouble, of course, is that there are so many people who don’t know the power of the gospel like you and me. They don’t know how the gospel is good news for them.

If Jesus did die and rise for the world, then it is incumbent upon his followers to tell them how and why the gospel is good. Reciting the memorized fact that Jesus died on the cross for sins to a coworker doesn’t tell them why this important or how it can change their life. Reciting this information dispassionately is even less convincing. What people need to know is not only what the gospel is but also what the gospel does. Asking people to believe in the death and resurrection of a first century Jewish messiah, for no apparent reason, is quite unbelievable. The problem we face, then, is not simply an issue of bad press, but also an issue of how to share the gospel in a way that is worth believing. But in order to do that, we have to find the gospel something worth believing.

Recovering from Evangelism

Evangelism is something many twenty-first century Christians are trying to recover from. It often stirs up memories of rehearsed presentations, awkward door-to-door witnessing, or even forced conversions in revival-like settings. To be certain, God has used these efforts but not as much as is often claimed. Regardless, those results were based on a modernist worldview in a culture familiar with Christianity. The evangelism of the twentieth century was based on common assumptions like: the brute fact of absolute truth, the existence of heaven and hell (or God for that matter), and a widely held notion that sin keeps us from God. Those assumptions can no longer be assumed. Today, many Christian teachings and assumptions are fuzzy, even questionable, for society at large. Calling people to “repent and believe in Jesus” could be easily construed as “stop doing bad things, start doing good things (like Jesus did), and God will save you.” This, of course, is nowhere close to the aim of biblical evangelism. Biblical evangelism focuses on communicating our need to respond to Jesus Christ as Lord of all, not on how we can get God to respond to our moral performance. The gospel is bigger and smaller than most people think, as big as the cosmos and as small as you and me. It is the good and true news that Jesus has defeated sin, death, and evil through his own death and resurrection and is making all things new, even us! The challenge before the church is to put that epic definition of the gospel into the “even us” in a way that is personal, meaningful, coherent, and believable. To show people how Jesus is better.

Getting to a Believable Gospel

In order to recover a believable evangelism, we must do two things. First, we must consider why evangelism is so often avoided. This question occupies half of the book. Along the way, I consider five types of unbelievable evangelism that lead many to avoid sharing their faith. Evangelism that is: preachy, impersonal, intolerant, know-it-all, and shallow. Second, we must understand how the gospel is worth believing for those around us. This question fills the other half of the book. Taking up five major gospel metaphors (justification, union with Christ, redemption, adoption, new creation), I try to show how these different gospel images or doctrines can be applied to different people in different circumstances. In order for our evangelism to be believable, it must be biblical. When communicating the gospel of grace, we must draw on biblical truths, stories, and images. Stop there, however, and we fail to communicate how the gospel is good news to others. Like good counselors, we must listen to others well in order to know how to effectively communicate the unsearchable riches of Christ in a way that makes sense. By addressing genuine evangelistic concerns, and charting a practical way forward, I hope the Lord will use this book to stoke fresh fires of belief in the gospel for both Christians and not yet Christians. Perhaps this modest investment will assist in moving evangelism from a byword to a believable word.

I came across this yesterday as part of a larger infographic and found it interesting. Even if you don’t have high profile accounts like Jeep and Burger King, you’re still at risk—especially when it comes to financial data and email accounts.

So go change your Pa$$w0rD.

If you asked 10 people in social media how to gain Twitter followers, you would probably get 10 different answers. But only one is a truly legitimate answer:

Share awesome content

If you share content that is valuable to your followers, they will share that with their followers and your count will grow. So that begs the question: What does awesome content look like?

• Show where to go (lead your followers to good content)
• Show what you know (inform them of what’s happening in the world)
• Show that you care (show compassion for others and what’s going on in their lives)
• Show that you’re scared at times (be transparent about who you are and what you stand for)

Carrie Wilkerson, the Barefoot Executive, shared this paradigm for this last week. She calls it the Oz principle. Each part stands for a different Oz character—Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tinman, and Lion, respectively.

So who do you follow on Twitter that excels in these areas?

Here are my notes from the rest of the conference. If you missed part one, you can find it here.

Ken Davis — Connect with Ken

• Wow has to be new every time. What wowed people yesterday will not wow them tomorrow.
• If you’re building a platform, become a speaker.
• If you aim at nothing, you will hit nothing.
• Pay attention to what your tribe wants more than you worry about your competition.

Michael Hyatt, part two

• You need friends in your life who won’t let you quit.
• Start with your comfort zone and use the momentum to push through the hard parts of your project.
• 3 Strategies Resistance Uses to Defeat You
  • Fear: Fight it with simply starting your project
  • Uncertainty: Fight it with focus
  • Doubt: Fight it by finishing

Jeff Goins — Connect with Jeff

• Don’t build your platform for you. Build it for your audience.
  • Find your voice.
  • Pursue passion, not results.
  • Connect (with everyone)
• Offline relationships lead to online engagement
• Write content you will be proud of if no one ever reads it
• Ask for permission. Don’t demand attention.
• 3 types of relationships to pursue
  • Friends – Find them
  • Fans – Serve them
  • Patrons – Earn them
• The one thing more valuable than money is influence
• You can outlast those who are lucky and outwork those who are lazy
• A good platform is about something. That something is not you.
• Get Jeff’s Slides

Cliff Ravenscraft — Connect with Cliff

• Learnhowtopodcsst.com
• Just go to Cliff’s website. He’s got more resources and video tutorials than you can imagine.
• If you are at all interested in podcasting, he is THE guy. Not A guy, THE guy.

Andrew Buckman

10 Things You’re Doing Wrong on Your Website

1. Not owning your brand – Have your site self-hosted. Don;t rely on using someone else’s platform. Don’t have a gmail, aol, hotmail email domain. Mask it.
2. Not having an email newsletter – Reinforces the brand, allows for direct contact and replies
3. Not thinking about conversions – What’s the number one thing you want to accomplish with your site? Always provide next steps for readers.
4. Forgetting about SEO – Use the Yoast plugin for WordPress
5. Hard to share your content – use social sharing plugins. Concentrate on the main sites. Make it easy.
6. No analytics installed – Know who is coming to your site.
7. Not keeping tabs on your site – Update plugins, use Google Webmaster tools
8. Setup problems – Make sure you are using customized permalinks
9. Hoarding plugins – delete inactive plugins
10. Not mobile friendly – Use responsive designs, make sure buttons are easy to click, DO NOT USE FLASH

Carrie Wilkerson — Connect with Carrie

• Don’t just be passionate about your content, be passionate about your people
• Build more followers by:
  • Showing where to go (lead)
  • Show what you know (inform)
  • Show that you care (have compassion)
  • Show that you’re scared at times (be transparent)

John Saddington — Connect with John

The Power of Perspective

• Your DNA is different than anyone else and you have a unique perspective on everything. Maximize your God-given uniqueness.
• Connect with others through hobbies, relationships, and fun. Capitalize on your long-term interests.
• You have unique experiences and backgrounds. Bring value from that to your products and audience.
• Turn by-products into products themselves. Use your excess stuff and make money off of it.
• You know how to best solve your problems. Solve yours and find others with that problem and help them solve theirs too.

Stu McLaren — Connect with Stu

I was busy during much of Stu’s presentation. His info is downloadable. I’m sorry, Stu. You were awesome, though.

PDF – Links

Pat Flynn — Connect with Pat

• Check out CreateAClickableMap.com
• Advertising – Use ad marketplaces or sell your own. WP125 is a great plugin for this. — LITTLE control
• Affiliate Marketing – Percent of income generated by others (basically online commission) — SOME control
• Product creation – Sell what you make — TOTAL control

- Is your platform borrowed or owned?
- Authors need platform and content to succeed

Platform Benefits

• Visibility
• Amplification
• Connection
• Options

Five Steps to Building a Personal Platform

• Start with wow
• Prepare to launch
• Build your home base
• Expand your reach
• Engage your tribe

- If you don’t give your A-game first, you may never have a chance to use it.
- Don’t set goals inside your comfort zone.
- Write down goals with dates
- Form a pit crew

Social media framework

• You need to own and control the base. What is your final destination for all your online traffic?
• Have embassies to send people to your home base
• Monitor outposts: where people are talking about you without you being present

- Selling today is more about sharing than shouting.
- Generosity is the best marketing strategy there is.
- It’s hard to go wrong when you make decisions based on what your customer wants.
- You don’t engage a tribe through a monologue. You engage them through conversation.

Get the book.

The Original Commercial Arms Race

Possibly the most memorable commercial for many in our generation was the 1984 ad by Apple. It’s an iconic commercial much like Coca-Cola’s Mean Joe Green spot, Budweiser’s Frogs, and McDonalds’ Jordan vs. Bird. Everyone knows those commercials. But a funny thing happened along the way. Our once creative commercials devolved into sultry, uncreative attempts at shock and awe advertising.

Pepsi was one of the originators of this sex-sells strategy for Super Bowl commercials. Madonna’s Like a Prayer ad in 1989 was the first to really garner national attention for its risque content. They followed that up with the less-explicit-yet-still-sexualized Cindy Crawford ad in 1992. Even though ads were toned down some in the later 1990s, a precedent had been set and the DotCom boom in the early 2000s helped take things to a new low.

Sex Sells Website Addresses

While they are not solely responsible, GoDaddy is now the leader in the clubhouse when it comes to commercials that both objectify women and use sex to sell completely unrelated products. The website registrar began Super Bowl advertising in 2005 and has been on a downward spiral ever since. This year’s Kiss ad with Bar Rafaeli was just the latest example of how low the bar has fallen. What is discouraging is that ads like the Tim Tebow’s Mom one from 2010 are the ones which draw criticism while sexualized filth like Go Daddy’s ads not only don’t draw much mainstream criticism, they actually are quite effective in selling their “product.” GoDaddy saw more new sales and new customers as a result of this year’s ad than any of their previous Super Bowl ads.

An Encouraging Trend

But there is hope. A “remnant” of wholesomeness is lurking. It’s been there all along, yet it has never contrasted so much as it did Sunday night. The Farmer ad from Chrysler was a runaway hit with much of America. Will it sell more Ram trucks? Maybe. Did it remind us of what America– and our commercials– could be? Definitely.

Where Do We Go From Here?

As trite as it may seem, we truly have become two Americas. We saw this clearly in November. Though it was presented differently Sunday night, there were red state ads and blue state ads. There is a clear delineation and polarization of values in our country. And advertisers know this.

Until GoDaddy isn’t the #1 domain registrar on the planet and Calvin Klein isn’t one of the most iconic brands in fashion, nothing will change. Ad execs know they can keep pushing the envelope and moving the line because half of the country is with them. The ad execs are not to blame. Their job is to make their clients successful. And they are succeeding.

Why?

Because they are more in touch with their America than we are with ours.

Immorality is easy an easy target for marketers. It’s a known commodity to us all– even the most Christlike among us. We know our depravity. And we know what appeals to that. So do advertisers.

We live in a post-Christian culture. The Nones are rising. We are fighting an uphill battle against culture. It’s a battle that has waged since the garden. And one that will not end until His return. It is a valiant battle and one we must fight.

We must connect with culture while not compromising our message. Why did the Farmer ad connect with so many? Because it offered hope. Honesty. Diligence. Tradition. Values.

But those values are becoming less valued. However a remnant remains. We are that remnant. We must point to the noble. To inspiration. To wholesomeness. And ultimately to the gospel.

In honor of today’s celebration of Martin Luther King Jr., here is an excerpt from Bloodlines:

“THE GREATEST CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE OF OUR TIME”

By many accounts, this issue is the most important civil rights issue of our time. Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom wrote in the 1999 preface to America in Black and White, “K-through-12 education must become the civil rights cause.” Eight years later, Katherine Kerstine, columnist of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, said the same thing: “The racial achievement gap is . . . the greatest civil rights issue of our time.” The agonizing question is what to do.

As true as it is that such deadly cycles are rooted in centuries of slavery and white discrimination, the point of Williams and Cosby and the others is that damning whites doesn’t save blacks. When the house is on fire, you holler for the kids to run, no matter who set the fire. Williams and the other writers who are sounding these alarms do not let whites off the hook from the obligation to work for better access for all to quality education. Shelby Steele puts it in a balanced way so that we who are white are sure to get our half of the message: “Blacks can have no real power without taking responsibility for their own educational and economic development. Whites can have no racial innocence without earning it by eradicating discrimination and helping the disadvantaged to develop.”

SEVEN FEELINGS RISE IN MY HEART

When I step back from this controversy over personal responsibility versus political and community engagement with systemic racism, I have at least seven different clusters of thoughts and feelings.

First, I feel regret for my own sinful contributions to the seemingly intractable problems of race relations between black and white in our land. Second, I feel sorrow over cycles of despair and hopelessness, and over the ruin of so many lives. Third, I feel anger at the sins I see on every part of the landscape of race relations and race discussions and racial intervention—all sides. None of us is righteous, no, not one (Rom. 3:10). Fourth, I feel frustration over the untold layers of complexity that make every proposal for improvement seem thanklessly embattled. I empathize with Harvard social scientist Nathan Glazer when he says that behind the racial troubles of our day are “factors in infinite regress.” Fifth, I feel empathy with the truth and the emotion of both sides of the controversy. Sixth, I feel a great longing to see the gospel of Jesus proclaimed, with the power of the Holy Spirit, into this situation and this controversy. And seventh, because of the power of the gospel, I feel hope that there are breakthroughs possible that human strategies from either side have not achieved.

THE GOSPEL CREATES NEW PEOPLE

The gospel of Jesus Christ touches this issue in more ways than any of us can see. It has a way of working that goes beyond what we can imagine or predict. It does not simply provide help to do what we think needs to be done, as though we were all-wise and just needed a little spiritual boost to carry out our plans. It goes over and under and around and through our imperfect plans. It destroys some and transforms others. Mainly, it deals explosively with us, not with our plans and strategies.

The gospel is not an ideology. It does not come in as one idea alongside some others and make its contribution. The good news that God sent his Son Jesus into the world to die in the place of sinners, and bear their punishment, and become their perfect righteousness, and absorb the wrath of God, and set us right with him through faith alone, and rise from the dead triumphant over every foe—that gospel does not come as an ideology but as supernatural power.

When this news of salvation from our sin and from God’s wrath is proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit, it does not come with compelling ideas that create new thoughts; it comes with supernatural power that creates new people. The Bible calls this being born again. “You have been born again . . . through the living and abiding word of God . . . the good news that was preached to you” (1 Pet. 1:23–25). These new people will live forever with Jesus in the new heavens and the new earth when “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).

OUR WORLD: THE NEED FOR THE GOSPEL

The power of the cross of Christ, applied by the Holy Spirit, is not a new philosophy or a new methodology or a new political persuasion, but “a new creation” (Gal. 6:15). Our old, unbelieving, insubordinate self dies, and a new, humble, believing, loving self is created by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the image of Jesus, through the gospel. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

The gospel is not a heavenly demand of what we must do to be saved; it is a heavenly declaration of what God has done to save us. The added good news is that we cannot earn what he has done for us but only receive it as a gift. And even this receiving—this trust—is a gift of God. It is God’s grace and God’s power from start to finish. This is why it is in a class by itself. It does not fit alongside any politics or ideology or philosophy or culture. It is not one of them. It is God’s breaking in with his own power to create a new spiritual reality—a new you.

This new you is united to Jesus Christ who has risen from the dead, so that your eternal life is secured and all that Christ is, he is for you. This is absolutely new. Before this, we were dead in sin. But now, we are alive in Christ Jesus. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). We have peace with God. Christ dwells within us. We are not our own. Jesus is our supreme treasure. And our highest joy is to extend the joy we have in his glorious grace to others.

THE GOSPEL IS NOT RIGHT WING OR LEFT WING

Because the gospel of Jesus is not an ideology or a philosophy or a methodology or a therapy but a supernatural in-breaking of God into our lives, I am concerned at how many Christians do not bring it to bear personally, critically, and explosively on the political right and left. It seems to me that too many Christians gravitate to right-wing Republican politics or left-wing Democratic politics because they see some parallel between a political plank and a part of the gospel. It’s like saying that the party that uses candles must be the true one because they’re shaped so much like sticks of gospel dynamite. The gospel was meant to explode with saving power in the lives of politicians and social activists, not help them decorate their social agenda.

Jesus did not come into the world to endorse anybody’s platform. He doesn’t fit in. He created the world. He holds it in being by his powerful word. He will return someday to judge the living and the dead. And he came the first time to die so that left-wing activists and right-wing talkshow hosts would be broken in pieces for their sin and put back together by the power of grace. He came so that from that day on Jesus himself would be the supreme treasure and authority in our lives. He came so that we would become radically devoted to the glory of God. He came so that the only kind of racial diversity and racial harmony we would pursue is Jesus-exalting, God-glorifying, and gospel-formed.

THE GOSPEL DOES NOT TAKE SIDES IN THIS CONTROVERSY

My concern is not that the political and social ideas of the right and the left are not often true, as far as they go. My concern is that these ideas are spiritually hollow and impotent. The gospel of Jesus does not come to the controversy between personal accountability and structural intervention and take sides. It calls both sides to repent and believe in Jesus and be born again and make the glory of Jesus the supreme issue in life. The gospel is not a political adviser standing to the side waiting to be asked for guidance. It is the arrival of God saving people from their sin and from the everlasting wrath of God, giving them the Holy Spirit, and bringing their lives progressively into conformity to Jesus.

For this reason, the impact of the gospel in race relations is unpredictable. It has potentials that no one can conceive. And, to our shame, there have been many contradictions between what the gospel is and what professing Christians have done. I will say more about that at the conclusion of this book. But the answer to those inconsistencies is not to domesticate the gospel into another ideological mule to help pull the wagon of social progress. If that’s what it is, then we may safely set it aside, and eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.