Jims ThirdSpace

What is community?

“I don’t really know what ‘community’ means and I never use it” says Chris Hughes co-founder of Facebook.  How can that be?  How can someone that is partially responsible

for building the world’s largest social networking platform, creating e-communities, and being one of the individuals that is credited with helping elect Obama, because of his ability to rally individuals across the nation and connect them into a virtual Obama Nation, not know what community is?

I think a community is a group of people that are linked by location, or common perspectives or joint action or combinations of these three.  If this is true, how many communities are you actively a part of? And, how about you, what are your your descriptors of community?

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Tags: Chris Hughes, community, facebook, Obama

Going simple to regain some customers

Starbucks is rolling out a new simple product at a reduced price to convince recession-shocked customers  to come back.  For about a buck you can get a cup of instant Joe at locations in Chicago and Seattle (part of an early rollout).  You can even get an “instant Starbucks experience” at home.  Take a look at this video:

Instant Java, instant community?  If they pull this off, watch for others to follow.

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Tags: community, instant coffee, java, starbucks

Words and appearances

Week One of Survivor is behind us and this new community of Jalapao and Timbira tribe members have already shown us a couple of things that are important in building relationships and creating community.

Words are important - As the game began, Jeff Probst told the tribe members that “one person from each tribe is not going to make this journey,” and the tribes assumed their vote meant they were sending someone home. Instead, the two losers, Sandy and Sierra, got a helicopter ride to camp, while the rest walked for four hours through the desert in 110-degree heat. It pays to listen!  Communication is so important in building relationships and creating community.  Choose your words carefully, and listen carefully when people are speaking.

Appearances can be deceiving – Sandy and Sierra both get “voted off a four hour walk in 110 degree heat” because of their appearance.  Sandy gets thrown away because she is the oldest and looks it.  She must be weak and not an asset.  Sierra gets tossed because she has been quite on the truck ride out.  It turns out Sierra had been quiet because of a sore throat. At the first challenge these two, Sandy & Sierra were leaders in the competition and regained respect from their respective tribes because of their contribution.  Outward appearances can be deceiving.  Those that “appear” to be not as good or not as sociable can many times be leaders and assets to our community.  We have to be willing to spend time with people before we can know them.

Carolina Eastwood was voted off last night.

Her tribemates didn’t appreciate her telling them to clean up the outdoors.  She hadn’t spent enough time with her community to be able to give them direction.  Are you spending time with your community? Are you trying to give direction to your community without having the time equity needed to have influence?

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Tags: community, good looks, survivor, voted off

Starts Tonight, can’t wait

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Tags: community, survivor

They’re still picking on my friend

Multiple airports, people in a hurry, unfamilar city, whenever I needed a caffine fix this past week I was always able to get one at my friend.  So today I’m ticked as I find that they’re still picking on my friend.  Recent information tells us the even marketing executives are falling out of love with Starbucks.  Five years ago 33% of markting executives said they loved Starbucks, today it’s down to 10%.  And the haters are on the increase.  People who hate Starbucks has grown from 5.3% five years ago to 6.5% now.

All I can say is, everyone one of my stops at my friend while on the road were great: great service, great products, and great people.

Keep your chin up friend, I’ve got your back.

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Tags: coffee shop, community, starbucks

A place overflowing with community

I’ve been spending some time in Kansas with my son and family. This morning we went to the Old Overland Park Farmer’s Market, (check out these pics). It was swarming with a sense of community. The constant movement of people, friends greeting friends, lots of laughter, hugs, stories being shared as friends caught up on each other’s lives. It was fun being there.

A lot of local pride was present. Nearly every person selling had a sign up indicating, “produced locally”, “grown locally”, or buy local. Most of the buyers there had cloth bags to carry their purchases; the concept of “glocal” and being green is huge here. An abundance of fresh vegetables, fruits, flowers, breads and sauces, plus a couple of local coffee shops made for a wonderful morning. A plus was a temperature of 72, and a cloudless sky.

I would love to have a place like this back home.

My big smile of the morning came when I saw someone selling sauces, dips, and stuff. The name of the business was www.imadipstick.com. If that name doesn’t make you smile, your smiler is broke.

Today’s the day, UGA VII makes his debut. Go DAWGS!

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Tags: community

Who’s number one?

Heard some new numbers this week about coffee sales. It must be the “dog days of summer” when coffee sales are news worthy. (ever wonder where the dog days of summer came from) ?

In 2006, Starbucks was the place where more Americans bought cups of coffee than any other place. Then in 2007, a new number one took over, Dunkin Donuts, shoving Starbucks to number two. Then, in 2008, Dunkin Donuts was a repeat at number one, but McDonalds came in at number two pushing Starbucks down to number three. Does anyone see a trend here?

No wonder Starbucks is taking a long hard look at themselves. It’ll be interesting to see how they come out of this time of testing. I think the long term outlook is great with some short term inconveniences.

Maybe the other players (coffee sellers) have shoved them down in sells, but I don’t see a surge in groups of people building community at Dunkin Donuts (except for Cops and Firemen), or other people rushing to McDonalds to surf the net, and talk to a Barrister, who can actually be engaged in a conversation.

Yes the coffee costs more, but it’s all about the presentation, the atmosphere, the community.

Do you want to wipe up Happy Meal residue or listen to McCartney, JT, or Bono?

What do you want, a Walkman or an Ipod?

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Tags: coffee, community, dog days of summer, Great place

Three questions and answers for tomorrow…

Here are the three questions with answers for tomorrow night:

1. What do Monica Lewinsky, Don Drysdale and Rick Lucas all have in common?  Today is their birthday.

2. What do a skimboard, an ipod and a magazine all have in common?  They are all on Jimmy’s take-to-the-beach list.

3. What do David Beckham, Usher and Hillary Duff all have in common? They all have  perfumes named after them.

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Tags: community, Great place

Building Community

We’ve been on a grand adventure this summer at church with our Summer Vacation emphasis, Discipling Through Community, (see my post June 10th). This past Sunday, June 29th we continued to see how people are hungry for a feeling of community, of belonging to a larger family. We had a picnic. Nothing high tech, nothing that flashy, just bouncy houses, a dunking booth, food and squirt guns. We mixed in a lot of food, some music, threatening weather, and did I already say, squirt guns.

Around 550 people came! The really cool part was how many were brand new faces, people I didn’t know. Someone remarked that the crowd looked like a community outing, not an internal church event, because there were so many people that were new. Everyone had a great time. People said, “we need to do this every month”. Every month would be a challenge, but the message was clear. People want more opportunities to spend time together and have fun. We want to hang out with people older than we are. We want to hang out with people that are younger than we are. We want to hear your stories, we want to be a part of your life.

We don’t know where this is going to end. We’re just going to keep providing opportunities for people to build community with each other, and let God do the rest.

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Tags: community, family, new friends, Simple Church

Gasping for air….

I’ve been gasping for air as you can see from the lack of recent posts. Back on 5/31 and 6/1 I posted about Building Community, and a grand experiment we were employing at my church. I’m gasping to say, that it has been a smashing success so far. As a staff we felt a participation number of 100 – 140 would be considered a win….then it happened. On the sign-up Sunday before we launched on Wednesday, 350+ signed up! When we realized the size of the sign-up for Summer Vacation, we went into overdrive to handle the crowd. Tables were rented, additional supplies were purchased, more childcare workers were hired, new support teams were recruited, and we started.

People showed up! Lots of people….and they all had a ball. The buzz has been unreal. Everyone is talking about Summer Vacation. More people have signed up since the first week and tomorrow we’ll be jamming to summer beach tunes and making new friends.

People were starving for community. Cross generational Summer Family units were created, and it was a huge win.

Here is a clip that shows how much fun it can be, to build community, laugh a lot, make new friends, and study some scripture in a world of happy chaos: Summer Vacation Video

Pray for this crazy team of leaders I’m a part of, as we help people connect with each other, and connect with God.

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Tags: community, Simple Church