Month: October 2004 (page 2 of 3)

Our friends at Church Marketing Sucks point us to Rich Karlgaard over at Forbes, who has a little piece about what business leaders can learn from Rick Warren. That business is now learning from the church is interesting in itself, but at the bottom of that page there’s this little blurb about Michael Dell and staying focused…

But when I look at Michael Dell, I see a guy who told me in 1992–at age 26–that he was going to become the IBM of the 21st century. (Talk about inviting skepticism!) In Dell I see a company that, despite its size, retains its clear purpose. Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard, a top-class CEO herself, inadvertently got Michael Dell to reveal his purpose when she accused Dell Inc. of being a one-trick pony. “No,” Dell shot back. “We’re a two-trick pony. We satisfy customers and we make a profit.”

What kind of life would I lead if I could clarify my real focus and purpose? What kind of church would we have if we were that clear and dedicated to the stuff that matters?

…and now operational! Woo hoo! You can do all the “subscribing stuff” over there to your right above the links section!

Let me know if it does or doesn’t work for you…thanks!

Chad reminded me earlier today that my site feed’s not working. I’ve tried to set it up according to the “Help” page of Blogger, but something doesn’t seem to work right. Any patient folks out there who want to help this old coot newbie out?

Note to self:

Before posting what you think are great and challenging thoughts, make sure you’re ready for what God may say to you about your own involvement within seconds of hitting the “publish” button.

Just a thought…

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been doing some thinking (yeah, I know…trying something new!) and talking with some others about this idea of incarnational ministry. I see – in myself and others – a rather cynical attitude toward those who “we” feel “just don’t get it.” And today, I’m engaged by the fact that we may be more like Dr. Frankenstein than we want to admit.

In a very real sense, we are the ones who have created the monster which we now criticize and before whom we cringe.

We have been the ones who told our people (now there’s an interesting concept – are they our people or God’s people?) to “come apart and be separate.”

We have argued for and created Christian “alternatives” to the mainstream culture and its icons.

We are the ones who substituted political maneuvering for redemptive involvement.

We are the ones who complained about and criticized the inroads of the culture.

We made “evangelism” all about a heavenly “fire insurance policy” instead of life transforming discipleship.

We taught our people for a long time to distrust the corrupting culture around us.

We encouraged them to withdraw into the holy huddle of the safe and warm religious cocoon.

We may be the ones who have taken the words of Romans 12 to an extreme that may not have been originally intended.

We scoffed at the “social gospel” that sought to lift up those who were downtrodden and depressed.

We alienated those who couldn’t offer us anything in return for our participation.

We focused all our attention on litmus tests of purity.

And now we get cynical about the people we’ve created doing exactly what we created them to do. And we wonder why now, they don’t really see any need to invade and influence our culture.

As much as I see a great need for revolutionary reformation in many of our – my – attitudes and actions; as hard as I come down on those that don’t appear to “buy into” the next “great thing;” I do need to remember that God is pretty peculiar about His church. He cares a great deal for those He has redeemed.

God, help me to be patient and loving with those who are your beautiful Bride. Help me remember they are not some hideous, streaked-hair bride of Frankenstein. Help me to challenge them, but lovingly. More than anything else, help me to be serious about being and doing what I call them to account for not being and doing.

This goodie came via email from my big brother. I think he must be going to use it in his newsletter or something. I told him it’s time for him to jump on into the blogosphere. At any rate, it’s not too shabby for my big brother…

A few weeks ago, I had to make a call to a customer service department concerning a printer. After I went through the customary �If you want�then press 1�, etc. I finally got hooked up with a (I know you find this hard to believe) Real Live Service Representative (RLSR)!

There was only one problem though. The person I was talking with was in New Delhi, India! I don�t know if you have run into this problem or not, but it is a growing concern with major companies. In fact, it�s one of the big deals about the presidential election right now. It�s called outsourcing. What some major companies do is to send some of their less important jobs overseas where they�re handled by well-trained, though lower paid employees. As our world gets smaller via computer networking, Internet, etc. we�ll fine that many of the jobs typically done here in our country will be outsourced to other countries. We�ll also find that other countries will be outsourcing some of their jobs here (think Nissan Motors in Tennessee). I�ve said all this just to tell you about a conversation I heard on a radio talk show Sunday evening and to make an application to the church.

So here goes. The radio conversation consisted of a caller telling the radio host that he (caller) had called the customer service department of his bank. When he finally got connected to a RLSR, it seems that this particular representative was in the Philippines. What got my attention wasn�t the conversation as much as one comment the caller made about the situation. Here�s what he said:

�They can speak the language, but they can�t speak the culture.�

I thought it was a great comment. In fact, I thought it was so great that I went into the office and wrote it down so that I would remember it. The reason I wanted to remember this statement is that it speaks volumes to our churches. Now here comes the church application.

The last words that Jesus left with His disciples are what we call the �Great Commission�. The most familiar verses are found in Matthew 28:19-20; although some form of it can also be found in the other three Gospels, as well as Acts. The key word for the Great Commission is the word �Go!� Jesus� last words were His marching orders for His disciples that in effect commanded us to �Go, tell, and make disciples�.�

What we have done is to trade in �Go and Tell� for �Come and See� or �Come and Be�. We have become like the company outsourcing its customer service department. We know and speak the language of the Christian, but we can�t speak the culture in order to go, tell others and make disciples. My prayer is that we will once again be the kind of �customer reps� for Christ that we want from our companies. This week, let�s make it a priority to �Go and Tell� what Christ is doing in our lives. Let�s be the kind of Christians who can speak both the language and the culture.

When Jesus says, “Follow Me,” He has more in mind than just traipsing around behind Him. Brian Orme talks about the art of imitation…

“As a follower of Christ, I struggle with the ability to embody the heart of Jesus. There are so many adjustments I need to make everyday, just to get a glimpse of his character within me. I also know that the ability to give Jesus a unique expression in my own life, on my stage, comes through a steady commitment to train in the ordinary rhythms of life. I have a number of insecurities about my role; but I know that my character will evolve if I immerse myself in the ways of Christ. If I am willing to generously follow in his ways, the extraordinary will come.”

OK, I’m not a Mac user. I don’t even play one on TV. And I didn’t stay in a Holiday Inn Express.

I don’t have an iPod – yet.

But I do think the “silhouette” ads are pretty nifty! I saw the new ad during the game last night. They’ve replaced the “anonymous” iPod-ers with U2! Kind of cool…

Have we swapped “go and tell” for “if you build it, they will come”?

Here’s an excellent take on that question from Len Hjalmarson (it’s a .pdf), via Chris Monroe.

…from somebody’s Moleskine…

“captives of the inevitable, not masters of the possible”

“The irony of the current situation is we have the technology to “connect” with people around the world that we’ve never met in person. But while we’re “connecting,” we are sitting – for the most part – in front of a screen. Alone. Sometimes with no concept of what may be happening down the street or down the hall.”

“We think and write about incarnational models of ministry and evangelism and fellowship, and we do it from the isolation of the computer. We may even do it in the open square of public places, but we are isolated out in the open. There may be lots of people in the same spaces, but we are not connected to them by any stretch of the imagination. They’re doing their thing, we’re doing ours. And as long as we don’t interrupt or inconvenience each other, life is good.”

“And it gives us something to do. We analyze, we study, we lament – and it serves as our own good excuse for not doing that which we describe. We reason that somebody has to be the one to point out the obvious to the oblivious. We have exchanged the ivory tower of institutionalism for the equally isolated garret of intellectualism.”