Haiti Missionaries OK

Huge hit on my stats overnight… If you arrived here looking for new about our Haiti Missionaries (14 of them total), we’ve heard that they are ok, but nothing else yet. We’re posting updates on Sue’s blog if you want to stay up-to-date.

Primal Book Review

Mark Batterson has a new book that goes on sale today. Unlike In a Pit with a Lion on  a Snowy Day and Wild Goose Chase, this one doesn’t include an animal in the title.

The new book is titled Primal and carries the subtitle “A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity.” The basic premise is that modern Christianity has a major problem. Mark writes:

We’re not great at keeping the Great Commandment. In too many instances, we’re not even good at it.

We are called to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, but too often we fail to live that out. Mark explores what it would look like if recaptured that primal hear, mind, soul and strength of Christianity. As is often the case with Mark’s writing, he’s not afraid to ask some tough questions.

In part, the book is a beginning as we take stock in where we are currently in keeping the Great Commandment, but more importantly it encourages movement through the Spirit towards better keeping the Commandment.

It’s appropriate the book is coming out at the turn of the year. With so many making New Year’s resolutions, perhaps this book would be a good place to get started. You can see a list of places to purchase the book at the Multnomah site, or you can always ask your local Christian bookstore to order up a copy.

Due to some new guidelines implemented by the FTC (Not to be confused with our church, the FTLC.), I’m obliged to include this message: “This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.” So there you have it.

Hidden Words

We’re wrapping up a series in Sunday School this week titled TXT. It’s a look at God’s Word—historical notes, background, characteristics and how to study it. This week focuses on studying it. One of the key verses is Psalm 119:11:

¹¹ I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

As I think about ways to communicate what this means to students beyond the standard “You need to memorize God’s Word”, it struck me that this is similar to studying for a test and learning something.

It seems that more often than not, students (and us adults too) like to cram for a test. Get all the knowledge in our head, get through the test, then wipe the slate clean for more information. Our teachers always told us that studying a little bit each day and learning the material would take us much further.

Many of us are eager to turn to God’s Word in a crisis. It’s much like cramming for that test. We need a shot to get us through the tough time, then we push it out of our minds. Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with turning to God’s Word in a crisis, but what if we spent time regularly studying it? Internalizing it? Hiding it in our hearts? How much better off would we be?

What do you think? A fair analogy to make?

Moving

The past several weeks have been really chaotic as we get ready to move. Between work, packing and painting, I haven’t had much time for anything, including blogging. The good news is that we’re just about done with painting. Many thanks to the several people who came over to help with the project!

We’re going to be moving on November 21 and need lots of help doing it. We’ll be renting a truck and loading it with all our stuff. We’ll start at 10 a.m. at our current place (33 Cascade Dr, Amherst NY, 14228). We’ll load the truck and then head to the new place to unload it all. We’ve got boxes, couches, beds, tables, chairs and lots more to move.

If you’re able to help, it would be much appreciated it. If you can participate (or you want to volunteer a child/husband/wife), let me know you’re coming by signing up in the comments below or giving me a call.

Christmas Gift Card Flier

After getting feedback about the Gift Card Ministry (formerly Scrip), we decided it would be beneficial to highlight this ministry for Christmas. Here’s what it looks like:

Some thoughts on the design:

• I went simple on the design, using the motif of a Christmas tree. The explanatory text continues the image of the tree, making it appear like a larger tree.
• The catch phrase “serve others in Jesus’ Name” is accented in red. This is consistent with the next flier we’ll release in February/March.
• I intentionally focused on gifts people might give, not every card available. It seemed breaking them out by price group was the way to go for listing those options.
• The order form looks very different from the front page, but matches our regular order form. My hope is that when people see the “usual” form, it will be familiar once they get this flier.
• You’ll notice an extra line at the bottom of the order form for gift card wrappers. We’re giving away wrappers with every card valued at $10 or more. We’d lose money on cards that are $5 or less. There are currently only about 5 cards that we sell that are below that threshold.

Look for the finished product in a church mailbox near you this weekend. In case others would like to use our work, grab the originals in Illustrator (Front) and Publisher (Back).

Music I’m Listening To

Not too long ago, David Crowder came out with a new CD titled “Church Music”. It’s been a regular in my music listening since it came out. Now I’m grooving to Matt Redman’s newest CD. Not sure which I like more right now.

Two tracks from Matt’s CD that stand out to me:

This Is How We Know (YouTube Video)

The opening lyrics:

This is how we know
This is how we know what love is
Just one look at Your cross
And this is where we see
This is where we see how love works
For You surrendered Your all
And this is how we know
That You have loved us first
This is where we chose
To love You in return

You Alone Can Rescue (YouTube Video)

Some favorite lyrics from this one:

Who, oh Lord, could save themselves,
Their own sin could heal?
Our shame was deeper than the sea
Your love is deeper still
You alone can rescue, You alone can save
You alone can lift us from the grave
You came down to find us, led us out of death
To You alone belongs the highest praise

Any good ones you’re enjoying right now?

Scrip Improvements, Take 2

Thanks for all the feedback on the Scrip program over the past couple days! Here’s a summary of what I heard, both online and off, from this group of readers and research in other programs:

• Increased visibility of point-of-sale. It’s hard to find it and when you do, it’s really crowded. A sign would be helpful. Also signs to help navigate from the information center to the ministry support center.
• Increased awareness. People forget it exists, don’t know it exists, or just plain don’t know what it is. Fliers, skits, video commercials and more are options to help here. We also want ways to easily share the information with friends/family that might be interested in partnering with us. Quick access to what’s in stock and what needs to be ordered is helpful as well.
• Incentives. Gift card wrappers at Christmas (and possibly other times), key-chain Sharpie marker with purchases over X dollars, one entry into a drawing for a $25 gift card of your choice for every X dollars.

Today’s questions then:

1. Check out these gift card wrappers. Most are 16 cents per wrapper when ordering 1000. At best, we can order two designs. Do we go with one more generic “A gift for you” type card, a Christmas themed one, or one of both?
2. Here’s a flier about the Gift Card Ministry. It answers three basic questions about the program: Why, What and How. It’s intentionally emphasizing the “why” we do it and frames profits in terms of how many trips it paid for. It also draws the “why” into the “what” and the “how” using the recurring phrase “serve others in Jesus’ Name.” We do it to help students serve in Jesus’ Name and when you purchase gift cards, you serve in Jesus’ Name through us. The back side is not done yet. Any wording that’s confusing? If you can, show it to someone who’s never heard of Scrip and see what they think about it.
3. Which incentives would get you buying cards?  Most are self-explanatory. The marker idea was so that people could have it with them to track the balance. Also, what should X be for pens and drawing entries? Markers cost around $1.20, so we’d lose money on sales of $25/50. We’d make money at $100 on all cards except Wegmans/Tims/Target where we essentially break even.

Increasing Scrip Awareness/Sales

I’m looking for ways to increase sales for our Scrip program, one of three ways we pay for Short-Term Missions around these parts. I’m starting to work on two publicity pieces for people:

1. A new “What is Scrip and Why Should I Care?” type of brochure. There are still lots of people who don’t know much about the program I imagine.
2. A Christmas Scrip flier.

So I’m looking for some help:

• What are questions you have about Scrip?
• What are things people who’ve never heard about it would like to know?
• What gift cards are especially important to have in stock at Christmas?
• What would make cards sell better at Christmas?

Really, any ideas you have for raising awareness and/or sales, I’d love to hear them, so post them in the comments, please!

Reading and Writing

One of the things about blogging that seems to be true is that the more you read, the more you write. I suppose it’s true for other forms of writing too. I’m certainly finding it to be true myself.

One of the reasons I haven’t blogged much in the past two months is that I haven’t been reading many blogs in that time period. There are lots of reasons why, but I can certainly see the truth of the statement. Lately, I’ve been reading blogs again and find myself with more to say. Huh.

Here’s a snippit from an interesting post I read the other day, from Craig Groeschel:

When I meet people from our church, they often tell me more with their words than they realize.

They almost always say one of two things:

• “I go to your church.”
• “I love our church.”

People who respond the first way generally just attend the church. People who go the 2nd route tend to be the church.

The spiritual connection: Are we attending or being church?

Twitter and Blogging

For a while now, I’ve Tweeted (and by extension, Facebooked) my blog posts. They’ve taken the format:

Blog // Title of a Post // Address to find it

I’m uncertain if this is a good practice. Instead, I’m going to try asking a question in a Tweet that might get people to tune into the blog. I’m trying to help people find valuable content that’s relevant to them rather than just shamelessly promoting myself.

Hopefully, if people are interested in the question, they’ll click through. If not, that’s cool too.

I’m not sure you wanted to know this, but now you do.