The classic children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit, tells the story of a stuffed rabbit that is loved so much by a little boy that it becomes “real”. If books went through the same process, one of the “real” books on my bookshelf would be Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. As its well-worn cover can attest, I reach for this book often.

I recently discovered (by happenstance ) the Brussat’s website, Spirituality and Practice. It is probably a sign of my lack of complete internet immersion that I have never thought to search for a website related to one of my favorite books. Now that I have discovered this website (and bookmarked it), I anticipate visiting frequently. (Can websites become “real”?) There is a wealth of information here.

Last week I encouraged you to consider having multiple websites for your church. Although that may seem to be an impossible dream, in reality there are several inexpensive ways to make that happen. First, though, there are some necessary steps to take before launching into the development of the new site...so consider this your assignment for this week.

Let's start today's blog with a premise: your church probably doesn't have enough websites. Now I know you're probably thinking, "What!?! We can't even do one website well. How would we manage or afford multiple sites?" For the moment, set that potentially valid concern aside, and just consider these reasons you need multiple websites.

One of my favorite songs as a teenager was by a somewhat obscure Christian band called Daniel Amos (aka D.A., Dä). On their incredibly fun album Vox Humana, a song called, "(It's The Eighties, So Where's Our) Rocket Packs" contained these words:

My hopes are running low
Things moving much too slow
There's no space men up above
And we're still so very far from love
So very far from love

The song speaks to a reality: technology may change slower or faster than we'd like, but either way there's no guarantee that love will increase because of technology. (By the way, you can listen to the song and watch a homemade video created for it here—just don't blame me when the tune gets stuck in your head!) 

A few years ago, I accidentally started a nationwide debate. Well, a minor one, anyway. You see, I collect old coins—really old ones, mostly from the years 100 BCE to 100 CE. After winning on eBay what I believed to be a coin of Herod the Great (the King Herod who sends the “wise men” out to find the one born “King of the Jews”), I started to doubt I had correctly identified it. So, I posted a message to a biblical coins discussion forum online asking for help.

So, you've got that Amazon/Borders/eBay/B&N/independent bookseller gift certificate in your hand, and you're wondering what to spend it on. Here's a look back at ten of my favorite books of 2009, along with a list of the ten books I most wish I'd gotten around to reading, all especially selected with progressive Christian educators in mind. Hope you find some extra time in the coming days to curl up with a great book!

Two of the biggest challenges many Christian educators have are a) staying on top of the latest news and b) keeping on top of their To-Do lists. Tech-based solutions abound for both of them, but many people find the solutions overwhelming or too feature-packed for their needs. For example, RSS readers are a marvelous tool for following multiple blogs and getting the latest news, but they tend to work best for those who have a more serious need to follow lots of blogs for professional purposes. Applications and strategies abound for managing to-do lists and projects, ranging from the popular paper-based daily planners to various GTD (Getting Things Done) systems that take more time to figure out than they're worth for many people. 

So, here are two terrific tools (Alltop and TeuxDeux) that simplify both of those tasks. Perhaps they'll help you to get organized in the new year!

When the Christmas pageant is over and the Sunday school classes go on hiatus for a week or two, be sure to set aside a little time to review the past year. Since you've already (hopefully) been reviewing individual activities on an ongoing basis, now is the time to take a broad view and look especially at your publicity. Here are 6 key questions to ask yourself.

Chances are, in the next few weeks you are going to do some shopping. Even those of us who try to keep our Advent and Christmas seasons Christ-centered usually participate in gift-giving traditions. I do not like to shop, particularly at this time of year. So for me, one thing I do to keep the Advent season holy and meaningful rather than busy and stressed is to avoid shopping malls from Thanksgiving to January 2. For this reason, one of my favorite uses for technology is the ability to shop via the internet. In addition to the obvious advantage of not being a part of the crowd, internet shopping provides some advantages over shopping at the mall…

The web makes it very easy for people to do a bit of good each day. Sites like The Hunger Site have been encouraging people for years to just click on a button each day to donate a bit of rice to impoverished people. Some churches urge all of their members to use GoodSearch.com as their search engine, because doing so can generate revenue for the church or for another organization the church supports. Sites like these are proliferating rapidly as nonprofit organizations try to reach new audiences by blending a bit of education with a simple-to-do action and the power of social networks.

The latest of these sites to cross my path multiple times is Help From Home, which provides information about websites devoted to making a difference and ways to take action in as little as one minute. Frequently, the actions involve such low-effort tasks as digitally adding your signature to a petition, tweaking your email signature, or taking part in a project that uses your idle computer time to process data. In other words, these actions are gateway actions; they introduce people to issues of concern with the hope that people will gradually become more and more interested in the cause. A term has of course developed for this type of social action: slacktivism.