I pray good beef and I pray good beer
This holy night of all the year,
But I pray detestable drink to them
That give no honour to Bethlehem.
May all good fellows that here agree
Drink audit ale in heaven with me,
And may all my enemies go to hell!
Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!
May all my enemies go to hell!
Noel! Noel!
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don’t Give Away More money, Christian Smith, Michael O. Emerson, and Patricia Snell.
Growing Givers’ Hearts: Treating Fundraising as Ministry, Thomas H. Jeavons and Rebekah Burch Basinger.
and the Leaves of the Tree are for the Healing of the Nations: Biblical and Theological Foundations for Eco-Justice, Carol Johnston.
Money and the Way of Wisdom: insights from the Book of Proverbs, Timothy J. Sandoval.
economy of Grace, Kathryn Tanner
Stewards in the Kingdom: A Theology of Life in All Its Fullness, R. Scott Rodin.
Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, Miroslav Wolf.
Rambam’s Ladder: A Meditation on Generosity and Why It is Necessary to Give, Julie Salamon.
giving Together: A Stewardship Guide for families, Carol A Wertheim
Celebrate the Offering, Melvin Amerson and James Amerson.
Web-sites:
Center for Christian Stewardship(their bibliography) http://www.gbod.org/stewardship/bibliography.asp
Mennonite Mutual Aid Association https://www.mma-online.org
PCUSA stewardship http://www.Psuca.org/stewardship
Ecumenical Stewardship Center http://www.stewarshipresources.org
Information collected at GA Stewardship Conference held in Kansas City, MO in March 2009
Read about a quirky ad agency (but they would not call themselves that) called Wexley School for Girls.
From: Inc. Magazine, March 2009 | By: Norm Brodsky
Fear can be a motivator, but it can also lead you into bad decisions, particularly in times like these. I have no doubt that a lot of business owners have spent the past couple of months implementing cost-saving plans and survival strategies that will weaken their companies and damage their long-term prospects. They’ve done it because they’ve been afraid, and fear makes us shortsighted. With the economy falling apart around us, we forget that recessions always end. Yes, some businesses will go under, but some companies will emerge stronger. If you want yours to be among the latter, you need to be careful about which costs you cut and which deals you offer your customers.
These thoughts came to mind after my first meeting with Lisa Kristine, a fine-art photographer. I began, as I usually do, by asking Lisa about her life — where she lived, what family she had, what she liked to do, what her personal goals were. I also asked about her business. “I have my financials here,” she said. “I have a lot of questions.”
“We’ll get to those,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me what your business does.”
She said she had four galleries, the one in Sausalito, plus one in Sonoma, another in Mendocino, and another in Santa Fe, New Mexico. At the time, all but the one in Mendocino were open seven days a week, eight hours a day. They carried her work exclusively, and each had an on-site manager. It had taken her a while to find the right people, Lisa said, but she felt great about the managers she now employed. She also had a studio, where she made her own prints, including large, signed limited editions that sold for $3,000 to $30,000 and smaller, unsigned versions available for $85 and $150. She had produced two books of her photographs and two DVDs about her work, which sold for $75 and $25 each, respectively. She also sold her photographs at shows and on the Web at lisakristine.com.
“My business is off 50 percent in the past two months, and I don’t know what to do,” Lisa said.
“Fifty percent,” I repeated. “That’s not surprising. In recessions, people stop buying luxuries, including art. You could be off 50 percent for the next year.” She turned white. “Don’t panic,” I said. “You just need to prepare. What have you done so far?”
“Well, I’m about to reduce the time we’re open by two hours a day,” she said.
That sent up a red flag. It’s one thing to close a store because it isn’t financially viable. But reducing selling time across the board is something else. I believe it’s a terrible idea to cut back your sales efforts in a recession. If anything, you should increase them. “Right now,” I said, “a store is open seven days a week for eight hours a day, right? That’s 56 hours of selling time per store. You’re going to reduce that to 42 hours? How much are you going to save? Two-fifty, $300 a week per store? Meanwhile, you’ve cut your selling time 25 percent. A couple of sales of the large, limited-edition pictures would have a bigger effect on your bottom line, and you might lose them because you’re not open when the customers come by.”
“There’s another consideration,” I said. “You say you have great people, and it took you a long time to find them. Why risk losing them? If you cut their hours, you cut their pay. If anything, I’d want to reassure them that their jobs are secure. Then I’d get them involved in finding ways to cut costs and increase sales.”
“OK, but I’m losing money.”
“Well, first, we need to know how much we’re talking about,” I said. “You have to figure out how you can keep paying all your bills, assuming your sales will be down 50 percent for the next year.” She winced. We took the financial information she had brought and did a rough calculation based on half the sales. The shortfall was $200,000. “OK,” I said. “That’s the amount of cash you have to come up with by either spending less or selling more.”
She took a deep breath, and we started going through some of the possibilities. One involved her rent. Lisa said she’d thought about asking her landlords to renegotiate her leases. I asked if she had signed personally for them and shared her financials. She said yes — she’d had no choice. I pointed out that no landlord was likely to renegotiate a lease with a tenant who was on the hook personally and had three other stores. Then again, the landlords might be willing to offer some temporary relief. “You could ask them to reduce your rent for the next six months by, say, 30 percent and add that onto the end of the lease,” I said. “So, if you’re paying $10,000 a month now, you’ll pay $7,000 for the next six months and $13,000 for the last six months of the lease. If you can get the landlords to go for it, you’ll save $18,000 on each location, or $72,000 altogether, in the next year. Now you’re down to $128,000.”
Lisa began to get excited. “Maybe I should run a sale,” she said. I told her that I thought it was important for businesses, if possible, to hold the line on prices in a recession and add value instead. Maybe she could hold a customer-appreciation week and offer something extra to the people who buy her smaller, unsigned photos — say, a special limited edition of select photos signed by her.
Lisa had one other question before we parted. She said she’d considered applying for a bank loan. What did I think? I suggested that she think about getting a credit line as a backstop, though she should try not to use it: “It should be the tool of last resort. You can’t borrow your way out of debt.”
That’s a thought we should all keep in mind during times like these. At the end of the recession, the winners will be those who have taken advantage of their most important resources — imagination and creativity. Lisa has plenty of both. I’ll keep you posted on how she’s doing.
Norm Brodsky is a veteran entrepreneur. His co-author is editor-at-large Bo Burlingham. Their book, The Knack, was published by Portfolio last October.
Posted Friday, Feb. 27, 2009, at 6:56 AM ET
Since before Election Day, Washington pastors have been lining up to invite the first family into their flock, and outlets from PBS to the Wall Street Journal have taken their turn handicapping the many contending congregations. Despite all of this cajoling, the White House announced that the Obama family is still shopping for a church in Washington.
Except for the special invitations and the presidential-scale press coverage, the Obamas’ church search puts them in a situation a lot of American believers are well-acquainted with. One in seven adults changes churches each year, and another one in six attends a handful of churches on a rotating basis, according to the Barna Group, a marketing research firm that serves churches. Church shopping isn’t a matter of merely changing congregations: A survey by the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life last year indicated that 44 percent of American adults have left their first religious affiliation for another. “Constant movement characterizes the American religious marketplace,” a survey summary said.
Even if the American mania for shopping extends to our spiritual lives, church shopping still doesn’t get much respect. But while it may be frequently derided as an example of rampant spiritual consumerism, shopping around can be one of the good things about the way religion is practiced in America.
Part of the discomfort with church shopping has to do with the way growing churches attempt to attract spiritual shoppers. That simple marquee in front of a church with the cheerfully homely motto (“Prevent truth decay: Brush up on your Bible”) doesn’t suffice to recruit worshippers. Web sites stream audio and video of sermons and music to let prospective members shop from home, and consultants help congregations market themselves to the “unchurched” and the merely unsatisfied by deploying focus groups, surveys, product giveaways (free church-branded Frisbees, anyone?), and other tactics borrowed from the commercial realm. The Wall Street Journal reported recently on churches employing mystery worshippers, “a new breed of church consultant,” who covertly attend services and evaluate them (Were the bathrooms clean? Was the vibe friendly?) as if they were first-timers looking for a new church.
Marrying the sacred to the secular inevitably provokes criticism. In First Things, Anthony Sacramone called church shopping “potentially spiritually corrupting” and warned against the “ecclesiological chaos” of the religious marketplace. The practice is particularly troublesome for the more established churches that find themselves in competition with growth-minded, nondenominational congregations. Pope Benedict XVI, speaking at a World Youth Day Mass in 2005, noted “a new explosion of religion” but warned that “if it’s pushed too far, religion becomes almost a consumer product. People choose what they like and some are even able to make a profit from it.” His concern is understandable: About 10 percent of American adults describe themselves as ex-Catholics—a figure that, if ex-Catholicism were its own religion, would make it one of the nation’s largest religious groups—and they are a huge target market for growing churches.
Church shopping, marketing, and the not-so-sanctified practices that go with them make easy targets for criticism. But competition among churches for worshippers has always been fierce in the United States, to the benefit of American religion and individual churchgoers. The prohibition against establishing an official state religion helped give us the shoppers’ paradise that is our religious marketplace. Disestablishment (Massachusetts was the last state to cut ties to its official church, in 1833) meant that preachers had to learn to get along without support from the state. It made the ability to recruit and keep a flock—and get them to give generously—crucial to a church’s survival. In 1992, Roger Finke and Rodney Stark argued in The Churching of America, 1776-1990 that this produced a ministry modeled on capitalism, with pastors acting as the church’s sales force.
Salesmanship sometimes degenerates into telling people what they want to hear and, in the case of religion, into a faith that never comes down too hard on the faithful. But competition among churches should be considered a good thing, at least if you are a fan of religiosity. The sheer number and variety of churches that sprang up in the American free market in religion ended up increasing the consumption of religion. In 1776, Stark and Finke write, fewer than one in five Americans belonged to a local church. Today, the figure is more like 67 percent.
American faith comes in lots of flavors, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that today’s church shoppers are buying into a superficial, strip-mall faith. When the Barna Group studied what believers look for in a new church, doctrine and belief ranked at the top of the list of the most important factors, while more mundane or aesthetic concerns (music, parking, comfortable seating) were less important. And the free market in faith has been good for America’s religious life. All that hopping across denominational lines likely helped produce a less rigid, better informed, more ecumenical religious culture.
Even within denominations and churches, believers have room to choose. Pope Benedict XVI has made it easier for Catholic parishes to offer Latin Mass as an alternative to the conventional vernacular Mass. President Obama’s former denomination, the United Church of Christ, is famously diverse, including both flinty New England Congregationalism descended from the Pilgrims’ churches and the huge South Side Chicago ministry once led by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Obamas’ controversial former pastor. If believers need help keeping track of the many variations in style and substance, they can check out the Zagat-like reviews of church services at the Web site Ship of Fools.
Knowing that churchgoers have so many options should keep pastors and preachers on their toes. In that sense, church shopping transfers a bit of power from the pulpit to the pews. And keeping a check on the power of church leaders is never a bad idea.
So, the president shouldn’t feel any need to rush into committing to a new church. When you have so many options, it pays to shop around.
Andrew Santella’s essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review and GQ.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2211937/
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Department stores hire mystery shoppers. Restaurant chains bring in undercover diners to rate their food and service. Churches enlist Thomas Harrison, a former pastor from Tulsa, Okla., and a professional mystery worshipper.
Mr. Harrison — a meticulous inspector who often uses the phrase “I was horrified” to register his disapproval of dust bunnies and rude congregants — poses as a first-time churchgoer and covertly evaluates everything from the cleanliness of the bathrooms to the strength of the sermon. This summer, Mr. Harrison scoured a megachurch in Cedar Hill, Texas, and jotted down a laundry list of imperfections: a water stain on the ceiling, a “stuffy odor” in the children’s area, a stray plastic bucket under the bathroom sink and a sullen greeter who failed to say good morning before the worship service. “I am a stickler for light bulbs and bathrooms,” he says.
Mr. Harrison belongs to a new breed of church consultants aiming to equip pastors with modern marketing practices. Pastors say mystery worshippers like Mr. Harrison offer insight into how newcomers judge churches — a critical measure at a time when mainline denominations continue to shed members and nearly half of American adults switch religious affiliations. In an increasingly diverse and fluid religious landscape, churches competing for souls are turning to corporate marketing strategies such as focus groups, customer-satisfaction surveys and product giveaways.
At least half a dozen consulting companies have introduced secret-church-shopper services in recent years. The A Group, a Brentwood, Tenn., marketing firm for churches and faith-based groups, now conducts mystery-worshipper surveys at 15 to 20 churches a year, up from a handful five years ago. Church marketing company Real Church Solutions in Corona, Calif., introduced mystery-worshipper services five years ago. “First-time guests, they don’t come with mercy, they come with judgment,” says the company’s president, Chris Sonksen. “They’re looking for a reason to leave.”
Mr. Harrison grades churches on a wide range of categories, using a colored-light system: green is good, yellow means caution, and red signals trouble.
Here are a few details from a 67-page report on a Texas megachurch.
CATEGORY: Sidewalks
COMMENT: “The brick-paved island in front of Arena needs attention. Some weeds are growing through the cracks.”
GRADE: Yellow Light
CATEGORY: Tissue
COMMENT: “Tissue boxes are placed at the end of each row. All looked tidy.”
GRADE: Green Light
CATEGORY: Parking-lot greeters
COMMENT: “From the parking lot into the church, I was not greeted by anyone. Upon leaving church and returning to my car, I was greeted by very friendly man who wished me ‘a good day.’ “
GRADE: Yellow Light
CATEGORY: Greeters in the sanctuary
COMMENT: “I was not greeted upon entering the seating area in either service. In the second service, I even moved to a second area of the auditorium about 10 minutes into the service — but still no greeting.”
GRADE: Red Light
CATEGORY: Sermon
COMMENT: “The message is appropriate and meaningful. It is challenging and inspiring.”
GRADE: Green Light
Some secular secret-shopping firms are seeking a toehold in the religious marketplace as well. Customer 1st, a national company with a database of 260,000 secret shoppers, has sent undercover worshippers to 20 churches in the last three years. Earlier this year, Guest Check, which specializes in hotels, spas, restaurants and golf courses, launched a pilot program for churches. It has dispatched shoppers to Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist and Unitarian congregations in Colorado and plans to expand the service to Washington, D.C.
The rise of these services has been buoyed by the growth of the secret-shopper industry. There are roughly one million secret shoppers in the U.S., according to the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. Secret-shopper firms have expanded their reach in recent years from restaurants and stores to hospitals and public transport systems. Churches eager to adopt cutting-edge business practices have emerged as the latest market willing to pay for blunt advice. The cost can range from around $150 for a one-time visit to between $1,500 and $2,500 for multiple visits and a detailed report.
So far, secret-shopper services mainly target Christian churches, where declining “brand loyalty” among worshippers has become a common motif. A 2008 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which drew from interviews with more than 35,000 people, found that 44% of American adults have switched religious affiliations. Church leaders say they’re seeking new ways to assess their services and evaluate everything from the style of music to how comfortable the pews are as they court fickle churchgoers.
Mr. Harrison, a 51-year-old former Assemblies of God minister who launched his secret-shopper service in 2006, charges about $1,500 plus travel expenses for a site inspection, worship-service evaluation and detailed report. He’s inspected more than a dozen Protestant churches ranging in size from 50 to 5,000 members. He’s yet to give his highest rating — five stars. Demand is growing: Mr. Harrison was recently tapped by Building God’s Way, a church-consulting firm that works with 500 churches, to conduct undercover visits at 40 to 50 churches nationwide each year.
His critiques can be bruising, pastors say. “Thomas hits you with the faded stripes in the parking lot,” says Stan Toler, pastor of Trinity Church of the Nazarene in Oklahoma City, who hires a secret shopper every quarter. “If you’ve got cobwebs, if you’ve got ceiling panels that leak, he’s going to find it.”
One weekend this past summer, Mr. Harrison drove up to Trinity Church in Cedar Hill, Texas, in a bright-red rented Chevrolet. Armed with a digital camera, he trolled the church’s grounds and its new $13 million sanctuary, snapping shots of weeds growing in the parking lot, loose lighting fixtures and a fuse box missing a lid. “Please cover as soon as possible,” he wrote in his 67-page report. Few staff members were around on a stifling Saturday afternoon, but Mr. Harrison had a cover story just in case: He was a friend of the pastor’s visiting from out of town, and was touring to get ideas before renovating his own church.
Before inspecting the church grounds, Mr. Harrison called Trinity early in the morning to test its voicemail, scrolled through the church’s Web site and asked a clerk at a nearby copy shop if he knew anything about Trinity. The young man hadn’t heard of it.
The next morning, Mr. Harrison — who has a round, dimpled face, a salt-and-pepper mustache and a talent for blending into crowds — arrived a few minutes before the Sunday worship service started. He strolled past the coffee bar where dozens of people chatted, past the electronic giving kiosk and into the cavernous, stadium-style sanctuary, where he sat alone in the eighth row. Wearing a short-sleeved shirt rather than his usual suit and tie, Mr. Harrison fit into the boisterous, casually dressed crowd of 800 worshippers. He turned off his cellphone and filled out a visitor-information card. The lights dimmed as a 10-piece rock band took the stage and ripped into a rollicking song. Mr. Harrison discreetly scribbled notes onto a tiny pad tucked into his palm.
The church scored a solid four stars — three stars on hospitality and cleanliness, four on appearance and five on the worship experience. Mr. Harrison praised Trinity for using ushers (“I just think it’s classy,” he says) but hammered the church for its coolness toward visitors. “None asked my name. None asked about my church background. None asked about my spiritual condition. None invited me to return,” he wrote in his report.
Trinity’s pastor, Jim Hennesy, who has led the congregation for 14 years, says he frequently brings in consultants to make sure quality doesn’t slip as his congregation grows. The church, which belongs to the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination, now draws 3,000 people to its services, up from 1,000 members 14 years ago. It drew 1,200 new congregants this year. “They see things we’ve grown accustomed to,” Mr. Hennesy says of consultants. He doesn’t always heed their advice, however. He differed with Mr. Harrison’s critique of how his church treats visitors, noting that Trinity tries to make newcomers feel welcome without singling them out or putting them on the spot.
Mr. Harrison has had far worse experiences as an undercover worshipper. He’s been knocked out of the pew — twice — when someone scooted over too quickly. Once, a woman reached right over him to shake a friend’s hand without excusing or introducing herself, he says. And on more than one occasion, Mr. Harrison says he’s caught congregants complaining about the pastor. “I’ve had people tell me, ‘You’ve come to the wrong service. Our pastor is speaking today; the associate pastor is much better,’ ” Mr. Harrison recalls. “I was horrified.”
Raised in a Baptist household in Little Rock, Ark., Mr. Harrison says he wanted to be Walter Cronkite when he was a boy. He studied communications in college and managed several local radio stations in Oklahoma before getting ordained in 1993. He served as an associate pastor at three congregations around Oklahoma, and in 2005 launched his church-consulting firm, Media Embassy, which helps churches polish their media and public-relations skills.
Mr. Harrison stumbled upon the idea for his secret shopper service after reading a book called “The Five Star Church.” Having been a secret shopper for a pizza restaurant in Broken Arrow, Okla., Mr. Harrison figured churches could benefit from similar scrutiny. So he contacted the author, Mr. Toler, and suggested a service based on the book. Mr. Toler liked the idea and offered to be the guinea pig. The results shocked him. “We came in at 3.5,” Mr. Toler says.
Ron McCaslin, pastor of Cathedral of the Hills in Edmond, Okla., hired Mr. Harrison because his church was struggling to attract members even though the surrounding neighborhood was bustling with new residents. Mr. Harrison suggested changing the church’s name and its billboard — a 25-year-old wooden sign with Old English-style lettering. He also recommended changing the worship music to make the early morning service traditional, with well-known hymns that appeal to an older crowd, and the later service more contemporary, with a lively band. The church now draws about 500 people to its weekend services, up from about 350.
Some theologians warn that mystery-worshipper services will drive “spiritual consumerism.” Evaluating churches as if they were restaurants or hotels might encourage people to choose their church not according to its theology, but based on which one has the best lattes or day care, says Paul Metzger, professor of theology at Multnomah Biblical Seminary in Portland, Ore. “We tend to look for religion or spirituality that will give us what we want, when we want it,” Prof. Metzger says. “There’s a pressure for the church to be something that the church is not.”
Others say that church shopping has become necessary for churches seeking to compete in an increasingly mobile and consumer-oriented society. “My competition is Cracker Barrel restaurant down the street,” says Pete Wilson, pastor of CrossPoint Church in Nashville, Tenn., who regularly enlists a secret shopper to evaluate his 2,000-person congregation. “If they go in there and are treated more like family than when they come to CrossPoint Church, then it’s lights out for me.”
Not all communities have too much. How one church brings the gospel to the economically distressed.
click here for a link to the article from The Christian Vision Project
View the article from the New York Times about a children’s worship class for children under the age of 3.
Notes From My Journal
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Master Yoda
Prayer of the Day from the Kirk of Scotland: God of work and rest and pleasure, may all that we do this day be an offering of love as well as of duty. Keep us, this day and every day, in the spirit of kindness, simplicity and joy; Through Jesus Christ our lord. Amen.
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. – Emerson
“When one speaks in shoulds and oughts, one is operating out of an uncommunicated expectation” (Rev. Dan Gildner on FB Dec. 09)
It is not helpful to try to guess someone’s motivation for doing something.
What if you find you’re consistently biting off less than you can chew? (somebody’s tweet 6 June 2009)
“People have to be able to see the vision we want to accomplish.” Rev. R.E.J., 2008
“Don’t create losers. Winners probably won’t remember the situation, but the ‘losers’ will.” (from a member of a previous parish)
There is no wisdom greater than kindness. (fortune cookie)
Heating aid (insert other type of aid) for the needy us a matter of common decency which ordinary Americans are entirely capable of; though not, so far, their elected leaders. (“Washington’s Cold Shoulder,” NY Times editorial 10/22/2005, parenthetical insertion mine.)
Sowing seeds for the harvest which you may never see gathered — an act of faith.
House blessing includes wine for joy, salt for flavor, bread for nourishment/sustenance.
Non nobis Domine, non nobis sed nomine tuo da glorium – Pauperes Commilitones Christi Templique Salamons(Not to us, O Lord. Not to us, but to your name give glory – Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon) >Crusade/Hospitalers notes 1118-9 monks to keep pilgrims safe, 1307 Purge, 1314 Jaques de Molay burned at the stake
Take care not to be angry, because anger darkens the mind and prevents it from discerning the truth. (Little Flowers of St. Francis)
You can’t cut yourself to success, you can’t borrow your way out of debt. (Inc. magazine, abt April 2009)
Don’t buy in to the “Summer Shutddown”
Never attempt to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig. (Robert A. Heinlein, writer of Science Fiction)