Jogging with the Tortoise

Many of you have been asking “What’s going on in the world of disciplemen.com?” and, admittedly, we have been slow to respond.

As we all are aware, the economy has taken its toll on every area of industry and ministry.  We are no exception.  Everyone has had to tighten their belts and be prudent about prioritizing their expenses.  For disciplemen.com, that means our development efforts have been slowed – but not stopped! It would be nice to be running with all the hares out there but jogging along with the tortoise is okay in my book because – as the tortoise says – “Slow and steady wins the race”.

So if you see something that needs fixing or have an idea for the website, please let us know.

Now, here are some of the things that will be happening with disciplemen.com in the near future:

• Redesigned Members Directory page with improved search functionality and a “New Users” sidebar.
• Changes to the posting of Recent Activities and the ability for each member to decide what activity will be viewable by others
• Subscriptions (also called Auto-Notify). Each member will be notified by email when a resource has been added or changed that fit keywords selected by the member.
• Recommendations.  The ability to tag a resource as “recommended”. These will then show up on your profile so that others may know the resources you like and would recommend.
• Redesigned Homepage.  The homepage will list the 5 most recent users and resources, plus an area for information or testimonies.
• Groups.  We are working on implementing GROUPS within the site. Groups allows for the creation of subsets of members based on organizational affiliations.  Once a moderator is assigned to the group, the moderator can create emails to be sent to everyone in their group. Further implementations will allow the groups to have their own “page” and blogs.

So, how can you help make these happen?  First, continue to pray for this ministry and for the Lord’s favor. Second, if you have the means and the Lord prompts you, consider sending a gift to the ministry for the development efforts of disciplemen.com. Click here for more information on how to do that.

Thanks be to God for all of you and for your ministry to men!

The staff of Disciplemen.com

The Heteens Are Here!

teen at computer

The Heteens Are Here!

The Heteens Are Here!

But you ask, “What are heteens?”

It’s likely you won’t find them mentioned at any of

the myriad of men’s ministry forums across the web or

even ministry magazines of that genre.

To the contrary, disciplemen.com takes a very serious attitude in it’s responsibility and opportunity to minister to discipling organizations across the globe. Our forum(s) continually provide tangeable solutions to reaching teen boys (heteens) – knowing they are the Tomorrow’s Men our churches so desperately need.

Our software engineers have provided the RSS syndication connectivity for you to quickly learn about each new power-post that can really launch your heteen efforts.

It’s your choice whether to continue with the hand-wringing uncertainty of what to do next or with a couple clicks, check out our Tomorrow’s Men forums.

Just a few of our present topics are:

• Our Teen-Sized Discipling Toolbox
• Learnin’ ‘Bout Heteens @ the Library
• Grab Your Teen Tooterin’ Manual - See What’s Under the Hood
• Getting Today’s and Tomorrow’s Man to Join the MEN
• Thumbs Communertainment (yes, it’s spelled right!)
• Screwdrivers, Scrap, ‘n Scripture
• The Birds ‘n Bees Discussion (but especially the Blood)

And for the adult men, you can even learn about Snollygosters!

So you’d better bookmark our blog and check our forums often.

See ya. I’m gonna go check for the latest myself…

===========

submitted by Gramps Curtis

It Bugs Me No End

Here is another submission from one of our members, Jim “Gramps” Curtis.

—————————

It Bugs Me No-End!

- so much so, I’ve more than once ‘taken my ball and went home’!
I believe I have a ‘fix it’ approach to life and my Choleric temperament pushes me to ‘get-er-done NOW!’ This would probably be enough to keep me out of the Procrastinator’s Pew; but the problem is more serious than that.

Somehow I keep running across problems to work on, but shortly learn there is no way to learn if my ‘first aid’ is doing the trick; I get no feedback to tell me any results to my efforts. Bummer. I’m a feedback kind of a guy. You know, all the Total Quality Management Peter Drucker stuff has been drilled in my head and it’s really bugging me. Throwing gasoline on my burning thoughts epitomizes me looking up and feeling surrounded by only spectators.

Disciplemen.com is making some interesting, rather subliminal changes in my attitudes about working with others. I wake up many mornings clearly aware that God wants me to do this or that and how He wants me to do it. (Thank you Holy Spirit) When I follow my instructions I get no heavenly ‘atta-boy’s or even ‘yes Gramps, I see you can follow instructions’. And later, I’m given more ‘instructions’ to be followed, in His service. Sometimes I sense a tiny bit of how Job must have felt in missing any divine confirmation of his actions and attitudes.

Simply put, I’m getting the idea I am to:

1. Keep focused on my assigned task and
2. Trust God to improve my aim.

Can I say it doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to cut a smooth circle with a band saw or team-building a group of men you know in the leading of the Lord you love?

Do you think our purpose is not to produce ‘managed quality results’ as much as it is to be consistent in our personal obedience to our Savior (as directed by His Word and Holy Spirit)?

Second question: Which speaks to the heart of men in my world the most; my feedback-chasing remedies or showing myself to be a faithful steward to the spirits of hurting, hunting men around me?

I’m learning what ‘works for me’.

What pleases the Lord in your life?

disciplemen.com NEW PHASE RELEASED!

From the last disciplemen.com Insiders Update E-mail:

September 4, 2007

The new disciplemen.com is primed and ready for its official launch. All we need is you and the NCMM members to list their resources for leader’s in the men’s discipleship movement! Help meet the needs of these leaders by participating in the 3-Step launch process:

1) REGISTER if you haven’t done so yet
2) JOIN the Leadership Directory and let the other users of the site know you are committed to discipling men.
3) CONTRIBUTE your favorite resource to the Best Practices & Resources section. Have you used a great book in a small group or mentoring relationship? Found a great Bible Study curriculum or web site? Created a useful tool for the men in your church? See if it’s listed in the BP&R, and if not, post the resource yourself – you can even attach documents, power point slides or pictures to your posting to equip other leaders to use it more effectively. We are hoping to have 750 resources listed the in the Best Practices and Resources center as soon as possible.Join one of our upcoming disciplemen.com launch conference calls & we’ll walk through the launch process outlined above.

The schedule for these calls will be:
Friday, September 7th – 11 a.m. EST
Thursday, September 13th – 1 p.m. EST
Wednesday, September 19th – 2 p.m. EST
Tuesday, September 25th – 4 p.m. EST

The conference calls will last approximately 1 hour with half of this being a demonstration time and half being for Q & A.If you would like the telephone number and conference call code to be included in one of these sessions, please email us at resources@disciplemen.com and we’ll be happy to provide further details.Here are a few of the things users of disciplemen.com can look forward to with this release:

• User submitted resources to the Best Practices & Resources section
• New entries into the Leadership Directory
• More information about members of the Leadership Directory
• New search functions throughout the site
• An entirely new 5-Star Ratings system for all resources
• A revised comments/reviews ability, tied to Ratings
• A new design for the How-To’s section
• Ratings now added to the How-To’s section
• Ability to earn more user points
• Forums to communicate with the community and the developers.

We are excited to see how God uses disciplemen.com to help connect discipleship leaders all over the world.

Thanks, and God Bless!

The disciplemen.com team
 

A ’soft’ Launch at NCMM

disciplemen.com was launched at the NCMM meeting last month in Kansas City. During the conference, the beta release of the site, available at new.discplemen.com, was demo’d in the opening plenary session. All four sections of the site – What’s happening?, How To’s, Leadership Directory and Best Practices & Resources – were up and running. The 48 hours leading up to the event were hectic, as you can imagine, but the guys at Modomo Technologies, our developer, pulled a rabbit out of their hats and had the site ready to go, with only a few of the usual bugs – I mean ‘features’ — you might expect in a beta release.

Over 100 men’s ministry leaders registered on the site as users, and most of those joined the Leadership Directory as well. Plus, more than 60 new resources were added to the Best Practices & Resources Center.

It was a great week with leaders from around the country.

Next Release Coming at NCMM

On April 12-14, a few hundred leaders in the men’s discipleship movement will gather at the National Coalition of Men’s Ministries annual conference, entitled Momentum. We’re excited to be launching the next phase of disciplemen.com at this conference!

In the disciplemen.com Internet Cafe, attendees will be able to access the brand new Leadership Directory, where they can list themselves along with their interests and expertise for others to contact them. In addition, the Best Practices and Resource Center will be rolled out, allowing leaders to post materials that they have used – books, curriculum, events, speakers, etc. – and share them with other leaders from around the world.

It’s not too late to register for this conference. In addition to the disciplemen.com Phase Two debut, there will be representatives from 50+ ministries dedicated to helping leaders disciple men in the local church.

We Need a New Poll

Got any ideas for the next poll? Post a comment and give us your input.

The R-rated movie poll garned over 400 responses, with about an even split between guys saying to never recommend one – 200 votes – versus guys who said OK with an exception for sex, violence and/or if it had a great message. Go to www.disiplemen.com and click on News & Notes to see the actual numbers.

Aliens Have Finally Returned Me to Earth

Really, it’s the only halfway decent reason I could think of for the length of time since I last posted. Of course, aliens didn’t actually snatch me (or invite me, for that matter). Life just got, well, like life gets, I guess. But we’re back, and stuff is happenin’!

First up, while I was off-planet, 325 people have already signed on as users on disciplemen.com. In the words of one of the apostles, “Wow!” (It’s in the original greek.)

Second, if you’ve been to disciplemen.com lately, you’ve seen the “How to’s.” These are cool mini-trainings delivered via e-mail right to your desktop. Already, 212 of you have signed up for a course, and the feedback has been awesome.

But wait, there’s more! We have contracted with an awesome company called Modomo Technologies, run by our new best friend, Lyndon Modomo, and his merry band of techno-gurus. They are working feverishly (seriously, they’re burnin’ up) on the next two phases of disciplemen.com, a Leadership Directory and Best Practices & Resource Center. First phases of those will be up in April, if all goes according to plan.

So that’s the techno-update for now. I’ll be posting more frequently now. Really, I will. But as Dale Carnegie said and Pat Morley likes to quote. “The older I get, the less I listen to what people say and the more I just watch what they do.”

Watch the blog. Let’s see what happens.

Welcome In!

Welcome to the official blog of the discipmen.com. We’ll use this blog to help keep the community informed of the development process as we go.
We’ll also post past polls (say that three times fast), collect quotes on discipleship, and anythig else that comes to mind as we go.

 Remember, this is a community. It gets stronger with your involvement, so post your comments!