@stickyJesus. Toni Birdsong
my best friend and husband, Dale, thanks for lavishly loving and supporting me over these past thirty-six years of life. Your faithfulness to love me, as Christ loves church and gave His life for it, has drenched my life with fullness and the fire to stand with you as a witness until He comes again.
To my daughter, Zoë, and her husband, Matt, I am grateful for your encouragement and for the many hours you listened to me go on and on and on about what God is making possible in such a time as this. You could not bring me any greater joy as I watch you whole-heartedly follow the God-sized plan for your lives. You inspire me.
Mom, Dad, and George—oh yes, I hear you cheering me on from on high. All three of you always liked the front row of the bleachers. Katherine, thankyou for everythingyou are and for always being a remarkable Mother-in-Law to me.
To ALL the spiritual leaders in my life—thank you. I want to specifically acknowledge Sister Rita for teaching me Freshman English and making it perfectly clear that the only reason or purpose for my life was to know, love, and serve God. To Pastor Ken and Nancy Wilson, thanks for living authentic faith and being indescribably lovely. To Pastor David Landrith, thanks not only for how you shepherd my soul and shower me with truth, but also for using Twitter to connect my heart to a completely infectious crazy love in Jeremie, Haiti. In 140 characters you first took me to Haiti to find Johnny's family and now after all that has followed, my life will never be the same.
I must extend a special helping of gratitude to my dear friend, Lisa Rollins, and my pup, Kali. If it were not for the two of you—I might, just might, have missed Facebook.
To Mike Hyatt, the thank you list for you includes a thousand things, but on this occasion thank you for leading me to the point of WOW, where geek and God intersect.
To Toni—thanks for your obedience, willing heart, and tireless passion. You are a testimony to the power of a single tweet and how God always dreams bigger dreams for our lives than we possibly could. \0/
And to all the people that God has put in my life—yes, all of you—thank you for leaving fingerprints on my being and letting God use you to stretch the size of my heart from here to the ends of the earth for His glory.
Tami & Toni thank.
To the team at Birdsong Creative—Troy Birdsong, Matt Green, Ai Nguyen, Todd Lyda, and David Calhoun. Thank you for your ingenuity and commitment, and for putting wings on a very precious thing. To Maurilio Amorim and Shannon Litton—for your friendship, counsel, and support. Thanks for supplying lots of laughter when we needed it the most.
To the team at Abingdon Press (United Methodist Publishing House). Thank you for your vision on this project and for using your influence in this world to equip others to #LiveSticky in the online world for Jesus Christ.
To Dale Heim for letting us camp out over these many months and for resisting changing the locks. You kept the coffee flowing and blessed us with a consistent stream of inspiration, generosity, and kindness. We love you (and Kali girl) for sticking with us.
To Dimples Kellogg, our exceptional copyeditor, and our eagle-eyed proofreaders Carrie Marrs and Kevin Harvey. It takes a village of passionate perfectionists to tame a manuscript—and our village rocked. Thank you all.
To our Women in Christian Media (WCM) sisterhood. Your awakened hearts, encouragement, and fire for the gospel spur us on.
To Amy Parker for angel prayers that carried us and for being a loyal colleague, sister, and friend.
To our Facebook and Twitter friends (we do call you friends). Thank you for #keepingitreal, inspiring us daily to record (and echo) God's movement online, and for living out your faith so passionately for team Jesus. A special thanks to those who opened their hearts and shared their sticky stories of courage, compassion, and hope in these pages. You are Digital Scribes™—true pioneers—for the Kingdom. It's our honor and joy to #LiveSticky with you daily and light up the online space in His name, for His fame.
| file 00 | introduction: what's sticky got to do with it? |
@stickyJesus My message clings to people's hearts—forever.
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Hey! Just wanted to share a quick note with you...since we've become Facebook friends I really look to you for inspiration. I have been through a lot in the last three years. Some days are better than others. When I read your posts I realize that life is a journey and God has a plan. Some days I actually feel like He is working through you to talk to me. Anyway, I did something crazy tonight...I found a church with a ladies' Bible study near my house and actually went! I feel really, really good. Actually, I can't wait to go back. I can't explain it. I wantedyou to be the first to know.
This post, sent to us from our Facebook friend Melissa Paolo-Corcoran, is just one of the thirty billion pieces of content exchanged on Facebook each month by the seven hundred fifty million people (to date) now connecting daily on the largest social networking site on the planet.
The sheer volume of human connection and conversation taking place on social networking sites daily is mind-blowing. But what's more awesome is that at the heart of the digital note you just read is the sticky love of Jesus Christ.
Sticky. It means different things to different people. To marketers, sticky is the Holy Grail, what it's all about. It's the secret sauce in an advertising message that helps it hit the mark, get attention, and move people to act. A "sticky message" stays around longer than most.
But we define sticky in a whole new way—a way that relates to Jesus and His message. Sticky holds fast, adheres, and clings to the heart of every generation. Sticky is an eternal message independent of time, change, and cyberspace. It's the supernatural movement of God unaffected by Wi-Fi, bandwidth, or gigabytes. A sticky message is unyielding to cultural fodder or trends. It's a holy whisper in a noisy land.
Of all the messages the world has ever heard, the gospel is still the stickiest. The good news is that God's message is your message, which makes your presence and voice online wholly (and holy) indispensable!
This book is for every Christ follower residing on this side of heaven. It's for those who realize—and those who have yet to understand—the awesome moment into which we've been born. It's for technology novices, casual surfers, and those already folded comfortably into the online world.
Wherever you are in your skill level, it's time to direct your heart toward the sticky things of God.
We challenge you as a Christ follower to change your mind-set of the way you spend your time online. We challenge believers around the world to forgo denomination, sit in the same pew, and write this ongoing story together and share new ways to reach a fragmented world for Christ.
Together, we can light up the online space. We can "go" and we can "tell" as Jesus asked each of us to do. And we can change absolutely everything.
Changing the world doesn't begin with knowing technology; it begins with knowing Christ. In Sticky Jesus we will equip you for the online world by looking to the Equipper, Jesus. We will show you how He connected, created community, and ignited a buzz the world has yet to replicate. We will look at His character, His process, and His priorities and how you can echo His heart online.
In these pages we will do the following:
Explore how Christ honored and built relationships and how you can do the same online.
Give you a practical understanding of the marketing-driven culture online.
Point to the Holy Spirit as your Power Source.
Provide personal stories that show God moving and transforming lives through social networking channels.
Summarize each file with a download and a prayer that are 100 percent retweetable.
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