$240 million lost in Internet Scams

The FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center recently released a report entitled 2007 IC3 Annual Report that $240 million dollars were lost by United States citizens in 2007. IC3 is Internet Crime Complaint Center.

The most common crime was auction fraud. Second was non-delivery of purchased goods or services. Approximately 1/3 of the crimes reported resulted in losses of between $1000 and $5000.

This statement was particularly disturbing to me. "The report also shows the amounts lost increased with age. Victims in their 20s lost $385 on average, while people over 60 reported they lost an average $760 per scam."

We often associate Internet safety issues only with children and youth, but this demonstrates a need to educate adults and older adults on Internet safety issues also.

The Bible on MP3

For several years now I've been listening to audio books. I began listening to cassette tapes and CDs in the car while traveling. More recently I started using an MP3 player. You may be familiar with the IPOD by Apple but there are lots of different MP3 players available starting at very reasonable prices. You can also listen to MP3 files on any computer.

I'm currently listening to The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America by Jim Wallis and Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. I use Audible.com to purchase most of the books I listen to. Not long ago I purchased the NIV Audio Bible from Audible. Today I came across a site that has the entire KJV in MP3 files. You can download just the book you want or the whole Bible.

Happy Listening!

GodTube and YouthGlue

In a recent training session we discussed using YouTube.com to post church video for people to view. Someone expressed a concern because there are some videos on YouTube that might not be appropriate.
An alternative site is GodTube.com. This is a free site. It allows you to upload video and share that with anyone online. I setup an account on GodTube recently. It was simple to do. I posted a video clip that I recorded at the March Forth for Children conference. The video is not great but that is my fault. I was using a new camera and was pushing it to its limits. GodTube proved to be a good site to share this. Click here to see the video.

In the same training session I mentioned above, we talked about using MySpace.com to communicate members of a youth group. Again, because there are things on MySpace that are inappropriate we discussed alternatives. The youth group at my home church, Pilmoor Memorial UMC, uses YouthGlue.com. This is a Christian social networking site. The youth leader has moderation rights on all pages. It has been a success at our church and judging by the testimonials, it has been a success for others as well.

March Forth Wrap-up

Well, the conference is over and I am back to the real world. The conference was wonderful and I met some great people. Lindsey Almond and her team did a great job.

I was very inspired by the folks who spoke in the sharing session we had Saturday morning. Many great ideas were shared but one really stuck with me. I'm sorry I don't remember who told the story. Their children/youth go out into the community to do good deeds and help others. When they do, they wear t-shirts that say "The Church has left the building." What a wonderful way of describing mission work.

Back home on Sunday morning we had our regular UMM meeting. I shared some of the stories from the weekend and told them how proud I was of the UMC and its members.

In Sunday School we talked about Operation Inasmuch which is a program our Church, Pilmoor Memorial UMC, is participating in this year. Operation Inasmuch mobilizes believers in a hands-on local church missions blitz in their community. It offers a proven model of local ministry for any size congregation in any location. This program is another example "the Church has left the building."

Day 1 of March Forth for Children 2008

Day one of the conference has come to a close. My two sessions today were a lot of fun. I had active participants in each group which prompted great discussion. In the first session on Ministry and CyberSpace Landscape I had a Preacher who plays "Call of Duty" and a Youth/Children leader who plays World of Warcraft. Yippee! I also had a participant who maintains a daily devotional on her MySpace page.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I will have the opportunity to speak to the entire group for about 20 minutes.

I got two homework assignments from the groups today and I promised to post the responses back to the blog soon.
1. Provide a review of GodTube.com
2. Report back on the Christian social networking site our youth group uses as a MySpace substitute.

Check out the two pictures I took at the evening session. (They are linked on the right side of the page.) This was my first experience with my new toy, the Vivitar DVR560G camera and camcorder.

Time to close out for now. It has been a long time since 3:00 a.m. this morning.

March Forth Conference Materials

You can find the handout and PowerPoints for the March Forth Conference on the CyberMinistry wiki.

March Forth For Children

The Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church is sponsoring a two-day training event entitled March Forth for Children, Growing Faith-Full Children. The event will take place on March 7th and 8th at Cokesbury UMC in Knoxville Tn.

Breakout sessions will be offered in the areas of Worship, Christian Education, Missions & Social Justice, Family, Fun, and Safety. I will be presenting the two session below each day.

First session - Ministry and the Cyberspace Landscape. Blogs, wikis, podcasts and social networking are all part of the cyberspace landscape. In this session we will explore these and other new technologies discovering how they can be used in ministry. Learn about the potential challenges and how to safely implement them in ministry.

Second session - Cybersafety: Tending 21st Century Sheep
Cyberspace, just like the real world, holds dangers for children and adults. In this session we will
expose the dangers and explore tools and strategies for staying safe.

After the conference I'll post the presentations on this blog.