After watching AND LISTENING to this wonderful talk I would love to hear what you think.

Or just click on the link here.

What do we do in the Church that is really born out of the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment and not the scriptures?

The crux of what Sir Ken Robinson is saying should make us think differently about missions, ministry, and even worship.

I’m quoting a blog by my favorite author for the sake of the Redemption participants who are beginning to prepare their stories and for those of us who will hear them. Be prepared to ask and answer questions.

Want to Get to Know Somebody? Understand Their Story | Donald Miller’s Blog

Want to Get to Know Somebody? Understand Their Story

The first conversation we have with somebody can be awkward. We don’t know them, so the first thing we do is make connections, how do you know so and so if we are at a party or a wedding is a routine question. If we are both married with kids, we might ask about that, too. We just find common ground, essentially asking the question What do we have in common so I can understand you through the lens of my own experience? Or, perhaps more crudely How are you like me, and so how are you human? From there we tend to ask what they do, where they work. That’s not a bad question, because work often encompasses our passions and even our education, but it also rings of you are your work.

We are much more than our work and even our family. These formulaic questions evolved from the need to make conversation more than the desire to get know somebody. What results is we begin to think that people are fairly boring. But it’s not the case.

After writing Million Miles, I realized every person has a story. And I started asking different questions when I met strangers. And I was amazed at the result. Recently, on a trip to Los Angeles, I got to hear two amazing stories of the first two people I interacted with, the driver of the car that picked me up and the lady who put makeup on me (I know, strange but it happened) before an interview. And I was shocked. It made me wonder if nearly everybody around me had an amazing story, and I was simply asking them where they worked. I’ll share bits of the stories in a moment.

A story is a character that wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. So next time you meet somebody, delve into their story, not their job or the weather they experience where they live. To find out a persons story, you have to find out what they want or have wanted in life, what conflict they endured in getting what they wanted, and what great moments of celebration they have experienced. Questions like this:

A CHARACTER THAT WANTS SOMETHING:

1. Why did you come to America?

2. What drives you?

3. What do you hope for for yourself and your family?

AND OVERCOMES CONFLICT:

1. That couldn’t have been an easy transition to America. What was the most shocking thing you endured?

2. Was that a lonely journey?

3. Did you ever think it wasn’t going to happen for you?

TO GET IT:

1. When did you realize you were happier than the average man?

2. If there could be a moment in the future when you’ll realize that you made it, what would that moment look like?

3. When the credits roll, what do you think is most important in life?

If you ask these questions, I promise, you will be entertained for the next hour. Not only will you hear stories, but you will watch as a person truly reflects on their life, and you’ll learn a great deal about what most people find important. You’ll be amazed that most people don’t really care about money or prestige, they care about love, about weddings and funerals, about children, about dignity and integrity.

Plane Crash President Kaczynski of Poland

So the driver of the car that picked me up had come to America from Poland. He’d married and lived in Chicago where he had a son, but then got divorced. He’d been part of a small, polish community and had to move to Los Angeles in order to give his ex-wife space. They simply couldn’t share that many friends. He’d remarried a woman twenty years younger, and he loved her. His son was in college in Los Angeles. He’d been friends with the Polish President who recently died in a plane crash. He choked up as he told the story. He talked about grieving for his leader while nobody in Los Angeles understood his loss. He hoped to stay married and be a good man to his new wife. He wanted his son to respect him.

Funeral of Medgar Evers

The woman who did my makeup? She had come to Los Angels to be a model and that worked out for a while, but as she got older there was less work (she was in her fifties and strikingly beautiful.) She had come to California from Mississippi. She missed the south, the meals, the family. Her Uncle was named Uncle Medgar, and she remembered him fondly, how he would joke with her and her siblings. He was assassinated by the Klu Klux Klan, an event that motivated national protest. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full honors. He was Medgar Evers.

I also met a man who worked at a 7-11. He had come to America from Iran, escaped to Greece and came to our country with a fake passport. While in Iran, he was trained in elementary school to assemble and disassemble a rifle. He watched religious fundamentalist kill one of his teachers. When he came to America, still in elementary school, he lived in fear that his teachers would find out he was not Greek, take him out back and shoot him. He was happy to be in America now.

So next time you are at a wedding or a party, don’t settle for answers like I work for Microsoft. Everybody has a story. Everybody is a story.

Jeff Meyer of The Church passed this video on to Will Mancini, who blogged about it and then tweeted about his blog.

That’s how I came across it. It’s amazing how connected The Church is becoming. It makes me think Jesus will make a visit in my lifetime.

That may be the most compelling video on wearing a seat belt I’ve ever seen, other than the accident scene in Seven Pounds, which also doubles as a deterrent to texting, emailing, tweeting, etc. while behind the wheel.

For all of my creative friends out there see what Will had to say about grabbing attention.

In Church Unique, I cover the integration principle, “Grab attention or hold nothing.” According to studies as reported in the book, The Attention Economy, there are four primary factors for getting attention. I immediate thought of these four things as I watched this video.

Four Keys to Really Get Attention

1. Is the communication personalized?
2. Is the communication coming from a trustworthy source?
3. Is the communication brief?
4. Is the communication emotional?

In the case of this video, it is not necessarily personalized, but it does feel very personal. The trustworthiness of the source is carried by the quality production and the “embrace life” message and logo. The brevity and emotion of the piece are stunning.

I agree.

If I could impact as strongly with the gospel in as short an amount of time shouldn’t I be willing to invest in the effort and time to produce such a message? Or does the ego just get in the way?

I learned a long time ago that I either tend to listen to no one’s criticism or everyone’s criticism. So, I began to make an unofficial list of people who will speak open and honestly with me. They are the ones for whose opinion I ask. I still struggle to take it if they give it without asking, but at least I am able to weed out the fickle. On this Humpday I found Seth’s insight freeing.

Seth’s Blog: Who judges your work?

Who judges your work?

Here’s the mistake we make in high school:

We let anyone, just anyone, judge our work (and by extension, judge us.)

Sue, the airheaded but long-legged girl in Spanish class gets the right to judge our appearance.

Bill, the bitter former-poet English teacher gets the power to tell us if we’re good at writing.

And on and on.

The cheerleaders are deputized as the Supreme Court of social popularity, and the gym teacher forever has dibs on whether or not we’re macho enough to make it in the world. These are patterns we sign up for, and they last forever (or until we tell them to go away).

In high school, some people learn to ship, they learn to do work that matters and most of all, they learn to ignore the critics they can never possibly please. The ability to choose who judges your work–the people who will make it better, use it and reward you–is the key building block in becoming an artist in whatever you do.

There is a difference between being convincing and being compelling. You can be convinced that you need to diet and exercise, but you can still choose not to do it. If you are compelled to do it, then it will happen.

Is your church a “Me Monster” or are you a “Moon Walker?”

Is your church telling a compelling story in the marketplace that no one can top?

Excellence has stopping power.

Story has stopping power.

Everyone has a Brand Identity. It is what is making your first impression.

Story Sequencing

1. Brand Identity (Introduces)

2. Brand Experience (Investigate): Are you exceeding expectations?

3. Brand Association (Internalize): Are you truthful? Are you trustworthy? Are you temporary?

Brochures are a “Pre-experience” not just ink and paper.

You can’t tell effective stories if you don’t document effective stories.

For more from Kevin check out www.brandpoet.com

CFCC’s Brad Abare and Phil Cooke were interviewed for an hour by Conversant Life.

The best part of the interview can be summarized by their Top Four Keys to Reaching the Next Generation for Jesus Christ. It’s not an exhaustive list, and they were answering questions on the fly, but like most leaders in the church they were already thinking about these things and I felt like these four things were spot on.

Keys to Reaching the Next Generation

1. Vision + Culture = You must have a vision and you need to create a culture of transformation within your church. (I don’t know of another church who has done this better than Quest)
2. Monologue →Dialogue: We need to move from Monologue to Dialogue in how we interact with the congregation in all of our gatherings (YouVersion)
3. Lions and Tigers and BEARS…Instead of passing on our faith, the torch, responsibilities we need to carry it (bear it) with them. Mentoring will be essential.
4. T   r   a   n   s   p   a   r   e   n   c   y – In the internet age there is no hiding what you own, buy, sell, or do so don’t try to hide. Leaders must be comfortable with sharing their personal struggles. (Just ask Tiger Woods)

Consumerism Worldview

1. I am the center of the universe
2. I have unmet desires
3. There is a pill, person, procedure or program to help me with any problem that I have.
4. Jesus is a commodity

We have made Jesus into a means to an end instead of THE END.

We have a choice every weekend where we can educate or illuminate…to teach or preach. We can help people get through this life, or help them see another Kingdom, a Kingdom they say that they believe in, but need an imagination to see.

Fatal Flaws in “Instructional Preaching”

1. It doesn’t work in crowds. People don’t retain information.
2. It doesn’t challenge people’s perceptions of reality

There is a difference between preaching and teaching.
Kuros – preaching, announcing, gives a glimpse of another reality
Preaching requires experiential knowledge

Didakeo – teaching, conveying instruction
Teaching requires a basic set of knowledge and skills

Instructional preaching is really just teaching.

We need to PREACH on the weekends, and require people to use their imagination. We need to do our teaching elsewhere.

Skye’s book is a must read…see side bar for quick link to Amazon.

Stacy referenced a contemporary of his in describing the five types of preachers.

1. The Comfort Dispenser – Gives Tylenol to cure all ills
2. The Pedantic Scholar – Waxes eloquently in order to impress
3. The Social Prophet – Sees the ills of society and cries
4. The Bible Repository – They know the book, but do they know the God of the book
5. Incorporates all four – Strive to be five

Always reflect on these things when preparing a message:

1. Why should I listen?
2. How are you introducing the text to the dilemma
3. Put people in the movie, help them become part of the text
4. Is there a common thread throughout the message? There should be no waste.
5. There MUST be redemption in your story.

Ignore Seth Godin’s Title…Halloween has little to do with the nugget of truth he reveals at the end.

Seth’s Blog: Why celebrate Halloween?

Why celebrate Halloween?

Because everyone else does.

Why believe that people once put razor blades into apples and you should only eat wrapped candies? Because everyone else believes it (it’s an urban legend).

Most of what we believe is not a result of direct experience (ever seen an electron?) but is rather part of our collection of truth because everyone (or at least the people we respect) around us seems to believe it as well.

We not only believe that some brands are better than others, we believe in social constructs, no shirt, no shoes, no service. We believe things about changing our names when we get married or what’s an appropriate gift for a baby shower.

This groupthink is the soil that marketing grows in. It’s frustrating for someone who is hyper-fact-based or launching a new brand to come to the conclusion that people believe what they believe, not that people are fact-centered data processing organisms.

Sure, it would be great to have an organization that enjoys the advantage of everyone believing. Getting from here, to there, though, requires stories, emotion and ideas that spread. Organizations grow when they persuade a tiny cadre to be passionate, not when they touch millions with a mediocre message.

The Shape of the Future | Christian Leadership Alliance
The Shape of the Future
A four-part ministry Web strategy.
Drew Goodmanson | posted 9/10/2009

We live in a time when technological change seems constant. Five years ago, people could not predict the phenomena of Facebook, mobile Web, or cloud computing, all technologies that impact how we interact. In this changing environment, many strategic leaders are eager to leverage new technologies, but understand that this requires new thinking to prepare for the road ahead. How will the Internet require your organization to adapt? What new advances should your ministry begin to use? What trends are wastes of time? What do ministry leaders need to consider when creating their organization’s strategic Web plan?

Before answering these questions, it is helpful to examine the state of the Internet. Kevin Kelly, executive editor of Wired magazine, presented a session titled “Predicting the Next 5,000 Days of the Web” at the 2008 TED Talks. Kelly compared the 55 billion website links and their quintillion transistors with the number of synapses and neurons in the human brain. He stated that the complexity of the Internet had reached the equivalent of one human brain. As Christians, this is cause for worship, as we see trillions of dollars poured into these technologies to equal one wonderfully made brain. But, unlike the Internet, our brain is not doubling every two years. If the Internet continues to double, it will surpass the processing power of all humanity by the year 2040.

As the Internet grows in pervasiveness, it becomes like a black hole, consuming into its vacuum the way we live. It is not far-fetched to imagine a world in which our shoes communicate if we do not walk enough, eyeglasses include a viewable area to access data about the people to whom we are speaking, and our personal preferences follow us wherever we go. Our Internet dependence will grow as more things are put online. Access to technology changes how we behave. For example, today as people store phone numbers on their cell phones, they no longer remember the numbers. In the same way, people forget many facts, trusting they can “Google” the answer. The Web is becoming a deeper part of the fabric of our lives.
Four-Part Web Strategy

Organizations must plan a Web strategy two to five years out to prepare for these changes. When planning a Web strategy, items to include are a website, social media, online advertising, search engine optimization, website analytics, community engagement, and automated business functions. These can be grouped into four categories: website, Internet presence management, community engagement, and backend services.
(1) Website

Your website will continue to grow in importance. It is no longer enough to put up just any website. Organizations need to see their website as a critical place where potential donors, volunteers, and members will engage their ministry. If your website does not help increase donations, membership, or provide some other measurable impact, there is a good chance that it needs to be changed.

In spring 2009, Monk Development conducted market research on the impact of a church’s website. Over 100 churches representing 35,000-plus members participated in the study. The study included 1,200 survey responses and an estimated 50-plus years’ worth of aggregate Web analytics data to help examine what happens on a church website and the impact on potential church visitors. The study found that over 17 percent of respondents learned about the church they attend through its website first. Further, 36.1 percent of respondents said the website played an important role in their decision to attend the church. The study revealed that many church websites do a poor job of connecting to new visitors and encouraging behaviors that are of value to the church.

Effective churches use a design to present their vision quickly and effectively, motivate the visitor toward sharing this vision, and encourage behaviors from the visitor that the church desires. These behaviors could include

• Low-Value Behaviors: Subscribe to RSS, podcasts, or engage the church Twitter account.

• Medium-Value Behaviors: Sign-up for an e-mail, join a Facebook group, or complete a Web form.

• High-Value Behaviors: Show up to a worship service, home group, or other relational meeting.

As another design example, the Worship Network’s website was a vital source of income to the organization through the sales of worship-related products. When it re-launched its website, it encouraged users to view the product pages. In fact, visitors spent 20 percent more time on these Web pages. As a result of the website redesign, the Worship Network increased sales 250 percent over the previous year. Does your website create these types of behaviors?
(2) Internet Presence Management

“If no one visits your award-winning new website, does it really exist?” may be the existential question of the Internet age. Too often organizations spend all their time and budget on a website rather than establishing their presence across the Web. What is your organization’s presence online?

Recently we spoke with a pregnancy care center that did not have a Facebook presence. Meanwhile, the Third Way Culture Project found that 75 percent of all U.S. abortions are being done by women under 30, and that as of April 2009, these women represent 3 out of 10 people on Facebook. Planned Parenthood understands this and has nearly 60,000 Facebook “fans” who make up a viral network spreading Planned Parenthood’s ideas and interests. The largest pregnancy care center we found had only 348 fans. Just how important is Facebook as a mission field? If you counted all Facebook users, it would be the fifth largest nation in the world.

As you seek to expand your online presence, consider the following questions:

• What is your plan on Facebook? Many organizations create a presence where people become fans, but without a plan for next steps, they fail to capitalize on these connections.

• Where are your current members? Conduct market research and determine where your members are already engaged online. Are they on Twitter? LinkedIn? YouTube?

• What is your mobile plan? More people have mobile phones than computers. Text messages are effective forms of communication with an open rate of 98 percent.

• What search terms would a person enter to find an organization like yours? Try these and see if your website is one of the top results.

Internet presence management is an overlooked area and requires a continued investment. Look at content your organization creates and move it across multiple channels. A new website article should result in Twitter and Facebook updates, a video, or blog post. As more people rely on technology, successful organizations will find ways to engage people across the Web.
(3) Community Engagement

“Business in the front, party in the back” is a popular expression about the mullet, a haircut that’s short in the front and long in the back. Every organization should have an “online mullet strategy.” This strategy presents an organization’s vision on the public website but invites members into a private community site for greater exchange of ideas and conversation. Organizations that understand how to build a mullet strategy will have a tremendous opportunity to develop deeper relationships with their members.

Involve your donor and member base by offering a private community. Studies show that retention is lower for online donors than for direct-mail donors. If you offer a place of value where donors can participate and track the ongoing projects they invest in, there is an opportunity to retain a higher percentage of donors. Denver Seminary (see “Digital in Denver” below) created a place for its alumni to connect. It is now one of the most popular places on its website. As a benefit, Denver Seminary has increased online donations and alumni participation. The rise of social media encourages organizations to provide a place for their members to engage online.
(4) Backend Services

Last, ministries should leverage online technology for everything from accepting donations to business process automation. Online donations are one area nonprofits should target. The Donation Usability report by the Nielsen Norman Group revealed that from 2007-2008, while total giving in the U.S. decreased by 3 percent, online donations grew 39 percent. The average online gift is 140 percent larger than offline donations. Online donations are predicted to account for the majority of donations by 2020. Based on these findings, it is imperative that organizations set up online donations.

As the Internet doubles every two years, has your organization increased the resources dedicated to it? Our world is moving more online, and people’s dependence on the Internet is only growing. Today’s Christian leaders have an opportunity to steward their resources for the purpose of serving our King. Is it time your organization put together a Web strategy to continue to fulfill your mission, spread the gospel, and seek God’s glory?

Drew Goodmanson is CEO of Monk Development, an Internet strategy and development company that serves thousands of churches and ministries. Drew often speaks at conferences about how churches and ministries can use the Internet. His blog is recognized as one of the Top Church Blogs by ChurchRelevance.com. Drew is also cofounder and pastor of Kaleo Church in San Diego. To learn more, visit Monk Development.com.

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