For the church – what lemonade stand are we?

• Are we passing out tracts and telling people the “bridge” story or are we loving people and walking with them to the bridge.?
• Is it more important to us that people attend or that people encounter?
• Are people an audience or are they participators?
• Does tradition trump God’s leading?
• Does playing it safe to protect what we have trump taking a risk in faith to go where God is?
• Are we known more for what we take than what we give?
• Or put another, way – for what we are against than what we are for?

I’ve purposely left the “in between” unfilled in this post.  Hopefully these questions get you thinking as much as they have me and I’d love to hear what you have to say in the comments!  So, what lemonade stand is the church?

I always thought the 10 commandments had a “Do not lie” somewhere in there and it does BUT it only says something about not bearing false witness against your neighbor.  In other words, “Don’t lie about something you witnessed your neighbor doing or not doing”.  Kind of narrowing the context in which you must not lie.  But then, lying is listed as one of the six things God HATES in Proverbs 6:16-18. If you lie, you are putting yourself in opposition to God. Ouch.

So I struggle.  I struggle because there are some times where its really easy to be a truth teller. There are other times where its not that difficult to recognize the temptation to lie and resist it.  But then there are the the times…

• when my wife has come through a grueling day of looking after the kids, doing laundry, cleaning the house AND has supper ready when I come home.  It tastes awful.  She asks me, “Do you like it?” I’m tempted to say, “Delicious”
• Someone asks me how I’m doing and although I feel cruddy and overextended I’m tempted to say “I’m fine”
• Or how about all the “polite” things we’ve been trained to say, things like “I’ll/We’ll miss you” when in reality we can’t wait for them to go;  or “Sorry, I’m busy right now” when in reality you’ve got all the time in the world but just don’t want that person to know because you don’t want to help that person; or “I’m looking forward to meeting you” when the truth is you couldn’t care less if you meet them or not.
• What about answering the question, “so what’s new?”, “uhh, nothing”
• Oh and what about the message we leave on our answering machines, “Sorry I missed your call…”  Really?

Are there any other lies that you think could be added to that list?  If you were to count how many times you succumb to the temptation of one of these situations, how many times a day would you say you lie?  I’m afraid to count.

But then, acknowledging this is a struggle helps me realize that it’s something that matters to me.  It matters to me that I strive for honesty.  It matters to me, that I recognize the temptation to be less than honest.  It matters to me, that there are times where it would almost seem justifiable to tell one. little. white. lie.

It matters to me, because God matters to me.

And honesty matters to Him.

That’s why I’m grateful for His grace.

• you subscribe to multiple tech blog feeds.  Even worse, you follow all their twitter feeds.  Even worse than that, you are a fan of their facebook page. Oh and  by “multiple”, I mean so many that you have 100 new posts an hour coming into your feed reader.
• All non essential activity stops and you drool when watching an announcement on the latest gadget.  Essential activity is breathing.
• When a new gadget is released you read every article that get’s written on it.  Anything else is old news.  What oil spill?
• You know of gadgets that no one else you know has heard of.
• You begin a lot of conversations with, “Hey did you hear about this? ___________”  and proceed to describe in glorious detail the incredible features of the gadget that will save the world.  Well, at least make the world a better place to live.  Well, at least make YOUR world a better place to live….
• Things aren’t cool, they are magical.
• You don’t understand why people get frustrated when something doesn’t work.  Your patience level is god-like when working with new stuff.  Which is probably why….
• …waiting in lines is your favorite sport.
• You sign up for all the beta stuff.  Even worse you sign up for alpha stuff.
• You know what that means.
• Every outlet in your house is taken up by the power bricks of your stuff.
• When you are without internet access, you’re paralyzed and cannot do anything.  (This is actually a symptom for a few other diseases too – like internet occuporitus syndrome)
• You see nothing wrong with people who buy tickets for this (and would be one of the first ones to do it if it wasn’t for all the money you spend on other stuff, like new gadgets and things…)

Do you have the disease?  Is there anything else you would add to the list?

Mobile technology is changing the church and non-profit sector in the following ways:

1. Real-time communication

People react quicker to what they are experiencing. (especially applicable to multi-site discussions -> see tony morgan’s observations) This also applies to the reporting of people on the field (i.e. missionaries, short term missions trips etc). It can be easier to communicate via mobile than any other technology from a user standpoint and this means that the message gets out and is widely distributed in a matter of seconds rather than minutes or days.  Sometimes whether we want it to or not.

Therefore, the real-time nature of mobile communication means that there must be an even greater awareness on the part of the church or non-profit to what message they are communicating in everything they say and do (even the unintended messages must be considered).  It has become (or will become depending on your context) increasingly difficult to change your message or modify it before it goes “public” because mobile makes everything public.

2. HOW things get communicated.

With the increasing penetration of mobile devices consideration needs to be given to how churches and non-profits communicate in ways that fully capitalize on the way people use those devices. In my opinion,  any church/non-profit that DOESN’T take this into consideration is at risk of losing a valuable avenue of communication for their constituency (granted this does depend on the particular penetration of mobile technology in the reach of the organization).  For much of the non-western world mobile IS the way to communicate.  North America is starting to catch up and the advent of smartphones means that more and more people are connected to the online grid 24/7.  Which brings me to the next point…

3. Social Media use.

In my eyes you can’t talk about mobile technology without including social media in the discussion (I think the rise of social media and mobile are connected).  It is really social media that has made mobile go from a tool used to connect with a few trusted friends and family to being a portal to online community.  The question then is what is the church or non-profit doing to connect and engage with this online-community?

4. Giving

This has only in the past year started to gain traction but the Haiti earthquake has a lot to teach on the ability of mobile technology to facilitate a quick and legitimate way of raising funds.  Check out a few articles on this:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/technology/15mobile.html
• http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/February2010/02/c5727.html
• http://www.usatoday.com/news/sharing/2010-04-12-technology-giving_N.htm

The day is already here where churches can make it possible for congregation members to give via mobile during the service.  There are already companies offering that ability to churches (unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any that offer this service in Canada – we always seem to be a bit behind here up North).  I suspect that this will be one of the major ways in which mobile technology affects the church an non-profit sector.

So what do you think?  Are there any other ways you think we will see the church and non-profits affected by this tech?  Feel free to post your thoughts below.

• “Well, I’m one of the founders of Apple Computer”
• “I’m living off my Social Security and I do a modest trade in collectors’ stamps and coins”
• “What can I say? You make a decision based on your understanding of the circumstances, and you live with it”
• “We did get fairly chummy, had lunch together, dinner together and had conversations,” (about his relationship with Steve Jobs back then).
• “What Jobs had in mind was that he and Woz [as Wozniak is sometimes called] should each have 45 percent and I would have 10 percent as mediator in any dispute that would come up,”
• In talking about the growth of the company and the risks Steve and Woz were taking, “I could see myself getting into this situation again, and I was really getting too old for that kind of thing,…” (Ron had been unsuccessful at a slot-machine manufacturing business around this time)
• “The way these guys were going, they were going to bulldoze through anything to make this company succeed. But it was going to be very rough ride, and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to be the richest man in the cemetery.”
• [I'm] “…enamored with money as anybody else.”
• “But when you’re at a focal point of history, you don’t realize you’re at a focal point of history,”
• “I never had a real use for computers,”

Some interesting statements from a guy who because of  decision missed on a huge payoff.  All in all it looks like he’s not dwelling on it too much (although I wonder how much of his gambling is driven by a sense of loss for what could have been). In hindsight, it’s always easy to say “If I only knew then what I know now…”  How often do you find yourself saying that statement?  That’s why the blurb spoken by Ron that I bolded above really stood out to me.  The big moments in life – the crucial junctures, the “focal moments in history” where a decision could have a huge impact are not always so obvious.

Too often people avoid risk because they are focusing only on what they might lose.  Maybe justifiably.  After all, Ron already had the experience of failing in business and didn’t want to experience it again.

People avoid risk because they want to protect themselves from loss.  The risk takers, those who jump, are those who have focused on what can be gained, not lost.  That’s not to say they don’t consider what might be lost.  But what convinces them to GO is the crazy idea that it might actually work, that something might happen, that change will result.  Previous failures don’t intimidate them, they just learn from them and take what they learned in the next venture.

Here’s the thing, we will never know that we were at the “focal point of history” until after the fact.  The question then is this.  Is it possible that that decision you are facing personally, that decision you are facing as a leader, or as a church or other organization is one of those HISTORY making moments?

Is quitting, or cashing out because of the potential loss going to cost you more than the potential gain?

(Anything else that you want to add after reading this article? Feel free to comment below!)

(Oh, and by the way the picture with this post is a representation of the story of the apostle Peter stepping out of his boat to walk on water to Jesus.  You can read the story in Matthew 14:22-33. For some reason its a biblical story that came to mind when I was writing this post – I wonder why….)

The big question of course is “Does Organize Series work with WordPress 3.0?”.  The answer is it should but I haven’t tested it completely and have not upgraded my own blogs yet.  I haven’t heard of any issues arising from any users yet so I’m assuming that things are okay.  As always though, make sure you back up your blog before upgrading if you are a user of Organize Series.

The other reason for this quick update is to let you folks know that I’m in the midst of a pretty major rewrite of Organize Series. Here’s some highlights:

• WordPress 3.0 brought in some much needed love to the custom taxonomies api which makes a lot of the coding I did for Organize Series obsolete and redundant.  This rewrite will make OrgSeries leaner, faster and even more future proof against future WordPress updates.
• I’m also going to add some goodies in to this next release thanks to some fine users in the Organize Series community who have mailed me some custom work they built around the plugin for me to include.  So there will be new features with this release.
• A much broader api for developers to hook into Organize Series and extend it’s features.  This will also lay the groundwork for some exciting things I have planned for a “pro” version of the plugin.  There have been a significant number of users that have requested certain features that I don’t have time to code for free but will offer part of a paid upgrade package (built around support) down the road.  Don’t worry, the core of Organize Series will always be free and updated.
• The new release will only work with WordPress 3.0+
• I’m taking care to ensure that the new release will be back-compat with people using the template functions etc. in custom designs/development. What that means is that I’m going to do what I can to make sure the new release doesn’t break any custom work based on the older versions of organize series.

Feel free to let me know if you are experiencing any problems with Organize Series in WordPress 3.0 in the comments.

Oh, one more thing, while I am intending to get out the next release of Organize Series before the end of July, I can’t commit to any date because if any more freelance works comes up between now and then that will be the priority.