Ideas that can change your ministry

From around blogdom, some good ideas that have translation potential for churches:

1. 20/20 powerpoints -- Kevin Kelley points to a new trend among business presenters to limit their presentation to 20-slides that flash for no more than 20-seconds each.  Total presentation time: 6-1/2 minutes.  Do I hear "sermon" anybody?
2. Renaming -- Seth Godin suggests that human resource (HR) departments change their name to "Talent."  Godin thinks this raises the perception of employees from a commodity (resource) to an integral part of a company's mission.  Churches might want to rename "prospects" or "lost" or other names for outsiders with new names like "friends" or "guests" or "neighbors."  Radical, huh?
3. Self-supporting ministry -- Andrew Jones has written a nice piece on self-supporting ministry, calling on the writing of Henry Venn of a century ago.  Jones picks up on the "fourth sector" label, and applies it to ministry today.   The church-as-abbey picks up the same idea from Celtic Christian abbeys that sustained themselves, and provided economic benefit to the community they served.  Rather than ask for donations, ministry can actually make enough to support its own operation.  Remember tent-making?
4. Spirit2go -- Steve Taylor creates worship and art experiences like nobody else.  He's way down there in New Zealand, but what a creative guy.  Spirit2go is for Lent this year (okay, I'm a little late getting this up), and was designed for people who don't come into the church.  Check out his stuff, you'll think differently afterward.
5. Books -- Suzanne posts up a nice list of books for the "small membership" church, which is a term I like, but has too many syllables.

That's it for today.  Let me know what you think of any or all.  Be warm and well-fed.