Smart Pastor

I gotta be honest…I am still not convinced about Twitter, but this article gave me a little bit more of a glimpse as to what it may mean.  Here is one part of it…

Put those three elements together — social networks, live searching and link-sharing — and you have a cocktail that poses what may amount to the most interesting alternative to Google’s near monopoly in searching. At its heart, Google’s system is built around the slow, anonymous accumulation of authority: pages rise to the top of Google’s search results according to, in part, how many links point to them, which tends to favor older pages that have had time to build an audience. That’s a fantastic solution for finding high-quality needles in the immense, spam-plagued haystack that is the contemporary Web. But it’s not a particularly useful solution for finding out what people are saying right now, the in-the-moment conversation that industry pioneer John Battelle calls the “super fresh” Web. Even in its toddlerhood, Twitter is a more efficient supplier of the super-fresh Web than Google. If you’re looking for interesting articles or sites devoted to Kobe Bryant, you search Google. If you’re looking for interesting comments from your extended social network about the three-pointer Kobe just made 30 seconds ago, you go to Twitter.   (Source)

So if you want to know more, check it out.

Oh yea, if you want to follow me on Twitter I am @jeffberg

Stumbled into an article on work habits that I think can be helpful to those of us in ministry.  It is 10 Bad Work Habits and number two jumped out to me. It is…

2. Being a sloppy e-mailer

E-mails are second nature to most people these days, and in informal communications they’ve become a digital Post-It note. We type out a message and send them without proofreading or double-checking the recipients. That’s a recipe for disaster.

If you haven’t learned your lesson by now, the day will soon come when you accidentally “Reply All” to an e-mail and a slew of unintended readers receive a silly note you only intended your co-worker to read.

I’ve done it….I’ll do it again…but it can be harmful to our ministries.  Lets read twice and send once!

Source: The 10 worst work habits – CNN.com

“Vision without action is a daydream.  Action without vision is a nightmare.”

- Japanese Proverb

Stumbled into this over the weekend.

As we are always looking for great images to use in power point for worship, check out 37 Places To Get Free Stock Images.

Yes they are, according to David Campbell and Robert Putnam.  Here is from their presentation hosted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The scholars say their studies found that religious people are three to four times more likely to be involved in their community. They are more apt than nonreligious Americans to work on community projects, belong to voluntary associations, attend public meetings, vote in local elections, attend protest demonstrations and political rallies, and donate time and money to causes — including secular ones.

At the same time, Putnam and Campbell say their data show that religious people are just “nicer”: they carry packages for people, don’t mind folks cutting ahead in line and give money to panhandlers.

The scholars say the link between religion and civic activism is causal, since they observed that people who hadn’t attended church became more engaged after they did. “These are huge effects,” Putnam said. (Source)

photo credit: DannyBen

I am speechless. Truly speechless.  Dateline Norway…

A Norwegian church where the taps had been turned off because of freezing temperatures was forced to use a substitute liquid in a baptism ceremony – specifically, lemon-flavoured cola.

Priest Paal Dale, from the town of Stord, about 150 miles west of the capital Oslo, improvised during a recent cold-spell by dabbing the fizzy drink on the baby, daily newspaper Vaart Land said on Tuesday.

‘It had gone flat,’ Dale was quoted as saying by the newspaper. ‘Only the lemon smell made this unusual.’

Dale said the child’s family were only informed about the switch after the ceremony, because the priest ‘had a need to inform’ them about the lingering lemon odour.

‘They didn’t say much, but I assumed they smelled the aroma as well,’ Dale told Vaart Land. (Source)

Jones Soda has got to make this a new flavor, right?  Holy Cola?  I mean, if they can do Christmas Ham…

Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing.

- Albert Schweitzer

Stumbled into an interesting post on the matter.  Here is a blurb…

… I remember way too much fund-raising visiting churches that were excited about giving a couple of thousand dollar a year. And some of them had the message board with the multiple missionaries. But, do the division in your head. A missionary with a full travel and ministry budget can easily cost $60,000 to $100,000 per year. That means that at $2,000 per congregation, one would have to visit 30 to 50 congregations, or a whole year of fund-raising, because most congregations want you there on a Sunday. That happened to me on all three of our fund-raising trips. I used to envy the two missionaries in our organization who had 10 or so churches footing their entire support.

Now think about it a different way. What if those medium-sized churches with multiple missionaries cut it down to just a couple of missionaries? They would then be able to give some significant support to that missionary family and shorten the time that the missionary parent had to spend away from his/her children. Imagine investing $15,000 to $20,000 on just one missionary. Why with just five churches of that type, a missionary family could spend most of their furlough together and recouping energy for their next stint overseas.

You see, theoretically, furlough is a time for a missionary to unwind from the high stress of living in another culture, preaching a message that may not be either common or popular. It is a time to reconnect with family to re-establish roots. It can also be a time to do some studying and to catch up with the latest in missiological or other thought. It may be that the missionary realizes that they lacked some training that they need before they go back. But, all too often, the missionary ends up not having the opportunity to either rest or to prepare for the next stint overseas. Rather, they are expected to become a traveling circus and put on a show every Sunday. Since a congregation only sees them one or two days, they do not realize that the missionary is going to be doing the same thing over and over and over for a year, with, perhaps, little time for themselves or their family. (Source and the rest of the post.)

Personally I think he is on to something.  I also think that supporting fewer missionaries makes it easier for the typical church member to pray for missions and missionaries as well as partner with the ministry.  Thoughts?

Similar to the church making your mortgage payment, I present to you the Pastor in a Box…

“This might be cheesy, but what can I say? I am passionate about the church getting out and being the church, not just within our walls, but outside of them as well. It’s time for the church to get out of the box and let our world know that we serve a great God and have fun doing it.” – Ben Dailey

If Calvary Church breaks the 4,000 attendance barrier Sunday, April 12th and Sunday, April 19th Ben will sacrifice all the comforts of common daily life, make his way to the roof of Calvary Church, overlooking Highway 161, and reside in a ‘roomy’ 6×6x6 foot plexi-gass box for three days and nights. He will enter the box on April 26th at 7:00pm and exit the box April 29th at 7:00pm.  (Source: Pastor in a Box)

Any suggestions for what is next?  Do you really want to see a pastor in a plexi-glass box for one day let alone three?  Who does this really motivate?

Found Via Church Marketing Sucks.

Dateline Hibbing, MN…

First Assembly of God will pick at random two parishioners to receive up to $800 a month in mortgage or rent payments for the rest of 2009.

One Hibbing church is looking to show God’s grace by paying the mortgage or rent of two parishioners who attend services on Easter Sunday.

First Assembly of God will pick at random two parishioners to receive up to $800 a month in mortgage or rent payments for the rest of 2009.

At the beginning of each Easter Sunday service ushers will pass around a form for people to sign their names. The names will be drawn at the end of each of the two services. (Source)

The pastor is quoted as saying that this will be done to illustrate the grace of God and the hope of Easter.  I wonder if your attendance is necessary, if it is really grace.

What do you think?  Gimmick or sincere illustration?