Month: February 2007

  • Pseudo-Homosexuality

    I don’t visit tons of college campuses, but I do visit several per year. And every since I was a college student at a Christian college I’ve been bothered by this.

    What is that?     It’s something I call "pseudo-homosexualality." I know that isn’t a word, but once I describe it you’ll recognize it straight away. I’ve seen it on every Christian college campus I’ve been on in the last few years. Wheaton, Trinity, Cornerstone, Cedarville, Grace, Huntington, and of course my alma mater, Moody.

    What? It looks like this. You are sitting there in a college coffee shop, minding your own business. And two completely straight guys are taking turns rubbing one another’s feet at the table next to you. If you weren’t on a Christian campus, say if you were at the local Starbucks, you would immediately say to yourself, "Whatever, they’re gay. Not for me but whatever." But on a Christian campus you see stuff like that all the time. Other examples: Girls holding hands for long periods of time. Girls cuddling on couches. Guys giving one another extended backrubs in public. Two girls rubbing lotion on one another’s hands in chapel. Both genders being far too flirtatious with the same sex in public.

    I am not saying that what they are doing makes them gay. All I am observing is that if this behavior were happening outside of the "safety of a Christian college bubble" it would automatically be labeled as homosexual. Instead… it’s not really homosexual behavior since the people are straight, it just looks homosexual.

    I don’t want this to be misread as gay hate speach. (Though, I believe any sex of any kind outside of the marriage of a man/woman is against God’s law. Gay or straight.) This is just an observation from something I see at all Christian campuses I visit. There is a ton of overly feminine behavior out of the guys!

    Not to pick on Grace simply because I’m here now.     But, the decor in most of the buildings is very feminine. To the point where I wondered if they were interested in attracting guys at all? Maybe it’s the same at all the colleges we visit. But I’m noticing it here. I’ll have to be on the look out for that at other colleges.

  • Off to Winona Lake

    This morning Paul and I (yes, my son Paul) are leaving with 4 students to visit Grace College as well as, hopefully, Taylor University. I say "hopefully" since they have yet to confirm the details of our visit. But I’ve been to Grace before… so at least I know where I am going and who to talk to.

    I love these college visits, they are a highlight of my calendar year as I get extended time to hang out with upperclassmen. Amongst adults, finding it "fun" to hang out with a bunch of high school students is probably considered demented and the furthest thing they would consider fun.

    Think that guy is single? At least he had $20,000 laying around to play with.

  • The Power of a Press Release

    Yesterday was a slow news day here in Detroit. An a local church plant must have sent a press release about their new teaching series on sex. How do I know that?

    The lead story on Fox News Detroit was "Detroit Church Holding Sessions on Sex"

    Never mind the fact that this series has been and is being done by tons of churches across the country. That wasn’t the remarkable thing that got it as the lead stories on the local news. It was that they sent a press release on a slow news day. That was remarkable, that got their name out. Hats off to the Epic Church for a job well done.

  • How Far is Too Far?

    I’ll be answering that tonight at Light Force.

  • Internal vs. External Motivation

    Internal vs. External Motivation

    What’s the major difference between the typical youth ministry with a paid, trained youth worker and a youth ministry run by volunteers?

    Understanding what makes students tick.

    Why is it that youth workers can get students to do stuff willingly that leaves parents with their jaws dropping open? It’s not the “cool factor” nor is it that youth workers trend towards being the students age.

    It’s understanding how students tick.

    Students have been rewarded to death. By the time a 6th or 7th grader reaches the youth group they know how to play the reward game. They know how to give just enough to earn the teacher’s reward. The coaches reward. The Awana award. In grade school if you set up a good reward you can motivate the children to do anything. In their concrete world, rewards make sense logically to them. “If I do x, y, and z I will get something I don’t deserve.”

    Fear is a short term motivator.     (Repeat that to yourself 4-5 times a day)

    As these students grow into adolescence, external rewards become less rewarding. Sure, you can pull the reward button now and then because a truly great reward is interesting enough to motivate a seasoned adult as much as a 6 year old! But youth workers have the task of motivating students to do stuff when rewards aren’t working for them anymore. They know how to play the game so well that they will manipulate the game on the surface (bringing friends to get a prize) while not believing a lick of the reason. (Evangelism)

    (more…)

  • XM and Sirius to merge

    Siriuslogoblu_img_lrg_6
    Press release

    All I can say is "phew!" I’ve been waiting for this to happen. Hopefully this will lead to an overall increase in stock values for Sirius.

  • Crazy Bond Proposal

    Romeo_smHere in Romeo, there is a proposal to bond $93 million to build a new high school as well as a fair number of other projects. It’s a lot of money and the politics that it has brought about are quite interesting.

    I’m an optimist. I like to see what is happening in the Detroit area as a "market refinding" time as the auto industry continues to struggle to contain their costs. I feel it is merely a matter of time until the Detroit area finds a new source of industry to subsidy (backfill) the continued decline of Ford, GM, and DaimlerChrysler. Unlike a lot of my neighbors I don’t think that these companies will leave Detroit. But I think in order to stay, they will make some drastic moves, maybe even eliminating more local job…  which trickles down to effect the many support businesses in and around Romeo today. I think that during this market correction, those people buying and investing in our area will benefit the most. Such as, people purchasing homes cheaply now will benefit by a bounce to come.

    But I’m not happy about this current bond issuance. I have a few reasons I will be voting against it later this month:

    (more…)

  • New look for adammclane.com

    Customerrights
    Remember rule #1 of customer service? A person with a good experience will tell one person, a person with a bad experience will tell 10 people. This was very true when I worked for a health insurance company as 10-15 negative customer experiences who made "HMO" synonymous for "least desirable" far outweighed the publics opinion despite several million satisfied customers.

    On Saturday, I decided that I was ready for a change on the site. (Those reading on feed readers, you missed this change!) It’s not a major change as I just rearranged some of the furniture and put up a new header.

    Yet one reader dislikes my new header so much that he sent me 3 alternatives using the same color palette but with stuff that he thinks better suits me.

    Adam1_1

    Adam2_1

    Adam3

    So, let me know what you like. My penguin, or these three anti-penguin ones. I just thought the penguin was pretty slick looking. This sites been around long enough where I decided I needed a mascot… but apparently at least one reader hates the penguin enough to open up Photoshop and design a few penguin-free headers.

    This got me thinking
    What would happen if end users started submitting logo revisions on all of their favorite websites and products? What would they submit? Ford? Wal*Mart? Google?

    Any takers?

  • Rules for Blogging mention

    This evening I’ve exchanged some pleasant emails with the editor/developer behind Church Communications Pro. Apparently he found my Rules for Blogging newsworthy and gave me a nice mention.

    Back story: The "Rules for Blogging" really started in one of our infamous AIM chatrooms. We were talking about all the trouble people had gotten into because of things that they’ve written on their blogs. There are some great stories out there. Yes, people have lost their jobs. Students have made some pretty funny gaffs. On and on we shared stories. Finally, I just started throwing out some rules and someone said, "Hey, you should write that down!" Since then, I’ve written about them in the church newsletter, mentioned them on YMX, and obviously posted them here.

  • Me Worship

    I am here at the church literally waiting for a 2 minute video to render… taking about 20 minutes so far. I found this on Think Christian, it’s self-explanatory and it’s, well… en fuego.