Well, I went to add some books for Re:Train today, and adding a book no longer worked. After some searching, I found that my version of Now Reading was outdated and a new version, Now Reading Reloaded, was released, bringing with it a slightly new management interface and full functionality. Installed it and everything is working correctly.

I highly recommend Now Reading Reloaded to anyone who wants to track books on their blog.

Churches larger than 1000

Churches between 501 and 1,000 attendance

• 0% of respondents who were Non-Christians said their going to church was influenced by the church website.
• 6% of participating churches had a gospel presentation on their website.
• 27% of the respondents said the church website was how they first learned about the church.

For Visitors (attending the church for under 3 months)

• 77% said the church website was somewhat to very important in my decision to attend the church.
• 83% said the church website was somewhat to very important in facilitating their participation in the church community.

For Beginners (3-6 months)

• 45% said the church website was somewhat to very important for their ongoing discipleship and spiritual growth.
• 73% said the church website was somewhat to very important in sharing their faith with others (friends, business colleagues, others)

Regulars (6+ months)

• 27% said they visit the church website more than once a week.
• Feature Rated Most important: Listen or ability to download Sermons.
• Most requested functionality: Ability to post prayer requests or needs.

While the popularity of Facebook facilitates broad connectivity, I believe it does so at the expense of intimacy. Intimacy is what we really want. But because we are lazy and fearful creatures, we’ll settle for connectivity, because connectivity suggests intimacy but without all the bother. It’s like fooling around before marriage: lots of fun but without the danger of pregnancy or the psychological commitment of intercourse.

While Facebook connects me to people at one level (I have more “friends” than I’ve ever had — I feel so popular!), at another level it makes it harder to really connect with people. This is especially true when I take my Facebook responsibilities seriously — that is, read friends’ status updates, regularly post my own, and send messages to friends. It’s a lot of fun when I have the time. But it’s a huge distraction.

…

as we are slowly learning in this techie age, electronic communication is a poor substitute for audible conversation and physical presence with another. There’s a reason God created us with bodies, and why bodily presence is necessary to create and sustain truly meaningful human relationships.

Instead, for most of us most of the time, Facebook is relational entertainment. And like all forms of entertainment, it is a gift of the Creator of joy. It can temporarily distract us from our routines and problems, and offer brief spurts of happiness. It seems more human than television, but in the end, it’s an extension of television. It’s interactive reality television. We read about the daily plotlines of other characters, and add our own plot twists and witty dialogue, and then talk to others about what we read and said around the office coffee machine.

• ecto – RSS Post Editor Client (+ Platform)
• NetNewsWire – RSS Reader (OS X Only)
• Transmit – FTP Client (OS X Only)
• WeatherMenu – Menubar Utility that displays current weather, radar, forecast, etc (OS X Only)
• mail.appetizer – Utility to display in floating window the content of emails as they are received (OS X Only)
• AudioHijack – Records any audio playing on your Mac (OS X Only)
• Synchronize! X Plus – Syncs a Documents folder on my iPod to the Documents folder on my home G4 (OS X Only)
• Synergy – Provides menubar control for iTunes as well as display in floating window of Song and Album Title and Album Cover (OS X Only)