make yourself a god

I have a friend who posts the most obnoxious stuff on Facebook. It’s worse than chain posts… it’s worse than Farmville. He constantly posts “deep” philosophical thoughts in order to create a conversation. He says things like:

What if for every element of the human condition there is a seprate (sic) individual and equally unified plane of the universe; for every universe there are infinite universes; and this infinite is what you all call god?

(I’m gambling and assuming that he isn’t going to read this blog post since he is neither a Christian nor interested in communications strategies)

He will post stuff like that and receive up to 50 or 60 comments from people engaging in a conversation about the thing he said.

I don’t see anything wrong with people using the internet to create discussions. The things he posts annoy me, but ultimately I support the idea of what he is doing. However, I got to thinking about something.

The internet has created an opportunity for anyone (and I mean anyone) to publish their ideas and potentially create a following. Their ideas don’t have to be logical, lucid, or even coherent. All they have to do is write whatever pops up into their head and take themselves too seriously.  

20 years ago these people would go unheard because book publishers would never give them the time of day. Now, thanks to social media, people can create a following and set up little, individual community based around their ideas.

So, now we have millions of little, personal, social media shrines dedicated to the ideas of millions of different people.

The internet has made it easier than ever to make ourselves gods.

don’t give up

Don’t give up… no matter how much  you want to.

the worst

I don’t usually like to blatantly point out flaws in church communication. Don’t get me wrong, I will tell you my opinion of something that is pervasive in church culture… But rarely will I point to someone doing something horrendous and tell you to look at them.

Today, I make an exception.

I give you, Evangel Cathedral… the perfect example of what to not do with your church’s website.

the myth of christian relevancy

Let’s be real for a second.

The whole “relevant” thing is played out. The idea of being relevant to your culture began as a way to get Christians to stop isolating themselves from the rest of the world. But just like every good thing that gets mass-produced and corporatized, the push for Christian relevancy has come around full circle and started eating itself.

Look at Relevant Magazine. I have no beef with them. They talk about some really cool music and have quality cultural observations. But pay attention to the advertisements. Every single ad in Relevant has something to do with Christian culture. The ads are for Christian musicians, Bible colleges, Christian conferences, and Christian books.

The people willing to put their money into Relevant Magazine are Christians. If the church was actually being relevant to culture, we would see a much bigger representation of culture in our church. If Relevant Magazine was actually relevant to non-Christians, non-Christians would be putting their money into advertising in the magazine.

“Relevant” churches are doing the same thing as the magazine. We listen to preachers that use relevancy buzz words like “authenticity”. Our worship teams play music from bands who smoke, have tattoos, and use delay pedals. We decorate our churches like all of the other churches do (would a deep crimson or a hunter green look better as an accent wall in this chocolate brown room?) We have come around full circle and become a brand new, cookie cutter church culture that is just as irrelevant as it has always been.

So, what is my solution? We stop trying to be what we aren’t. We stop buying into the myth that if we serve expensive coffee and have vintage Fender guitar amps that we will make a difference in the culture around us. There is no universal formula for engaging your community.

Our focus should not be on being relevant to an irrelevant church society. Our focus should be on channeling the creativity that God has given us into engaging our culture.

This looks different in your church than it does mine. You are a much better judge of what your community looks like than I am. Don’t listen to me. Don’t listen to other churches. Don’t listen to the conferences. Listen to your people.

gourmet christianity

The word “gourmet” doesn’t mean anything.

It used to mean something. It used to mean that something was quality, exotic, or made from the finest ingredients.

However, the word has been used as an adjective so many times for so many things (whether they be quality or not) that it has lost its meaning. It has gone the way of “premium” or “fancy”. (Even Folger’s now makes Gourmet Coffee… and it tastes just as bad as regular Folger’s)

The word “gourmet” has now come full circle. When I see the word “gourmet” I automatically assume that the product is cheap and commercialized. I assume that the company selling the product is using empty words to make up for a lack of quality. For me, “gourmet” now means the exact opposite thing that it used to.

What words do we use in the church that communicate the opposite of what they are supposed to because of our misuse of them?

Here are some that come to mind: “exciting”, “excellence”, “authentic”, “dynamic”, “relevant” … not to mention “Christian”.

ira glass and the art of the story

Back in February my wife and I went with a friend to see Ira Glass of the radio program This American Life speak at Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL. The talk was delightful. Glass balanced poignant social commentary with a quick wit and robust creativity. His talk created a lot of really interesting points, most notably one about storytelling.

Glass explained how he likes to structure his stories. He presents his programs by delivering a steady stream of action, one exciting plot movement after another, followed by a brief moment to unpack what just transpired. He then repeats this throughout the entire telling of the story. This method allows for the hearer to stay engaged by a stream of action, and allows them to take periodic moments to digest the information throughout the story.

He talked about how, at the beginning of his career, he thought that he had developed this method of storytelling on his own. Then he went back home to visit his family and attended a service at his family’s synagogue. The Rabbi preached a sermon with the exact same structure that Glass used to tell his stories. He realized that not only had pastors been delivering sermons in this way for centuries, but that the entire Bible is laid out in a similar structure.

His method of storytelling was as old as the Torah itself.

We all tell stories. Some of us preach sermons. Some of us write newsletter articles. Most of us send emails. All of us talk to other people. How can we use storytelling methods like this one to better engage people in our communications?

overcoming a lack of diversity

I’ve heard it a million times…

“Our church needs to reach more ___ people”

The blank could be filled with the adjectives “young”, “poor”, “not-white”, or any other variety of socio-economic identifiers.

Here’s the problem that I see most often: You want to reach (young, old, poor, black, gay, sick, addicted) people, but you are unwilling to change the way you do business. There are certain elements of certain churches that indentify differently to certain people. If your church is only attracting middle-class white people it isn’t because poor minorities don’t know how awesome your church is. It is because poor minorities are looking for something different in a church.

There are a few solutions:

1.  Change everything about your church. Change your pastor to make him/her more relatable to the demographic. Change your music to be more relevant to different types of people. Change your church’s location to be in the middle a community that you want to reach (poor people from the inner city will not drive 30 minutes to the suburbs to go to church).
2.  Give up trying to reach people who are different than your church’s demographic. Decide to focus on areas that you are strong.
3. Go into the community and serve people and minister to them where they already are… don’t expect them to come to you.

I’m just going to throw this out there… option 3 is probably the way to go.

web first

If you want your website to be the main source of information for your church you have to start by making some changes to how you do things.

First, always think “web first”. Whenever you publish new information, put it on the website before you print it in a bulletin or in a newsletter.

Print less information. Some people will not take the time to use the website if they can keep doing things the way that they always have. Sometimes you need to just stop printing certain information, especially if it mostly pertains to a web-based demographic in your church (i.e. you’ll probably want to keep the knitting circle in the bulletin).

Put your website everywhere. Put in on announcement slides. Put it in your bulletin. Put it in the newsletter. Put it on your bumper stickers and coffee mugs and pens.

Give an extra incentive for website users. Post videos early. Give out exclusive information. Give them a behind the scenes look. Think “bonus features” …like on a DVD.

a crappy apology

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the world doesn’t apologize. The people who hold and seek power in this world blame other people or their circumstances for their mistakes. Unless they get cornered and have no other option, they will always find a scapegoat to take the blame for them.

Because of this, apologizing well is probably the best opportunity we have to show the love of Christ on a day-to-day basis. It’s not often that we hear people take responsibility for their actions. Christians are able to step into that void and do the one thing we can do to help to heal wounds and relieve pain: we can say “I’m sorry”.

We all make mistakes. When we do, it is our responsibility to apologize for them

With this incredible opportunity, there is always a strong temptation to yield to pride… and few things reek of pride like a crappy apology.

A crappy apology is one in which we divert blame from ourselves. We say things like “I’m sorry, but…” or “I’ve had a really rough week” or “There is only so much I can take”. A crappy apology is just an ineffective as not apologizing at all because when we apologize poorly we are not actually accepting the blame… which is the whole point of apologizing in the first place.

If you aren’t accepting full blame you aren’t apologizing.

So, what does a real apology look like?

– A lot of silence… we let the other person talk and tell us how they feel, regardless of how much we disagree with them. We let the other person say whatever they want to say, even if it hurts our feelings or our pride.

– Accepting full responsibility… Don’t say “I’m sorry, but…” Don’t tell the person about how their actions may have led you to make the bad decision that you made. Don’t blame your circumstances. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t slept well this week or that work has been stressful. Just apologize.

– Making the person you hurt feel love and respect… After you take responsibility it is then your job to do your best to make that person feel respected. If you have hurt them, they have a wound. Heal it the best you can with your words.

– Patience… Sometimes the person you hurt will need a little bit of time to get over it. They will forgive you when they are ready to. Don’t re-ignite your anger because they needed a few days to think it over and settle their feelings.

Jesus took his love and devotion for us to the cross. We should be able to humble ourselves enough to deliver a solid apology.

clean web design

My friend Nic Gibson is the pastor of Highpoint Church in Madison, WI. The other day I was trying to go to his church’s website to hear one of his messages. For some reason when I was typing in the url I decided to add an “e” to the end of “Hightpoint” (making it Highpointe). This took me to the website of Highpointe Church in Puyallup, WA.

Highpointe Church’s website is incredible…

First of all, the website has tons of blank white space, which I love. Secondly, the large cover image is a vibrant, colorful leaf (I visited this website back in the fall, so it was seasonally appropriate). The photo is striking and eye-catching. Everything is laid out in a cohesive, clean, geometric design. The website makes sense. It’s unbelievably easy to navigate.

Great job!