double popped – @tonysteward
I like Tony Steward. A lot. He is one of those rare people that you meet, and from the start you just know that he’s the real deal. And by “real deal” I mean he genuinely loves God and loves people. I like that about him. A lot. He is a thinker. A doer. A good husband. A good dad. A good minister. A good friend. I can’t say enough great things about him – I”m thankful we are friends in “real life,” as well as online. And If we were playing WOW – he would for sure be in my guild! (and if you know what that means your a geek!)
Tony is the online community pastor at LifeChurch, and has LOTS to say about the topic of online ministry. (You will quickly see that he is very passionate about it.) I want to apologize up front for several things about the video you are about to see – 1. The quality – I have no idea what happened, (we were both on good connections) but the quality of this one just isn’t good, so I’m asking you to bare with it.(also, the first few minutes are really broken up – but it gets better, so keep watching. 2. The length – It’s long! I thought about editing it down, but I thought the content was all good, so I just put the entire interview up. (maybe you won’t, but again bare with it!) So sit back, relax, and enjoy a few minutes with Tony Steward!
{p.s. – you can connect with Tony on his blog, or twitter page. Also you can catch “church online” at LifeChurch.tv. – they have church online every night of the week – check out a service sometime, we’d both enjoy hearing your thoughts on it.}
What are your thoughts on online ministry? Online Church? Online community? Or anything else we talked about in this video – leave a comment below – we’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on this great topic!
"Email will kill you." – Tony Steward!
Ha,ha,ha….
This was fun Rick! Excited to connect with people in the comments!
Tony rocks that tape shirt a lot
It looks so good on him though, especially when he wears it with a sports coat!
Wow. I feel smarter. I think.
No, seriously, I love LifeChurch.tv and I love volunteering for the Church Online experiences.
What sort of volunteering do you do for them?
Right now I am the experience captain for the Tuesday 6 AM and Tuesday 8 PM experiences. This means that I lead the volunteer team, give direction as needed, fill in for folks who can't be there, serve as chat moderator, and pretty much whatever else needs to be done.
I also do some behind-the-scenes volunteering to help process requests from those who ask for more information during our online experiences.
That's great! do you consider LifeChurch to be your home church? Do you attend one of their physical locations? Do you attend any other churches?
Just curious.
I do not live near a physical LifeChurch campus. I have a local "home" church where I also serve on a regular basis. I think it would be difficult for me to discern which is more "home" for me at this point. In some ways I feel more connected to LifeChurch than to my "in-person" church because I can be there more often. My in-person church only meets once a week, but I am usually at at least 3 online experiences every week.
First off, I think Tony is playing a game or something on his iPhone just out of the shot…that must be why he keeps looking down.
Second, great stuff. Seriously. I especially like Tony's comment about remote mentorship, mentoring people you don't even know that you are mentoring. I know a lot of times I fall into that category, where I'm not the one specifically asking the questions, but I glean so much info from the answers being out in public.
Third, church online rocks. I had questions before I started volunteering with church online, but love it now and it's changing lives…isn't that the whole point?!
Yah, Tony is legit!
But for real – a game????? Tony, Tony, Tony is it true….did you do me like that?
haha no game, in all honesty at times I have a hard time hearing through headphones and my instinct is to put my head down to focus and listen – thats what I was doing
Great interview Rick! I've been watching LifeChurch.tv over the past couple years and have been intrigued by the multisite movement and especially the internet campus. It was interesting to hear Tony say that most churches will have an Internet Pastor in the next 5 years. We've actually begun doing a live feed of our college/20-somethings service on Monday nights at 8pm on http://SegueSA.com/live (quick plug) and curious to see where it has led. We typically have about 20 people watch which isn't as many as we'd like although we've had a great response on our On Demand as well as exciting to have people from Brazil, Spain, and all over the world watch live. I'm curious to get any advice/suggestions that we can do on a low budget to progress in our online community. We're currently using Facebook and Twitter and even MySpace a little any other venues we should be watching?
Well, I don't think local churches will all have specific internet pastors, I just think the social and technical skillset will become something that is just naturally and professionally present. Like using computers and email is now compared to even 10 years ago.
Ten years ago I was using Zip disks!
I thought zip disks were awesome!
and you have the main venues for online community. way to go!
any suggestions on promoting our online service and getting the word out using Facebook, Twitter, etc?
That sounds awesome man! Sounds like your doing some great things out an S.A. !