Someone has too much time on their hands. What happens when you tape 10 cameras with projectors to your body and dance? This.

A comical but powerful poem put to some more great typography animation.

Remember LiteBrite? This video brings back some great childhood memories. (HT: shape+colour)

1) Technology is neutral; it’s what we do with it that counts.

In other words, Marshal McLuhan was wrong when he said, “The medium is the message.” The message of the Church — the gospel — doesn’t change when our media and methods do. The message stays the same whether it’s preached, printed, broadcast, blogged, or tweeted because technology is neutral.

2) To reach this media-saturated, ADD-riddled, MTV-raised generation, we’ve got to …

In other words, media and technology have shaped younger generations in such a way that the Church needs new strategies and methods to reach them. The old ways won’t work because people can’t hear/see/pay attention to the old ways.

Well … which is it?

Can you see the contradiction of those accepted concepts? For one reason or another, that contradiction wasn’t entirely apparent to me until I read Amusing Ourselves to Death (Amazon link - $9.75!) by the late, great Neil Postman. Despite the fact that the book was published in 1985 and therefore doesn’t have much to say on the Internet, it’s incredibly relevant in its analysis of the power of media and technology to shape culture.

Postman provides an overview of the history of public discourse and the effects of the printing press, the telegraph, the telephone, and the television on the world. In each of these cases, the tools with which we communicate alter the content of what we communicate, though we tend not to recognize it. “You cannot use smoke [signals] to do philosophy. Its form excludes the content,” Postman asserts. Print communication, then, is a medium that enabled and encouraged philosophical discourse. TV and the Internet, both of which are driven by entertaining snippets, are decidedly not conducive to philosophical discourse, but rather to sports and sex and shoot-outs and car crashes.

Postman’s point is that living in a world in which TV and other technology have changed the discourse also changes us. With the utmost conviction he declares, “Only those who know nothing of the history of technology believe that a technology is entirely neutral.”

With all that in mind, I encourage you to read Amusing Ourselves to Death. It’s challenging, smart, accessible, witty, and relatively short. I also encourage you to abandon Belief #1, that technology is neutral, while continuing to seek out new means of meaning a generation for whom the discourse has changed. One caveat: the best way to reach an ADD-riddled generation may not be through means that encourage or inflame their ADD.

I’m under a massive deadline for our upcoming issue so please forgive my brevity. A couple quick thoughts:

• I’m really curious to see what $130 million gets you these days, especially in terms of architecture and integrated media and technology systems.
  
• If in ten years a real estate developer comes along and builds a finer facility than the new First Baptist campus, will First Baptist start another capital campaign because “the finest facility in this area should be one that glorifies almighty God”?
• This isn’t fair, and it really has nothing to do with First Baptist, but it’s what I’m asking myself this morning … Of all the ways to glorify God with $130 million, where does a building rank on that list? I honestly don’t know. Of course, the leaders at First Baptist must follow the leading of the Spirit as they understand it, so I hope the best for them.
  
• It occurs to me that new or renovated buildings are good at solving building-related problems. If you have building-related problems, do what you can to fix your buildings. However, new or renovated buildings are bad at solving problems that are non-building related. (Please don’t read into that a critique of First Baptist Dallas. I’m not the least bit familiar with their specific circumstances.)

OK, that’s all I’ve got for now. Happy Monday, gentle COLLIDE readers.

• ChurchRelevance talks with “Sim Church” author Douglas Estes about virtual church.
• GeoCities has officially shut down. Let’s have a moment of silence…
• See a church branding/identity process from start to finish.
• Google Voice now lets you use your existing cell phone number.
• John Dyer has a great post on philosophies of technology and their relation to Twitter.
• Mashable has some pretty sweet social media pumpkin carvings.
• Brett McCracken wrote a great for Biola Magazine called “Prayer for Generation Tweet.”
• Google officially launches its OneBox online music service.
• A cool analysis of the color design in the famous “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” cartoon.
• Church Marketing Sucks has a great overview about both Cultivate and Story.

Happy Halloween (Fall Festival, Harvest Festival, Reformation Day, etc) Weekend!

This intense little film combines stop-motion, stills, video, and 3D animation to partially blow our minds. (HT: motionographer)

And now for some comedy: Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First” bit put to typography. (HT:abduzeedo)

Someone has too much time on their hands. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture reconstructed from 1000 cellphones, 2000 text alerts. (HT: engadget)

Ever wonder what kids pray about? Here are real prayers from real kids. (HT: Tim Stevens)

Last week Barnes & Noble announced their Nook e-reader to the world and, we must say, we were highly impressed and somewhat tempted to purchase one. It seems that there is finally an emerging market for e-readers, now that Amazon, Sony, and Barnes & Noble all have their own hardware. And there are still rumors that Apple may have something up their sleeve in the new year. While this may not be good news for the paper book industry, it sure is good news for trees all around the world.

So we’d like to know what your thoughts are on e-readers. Do you own one? Are they the greatest invention since sliced bread? Or do you prefer a good ‘ole paper book? Let us know by filling out our E-Reader Poll below:

• John Mayer just released the world’s first augmented reality music video.
• Should your church have an iPhone app? Maybe.
• U2 to live stream their concert on YouTube for free!
• Does Facebook enhance or interfere with the Christian life?
• Breaking news: Apple models new Magic Mouse after Cowboys Stadium.
• Barnes and Noble enters the e-reader world with their new “Nook.”
• Google said to be launching an online music service any day now.
• Charmin wants to pay you $10,000 to blog and tweet from the bathroom. Wait, what?
• Journalism students required to take class on Twitter.

Happy Weekend!

Here’s a great intro video from Fusion ‘09. (HT: avclub.us)

There’s a new kind of graffiti out there called electronic graffiti. Here’s an example. (HT: gizmodo)

Disney’s Magic Kingdom looks magically tiny when shot with tilt-shift photography. (HT: gizmodo)

Finally, for all you Lego geeks (like me) here’s a mind-blowing video of a Lego “pop-up” book.

For the last month, the fine folks at faithHighway were kind enough to partner with us in a Logo Design Contest. We invited churches and ministries in need of a new logo to enter the contest through our site and from there we selected a winner based on need. And the winner is …

Cofer’s Chapel in Nashville, Tennesee (submitted by Jacob Riggs)

Congratulations, guys! You’ve won a fully custom logo design and an identity package courtesy of faithHighway! They’ll be in touch shortly to begin the redesign process.

For everyone who didn’t win but is still in need of a new logo, consider talking with the faithHighway team about how they can serve you. For those of you who already have a great logo, well, just thank your lucky stars because they are some unfortunate logos out there.

Thanks again to faithHighway and everyone who entered the contest.

To be honest, I didn’t realize how serious an issue burnout was until I read Gary’s and Dave’s stories, and thus I encourage you to read them, too. If you share some symptoms with those guys, reach out to someone and do something about it for the sake of you, your family, and your church.

For more reading on burnout, check out Anne Jackson’s Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic and these blog posts by Rhett Smith.