I can’t say that I remember VBS being such a focus back in Pensacola, where I’m from.  Sure, there are a few churches who still do it; some even do it well.  But since I’ve been in South Georgia, I’ve discovered that VBS is very much alive.  In fact, it seems that every church here in Valdosta does VBS.

But I just wanted to take a second to say thanks to all those who were involved last week with VBS.  There are the obvious folks: the ones who were in front where everyone could see them on a nightly basis.  But there were many who spent countless hours behind the scenes preparing their designated task–many of which we may never realize.

So, thanks everyone for making VBS so much FUN!!  I had a blast, and can’t wait till next year!

For several months leading up to March 2010, Amanda and I had been discussing the possibilities of purchasing either a house or a new vehicle.  Financial issues put the house out of our reach.  But my car (Amanda’s first car) was falling apart.  And since I don’t know enough about vehicles to properly maintain or fix whatever issues there was, we were worried that at any moment it would stop working–hopefully not killing me and anyone nearby.  So we decided it was time for a new vehicle.  And as youth pastors at a church that doesn’t have a working church van, we were constantly having to borrow or trade vehicles to cart around teenagers.  So, we decided that our new car should be a minivan (insert jokes here…).

So, I began the process of getting pre-approved for a car loan.  I chose Central Credit Union of Florida because I had a loan with them before, they were good to me, and gave me a good rate.

Next, we did our research, and found that used minivans at local dealers were in short supply.  We first went to Hyundai of Valdosta.  After a few days of negotiating, we decided that they were unwilling to give us a reasonable price on a minivan that we had done our research on and knew that it wasn’t worth what they were asking.

Our next stop was at Langdale Honda/Kia of Valdosta.  By the time of night we arrived (6:30-ish), we expected them to be closed.  To our surprise, they didn’t close till 8.  We were first greeted by a salesman named Jeff.  Jeff at first seemed every bit a normal salesman (you know the kind…), but he treated us fairly and wasn’t particularly pushy, which, as you probably know, is unusual for a salesman.

We knew that they didn’t have any minivans listed online, but Jeff told us that they had one that hadn’t been posted yet, because it had just been traded in and cleaned-up.  It was a 2005 Nissan Quest.  So, within minutes of our arrival, we were test-driving a minivan.

The Quest had one previous owner.  It was 5 years old, but only had 29,000 miles on it.  It was in excellent condition, but it was missing the two rear-seat headrests.  It drove well, and Amanda liked it, but I didn’t at first.  It is a funny-looking van!  Everyone who sees it likes it, but agrees that it’s a bit funny looking!  The dashboard is especially unique; the general consensus is that it looks like an airplane cockpit (SPOILER–This is the van we ended up purchasing, and I really like it now for the same reasons that at first I didn’t like it: it doesn’t look like a regular minivan).  But as soon as we arrived back at the dealership, Jeff started asking for the sale.  He wasn’t pushy, but he did ask for the sale (as any good salesperson should do).  A purchase like that isn’t one that I was ready to just jump right into without sleeping on it and praying about it.

Soon though, Jeff realized that we were about to walk, so he got his manager involved.  He asked us about our pre-approval for financing and asked for a chance to beat the rate.  Amanda and I decided that if they could beat the rate we had already gotten, throw in 4 brand-new tires, replace the two missing headrests for the back seat, give us a minimum of $800 for our car (we didn’t even believe it was worth $300), and still be less than $12,000, we would take it.

Surprisingly enough to us, they did all of that and more.  They gave us $1000 for the car, 4.9% with a good local credit union (beating our pre-approval by an entire percentage), and agreed to all the rest.  So, we agreed and began the paperwork.  Soon, we were out of there with our new van.  Of course, since I am ignorant with motors, we also purchased the extended warranty.

Overall, we were very happy with the transaction.  Jeff went out of his way to help us.  So, major kudos to Jeff.

However, Jeff had some personal issues (not work related I am told), so he is no longer with the company I am sad to say.  So the follow-up fell to his manager.  The follow-up consisted of the replacing of the tires with the 4 new ones they promised, and the new headrests.  The new tires weren’t a problem.  Within a few days, they had them ordered and installed and everything was good.  However, the headrests were a completely different matter.  According to the manager, they first tried to recover the original headrests from the original owners, but they couldn’t find them.  So after a few weeks of waiting and no calls from the dealership, I called and pressed him into ordering some brand new headrests from Nissan.  He promised they would and that they would be here in a week, and that he had my name and number written down right in front of him and would take care of it right away.  It was about 3 weeks later before I got them.

So, my overall experience with Langdale Honda/Kia of Valdosta was pleasant.  They met and exceeded our financial expectations.  The service was great, with the notable exception of the follow-up.  I feel that after I left, they were pretty much done with me, and the only reason I got any follow-up at all was because I initiated it.

I would recommend anyone that asks to Langdale, but would recommend that they deal a little more shrewdly than I am capable of with the manager to get the service and follow-up they deserve.  If Jeff, our original salesman were still there, I would send folks his way without hesitation.

For those out there a little less geeky, Beta is a stage of project development (usually software) where the design team is comfortable enough with what they have so far that they open it up for testing to regular people–the key words there being so far.  The development team understands that the product is not yet finished, and it still has bugs to work out.  And the people testing the product understand this as well.  This Beta testing is what helps the developers perfect the product for mainstream release.

Microsoft has released the greatest OS they have ever made in Windows 7, and much of that has to do with the Beta testing they did for more than a year before releasing the final product (especially after such a miserable excuse for an OS that Vista was…).  Google understands this as well, and many of their products take years to lose the Beta tag.  That’s because they are continuously improving their products.  It’s a work-in-progress.

All that said, I read a fantastic blog post from Tony Morgan this morning challenging churches to understand this concept and to put it into practice.  Hit the link, because it’s a fantastic read for church leaders.  And I have to say, I am challenged, excited, and scared stupid at the thought of functioning like this.

Everyone that  knows me knows that I despise most traditions–especially those in the church.  I say bring on the change and innovation!  The part in this that scares me though is launching a new project that isn’t fully fleshed out yet, because one thing I despise more than stupid traditions is lack of excellence.  I strongly believe if you’re going to do something, do it well.  And that’s a good habit to be in.

But I’ll be the first to admit that it’s holding me back.  Trying to do new things in my Youth Ministry or in my church without feeling that it’s perfect goes against everything I believe, so I am slow to act on new things.  But I am beginning to understand the truth of the Beta concept: it doesn’t have to be perfect to get it started.  And of course the second part of the Beta concept is that you continuously change, tweak, and move things around until it’s just right (of course by the time you have it right, it’s time to change it up again… but that’s another blog post entirely…).

So I consider myself challenged today to not let the pursuit of perfection hold me back from testing new ideas and projects in my ministry, which is also an exercise in listening to the Holy Spirit.  Oh boy, here we go…

The problem is, I’m not that interesting.  I don’t really have that many things to say.  Don’t get me wrong, I have my passions, and there are plenty of things that I want to say to people.  But none of them are things that people would make the time to actually listen to.

Last week I discovered that the team from Azalea City Church of God were kicking off a livestream.  So I tuned in.  And you know what I found?  A group of guys who had no agenda (not to be confused with the netcast No Agenda) and no extra-technical expertise (Wow, that really sounds insulting, and I don’t mean it that way.  What I really mean is that they have the gift of geekiness, but little professional training and therefore little experience in this area), but they saw all this cool stuff you can do online and decided to jump in and figure it out on the way.

Well of course I had to get in on it!  So I messaged the youth pastor and he invited me over today for the second episode.  Again, they had no agenda (well, they did have a little one), and it took about an hour just to get the camera to interface with the computer to take the video.  But here’s the thing, I had a great time just watching and learning and hanging out with these guys, and I’m totally looking forward to another show.  And once we put our heads together and figure this thing out, I’m excited about where it can possibly go!  (Even if I’m not invited back for the third episode…)

So there’s my geekout for the day.  See you next time!

Update: You can find the show here if you’re interested.

So why is this important?  Why is this different from any other church picnic?

It wasn’t.  But we should definitely do more of it.  I’ve heard our Pastor say on several occasions that Christians don’t celebrate enough.  And I agree.  Wee need to take more occasions to celebrate, have fun, and be silly together.

Take for instance the toilet in my office.  If it wasn’t for you and your efforts, we wouldn’t have the government making guidelines about how much water each flush was allowed to waste.  And what a waste it was before!  Of course, now that the water used in each flush has been reduced, it takes two flushes to get a “clean bowl” for the next person, which of course takes twice the amount of water.  And I’m pretty sure twice the amount of water in a new eco-friendly toilet is more than the one flush it used to take in our non-eco-friendly toilet.

So, great job guys! You’ve really made a difference.  Keep up the good work!

The second demand of the Link Economy is “you must open up so Google and the world can find your content. (If you’re not searchable, you won’t be found.)”

In my last post, I already discussed the importance of Googlejuice and the importance of creating content that isn’t simply a commodity.  But now that quality content is created, what do we do now?

First, I realize that Jarvis is mostly blasting journalist and media companies such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal for putting their content behind a pay wall.  If you prevent Google from indexing your content, they won’t send traffic your way (should Google be paid a commission for that service?).

But, this principle applies to churches and non-profits the same way.  Consider this: the church’s entire paradigm hinges on constant content production.  Every Sunday, the Pastor gives us a sermon, the Praise Team gives us music to worship by, Sunday School teachers… well you get the idea.  We are constantly producing something.  It’s stupid (and further, I believe it’s pure ignorant) not to share this content, especially when that’s the whole mission of the church!

But unless you digitize the content in a form that can be easily consumed (i.e. put it on the internet), all of that quality content is going to waste.  Open it up! Put it on the internet!  It’s not that difficult!  In fact, the technology that we have today is making it easier and cheaper than ever to share our content all over the world.  But unless we open up–put it on the net–Google will never index it and send us traffic.

The church’s entire mission is to share the Gospel.  People are searching the internet everyday for that Gospel (even if they don’t know it). Churches complain when our attendance is off.  But people are actively trying to get into our church–just through a different door.  Open those doors up! Put it out there.  People will find it!  It may not be by the buss-load, but it will be found.

The third demand of the Link Economy is “when you get links and audience, it is up to you to exploit them, usually through advertising.”  That one is going to be fun!

So, in my last article, I quoted from What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis the Five Demands of the Link Economy.  And I would like to go through each of those and how the church can possibly learn from them.

The first demand is “First, you must produce unique content with clear value; commodity content will get you no links or Googlejuice.”

Before we discuss how the church can learn from this demand, it’s important to understand what Googlejuice is, and what Jarvis means by commodity content.  When someone says they’re going to “google” something, that means they’re going to go to Google.com and search for it.  Googlejuice is basically where you, your company, or your brand, shows up in those results.  If you have good Googlejuice, you’ll show up on the first page of search results, or maybe even the top 5.

The importance of Googlejuice is sometimes overlooked by non-profit organizations–especially those like the church who spend so much time, energy, and sometimes money (We pay more than $300/month for our AT&T Yellow Page ad)  on marketing.  The craziest part is that in monetary terms, Googlejuice doesn’t cost a thing!  My generation and younger (30 and below) doesn’t look in the phonebook for a church.  They google it.  And if you can’t be found by Google, you might as well not exist.  But to get Googlejuice, an organization or website must produce quality content.  Quality content is linked to and shared.  And that’s what gets you a decent search return at Google (or Bing, or Yahoo!).  That’s Googlejuice.

Commodity Content is a little more icky.  I say that because this concept can really hit the church right between the eyes.  A commodity is basically a product (not a service) used by consumers.  But as Jarvis uses the word, a commodity basically equates to mass production–a redundancy of the same thing, if you will.  Content creation and consumption on the internet these days is pretty cheap.  And that means there is so much, that it takes quality to really stand out.  But, the reason this is icky for the church is because so much of what we do is the same thing: cookie cutter Christmas pageants, the same worship songs (or the fact that there’s no original worship songs in most churches), the same ole presentation.  We bring a message of life that is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  But the lackluster way we go about it has become dull and crusty–a commodity.

If the church (or, perhaps more specifically, a church) wants better Googlejuice, we must focus on quality.  Gone are the days for overlooking the church’s online presence.  Gone are the days of “cattle-call choirs” (if you don’t know what that is, consider yourself lucky).  Gone are the days where hand-written signs on the church door is acceptable (yeah, that may be a little specific, but I hate those…).

We serve a God who will be returning for His bride very soon–and we are getting lost in all the rest of the noise.   It’s time to step-up our game.  It’s time to focus on quality instead of quantity.  It’s time to allow the talents God has given us to truly shine so that He may get the glory for it.  It’s time to create something of value.

Man, I’ve really got to step-up my own stuff if I plan to meet the standard I just called for…

The Second Demand of the Link Economy is “you must open up so Google and the world can find your content.”

Stay tuned…

About half-way through the book, Jeff explains to us how “the content economy made money by controlling and selling content.  In the link economy, it no longer pays to sell copies of content when the original is just a link and a click away.”  He further explains that this “link economy” makes five demands.  In the next few posts, I would like to consider these demands, how they can be applied to the church and its mission, and get some conversation going around them (mostly because I know that I’m not smart enough to figure all this out on my own).

In the next post, the first demand:  ”First, you must produce unique content with clear value; commodity content will get you no links or Googlejuice.”

Stay tuned…

I enjoy my job.  It’s what I love to do, in the environment I love to do it in.  I work full-time at a church where my wife and I are Youth Pastors.  In the past, I have been full-time, part-time, and volunteer (with a full-time secular job) during various seasons in the ministry, so I’m pretty well-rounded in what it’s like to work in the American church.

But the goal in all of those instances–full-time, part-time, or volunteer–is to win people to Jesus, disciple those people, and send them out to disciple others.  That’s the whole purpose we do what we do.  We use whatever talents, gifts, and passions that God has given us to that end, whether that means teaching, singing, or scrubbing toilets.  And I’m not just talking about paid church staff.  It’s what Jesus specifically called all of His followers to do.

But here’s the thing: sometimes we lose perspective.  We get caught up in the work, or the secular aspects of our lives, and we forget what our purpose is.  We get so bogged down in making sure that our lessons are just right, our kids have their homework done, our blog is kept up-to-date, or whatever it is that we do, that we forget to, like Christ, have compassion for the lost.

Case in point: for the past 5 or so weeks, I have been taking 2 of our teenagers through a discipleship program called Discipleship Plus.  It’s actually a great discipleship course.  I’ve been very pleased with the curriculum overall.  I would say the only 2 real gripes I’ve had overall were the fact that there is no student editions of the book–only teacher’s editions–and that there are no digital resources to go along with it.  Since there are no student editions, I only bought the teacher’s edition and had been teaching out of that.  And when I say digital, what I mean is copies of the forms we use each week (such as the “Weekly Accountability Sheets” and the “Session Notes”), which all happen to be very generic forms simply with lines for writing and a title mostly.  So, since that was lacking, I made my own to print and reproduce (which the book plainly stated that I could do without breaking any copyright laws).

Next, I created a small website for the program.  My goals were: to provide a place where students could download their forms and print them out from home if they ran out, to re-iterate the assignments for the week, and to recap the main points of the lesson so that–and this was very important to me–parents could follow along and see what I was teaching their children, and hopefully encourage them at home using the same Scriptures and main thoughts that I had been teaching.  That way we would all be on the same page.

Well, a few days ago, out-of-the-blue, I get a call at the church office from a man who at first did not identify himself.  He had heard that I had been using the Discipleship Plus materials and wanted to know how I liked them, to which I responded with a favorable review.  Next he wanted to know how long I had been doing it and how many kids I had.  I told him around 5 weeks and 2 students.  By this point, I simply assumed it was another Youth Pastor who was interested and just wanted some feedback.  Finally he introduced himself as one of the authors.  Of course, I thanked him for writing the material and that I was pleased with it, and he thanked me for using it.

Then, suddenly, he asked me to take the website I created for the program down.  It was such an unusual request that I had to ask him to repeat it, and of course to explain why.  He told me that it was against the law, that it was copyrighted, and I wasn’t allowed to post the material in any way, shape, or form on the internet.  And I suppose he was right and I had no choice in the matter.  I simply made the assumption that, since I was only putting bits and pieces on the site and usable forms for my students that I was discipling–the whole purpose the course was even written–that it wouldn’t be a problem.  Apparently I was wrong.

Technically I was breaking the law, and I get that.  I told him that I had no choice if those were his wishes–especially since I had no desire to embroil my church in a legal battle.  But I had to ask him “why?”.  Not the secular reason, because that was obvious.  But, why would he want such a thing done when we were using it as a tool in discipling students, which was the whole point.  We weren’t making money off of it.  We weren’t taking credit for it.  It was simply a resource to enhance the material for my students and their parents.  And further, I explained to him that, like it or not,  everything is heading this way:  universal cloud access, meaning that everything would be directly accessible from the internet, with or without a fee.  And I told him that I was willing to pay any necessary fees or to purchase 2 more books for my students if that would satisfy any usage issues.  But these weren’t good enough for him.  He simply wanted it down.

To his credit, he didn’t say anything mean or rude, except for one thing.  I told him that I was very disappointed in his attitude towards my efforts in discipling students, and that he had lost perspective.  His response to me was “Well we are disappointed in you too.”  I can’t say I know what that means, whether he was speaking for himself and his co-author, the publishing copany, the government, or what.  But apparently he was disappointed that I was doing what Christ told us to do in Matthew 28: to make disciples.   And I was using his material to do it!!

So, that was a long story.  If you’ve read this far, then I owe it to you to tell you my point.  This Christian author has lost his perspective on things.  He has adopted a secular mind-set so much so that it is more important to him to make money than to make disciples.  Moreover, since we are a small church and barely a blip on the web, I have to assume that he was actively trolling the internet looking for copyright violations.  Apparently it is that important to him.

And I’m not making excuses; I had no choice than to bring down the site.  He was technically right.

So to use this as an example for the rest of us, we need to all take a step back every once in a while an examine our motives.  Have we lost perspective as well?  Have we forgotten that Jesus died not just for us, but for our next-door neighbors, our co-workers and classmates, and our enemies alike?  Are we so concerned with carnal issues that it gets in the way of the Great Commission?  Why is it that we are taking the time to work in the ministry?  If you honestly can’t say that it is for winning the lost, then you need to take a break and regain your perspective.  Don’t let the world steal your joy.  Don’t let them warp your mind into thinking in the same terms as they do.  I know I have been guilty of it before, and probably will again.

As for this particular author, I will not be using his material anymore.  I do not want to support such disregard for the Great Commission from someone who should know better.  In this case, the enemy has won.  It really is a shame.

UPDATE: In my original post, I had used the author’s name.  I decided to remove his name because I felt it might sound like an attack, and that isn’t my purpose.