Over the past few years as technology has continued to come out with new things each and every day - from ipods to iphones and everything in between, many run for the last gadget while others scoff at those who spend time with such foolishness. “Why in the world would you waste your time writing on a blog to people you don’t know and you don’t know if they are going to read?” “Why would you TWITTER, what isn’t that like inviting stalkers to follow you throughout your day?” Somewhere, sometime, some people just miss the deeper ability that comes from these technologies. The use of blogs, twitter, iphones, wifi laptops, internet and many other things have lead to something I call CONNECT-OLOGY . . .

Dictionary.com defines it this way ________________. That right as far as I can tell it isn’t a word. I did find it used a few times in relation to a business by that name, but this word just came out the other day in a conversation I was having with someone about my use of technology and why it is important to me. I was explaining the value of things like blogs and twitter to my friend Josh (an amazing multicultural worship leader) and one of the statements I made was, “this is more than technology, it is CONNECT-OLOGY!”

Here is how CONNECT-OLOGY works:

@jake_the_intern (twitter tag) was a worship leader in the youth ministry I lead and left to help with a church plant called theVINE. I was checking out their website one day and found a few blogs for staff members. One really caught my attention. Rebecca Moon - worship design for theVINE . . . she would share things they were doing and how they were doing it. From there I sent her and email without knowing her and asked if she would be willing to help give some design advice for REVOLUTION Mission Camp. She was willing and did - not only that, later theVINE really stepped up and trusted the ministry God had entrusted to us and loaned us some expense equipment. How did all of this come together . . . CONNECT-OLOGY

How about this . . . as the friendship between our ministries started to grow, I began to read Rebecca’s blog - Nikki (my wife) meet Rebecca and started reading her blog - Rebecca started to read ours and then we started to follow each other on twitter (watch here if you don’t know twitter), some call it stalking - but whatever it is . . . a few weeks ago @rebeccamoon (twitter tag) shared a prayer request about some friends who needed prayer. They were about to deliver at 31 weeks - I was on a road trip with Weatherly at the time, but got the message through CONNECT-OLOGY started to pray and later was able to send Kent and Candice (two people I have never meet) an encouraging video about Weatherly being born early and becoming a health 4.5 year old. I have been able to follow how Ella Claire is doing by following @kent633 (twitter tag) on twitter and through their blog - what is all of that? CONNECT-OLOGY

Can you think of a time where you have experienced CONNECT-OLOGY?