I am Jamaica's husband, Foursquare's comm director, Personality's founder, and a catalyst for CFCC.
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Church Marketing Sucks
April 2008 Archives
April 27, 2008
Resisting Institutionalization
Filed under: Rant
Last week one of the Foursquare veeps sent me an email with a PDF attachment of an article written by Josh Packard, an assistant professor of sociology at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. It's a seven page summary about some research Packard has done on the Emerging Church. Despite Jamaica's sincere intrigue, I've never taken any considerable interest in conversations about this subject mostly because it doesn't interest me so much. Nonetheless, there were arguments that Packard makes about institutionalization that got my attention.
Packard points out that "routines are dangerous for groups and people which value diversity in individual expression." In other words, routine can be the enemy of innovation. The more routine takes root, the more groups of people become institutionalized.
The cause of this institutionalization is varied, arising from such diverse sources as government regulations (e.g., mandated organizational components of filing as an official 501(c)3 nonprofit, tax exempt, organization), internal norms and habits developed during professional training (e.g., seminary), and mimicry of perceived success (e.g., utilizing ministry models such as A Purpose Driven Church).
Although Packard is making his case in the context of the church, the reality is that the danger of institutionalization is not confined to the church. It can suck the life out of businesses, schools, government and any other place that people congregate.
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April 26, 2008
The Journey of Desire
Filed under: Reading Room
A few months ago Jamaica gave me a copy of John Eldredge's book, The Journey of Desire. She already knew I wasn't a big fan of Eldredge from back when I tried to read his Wild at Heart. I couldn't get through the first couple chapters without feeling bored or neutered. John is a man's man and I am not. I can't relate to camping stories and fishermen tales. I don't really care to either.
Nonetheless, I told Jamaica I would read this one. She was really inspired by the quantity and quality of quotes that Eldredge incorporates into Desire, and she wanted me to share in the inspiration.
After a bumpy beginning--three pages into the book and I'm already hiking and swimming with John in the Tetons--I knew the next 209 would be a challenge. Three months later I made it to the end and I'm glad I did.
The Journey of Desire boils down to this:
- We are desire.
- Absolutely nothing of human greatness is ever accomplished with it.
- Desire fuels our search for the life we prize.
- We must go into our desire if we are to meet God.
Unpacking the above took me on a journey of patient redundancy, but I found some treasure. All quotations that follow are from John Eldredge unless otherwise noted.
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April 19, 2008
Q Thoughts
Filed under: Inspiration
Last week I attended the Q conference in New York City at the beautiful Gotham Hall. It was my second year to attend Q after checking out the first one in Atlanta last year.
As expected, Q was a great place to think about big ideas and discuss them with big-idea people. The size of the event is intentionally small--about 350 I would guess--which makes way for some great conversations. The bulk of the crowd were pastors, although I did hang with other types as well--a former Amazon exec, ad agency creatives, educators, etc. Great mix, although everyone kind of looked the same which kills me.
Scott Hodge did a marvelous job blogging the entire 3-day event, so for my purposes here I'm just going to highlight the stuff that I've been chewing on since I've been back.
Jim Wallis: Change the the direction of the wind
The controversial Jim Wallis had some great things to say about politics and social justice. Politicians hold their fingers to the wind to determine what they should be thinking about or voting on. If the wind is blowing one way, so will they. As Christians, we need to quit trying to change politicians and instead change the wind. Martin Luther King, Jr. never endorsed a candidate. Rather, he had the candidates endorse his agenda.
Dan Merchant: The gospel of love is dividing America
He is the producer of a docu-drama-dy called Lord, Save Us From Your Followers. I saw the preview at Q and then found out this week that Dan is a part of the Foursquare tribe up in Beaverton, Oregon. Small world. Looks like it's going to be a great movie with the pompous, pace and perseverance of a Michael Moore flick.
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April 18, 2008
Pangea Day is May 10
Filed under: Media
I bumped into the story of Jehane Noujaim when I saw that she won the TED Prize wish a couple years ago. Jehane's dream is to see people around the world share the same film experience at the same time. The idea has grown into a giant global project called Pangea Day and it's happening Saturday, May 10.
4 hours. 7 languages. 24 films. Wow.
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April 17, 2008
Mary Poppins on Broadway
Filed under: Stuff I Like
This past weekend in New York I got to hang out with my brother Craig for a couple days. He just moved to Manhattan a month ago and is loving it. On Saturday night we went to the Broadway performance of May Poppins and it was amazing. It's been awhile since I've watched the movie--the story is powerful. Seeing it on stage was really moving--props to the producers for the production values. The effects and stunts were incredible. Great show!
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April 16, 2008
Free, CFCC Job & Freelance Labs
Filed under: Brad Works
It was about a year ago when CFCC announced the new Job Lab and Freelance Lab. Both sites were originally launched with the idea that someday they could generate a little revenue to help keep the nonprofit CFCC going.
The CFCC team has instead decided to keep them free and lay aside previous plans to convert to a pay-per-post model.
I'm really grateful to Drew Goodmanson and his team at Ekklesia 360 for providing all of the back-end technical design and programming for both sites.
I continue to be humbled by the impact CFCC is having with churches and church leaders around the world. A little idea four years ago has certainly grown into something well beyond what I could have ever dreamed of. Go God.
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April 6, 2008
Watching TV Evolve
Filed under: Media
Anybody that knows me is aware that I'm not much of a television watcher. Growing up I never really did get into it. I wish I could tell you that instead I was out roughing it in the wild or building sand castles or getting in touch with my inner-man. Instead I was off doing geeky entrepreneurial things and tinkering with tech stuff.
Television is such a time sucker which is why Jamaica and I don't subscribe to cable or satellite service. Perhaps the reason we like movies so much is because there is a clear start and stop time.
Because the worlds I work in rely so much on mass communication mediums, television is certainly something I keep an eye on, especially as it continues to evolve. I've been particularly interested in Joost and the recently launched Hulu. Both approach online TV and movies in similar ways, although Hulu definitely has better interface in my opinion.
I'm also curious about Sky Angel's announcement in February about converting entirely to IPTV--a first in the industry. The simplicity and convenience of connecting a little black box to the internet (much like an IP phone) and then out to a TV is very intriguing.
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April 5, 2008
Foursquare Live! Worship Training Event
Filed under: Brad Works
If you've followed any of my Twitter feed over the past several weeks you've read increasing references to the live simulcast event I've been working on with Foursquare. Today is when all of that hard work comes together for the broadcast crescendo live to hundreds of locations across the country.
It's been a treat to work with the front-man for today's event, Tommy Walker. Tommy is also the worship leader at the church I'm a part of in Eagle Rock, Calif. He has done a great job crafting the content for this worship training event. Jack Hayford and Darlene Zschech are also participating in today's simulcast but their portions were pre-recorded due to schedule conflicts (Jack is in Israel today and Darlene is in Australia).
One of the biggest components to this event has been the simultaneous production of a Spanish counterpart at the same time as the English version. It's like producing two events at the same time.
If I wore a hat, it would go off to Michael Melahouris, Dan Phelps and Steve Galvan who have worked around the clock pulling the technical details together that will work in concert with today's broadcast. Michael, Dan and Steve serve with me on the Foursquare Communications team.
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April 4, 2008
Phil The Cooker
Filed under: Reading Room
Earlier this week I had lunch with "media guru" Phil Cooke. I've been a Cooke observer over the last few years and have only recently met him in person, even though we've worked indirectly with each other on some projects in the past. I also just finished reading Phil's latest book, Branding Faith: Why Some Churches and Nonprofits Impact Culture and Others Don't, which I reviewed on the CMS blog.
We had a great conversation over lunch and talked a lot about his own journey and the worlds he straddles. Phil has a big heart for helping churches and ministries communicate better, and a lot of talent to do so. His ministry-minded (and poorly named) Cooke Pictures, as well as his founding partnership in TWC Films (a commercial production company) speak to his gifting.
I'm looking forward to getting to know Phil more.
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April 3, 2008
Oral Dancing
Filed under: Rant
I wonder what it is about human nature that causes us to dance around the obvious in our conversations? Why do we ignore the elephant in the room? When push comes to shove, why do so many people revert to a placating hug? I find this to be especially true in church circles where brotherly love and Christian camaraderie seem to rule the day. There isn't a week that goes by that I am not involved in some sort of meeting where a key leader will spew unnecessary elegant oral verbiage. Audiences are affirmed while B.S. detectors are sounding alarms.
What bugs me even more is that I'm guilty of this. And I hate it.
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