Worry and Stress

I have realized over time that I don't easily get stressed out and I am not usually a worrier. This is really nice because emotionally I tend to be much more evenly distributed. I imagine this makes for an easier life in general.

There are, however, times when I do get a little stressed out. This is how that process goes for me.

It always involves something important to me, for example relationships.

I am very much a thinker, and when something happens I will usually try and think through all the possible scenarios that I can imagine. I also tend to want to be prepared for all scenarios. In my opinion the scenarios that require the most preparation are the worst case scenarios. This usually means that the scenarios I tend to dwell on as to what might happen are the worst case scenarios. The combination of dwelling on the negative possibility and the whole subject being important to me will start to worry me and give me a bit of anxiety.

What I have been working on more recently is realizing that a)I am not as smart as I sometimes think I am and that means that I probably don't know exactly what other people are thinking, b)worrying rarely does any good and I probably won't be able to change something even if I do, and c)It is so much more helpful/useful/rewarding to give all this worry and stress up to God.

God is in control, and as long as I trust in his goodness, power, and plan then it doesn't really matter what happens.

Is Marketing Evil?

Check out Seth Godin's recent post as to whether marketing is evil.

The answer, in a nutshell, is that it can be. Just like almost everything in the world, marketing can be used for evil purposes. This doesn't mean, however, that marketing is inherently evil.

I have found that especially with some Christians I have met, they cringe at the word marketing when it relates to Church and God. I strongly believe that marketing can be good, and used for good purposes.

I would also recommend checking out Church Marketing Sucks post on Seth's post. I really loved the quote:

Those who think the church should never be involved in marketing by
saying we aren't "selling" a product etc. should let that sentence
marinate. While I understand the word "sell" is tough to swallow isn't
selling about consuming and don't we want people to consume the Word
and who Christ is?

In the end, I think the key is what you market. If the thing you are marketing is good (like God) is there a way that it can be marketed poorly or bad? Marketing, like Seth Godin says, is all about telling a story, and as long as you are telling the truth your marketing is just an extension of the thing you are marketing.

Use of Space

A follow up to a previous post about adaptive spaces and getting full use out of a space.

I was thinking that if certain rooms in your house are only used 1/8 to 1/3 of the day, and that is not very good use, then Churches are even worse offenders.

Assuming even 4 hours of Worship services a week (which I will assume is even a high average) and there are 168 hours in a week, these places are sitting empty and unused for almost 98% of the time. I think I would find it difficult to reconcile that if I were going to be building a new Church building. Now, this of course doesn't ring true for every Church. There are many churches that meet in schools, such as my friend Luke Mundy's church RVC Fresno.

As well, from what I understand, the Mormon's do a better job than most at utilizing space, including multiple "congregations" using the same buildings

In one sense, the local Church meetinghouse is a religious building principally dedicated to Sabbath worship but is also used for social, educational, and community activities during the other days of the week.
-From Mormon Church

Check out this page which illustrates possible uses of money that would be available if all the real estate owned by churches in the United States was sold. While you might not agree with all the ways that money should be spent, it is very interesting to see what kind of impact could be made with this change of thinking.

This was also something my family talked about as we visited Saddleback Church a couple of weeks ago. We found out that Saddleback Church has around 100,000 members, of which around 25,000 are very active. While the main campus we visited seemed at first glance huge, daunting, and maybe even over the top, it probably is a better use of resources than a bunch of smaller churches each having their own buildings etc.

According to this site the median church in the U.S. has 75 regular participants in worship on Sunday mornings and an average of 186 attenders. Let's split up the 100,000 members of Saddleback by 125 people in a regular congregation and we come up with a whopping 800 different churches. That means 800 church buildings and parking lots. I don't know the exact number, but I would wager a lot of money saying that Saddleback doesn't come anywhere close to the square footage of 800 separate churches. This just goes to show the efficiency of scaling up, especially in churches.

What do you think?

Church Giveaways

Reading this article at Church Marketing Sucks reminds me of my post on attracting people.

Maybe this church focuses on an "Old Testament" view of God.

Reaching the World (Wide Web)

As a Christian it is important to reach the rest of the world that doesn't know Jesus. One of the biggest complaints I've heard about the Church is that it is a social club only for its members. While myself and I'm sure many other Christians see the validity in this view, sometimes it is hard to know how to get out of that rut and reach people who aren't already sitting next to you.

One thing I love seeing, and hope dearly it is working, is Churches just trying different things. As a big user of technology and someone that is almost never separated from e-mail/facebook/Internet/twitter it is cool too see Christians and Churches using and utilizing some of these technologies.



Church Marketing Sucks pointed to a Church that projected a Twitter feed onto the big screen at the front of the church and actually encouraged people to contribute to the sermon and the worship experience of every participant. Reading about this from someone who was one of the driving forces behind the experiment, it sounds like it was a success. People could comment on different aspects of the service/sermon or even carry out a public dialog about what was being said/felt/experienced. I bet this would make for a much closer knit community especially if more dialog was encouraged after the service (in a face-to-face environment). Plus it would be a lot more acceptable to read from a digital bible.

I truly think these are the types of things that Churches should be trying, because what worked 5-10-50 years ago probably won't be effective in today's world. Although this will not work in every situation, every Church, for every person, but each Church has to find their own niche.

Not to toot my own horn, but I actually thought something like this would be an interesting idea a few years ago. I think I was sitting in on one of my Dad's sermon's and I thought it might be a cool idea to make it more of a collaborative effort with the entire congregation. My idea involved laptops and tablet PCs and more of an IM format, but it would accomplish a very similar outcome. I think this might also be very useful if a number of people in the group are not clear on something. Either the pastor or the rest of the group can see this immediately and react and adapt the message.

What do you think?

Honestly, I'm not Texting.

With a great phone comes great responsibility, or at least it seems that way. My new phone can do so much that I feel the rest of the world isn't ready for it.

I have two bible translations on my phone and I use them especially in Church. I enjoy not having to lug around my large bible when I go, especially when I'm riding my scooter to Church. This has the problem of it looking like I'm texting in Church. It might actually be more of an issue for me than other people looking at me, but I just feel guilty even if I'm just following along with the scripture reading.

Similarly, Ben Terrett of Noisy Decent Graphics is suffering from the same issue in meetings where he is taking notes using his iPhone. He feels like he needs to start every meeting off with an apology if he needs to use his phone for note taking.

Should we have to apologize for using technology around people? Is it just necessary to apologize to the people that aren't as technology savvy as us or as trusting of us?

What do you think?

Daniel 1-3

While waiting for my car to be fixed I read from Daniel ch. 1-3. It
was great to read about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego's
amazing faith. God rescued them from certain death with miracles.

This makes me think about this news story:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,341574,00.html

As well as the fictional story of the man who turned down three rescue
attempts from a flood because he was convinced God was going to save
him. He died and on arrival to heaven, the man asked God why he didn't
save him and God replied "I tried three different times, but you
didn't take any of them".

I guess this shows that we not only need to have faith, but also
realize that God doesn't just work using hollywood style miracles.

Jesus is the Answer

I was listening to my Andrae Crouch Pandora radio station this morning and the first song was "Jesus is the Answer" by Andrae Crouch.

When I listen to songs like this my spirit gets a boost and I just feel good. I will share that with you now.




http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zfemys4COh4

Attracting People

Sitting in Church this morning something (and don't even ask what, cause I can't remember) reminded me of a story I heard from my dad about a Church giving away a Hummer to attract people to their services.

This got me thinking about what are acceptable means and what are unacceptable means of attracting people to a Church. I think this should somehow link into building trust, but I'm looking at this a little more specifically than that.

There are a few other stories I found that relate to this concept. A Church has given away iTunes gift cards/songs to attract people to an "i" themed sermon series, and maybe slightly different is Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois who has a car donation program where they give cars to single moms and families in need of a car.

I guess the question should be "Where do we draw the line in trying to attract people to the Church and God's Kingdom?" or "Is there nothing too controversial when it comes to this task?"

I am operating under the assumption here that the Church's goal is to help people, and the ultimate way to help someone is to bring them into the Kingdom. (Simplified of course, but I think it is a fairly accurate simplification).

Is there a difference between giving away a Hummer, 1800+ used cars, iTunes gift cards, and donuts and coffee on a Sunday morning?

If I were to take a guess I would say the best option is to help the most people and make the biggest possible impact for all those you are helping.

What do you think?