the coffee wars

I am sitting here at starbucks working on a leadership training lesson for tonight. I am amazed at the masses of people that come through this store in the morning. It is a real marketing genius, these starbucks people.

As I sit here and watch them between sips of my venti (Big Coffee). I all of a sudden remembered that today was Tuesday morning and that just down the street there are a group of guys from our church meeting at Tim Horton’s. I sometimes make that meeting, however not today. Today I am at starbucks the place were happening business people go to sit and sip their coffee.

While thinking on that I thought of what a drastic difference there are between the starbucks crew and the Tim’s gang. As I look around I see people reading hard cover books. Where at Tim’s people generally read the menu posted on the wall. At starbucks people are wearing suits and brand name shoes. Tim’s, work boots and jeans with stains fit just right.

Then there is this medium thing. Tim’s has no music, starbucks has the jazz thing happening. Also Starbucks has the wireless internet happening, Tim’s has...Donuts and chili.

I guess there is just a whole lot of difference between these two coffee houses. They are selling the same product (coffee). They just have targeted different crowds. Tim’s the blue collar or no collar, starbucks the white collar. Both very important groups of people. Both needing their coffee in the morning. Just two different companies creating environments that will attract clients.

WOW, I just realized how much this Venti cost me. This guy beside me just wont be quiet, he is babbling about the stock market to his friend as they flip threw the globe and mail. The guy playing the trumpet on this jazz piece is going to make my ears fall off.

FORGET THIS ME AND MY HARLEY SHIRT ARE GOING TO TIMS FOR BETTER COFFEE AND A BOWL OF CHILI...CYA

Where are the Apostolics?

This blog is a response to an article by 90&9 .com. http://www.ninetyandnine.com/Archives/20050530/cover.htm.

First let me say that I found the article to be very honest and well done. I think the issue of on line ministry is an issue that with out doubt needs to be addressed. You may tell from my previous Blogs that I feel we need to find the heart beat of our culture. Where and what is the center of communication with in our culture? If we are not there then we are not speaking to them. When I sit on Xbox live and communicate with people around the world while playing a video game, I must realize that this is a product of the Internet. It has changed the way we live our lives and will change them even more in the future. So this is a topic we need to aggressively talk about and work out with in our churches.

Here are some responses from yours truly to the panel discussion questions.

1: Tell us about your web ministry/technical background.

Technical background is very sketchy. I have sort of live an learn in this area. I have a good friend who is an IBM company man. He really is my technical background. I have ideas and he brings them to reality on the web.

The Web ministry started as a Youth Class idea I had for our church. The IBM buddy approached me with the idea to take it outside of the four walls of our church and city and make it a Web Ministry. I said Ok and BOOM, there I was with Real Teens, Real Trials the online ministry of Rev. Jeremy Hanscom.( http://www.ottawachurch.ca/realteens)

2: What does your ministry work with and do and how does it use the web to reach others.

Well the ministry first of all is Teen targeted. I was teaching in our Youth class on Sunday morning and came to the realization that a lot of what we were teaching really had no effect on the issues that our youth were dealing with. I asked one day if the young people had any questions that they wanted answered? I was shocked by some of the questions I got. There were some serious questions and some honest problems they needed help with. We renamed the class Real teens, Real trials and launched an interactive sunday morning time. We still taught certain things we felt needed to be addressed but the major part came from the questions submitted to us.

As I already mentioned above we took it to the wild world of the web. We launched a site that allows teens to submit questions to me with out any information given but an email address. I receive the questions and responded to them. If I feel that it is a question or situation that many teens could relate to we post it on line. I also have areas of favorite articles I have read and articles I have written. The next big thing we are working on is podcasts. Audio messages young people can download to their MP3 players and take with them.

3: What does the web offer ministries that other mediums do not?

The ability to reach people continually. I do not have to be present for you to get your answer. I can post answers that you can come back to again and again, when it is convenient for you. I can see the medium of TV going this direction. There are reality shows that now are available from the web when ever you want to view them. The individual does not have to be home on Saturday night at 7 pm to see their fav show. They can log on and view what they want when they want it.

This medium also allows us to reach people from around the world, in places I will never go or see. I can walk into a living room or bedroom through a computer monitor or soon MP3 player from a web site and touch people’s lives. No other Medium can do that.

4: Why are there so few Apostolic web ministries today?

I won’t win brownie points here, oh well. Web ministry does not put people in the pews. Maybe a few will find your church through your web ministry. On average the people you reach on the web will never enter into you church and sit in your seats. We are number conscious people. First question asked is how many do you have in your church? Web ministry does not put warm bodies in the seats. I feel Web ministry is a true form of ministry because you minister with the understanding that there will be no tangible returns. Not many people like that idea.

5: Can a church host a successful web ministry or should they be happy with a 'placeholder' site that only offers basic information?

A church can host a successful anything. I know churches that host successful business ventures in the name of finances. If it is important to the church then it can be done.

I do not think that we should be happy with placeholder sites. We need to be defining culture not following up 20 years behind time. This is the new frontier of our culture, let’s define it and not tag along on other peoples vision for the web.

6: What would you advise someone contemplating a web ministry to do to be successful?

Take your time and get what you want your site to do. In anything I believe this to be true. Before you launch out into the web world you need to understand what you want and what your ministry will be about. Baron Carson makes a good point concerning "professional" web design. Make it look good. Nobody is going to look at "sloppy" web sites.

These are my personal thoughts on this subject.

Till next time my friend...

Pastor J

Hidden dangers

I am having a hard time typing today; I recently found out that I had a piece of metal in my eye. Unknown to me it has been in there for a very lengthy time. Do to the extended time period that it resided in my cornea, it caused a rust ring. Simply put it rusted into my cornea. I have had to have my eye aggressively scrapped with a needle twice now. The great news is I get to do it again at 3 this afternoon.

What is most baffling to the doctors is that I did not feel this piece of metal in my eye. Although I had to admit that I did feel at times a little discomfort, nothing that raised the alarm for me to go to the doctor. It was to appease my mother that I finally let down my guard and allowed the man in the white coat to take a peek. I now sit here with the metal gone and almost all of the rust removed. However I now have to put this cream in my eye that really makes life uncomfortable. I also have to wear a patch over my eye; my kids think their dad is a Pirate now. In all honesty I am in more pain and put out more now then I was when the metal was undetected.

This reminds me of times of sin. When sin gets lodged in our hearts and we do not feel its presence. Yeah sometimes we feel some discomfort, but we have a whole slew of excuses to chalk it up to. Finally at some point we let down our guard and the spirit of God steps in and reveals the hidden sin. Like this piece of metal it was very visible to others who merely looked in my eye, but I could not see it (One doctor said "You can not see that?). Others see our hidden sin but we do not see it.

Finally it is removed and the spirit starts the healing work of cleaning and restoring the heart. Many times it is more painful going through the healing process than it was just leaving things the way they were. The problem is that if the metal was left unattended it would have caused a major infection in my body and the lost of my eye. Sin not dealt with will do the same it will destroy healthy organs in the spiritual man. We need to continue applying the healing cream of Gods spirit to the hurting part of our body and allow the spirit to bring life and wellness back to us.

Till next time.

Pirate J

Redefining Church

This weekend I had an opportunity to teach at a Youth workers seminar. I was allowed to choose my topic in which I was going to speak. With out even thinking about subject matter I told the organizer I would be speaking on "Reaching the MP3 generation."

So last week I started off on the quest for material to teach on my "cool" topic. It was not as challenging as I thought it would be. As I started to research I found a very interesting thing that has been going on over the last 30 years or so. We have been experiencing a cultural shift or a generational shift. Finally in the last few years the movement and shifting from Boomers to 20 something's have caused and earthquake of movement.

Standing back and looking at how the 20 something’s have redefined our culture is awe inspiring. Of course I was born in the first years of this demographic of revolution. It is unreal for me to see how my generation has challenged and changed the culture that represents North America.

As I looked at it I also realized a scary fact. The fact that if the 20 something’s are changing the culture, through business, technology, and other forms. Then what is happening to the church? If we to do not challenge the way that we "do" church. Are we going to be around in the future? George Barna stated that society reinvents itself every 2.7 years. If the church doesn't reinvent itself it will be come obsolete.

We must connect with the culture we live in or we will not be effective.

ALEX MCMANNUS of Mosaic in LA makes this statement.
"This goes back to the question of relevance. Our goal is not to be liked by culture, to imitate culture, and not even primarily to be relevant to culture. Our goal is to challenge culture, create culture, and renovate the world. But in order to do this we have to find our voice"

Good thing we are filled with the spirit of the first great cultural renovator. Jesus was more than a carpenter he was a cultural engineer.

Was Paul a Snowboarder?

I just finished answering and E-mail that was sent to my web site. In the questions that were asked to me there was one concerning being able to overcome failures of the past. While thinking about it and responding to the question I realized a few things.

Phil 3:13-14
13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.(NIV)

With in this scripture I came to understand that looking back towards our past is not what God wants us to do. Whether good or bad. Our past is our past and it will not change no matter what we do. The only hope we have is to look forward to what lies a head. The only thing we can change is how we shape our tomorrow.

In my office in front of my computer I have a saying on my wall. "You are the product of your own thinking processes and what you're thinking about today is the cornerstone of your tomorrow." Kind of poetic isn't it.

Paul is telling us the same thing. Quite looking back and look forward. What you look towards will be what your tomorrow is going to be about.

When I was learning to snowboard my instructor kept telling me look were you want to go. Do not look at what you are doing right now. Seems this advice of Paul's helps in a lot of life situations. However once I finally drilled it into my head to look were I was wanting to go a funny thing happened. I stopped falling all the time and started to go were I wanted to. I wonder if my snowboard instructer read any of Pauls letters?

I wonder if Paul's advice would work when I am driving.....


J

Building people

Rev 12:11
11 They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
(NIV)

 

People do not die for structures.

People die because they are in love with the one who calls them on the mission.

 

LETS STOP BUILDING CHURCH STRUCTURES AND START BUILDING PEOPLE!!

 

Till next time,

 

Pastor J

LETS GET WIRED

Hey I am excited. Today we wired up my office for our new high speed Internet. This means no more slow dial up and all the frustrations that that brings.

In the words of our senior Pastor "What we need and what we have are two different things." That means that we had to do all the wire running rather than having a company do it. It was a challenge but Pastor McCarty and I did it.

However when we got the job done and we plugged my laptop into the network nothing happened. We started to trace back up the line to find the problem. Finally we located one small wire that was not pushed all the way into its connector. That little wire was holding me up from accessing the information super highway.

I was sitting here in my office thing about that when I came to the sudden realization that I know some Christians that have the same problem. By appearance they look like they should function properly. However do to one small wiring mishap they have become useless. Bad attitude has crept in. Satan has brought accusation against them. Many different things can creep in to the complex wiring of a Christians spirit. But the end result is they cannot access the super highway of the spirit. They wonder why they cannot get plugged into God. When it is simply a small wire that has been unhooked in their spirit.

Ps 51:10-11
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
(NIV)

That is my prayer. I do not want to miss the super highway of the spirit because I am one wire short.

Pastor J