Just For Fun

I guess there are people who think Jesus is really like this:

 

Fifty Couldn’t Be Better

Being a dad can be the most rewarding thing in the world. There are those times when your heart is so full you don’t think it will hold anymore. This past weekend I had such a time. Although my fiftieth birthday is still a few days away we celebrated over the weekend because our three out-of-town kids were here over their Spring Break. We had a really wonderful dinner at home and retold some funny stories from the kids’ childhood. It was a lot of fun. After dinner our kids brought out some birthday gifts. Jacque (my wife) had told them to be creative, very personal and to not spend much money.

Jessica, our oldest gave me a beautiful scrap book that she had loaded up with stories from her life. On each page she captured a different phase of our life together. Some of the memories were fun and some even a little painful. Each of them express our lives together as father and daughter. Among many other things she said, “I would not be the person I am today without you.” In the back of the book she had written out the words to the song, I Love You, Lord. It’s a song I used to sing to her at bedtime when she was a little girl, and then when she got married I quoted it within the ceremony. It has always been a special song for the two of us. At the bottom of that back page was an envelope and inside was a CD. She and our son Ryan had recorded their own arrangement of the song the night before. Listening to it is just one of those moments for me. It will never get old — go ahead and listen.

Ryan, our fun loving, non-sentimental son (the one who engineered the recording of I Love You Lord, and played drums, keyboards and who knows what else) gave me a card and inside he had written words that I will cherish the rest of my life. While I’m unwilling to share all of them with the world I will proudly say that according to him, I am his hero and inspiration — it doesn’t get any better than that. Along with the card he gave me an N scale, toy train caboose to keep on my desk. He’s always loved trains, and he and I have had some great model train memories over the years. The caboose will remind me of him every time I see it.

My baby girl Aimee made me a beautiful card and mounted it in a floating frame. The card says,

Holds you when you cry, scolds you when you break the rules, shines with pride when you succeed, and has faith in you even when you fail. I love you. Happy 50th.

It summarizes what she knows about me. It will find a special place on my office wall.

Jacque and I are very blessed and proud parents. We’ve got three great kids of our own and two of them have married great kids. Throughout our adult lives people have asked us how we’ve raised such great kids, and while I think the reasons go far beyond this simplistic answer I usually say something like, we spent lots of time together. Much of it around the dinner table sharing the highlights (and sometimes lowlights) from our day, laughing and occasionally crying.

I could keep writing but there’s really no point. God has blessed us and I’m thankful. Turning fifty couldn’t be any better than this

 

Stunned

Have you ever been so shocked by something that you were practically frozen in place and didn’t know what to say. Yesterday after I got home from work Jacque and I were watching the news and catching up on the day when we heard the front door open. That seemed very odd because no one just walks into our house but our kids who live a few miles away and they nearly always call before they drop by. But sure enough when I turned to see who it was there was Jessica. I still didn’t think too much of it, although I wondered why she’d stopped by. Then the, Oops I Crapped My Pants moment: behind Jessica was Aimee, then Ryan and then Claire. All of them standing there with wide grins on their faces, having just flown in from Idaho to surprise Dad.

I was stunned and pretty much totally speechless because I was so shocked. I was full of questions that wouldn’t come out and I couldn’t put all of the pieces together. I was suddenly feeling older than the fifty years they’d come home to celebrate. After a long round of hugs, followed by more stunned silence I figured out my wife Jacque was in on the whole thing. In fact, she’d been planning it since before Christmas. I had no idea any of this was happening. Many other people knee but not me. In fact, most of the people I work with knew and they were able to keep quiet. Not a word, not a even a twitter!

As I went to bed last night I realized how blessed I was to have a wife who would plan such a great surprise — I could not have a better wife than Jacque. I also realized that I had five really amazing kids that I was very proud of and they were all with me to celebrate a milestone in life. Then I remembered Ryan and Claire were down the hallway in Ryan’s old bedroom, sleeping together under my roof for the first time since they got married in December, and Oops, I Crapped My Pants all over again! 

Welcome Home Kids — I love you!

 

The Internet: Center of the Universe

Have you seen the monster.com commercial with the ginormous-legged man pedaling the gyroscope at the center of the earth? That’s one of the first things I thought of when I first heard someone say the internet is the center of the universe. Then in my mind I began seeing someone deep in the earth’s core making all of these connections — kind of antique switchboard style. Then as I allowed my mind to expand and catch up with reality I realized how undeniably true that statement is. 

How many things do you do in in your daily life that have nothing to do with the internet?  For me that’s a short list. I practically live online and I’m not all that young anymore. My kids and the young kids I’m surrounded by at work live their lives more immersed in the digital world than I, which is a little hard to believe. And it just keeps expanding and people continue to dream up new ways of being connected. Just a few days ago I read a brief update in Fast Company that told how we’re not that far away from our appliances being connected to the digital space. Can you imagine having your refrigerator sending you a text message that your milk is going bad and you’d better pick up a fresh gallon?

This past weekend I decided to experiment with Twitter so I went online and created my account and began twitting (you can follow me here but it’s not that exciting). Very quickly I discovered my 21 year old son twitting with some of our creative staff at Premier Studios. So being a good dad I signed up to follow him (that could have been very handy when he was younger). I found out he was sitting in a Saturday class wishing he were sleeping instead. I immediately jumped on iChat and before the program could fully open a window opened with the words, “sup Dad,” and Ryan and I began a chat while he was in class in Idaho and I was sitting in a hotel room more than 1500 miles away.

 

And yes, I told him to get offline and pay attention to the lecture — I may be connected but I’m still a dad.

 

Brand-Experience

I help lead a marketing company that specializes in brand-experience. We not only help develop, define and promote our clients’ brands but we develop strategies to ensure that whenever someone experiences those brands that their experience supports and reinforces the brand. Frequently I think and write about the potential downside of church marketing as in my recent post, The Commoditization of God. Regardless of where you fall on that subject there are certain realities to consider, and one of those is that every church is a brand. 

By brand I’m not talking about your church building, name or even your logo, but rather what is behind those things. What are your priorities, what do you stand for, how do you impact others and contribute to their lives, what is your mission? All of those things and more contribute to your brand. Your brand is the very essence of who you are. Brand is a powerful thing and as a marketer I would say most churches don’t consider how critical of a role it plays. And of course where there’s a brand there is brand-experience.

When I was a pastor I considered myself not only a brand champion but a brand-experience expert — which has translated well into my current role. A large part of my pastoral role was making sure brand and experience were in alignment. While that involved much more than the public gatherings that seems to be a good place to focus. Consider this: when people experience your brand do the two things align? If your brand includes community involvement, how much do people experience that? If it boasts of relevancy how is that experienced? If your brand speaks to the poor and disenfranchised how is that played out when people gather each week?

Just some thoughts that sort of streamed through my mind this week. So, what’s streaming through your mind right now? Is the brand-experience at the church you attend in proper alignment? Let me know your thoughts!

 

The Commoditization of God

As a professional marketer I understand the power of advertising, promotion, public relations and the various ways of placing product in front of the public to increase awareness and sales. Put simply, it’s all about making enough memorable, repeated exposures so when consumers consider purchasing a product in your category they’ll remember yours and make a purchase that adds to your bottom line. 

This last week I read a book review in Advertising Age for Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age. Although I haven’t yet read the book the topic certainly got my attention. I’ve been thinking lately about how churches should market themselves, and although I’ve not developed any iron clad theories it seems the Bible’s idea of people sharing the good news with each other is a great way to start. 

Two things in this review especially caught my attention: The first was this, The book’s author, Mara Einstein calls religion a “commodity … packaged and sold the same way as other marketed goods and services.” To me that implies there is money to be made which seems to be somewhat of a mockery. While I hope people don’t view religion or God as a commodity my fear is that many may. Second, the author states that, “If spiritual hunger isn’t driving people to the big-box style of worship, then eventually the religious consumer is “going to feel disappointed.” This is a statement I agree with.

While I believe God can use a wide variety of ways to create spiritual hunger, I question the long term effectiveness of slick campaigns or exposure events. Sure, they may produce quicker results than people sharing the good news with each other one at a time but I’m not convinced the result is as long-lasting as what might be possible otherwise. In addition, once this pattern begins what needs to happen to maintain momentum? Does the weekly battle to “top the previous week” only further erode the real value of the gospel and increase the level of commoditization? 

What are your thoughts?

 

Love and Forgiveness

It was a little more than 15 years ago but I still remember it very clearly. I had a rather long commute to work those days, mostly freeway driving so I had plenty of time for processing thought. As I exited one freeway and merged onto another my thoughts led me to a fresh understanding of God’s love. I’m not sure why it had taken me so many years to come to this conclusion but I finally realized that God’s love was independent of my actions. It was a freeing day for me to know there was nothing I could do to make God love me any more than He already did, and nothing I could do to make Him love me any less.

It sounds simple enough on the surface, but in so many ways that fresh understanding set me free of some excess baggage, and opened the door to a new level in understanding the depth of God’s love. That was probably the beginning of what I’m now referring to as, Hoopless Christianity. I think it also contributed to many of the questions I’ve been exploring in more recent years: the largest of which has to do with God’s love and forgiveness.

The basic question is this: Is God’s love for us separate from His forgiveness? Can those two things be distinct? Can they be independent of each other or are they inextricably connected? That’s the heart of my most recent thinking. I feel like I’ve only begun this exploration but Id like to spend some time writing about this in the coming days and weeks. So, give me your thoughts so I can combine those with some of my own streams of conscious thinking. Are God’s love and forgiveness separate expressions?

A parting thought: As I’ve been exploring this general question I’ve had a growing sense of gratitude for God’s love and forgiveness. It’s a daily realization that I’ve been given a gift that is greater than I can imagine, and I’ve done nothing to deserve it. Let me hear from you!

 

G Songs

This past Thursday I had a really great experience during my daily commute. I drive about 10 miles along surface streets to get to work in the morning, so depending on traffic it can take as long as 30 minutes. On this particular morning I wasn’t in the mood for the usual NPR so I pulled out my headphones and plugged them into my iPhone (please don’t send any comments about the dangers of driving with headphones) and launched my iPod. The song list was right where I’d left it a few days prior, which was in the G’s. 

The first song that played was David Crowder’s Glorious Day. Now it’s less than 30 seconds long but what a cool start — sort of an invocation. From there it was Glory in the Highest by Chris Tomlin, which just sort of continued where Crowder left off. Up next was the sounds of Steely Dan, singing Godwhacker. Quite a contrast to the previous two but what a great contrast it was. From there it was Tony Bennett singing the Good Life followed by Got To Get You Into My Life by Earth, Wind & Fire. How could you not like that? Then came my favorite song of the morning, Grace by Michael W. Smith. By the time I parked my car and walking to my office I was pretty much positioned for the day. 

Then on the way home I decided I should pick up right where I left off. Again, the title was Grace but this time it was U2. Different from Michael W. Smith but it’s still Grace. Then came Paul Simon singing Graceland, followed by John Mayer’s Gravity. As I pulled into the garage Paul Baloche was just ending A Greater Song. My entire commute was jammed with great music.

Now I could pontificate about how all of those songs had some sort of spiritual meaning for me, or how they spoke to my soul on a deep level. I could probably even tie them all together for you with some type of God metaphor. After all, God also begins with the letter G. But I’m not going to do that — even though much of it would be true. I’m just going to challenge you to turn on your iPod some day and pick a letter. Not an artist or an album, but a letter. Just let it play and see what happens. It’s like eating a potluck dinner at an old country church. Enjoy!

 

Hell, Yes? or No?

My older brother and I have been having an ongoing discussion in recent months about hell. The discussion centers on whether a loving God would actually send someone to hell. My brother maintains that God would not do that. It’s not like my brother is some kind of God-hating liberal with no understanding of Christianity. He is a somewhat conservative, Republican, Evangelical pastor who has come to this conclusion over several years. 

I don’t spend a lot of time on You Tube but occasionally I run across something that is just too “good” to ignore. I’m quite sure that some will be offended by watching this, and that’s ok. There’s some real truth to what is being said. Some of it has to do with hell, and some of it just has to do with the mixed messages we as Christians send to those around us when we say things like, Jesus Loves You!

My general feeling is that we’ve made Christianity much more confusing than God ever intended (we’ve done the same thing to church). We’ve somehow separated God’s love from His forgiveness, I’ll write more about that soon. For now, take a look at the video and let me know what you think. Hell, Yes? or No?

 

Boutique Churches

In the late 80’s I was Worship Pastor in a brand new church in Phoenix, AZ. One Sunday I created quite a buzz when I walked on stage and opened the service by singing the theme song from Cheers. The premise was simple and straightforward: Sometimes you want to go, where everybody knows your name. We sincerely wanted people to think of our church whenever they thought about hanging out with friends; with people who knew their name. While singing this song in church doesn’t seem all that creative 20 years later, I still think it represents a worthwhile goal for a church to pursue.

I’m reading a book called Microtrends. It’s a fascinating look at emerging trends around the world and the implications of those trends for our lives. The author cites a trend of organized religion being on the rise but it is now switching over to what he calls the Starbucks economy and the growth of the Mini-Church. These Mini-Churches (could also be called Boutique Churches) are “tailored to as many individual preferences as we can come up with. These days you can choose your faith, and your prayer community in practically as many varieties as you can choose your morning coffee.”

As I’ve thought about this I’ve wondered what would happen if this trend grew from a micro trend to a much more major trend. This could have a major impact on the church landscape in this country. What if churches were much more boutique in nature and catered to small niches of people. Not only would those who attend know everyone else’s name but they’d probably know much more about one another. On one hand I’m not sure this is all bad. From another perspective this only further supports the consumeristic tendencies so much of the American church landscape leans toward. From still another point of view this could lead to small, elitist churches where only certain people feel welcomed and comfortable.

So, what are your thoughts on these so-called Boutique Churches? Good thing, bad thing? Could it ultimately attract more people to Christ, or just shuffle the already convinced around from boutique to boutique? What do you think this trend could bring about?