Facebook Trends

Like the rest of the world, the use of Facebook and Twitter has exploded at our church - and its spreading through all age groups. We have formed group pages for several of our key ministries and for our church. We are finding that targeted communication to the members of these group pages is much more effective than a general email announcement. (Maybe email is becoming the same as bulletin or pulpit announcements and being filtered out by most?) Among the staff I am probably the most active Facebook user and so recently I began to notice some trends that we needed to talk about with our volunteers.

For reasons I don't fully understand, it is clear that many people who use the internet think that their activity there is completely private - or at least limited to a handful of people. So they post comments that are somewhat questionable and crude. Things like: abbreviations for four-letter-word-filled phrases; quiz results that reveal a darker or even sinful side of themselves; suggestive videos; or embarrassing photos of other people. We can't (and don't want to) monitor the activity of those who attend our church but we do want to provide some guidelines for safe and sane use of social media sites by those who provide ministry through our church - especially when they have minors as friends & followers.

Here's a working list of suggestions:

[1] As a ministry leader you are strongly encouraged to post only those items to Facebook, Twitter, or your blog that you would willingly say to the entire church. Ephesians 4.28,29

[2] As a ministry leader it is generally  inappropriate for you to initiate a friend request with a minor. It may be appropriate to accept a friend request from minor if you have a ministry relationship with them.

[3] The creation of any Our Savior’s Baptist related Facebook groups should be done in a format that does not permit the general public from viewing the group page. Membership in the group page should be on an approval basis by the page administrator.
[4] Married ministry leaders should give their spouses full access to email, text messages, and social media sites. 

[5] Photos of minors (under age 18) who are part of our ministries should be posted only to the appropriate Facebook group and not to your own wall.
[6] Leaders should refrain from tagging minors in photos.

[7] Ministry leaders & volunteers should refrain from publishing the results of quizzes that are questionable.

[8] Ministry leaders & volunteers should refrain from using common abbreviations for foul language.

[9] Ministry leaders and volunteers should refrain from posting comments that are critical of Our Savior's members, leadership, ministries, or other leaders/volunteers. Philippians 4.13
[10] Be smart!

These guidelines are not yet in their final form. I would appreciate your feedback or suggestions of how they might be improved.

A NextGeneration Leader

One of the reasons I am on Twitter is for the opportunity to follow Next Generation leaders. I appreciate what they have to see and I enjoy learning from them. Because of them I have great hope for the church.

Recently, I had an opportunity to work with a Next Generation leader over several days. This was not your typical ministry project - it was a bathroom remodel! Jordan is 25. I'm more than twice Jordan's age. It was his house. I've known Jordan for about 4 years. He married my daughter. This was the first time I had worked on an extended project with him and I had a great time. In this situation I entered with the most experience when it comes to installing ceramic tile. Jordan has quite a bit of experience and skill with plumbing, construction, and electrical. He's a welder by trade. So while I came into the project with age and experience on my side it was Jordan who was the lead. The way we approached the project was his call and I was working (volunteering) for him.

I was amazed at how quickly Jordan became comfortable working with tile. He was able to shape pieces and make special cuts using a hand-held grinder - something I've never attempted. He was able to visualize the completed project and take the steps to get us there - even bricking in a glass-block window. I know that this is one guy that I would want on my team whenever tackling another project - whether its a remodel project or not.

Jordan is representative to me of so many Next Generation leaders who love Jesus, love their wives, and love ministering to others. It is great to find myself in the company of these men (and women) who are leading the way for the church of today and tomorrow and are willing to share their ideas and skills with those of us who've been around a little longer. I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to learn from them.

If you are a NextGeneration leader how well do you work with those who've been leading a while? Do you invite them to join the team? Include them in the process? Value their experience? Are you learning from them? If you're a current leader are you sharing leadership with the next generation? Do you value their ideas and perspective? Are you learning from them?

We have much to learn from one another in life and in ministry. Me? I'd like to learn how to shape pieces of tile with a hand-held grinder!

Are You GAP Insurance?

Okay, so I was one of the 250,000 people who bankrupted the CARS program in the first 4 days! I traded in my '01 Kia Sportage (avg 18 mpg) for an '09 Chevy HHR (avg 32 mpg) and with the CARS program and GM rebates I shaved more than $8,000 off the price of a new car. If you've ever sat in a new-car showroom you know the uncomfortable and even distasteful drill of having to dance with the salesman about the final pricing and then deal with the finance guy. His job is to get you to pay more - much more - for the car than you were planning on. It start with an extended warranty (which I can get elsewhere for half!), moves on to a complete protection package on the interior and exterior of the vehicle, and finishes up with an offer for GAP insurance. The basic idea behind GAP insurance is that this additional coverage will bridge the gap between what your car is worth and what you sill owe on it should it become 'totaled' in an accident. It's not a bad idea. What is a bad idea is buying this coverage from the dealer for $300 when you can get it added to your auto insurance policy for something like $2/mo!

Second chair leaders are in the business of providing GAP insurance for their first-chair leaders. Often we are called upon to fill-in or stand-in-the-gap between what needs to get done and our first-chair leader's ability to accomplish that task. Sometimes we act as a shield or buffer to protect our first-chair leaders from things that might derail them. When we get good as second-chair leaders we can see the gaps and fill them in before others notice them and often before our first-chair leader is even aware of them.

I encourage you to serve your first-chair leader today by being his or her GAP insurance. One word of caution: don't expect that what you are doing will get noticed. Your behind-the-scenes ministry will rarely become headline news. Be satisfied in the success of your first-chair leader knowing that his success makes your church or organization healthier, stronger, and more effective!

My Civic Duty

Thinking about getting another car - a Chevy HHR. The car I have runs fine. It's a 2001 Kia Sportage with 141,000 miles. Here's the deal. That's pretty much several thousand miles beyond the life expectancy of the Kia. My wife and I tend to hang on to our cars several years so we get our money's worth. We've gotten our money's worth out of the Kia but it's going to be a little hard to see it go. We drove from Spokane to Minneapolis in that car. Used it to take our only child to college and logged a ton of trips between Spokane and Seattle before we moved from the former to the latter. But now - in an act of patriotism - I am thinking about turning the Kia over to the federal government to have it destroyed as a gas guzzler. Contrary to appearances it only averages 18 mpg. In return for my sacrifice, my country will knock $4,500 off the price of a new car. In talking to a local Chevy dealer (I mean, I should buy American, right?) they will take another $3,500 off the price of the car for a total reduction of $8,000! That's more than 30% off the price of a new car. I want to do the right thing to stir the economy and show my loyalty to my country, so I'm willing to say good-bye to my foreign-made import and drive off in a new American made car - for the right price! And this new car gets over 35 mpg, comes with a new 100k warranty and 12 mo of On-Star. Now, we just wait for the official announcement from Joe Biden on July 29. Just thinking that this is change even I can believe in!

The Amazing Kindle

Amazon announced this week that they are lowering the price on their new Kindle2 for $359 to $299. That's good news for those of you considering adding this amazing book reader to your gadget collection (bad news for all of us who shelled out the $359!). I've enjoyed my Kindle for several months now so I'm okay with the price cut if it means more people will purchase a Kindle. After several months of using the Kindle book reader I'm ready to comment on its pros and cons.

Pros

First is the coolness of being able to read hundreds of books on a slim device that weighs only 10.3 ounces. It boggles the mind to think that this little hunk of metal and plastic could hold my entire library.

Second is the convenience of being able to tote around dozens of books. Gone are the days of packing 2-3 books in my carry-on for the outbound flight and having 2-3 others in my checked luggage for the return trip. I can flip between multiple books because the Kindle always remembers what page I was on. I brought my Kindle to a baseball game recently and my wife used it to read an entire novel while I enjoyed the game. Bonus!

Third is the correct price-point for purchasing books. Most are just $9.99. Some are more, lots are less and with over 300,000 books available I seem to be able to purchase any book I want (expect for John Grisham, what's up with that?).

Fourth are the many features built in to the Kindle including the always connected 'WhisperNet" that allows me to purchase books directly from the Kindle. No more being tied to my laptop and a Wifi connection. I also like the text-to-speech feature although I haven't used it myself except to demonstrate it to others. The variable font size is nice, too. If you know someone with limited vision the combination of these two features may re-open the door to reading books for them. That's pretty cool. You can download music to listen to while you read and you can download or send yourself text documents.

Fifth is the ease of reading. Since the screen emits no light eye strain is reduced and you can easily read the Kindle outside – even in bright light. This feature also is kinder to the battery which in turn means extended use between charges of 1-2 weeks.

Cons

The Kindle is a book reader – not a mini-computer. It has certain limitations. One is that it is not easy to jump around within a book. If you're following a sermon with the Kindle you can read along a passage but if you are directed to another book to read 1-2 verses you'll never get there in time. A Bible edition may be available that allows for quicker navigation but I haven't seen it yet. Another limitation is that you have no idea which page you are so you cannot reference a specific page number while leading a group discussion or teaching a class. You get a percentage bar across the bottom of the page that tells you how far along you are in the book but having corresponding page numbers would be nice.

Another con is that it might just be too thin! It feels a little fragile even though it is not but the thinness can make holding it over long periods a little fatiguing on the thumbs.

I would have to include the fact that its sleekness also makes it pretty slippery! A little non-skid material on the back would permit the reader to place the Kindle on your knee.

Some people have mentioned that they think they will miss the smell of a book and actually turning pages. I think these are pros! Musty old books are cool to look at but who knows where that book has been and where the stain on those pages came from? With the Kindle there are no more paper cuts or losing your place. Hopefully, the next generation Kindle will have a color touch-screen. I will probably buy one of those, too! All that said, I really like my Kindle. It is so easy to use and so convenient that I am reading more. I would recommend the Kindle to anyone who likes to read.

Doing It Right the First Time

Have you ever regretted not doing the "right thing" the first time? You change course because you think there might be a better way, an easier way, a cheaper way? We bought our current home almost two years ago. We had two rooms (dining room and master bedroom) that had wallpaper across the bottom 3 ft of the rooms with a chair rail and a wallpaper border above that. Before we painted these two rooms we sprayed texture over the wallpaper in the dining room but at the last minute chose not to do so in the bedroom. Instead, I stuccoed over the border and painted the stucco and wallpaper white and painted the rest of the walls a different color. The first color didn't work so well so I repainted it. Now, more than a year later I am removing the stucco by scraping off the paint and sanding down the stucco in attempt to re-create the image of the room. Our plan? To have the texture guy come back and spray over the old wallpaper so that I can paint the walls (floor to ceiling) yet another color!

This is one of those projects where we might be tempted to ask, "Why didn't we just do this in the beginning? Why didn't we stick to our original plan and just do the right thing?" Could the same question be asked of your spiritual journey? Perhaps you heard about Jesus when you were younger - maybe even attended church growing up. But then you got a bit older, began to have some questions (or maybe you were just bored with church?) and had a great idea to try another way - an easier way. This easier way eliminated church, eliminated the Bible, and likely even eliminated Jesus for a "religion" of your own creation. In your own way you repeated what the ancient Israelites did early in their history. "

In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. Judges 21.25

We would like to think that we can live and worship any way we choose - and to a certain extent that is true - but we are mistaken if we think that it doesn't matter how we live and worship. God is holy and will not tolerate the worship of other gods. When we finally recognize the truth in that we endure quite a bit of scraping of the painted facade of pride and confidence and the sanding down of the stucco of self-will and arrogance.

Why can't we see this in the beginning? Why must we - like the ancient Israelites - go through a process of following God, turning from God, and then returning to God? For some of us this process is necessary for us to humbly recognize the joy of following Jesus and serving him. It's the battle of submitting our will to his. Somehow we just think that we can mold ourselves into a better person than God can so why bother worshiping him at all?

While I'm scraping down stucco I will be thinking about the bumps and high spots in my life that God is smoothing off. Sometimes painful, often stubbornly resistant, I know that the end result in my life (and with my painting project) will be worth it as he re-creates in me the image of his Son. And I will have to admit, it would have been easier to do it right the first time.

A Good Friend

Today I had the privilege of spending the afternoon at a Twins baseball game with Jay Kendall. I first met Jay at Bethel College in the late 70's. We volunteered at Trout Lake Camp together, went to the same church, even went on a spring break road trip to Florida together with a third guy named Tom Zdrazil. It was Jay that nudged me to ask Julie out on our first date. Just 370 days later, Julie and I were married on Bethel's campus and Jay was one of our groomsmen. That was 30 years ago. While Jay has stayed pretty close to the Twin Cities, Julie and I have roamed the country. We lived in Missouri, Massachusetts, Idaho, and Washington state (with a few stops in Minnesota mixed in along the way). With all of that roaming it was easy to lose touch with friends like Jay, always thinking that you'd be back in town some day and would catch up then. But 5 years turns to 15, and 15 years turns to 25. Jay and I have talked and handful of times over those years - usually at events on Bethel's campus that I had returned for. We had recently 'friended' each other on Facebook and 'followed' each other on Twitter and had begun to slowly catch up on each other's lives. Today was different. With the pastoral backdrop of a Twins-Indians baseball matinee at the Dome we talked about our wives, our kids, our work, and what God has been teaching us recently. Jay and I talked about what it's been like for me to sit in the second chair and asked me what God has taught me there. I had the joy of telling him about the great staff team that I get to serve with and the developing trust and partnership that I enjoy with my 'first chair' boss. We've lived very different lives and have pursued very different interests but Jay and I both worship the same God. We both want to grow in our faith and obedience to Jesus. We both want to be the best dads and husbands we can. When Jay dropped me at my car at Bethel we stopped to pray for one another - thankful for the way our paths had crossed through the years and had brought us together for a few hours on a classic Minnesota summer afternoon. In many ways it was if we were still students on Bethel's campus and that the conversation had not taken breaks of several years. I'm grateful for the technology that spurred our reunion but am even more grateful for enduring friendships. Today I was reminded of the value of a good friend.