Capabilities of AblazePartners.net
May 8, 2009
The idea for the resource and networking website AblazePartners.net came a year ago April in discussions Dave Luecke had with Dan Mattson of LCMS Mission Services. That was followed up with a June 4, 5 meeting with a large number of other staff from Mission Services and again such a large meeting October 3. The most recent discussions were April 17 with Bob Scudieri, Dan Mattson, and Stacey Welcenbach.
Dave Luecke took the initiative for these meetings and for developing the website. Ideas started turning into reality with the decision to go with Expression Engine as the software platform for providing resources and also for facilitating blog posting and discussion. I have been working with a designer and a programmer of Studio 754 to provide the beginning of the site now available to be seen at AblazePartners.net. I have just further contracted with them to professionally redesign the home page and landing pages. We are aiming at July 1 as the date to go public with promotion.
The home page makes these two statements:
“AblazePartners.net is an online community of practice for Lutherans seeking to share the God News of Jesus.”
“We are Lutheran congregational leaders and church body staff promoting and discussing best practices to improve mission in these basic areas of congregational life: worship, discipleship, outreach, service, and church leadership.”
The site has these three major divisions: resources, forums and webinars.
1) Resources
Partners/members are invited to submit articles, study outlines, series outlines, music, videos and overviews of books that they find to be best practices in their area of interest. Most will be free for downloading. The site will have a PayPal store to purchase for downloading material for which the author wishes reimbursement. Users will be able to rate the value of a particular resource.
2. Forums
Partners can post a blog statement of best practice and invite comments back again from other users. Content for Forum and well as for Resources is organized around the five basic mission areas: worship, discipleship, outreach, service and church leadership. Each area will have suggested sub-topics, such as for worship: contemporary worship, traditional worship, prayer, drama, worship technology. These can be further sub-divided. New topics can be made as interest emerges among partners.
One basic use of the site will be to have those who submit a specific resource draw attention to it through a posting in the Forum division, inviting reaction. Such a posting can trigger an email message to users who have indicated their interest in that area. This ability to draw attention to a new blog posting is known as Weblog 2.0.
3. Webinars
AblazePartners.net will have a license to use Adobe Connect Pro for presenting seminars and conferences. Connect Pro is the leader in the industry. These can be live seminars. Better is to pre-record PowerPoint lectures for downloading by participants before a live discussion with the presenter at an appointed time.
At this point AblazePartners.net is a ministry of Royal Redeemer Lutheran Church in close cooperation with staff of Mission Services of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. As other entities within the Synod find this offering valuable for their purposes, they are invited to partner with Royal Redeemer to sustain and expand the website.
Synod departments and para-church organizations can maintain their own websites and also use in parallel AblazePartners.net to announce and present some of their offerings. The partner/member base can be built quickly when such an entity uses its own email network to announce their offering on AblazePartners.net and to invite their constituency individually to register with APN.
I am available to provide training and guidance for how to prepare and do webinars. I come with five years experience providing the Ohio District DELTO courses on line and preparing myself five courses for downloading and then live discussion at the appointed Saturday morning time.
I am beginning now to identify and gather resources and also to prime the pump for blog postings.
Dave Luecke
Office (mornings) 440-237-7958 x106
Home (afternoons) 440 838-1985