God is God.

God is Good

…



To God Be the Glory.

I pray this may be used to both challenge and encourage you!

The answer to these important and relevant questions must be vetted by the Word of God.

Note the following characteristics of God’s Preacher…

• The faithful preacher is identified as being with Christ: Mark 3:14
• The faithful preacher battles against the need for self-preservation: Philippians 1:21
• The faithful preacher is yielded to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit:  Ephesians 5:18
• The faithful preacher is not a secondary emphasis follower: Galatians 2:20
• The faithful preacher performs all things decently and orderly:  1 Cor.14:40
• The faithful preacher disdains confidence in the Flesh: Philippians 3:3
• The faithful preacher is pre-occupied with a biblical  vision:     1 Corinithans 2:2
• The faithful preacher is mission minded: 2 Cor. 10:16
• The faithful preacher communicates the truth in love:     Ephesians 4:15
• The faithful preacher is able to teach others to teach others:     2 Timothy 2:2
• The faithful preacher is a perpetual student of God’s Word:      2 Timothy 2:15
• The faithful preacher loves God with all their heart.

God’s Preachers are NOT a dime a dozen. They are motivated and moved by a threefold cord:
1. The Greatness Of God (Isaiah 6:1)
2. The Grace Of God (Isaiah 6:7)
3. The Groaning Of God (Isaiah 6:8)

God’s preachers are possessed with a personal disdain for self-preservation (Gal. 6:7,8). God’s preacher knows that to live is Christ, and to die is gain. God’s preacher wants every sinner saved and every saint sanctified. They are heavenly minded… holy in manner, honest before men. They are swayed by the pressing work of the indwelling Holy Spirit for exclusive allegiance unto Christ.

Does this describe your pastor?

What is customer service?  For some it is allowing the company to “prove” that the product works…

What is Customer Service?  This is the foundational issue that must be addressed by CEO’s and Marketing Executives, as well as those on the front lines answering customers.

As the Network Architect of one of the largest Not-For-Profit hosting organizations, one that serves a niche industry, the Christian Church, we like many other providers, require support from time to time from the Vendors we have chosen to partner with.   I once heard it said that a business man is only as wise as the partner he chooses… Today I feel like King Solomon – a man many believe is the wisest person who ever lived.

After having dealings with many of the Top Tier companies like Cisco, 3Com, Vyatta, The Planet, CIHost and others – I have to tell you about an experience I had just this past weekend.    WebEmpoweredChurch & VineHosting provide a free content management system based on the Typo3 Enterprise CMS to a large amount of churches – many of which host with us.   From time to time – a restoration of a clients account is needed.   For a few years we have depended upon the Backup system from R1Soft called CDP (Continuous Data Protection) to perform the snapshots in time.    We take a snapshot of every clients account every 4 hours…  Restorations normally take just a few minutes… however this past weekend things went completely sideways.

M

any will find my other writings – in such Magazines like Net Results, or on blogs like ChurchMedic – and will hear me say “Dependent is something intelligent people must become.”  Simply put – we cannot do all things- be all things…  and after taking over 40 hours to figure out why something did not work – I finally took my own advice – and opened a ticket with R1soft.

In 1972 Bill Withers had the hit song “Lean On Me” – and this is exactly the level of support I have come to expect from R1Soft.   Although the offices are technically closed – I opened the ticket at 13:37 Hrs – and received a response at 13:58 hrs on Sunday afternoon.

The Server we are using runs on the OpenSource project called “ProxMox VE” and OpenVZ – and R1Soft investigated the issue completely.   They found the issue and in just a few minutes created a resolution.   What our network staff found as a challenge – they met with a solution.  Furthermore they investigated our environment to ensure we were able to provide the timely restorations our clients were used to…   They went well above the call of duty.  R1Soft provides what we have found to be the Best Bare Metal Recovery – and MySQL Backup & Recovery for our InnoDB & MyISAM Databases !

Dependent, Competent, Understanding, Fast and Pro-Active:    These are the benchmarks of Great Customer Service -  to date I have only found three companies out of all the others we deal with that even come close to these benchmarks -   R1Soft, cPanel and one of our Bandwidth providers – Country Connections.   This brings up another problem for us to solve however internally -  How can our customer service emulate these great companies?

As I am helping build a new church here in Ohio – I want to hear what are the reasons you have left the church – been sick tired of the same old same old – what is it that took you away from the church…

the church is far to often fine taking care of its own…  but this human effort – the planning, the singing, the… movement…  far to often we are a movement of our own – and NOT a movement of the Holy Spirit…

It is time for the church to return to… the Manual.

What if – you tried – just for one week to say something affirming to every person you came into contact with…

What if the Church did the same thing?  Imagine the impact we could have on our community – and the Kingdom?

“Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing,” I Thessalonians 5:11).

Paul wrote this – because he understood – The Creator created us with the need for Validation.   – Don’t do the Miss America Validations of course… make them sincere -    Imagine if the church took time to notice the good around us – and to affirm the good …

that is the church I dream about.

With the church loosing folks on a daily basis and many others closing their doors – is the church ready to rise to the challenge?   What is the church doing today to bring the Good News – the Gospel of Salvation through Grace to the world we are living in?

While Jesus Christ is the same Yesterday, Today and Forever – simply put the world and her people are not – and… if the church is going to reach these people … our approach cannot do the same old same old …

Dr. Bill Tenny-Brittian this past week, during a phone session with the leadership of the Web Empowered Church team, made mention that the average church in the United States is in the low 50’s for attendance.   In my travels and discussions I find it hard to believe that the church is missing the boat so poorly when it comes to reaching out to the folks in their communities – these people are spiritually open to finding the truth.

Today after church I spent time outside of a Bob Evans restaurant in Washington Court House Ohio asking a few simple questions of the people entering and leaving…

Which church would you turn to for answers to Spiritual Questions?

The answers – even in this small community I fear would be shocking to most church leaders:

isn’t that what the internet is for?

church – i have not been there for a long long time … why go – its all bullpucky anyhow

i wear jeans and they don’t like jeans there … so not for me

Clearly there is something about the church that the world simply just does not want or like …

Clearly there is something about the Gospel the church is “selling” that the world simply just does not buy…

Perhaps we the church should simply just embrace LOVE – and offer LOVE to those who are hurting… LOVE is a FREE Gift – not something bought or sold after all…

So the message does not change … but perhaps the way we deliver it should. . .

Suburbs Are a Changin… With roughly 1/2 of the United States population living in the suburbs – the suburbs are changing… Lines between communities are becoming less and less clear.   Most suburban communities have an aging population.   The need for amenities to service the “Boomer Generation” are going to become much more prevalent.    It is believed the Senior Citizen generation is going to increase 36% between 2000 and 2019.  The move for mixed-age neighborhoods is happening – and with the current economical state of the programs to assist the elderly is in question – The church needs to prepare not only to assist with this aging generation – but also the people who are taking care of the generation.  The senior population is expected to expand as much as 70% in some places like the South East as well as the Western Moutain region.   Boomers will not want the old style of ministry… is your church prepared?

Colors are a Blendin… I believe the 2010 census vs the 2020 census will show a dramatic shift in the U.S. population.   While today the diversity is not as culturally blended as many would lead you to believe by 2020 the pre-school and grade school population will see this crossover.   Churches need to prepare to have programs that speak to the needs of a culturally diverse community – including new and different types of ministry to children and their parents.  These younger generations – and their parents, like all cultures, want to share their lives (both spiritually and communally) with people of like interests, life stages, languages, etc…  Let’s face it folks – as homogeneity changes so will the needs of the community, as people are blended the needs to speak and be culturally relevant is going to become more difficult for the church – specifically in ethnic terms.   People will still gravitate towards those that are like them…  Is your church preparing to be a blended mix?   Red and Yellow Black and White – They are Precious in His site… Jesus loves the little children of the …community.

Numbers are a droppin… A great friend of mine holds the patent on a fantastic technology that allows you to control a computer from another location from your own… Sadly – this technology has not changed the fact that people still will travel for business.   Most churches watch attendance numbers and believe if more guests are attending – then attendance will likely go up.   (While this is true… so is the inverse)   If a church looses members than the number in attendance will remain the same… OR WILL IT?    As the business world changes, so do the attendance behaviors of the church goer.   This past year I traveled quite a bit – the membership in the local church did not change (well until recently due to a move…) but my attendance had.

There are a number of churches such as Granger Community and Church of the Resurrection that are boldly moving forward with development and build out of online communities.  The churches that embrace the ability to be in communion and fellowship online are perhaps the only ones that have an understanding of the attendance metric.   People are looking to remain active in the church however due to work and other issues – the ability to attend the church building is changing drastically.

Why does a church look at attendance as such an important number?   Because faithfulness to the local church is one of the key components one can use to measure Christian discipleship.  Is your church preparing to begin doing more than a pod-cast?   Is your church preparing an online community where interaction (a technical term for fellowship) can take place?

Gettin it Done or Strategically Doin IT…

Churches generally fall into three categories:  Churches that use technology to get things done & Churches with a Missional Technology Strategy and those that don’t use technology at all.   We will focus on the first two here however:

• Churches that use technology to get things done do not use the tools to actually disciple folks – but rather to assist them in that process.
• Churches that have a Technology strategy build teams that empower them to do ministry online.   They utilize the Internet and other technologies to help introduce others to a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.

Does your church view Technology as a missional strategy?    Does it see technology as a way to empower people and the ministries in the church to reach others… and perhaps even build new ministries based on technology to perform this task? or   Does your church consider the IT Staff as pastors or just a necessary expense?  If your church does not move towards using technology to help introduce others to a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ your doing more than just missing the boat…

If your stuck and wish to learn more – visit www.CITRT.org and ask the folks @ the Church IT Round Table …

The pastor said he agreed to leave but instead, the guards grabbed him, roughly shoved him against a storefront window and handcuffed him tightly enough to draw blood. Snatchko later was taken to the police station where he was booked on charges of battery and trespassing.

A short time later the charges were dropped, but officials with the Pacific Justice Institute decided to pursue a case against the mall over the impact of the policy on free speech.

Arguments have moved to the appellate court level in a California case in which a man talking to two willing strangers in a shopping mall was arrested because the subject of the conversation was God.

This is something for us to watch for sure…

Working with people in distant lands one would find it difficult to translate languages to be able to communicate.   Enter www.BabelWith.me  A great tool from the folks over @ LifeChurch.tv

If you are the parent of a child, especially one in Home School perhaps, and wish to allow them to extend out of the 4 walls of the house, your town, your county, state and country – This is an excellent tool.   Imagine being able to give your child the ability to chat with multiple pen-pals from around the world – perhaps in the mission field.  Until recently – this was very difficult due to the barrier of language.

Perhaps what makes www.BabelWith.Me so nice is the fact that one does not need to sign up or register.   Simply go to the site and begin your chat.

Imagine the impact for ministry, the impact for foreign students…