Is there a problem here?...

The problem with the most Churches today is they expend a majority of their resources keeping their existing congregation entertained. They’ve made the relationship with God into just another thing to do. Week in and out, you go and get your religon-card punched and call yourself faithful. Dare I say it; Churches are more concerned with keeping their existing congregation coming to Church rather than spreading the Good News. I find this to be an incredible contradiction to the very foundation of our Faith. If the goal is to grow and to spread the Gospel, then to maintain headcount by preventing attrition is in contradiction to that goal. Here’s the Truth, the message will keep them faithful if it’s truly faith your are providing.

Even in my own professional arena we hit our current constituency with approximately 90% of our own messaging. That leaves roughly 10% of the resources left to grow constituency. However, our goal is to grow constituency by adding 2 million more names. Anyone else see the flaw?

Reverse that number and concentrate instead on growth. Get out into the community and provide interactive services to at risk or people in need. Expose all people to the Church by providing for the needy, offering quality family entertainment, and most of all, live as an example of Christ. Use popular media to promote the great things you are doing, and people will begin to associate what you are with positive feelings. Those feelings should grow into a curiosity to find out “why are these Christians so happy all of the time, how can they accomplish so much good in this world?” Here are some ideas I came up with on the fly:

Forget having the latest Christian band to play for your congregation; spend that money on a ‘free’ ski bus to send a group of folks up the mountain (seriously, you’d have a captive audience to witness to. Money well spent if you ask me).

Cancel that world renowned speaker you have scheduled and provide a ‘free’ street breakfast downtown.

Don’t put all of that energy into create 100+ small groups (my own Church has well over 200 small groups); reconfigure them to be community volunteer groups who actively seek opportunities to serve at soup kitchens, donation centers, hospitals, and even at city hall or the DMV.

If you concentrate on growth, spreading the Good News through your own actions, you will no longer need to worry about attrition. The growth will create more opportunities to be active and through this you can change your community for the better. After all, would Jesus be scheduling speakers, forming small groups, and booking bands for his congregation? Or, would he be out and about in the community touching as many lives as possible?

Where in the world is....?

Where is BHO on Gaza? Vacation of course. Why not? He still has the old “one president at a time” rule to fall back on. While the Middle east falls further into turmoil BHO can relax, on vacation, in a $9 mil home, where he can be free to finally ‘mourn’ his Grandmother (aka: ‘the rock’ of his family) 2 months after her death by showing his abs and playing golf.

This apparently has the world losing patience as well, see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1102951/Shhhh-As-world-waits-Obama-voice-opinion-Gaza-Americas-President-elect-hits-golf-course.html

I just wonder why I am not surprised. After all, we are talking about a community organizer here, not some powerhouse politician. It’s also possible with all of the power troubles in Oahu they couldn’t get enough juice for a teleprompter.

The sound of one hand clapping...

My mind is better off now that I’ve seen the arguments for Intelligent Design, and I would say the same for the youth of america. It interesting to see how absolute scientists are regarding Natural Selection. I have to say, that if scientists were so absolute on Newton’s Laws the Einstein’s Theory of Relativity would never have taken hold.

I’ve never seen so adverse a reaction as when you even mention the ‘possibility’ of Intelligent Design into a scientific conversation. Last I remember the purpose of science was to hypothesize, then test, objectively. That part that really gets me on the subject is there are unexplained issues and flaws within the Darwinists theories, but somehow, through scientific community’s insistence, they are beyond reproach; such as: the failure to account for the origin of life from non-living matter, or the failure to account for natural selection’s demonstrable inability to produce any new genetic information, or the failure to explain immense complexities like the single cell, the eye, or the ear (problem of irreducible complexity). If you cannot admit to the possibility, then science itself is doomed.

I personally believe in God, and God as our creator. But that does not mean I can’t look at both sides of an argument. I believe the issue of the scientists is they have to admit that there is a possibility of a God to be able to enter into such a conversation. Which is so weird because some of these guys are die-hard sci-fi fans and dress up as Romulans, study Klingon, and dream about slaying dragons. However, the chance that there might be an omnipotent creator…well that’s fantasy. I also love how that actually removes the possibility of alien intervention, something most of these guys do believe in. How can you support both UFO’s and Natural Selection? Laughable…now go play with your Spock ears.

Conspiracy theory…

I’ve held a suspicious conspiracy theory for about [3] weeks now. Want to hear it? Here it goes….

The Broncos will have to play the Chargers to decide the AFC West. Amazingly, it has happened, it is not longer a theory but an actual occurrence. You may ask yourself, then why is this a conspiracy theory, what events could possibly lead you to believe in more than chance itself? Here’s my take:

Jay Cutler vs. Phillip Rivers

These two have had a long standing feud ever since 2007 when the two exchanged taunts. I personally remember seeing Rivers start it, but hey, I am also biased. Every sport needs a rivalry (Earnhardt v Gordon, Yankees v. Sox, Avalanche v. Red Wings, etc…); it doesn’t hurt that these two young QB’s came into the league around the same time, play in the same division, and are both quite charismatic.

The feud has even gotten press as recent as 12/4; Yahoo! Article: http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=cr-badblood120408&prov=yhoo&type=lgns ; A google search will turn up quite a bit more on this ongoing feud.


Come from behind/Cinderella story

The Chargers were down [3] games and were counted out. The Broncos have held the division lead since the 1st game of the season. No one expected to see the Chargers in this situation. Yet, here we are, they have played tough, and put themselves in a position to do something that has never been done. Everyone loves an underdog.

Ratings

What a ratings machine this will be. NO TEAM has ever lost a division lead when up by [3] games; well, the Broncos have officially done it. The winner of this weekend’s match-up will win the Division, and host a play-off game. In an era of declining ticket sales, the recession, and lack of an exciting story; The NFL has managed to produce a week 17 match-up that actually matters. Seriously, when most teams will be playing their benchwarmers to stay healthy for the play-off, and most fans tune out for lack of interest. Now there is something to buzz about in the NFL, imagine that. THIS JUST IN: The Broncos/Chargers game has just been moved ot prime time. Kickoff is not 8:15pm ET (From 4:15pm ET)

You tell me if this is all mere coincidence ;-)

Honoring Christmas…

Some of us forget that this season, for many of us who would call ourselves followers of Christ, is all about the birth of our Savior. With all of the commercialization and ‘sensitivity’ around the even mentioning the word, it can take us away from why we really celebrate Christmas. I personally am on a mission to change that a little.

How? Simple, I have made a promise to be overly kind, generous, and spread a little peace on earth in the name of our Lord. I challenge you to as well.

We can all simply modify our behavior just a bit in favor of kindness, and Christmas. Here are some examples….

• Hold the door for a stranger, then wish them a Merry Christmas
• Buy a stranger a coffee at your local coffee shop, and wish them a Merry Christmas
• Give up your place in line to a stranger, and wish them a Merry Christmas
• Write Merry Christmas, on the top of your credit card slips as you sign your
  name helping the business recognize your appreciation for Christmas.
• Honestly, in everything you do, try to include a Merry Christmas…and be kind
  to one another.

Oh, and I truly wish you and yours a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The power of Twitter…

The power of Twitter…

I’ve been on Twitter for about as long as I’ve held this blog (http://twitter.com/frmrdj). I’ve found the key is to be active on Twitter, and for that sake, I have only been active for a week. It all started with curiosity, but now I’m finding it to be a useful way to spread information. I also think it takes advantage of need for quick spurts of information due to our ever shortening attention spans.

I have [3] examples of creative uses of Twitter:

1st; #TCOT, or True Conservatives On Tweeter (http://www.topconservativesontwitter.org), have been incredibly active with a ranking function to identify who is the Top Conservative; they have recently launched a new campaign that is getting tremendous buzz. Operation: Three Little Piggies (re: The piggies being: CEO of Chrysler, CEO of GM, and UAW President)

http://www.tcot-otlp.org/

2nd, Babycenter.com had an interesting interactive way to drive a targeted audience to their site. Why not? Who wouldn’t be curious to predict the height of their baby?

http://parentcenter.babycenter.com/child-height-predictor?scid=pcbulletin_20081216:2&pe=4wFnVD

3rd, You may have heard of the Comcast stalker; well, in a sense it is a proactive way to meet a client’s needs before they call you. They have an agent, or agents sift through the “tweets” looking for people mentioning Comcast, and proactively call them if they mention trouble with their service. It’s a good idea and other service industries should take note. (GM, Southwest, and JetBlue have since followed suit)

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2008/tc2008095_320491.htm


I honestly feel this is just the tip of the Twitter iceberg as several new ‘tweeter-apps’ are being released daily to further the ease of use…such as:

Twurl
http://tweetburner.com/
(To shorten URL’s since you are limited to 140 characters per tweet)

Outtwit
http://www.techhit.com/OutTwit/
(Enables you to use Twitter from MS Outlook)


Many others can be found here:

http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Apps

Chalk one up...

Chalk one up to Live Action Films. It was announced today that another Indianna Planned Parenthood employee was suspended as a result of an undercover video produced by Live Action Films. (latest video below, for as long as YouTube will allow it)

http://www.liveactionfilms.org/



"The release of the video today led one lawmaker to urge Attorney General Steve Carter to investigate and to ask the Family and Social Services Administration to suspend Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood of Indiana.

Planned Parenthood says it has suspended without pay a counselor shown in the second video while it investigates the matter. Planned Parenthood fired an aide at a Bloomington clinic after the release of a similar video two weeks ago by Live Action, which has three chapters in California and one in Oregon."

I'm obviously appaled at the brashness of these so called counselors. I can only imagine how many times this has happened prior to these videos being released. The only victory here is that it is being exposed and the funding is being suspended, albeit, temporarily.

Another wrong being commited is YouTube's banning of these videos. They outright censor them. Yet I can hear all about japenese martial aides or extreme defication. Some of the most disturbing videos in the world are published to YouTube every day and these videos from Live Action Films get censored. Silly....eh?

Let's look at the irony of it all, lawmakers make it nearly impossible fior a child to have bendryl at school; yet these counselors can tell our children how to get an abortion without our knowledge. Ar you hearing me AG Steve Carter? I'll say it loud and clear "Throw the book at these people".