• Jesus is the worst sales pitch ever

    I'm sure this is a real page turner…

    Have  you ever sat in on a timeshare presentation? You’re on vacation, spending $100 every time you get out of the car with your family, and a very nice front desk person tells you… “Mr. McLane, if you’d be willing to sit down and talk with us about our vacation packages, we’ll give you $100 in cash and free tickets to a show. It’ll only be about an hour.”

    It seems like it will be worth it until you actually do it. For an hour they berate you with every sales tactic in the book. They show you the property. They say, “Imagine coming here for two weeks every year, wouldn’t that be great?” Or “You can trade your weeks for points and go anywhere in the world! And it’ll already be paid for.” Or my favorite, “Mr. McLane, you work hard. Doesn’t your family deserve a vacation like this every year?”

    It’s moment of insincerity, remembering your kids names, relating stories of other pastors who have joined, on and on. The more they talk the more you want to punch them in the face. It’s hard to say $100 for an hour of your time isn’t worth it. But it’s not worth it.

    No offense to those who have bought timeshares. But you go into the presentation either knowing you want to buy one or you don’t.

    In which case, since I’m already wanting to buy in the pitch is useless. And for the person who already knows they don’t want to buy the salesperson is just going through the motions and so are you… you just want to be nice enough to get the $100. (And those who get talked into it are more preyed upon than sold on it, right?)

    It’s all just a game, isn’t it? I know I’m not going to cave and buy a $30,000 timeshare because I don’t want one. And before I arrived at the presentation my wife and I already told ourselves that no matter what, we’re going to be polite, but we’re just taking our $100 and going to the beach later.

    We are not buying a timeshare in Ft. Lauderdale.

    Selling Jesus

    Photo by David Prasad via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    This is, at it’s core, the problem with the “If you build it, they will come” strategy so popular in Christianity.

    The sales manager (aka the pastor) polishes up his sales pitch and tells his sales team (congregation) that if they can bring the prospects, (non-church goers) he will close the deal. (I mean, get them to give their lives to Jesus.)

    When pastors tell their congregation to do this, there is always a sly little smile, as if to say… “They’ll never know that what we’re about to do is tell them about Jesus.”  Yeah– as if visitors are surprised that your marriage seminar is really a Gospel presentation? Doubt it.

    The problem is that the psychology doesn’t work.

    Put yourself in the car of a non-church goer about to visit your church with you. You are either interested or you aren’t before you even get there, right? If you aren’t interested in church you are thinking, “No matter what, just be polite, drink the coffee, and peace out ASAP. I’m doing this for my friend.”

    No amount of manipulation or sales pitch methods will get that person to change their mind. Why? They are locked in as uninterested. And one could argue that those who get talked into it are more preyed upon than sold on it, right?

    The problem is that the theology doesn’t work.

    Jesus isn’t a deal.

    • Regeneration of the soul happens only when the Holy Spirit calls a person to Himself, right? (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter X) A sales pitch can be used by the Holy Spirit. But, as I heard over and over again in Haiti, an earthquake can be just as effective a call.
    • A life with Jesus is messier than a tight 35 minutes with 5 points, isn’t it? While a presentation of the Gospel is excellent at piecing things together in someone’s mind, coming to faith in Christ is more an unwinding of life’s ball of yarn than winding it up into a ball.
    • Jesus promises that a life lived in relationship with Him will be more difficult than a life without Him in your life. (Romans 12:1; John 15:18) That is a pretty tough thing to “sell” from a platform. Come and be like Jesus, who died on a cross penniless and almost no friends!
    • In a world that lives for today, an assurance of heaven, pearly gates, and a mansion tomorrow is a program they don’t want. That doesn’t make salvation any less important. You just can’t stand in front of people and say, “If you were to die tonight… would it be heaven or would it be hell?” Culturally, that’s just not what people are thinking about!

  • 2 Truths and a Lie

    Two truths
    1. Bigger isn’t better.
    2. Wider doesn’t make things deeper.

    A lie

    Bigger is shallow, deeper makes things smaller, our way is best.

    Axiom

    There are good systems used for evil and evil systems used for good.

  • The Crossing

    We must dare, and dare again, and go on daring. ~ Georges Jacques Danton

    photo HT to Likecool

  • How do we minister to the poor with integrity & grace?

    It’s taken me nearly a year to work through the book, “When Helping Hurts.” The content and concepts weigh heavy on my heart.

    In my neighborhood the poor are easy to find. While not in the open, once you have eyes for it, you see poverty everywhere.

    We have people who squat in abandoned houses nearby. Another man lives in old RV in someone’s driveway. There are several people who live in their cars at the park. And the truly down-and-out sleep in bushes next to a fence of an abandoned shopping center. And that’s just the homeless.

    Poverty is big and real and within 100 yards of my house. And I wrestle with even the first step of a response to the point of paralysis.

    Here’s my current wrestling points:

    • I can’t serve the poor as an excuse to share the Gospel. I don’t have the stomach for it. When I’ve done that it’s felt self-serving. As if the point of serving was so that I could feel good about myself for having shared the Gospel?
    • Putting myself in the shoes of the poor, would I want to be preached at or guilt tripped in exchange for a handout? What if they are more faithfully living out a life with Jesus than I am? Who am I to think that someone else is more needy of a benevolent God than I am?
    • Do handouts really help people at all? Is that the most honorable way we can serve the poor?
    • Maybe serving the poor, taking a posture that I’m OK and they are not, reveals that I worship the gods of comfort and stuff and not the God who died penniless? Is being poor the enemy?

    Here are my starting points:

    • It doesn’t have to be big. I’ve started by simply being kind. As I ride my bike to the trolley each morning I’ve slowly gotten to know some names and begun exchanging pleasantries. It seems like just acknowledging someone’s humanity is a plausible first step.
    • Presence and consistency are probably more useful than handing something out. It’s easy for me to make a sandwich to hand out each day or maybe keep a couple dollars in my pocket for along the way. But I would have no way of knowing if that’s what they need or would give them dignity if I don’t actually know them.
    • My car doesn’t help me see them. Life wasn’t meant to be lived in the cocoon of a private car traveling at 35 mph. We are social creatures and we are slow creatures. Walking places in my neighborhood or riding my bike here and there has slowed me down to notice things/people/systems I wouldn’t notice in a car.

  • The Jungle (on cello)

    Take that band geek haters!

    ht to Likecool

  • JR Organics Farm Tour and Eating What You Believe

    Ever heard the phrase “You are what you eat?“

    It’s true. Your body is literally composed of all the stuff you eat. Don’t think about that too much, because it’s gross.

    It’s amazing that people want to have a relationship with their pastor, their doctor, the person who cuts their hair, or even the person who delivers our mail. But the person who grows the fruits, vegetables, dairy, or meats our families consume?

    We don’t want to know them. We wouldn’t even like to meet the people who deliver food from the distributor to our grocery store. We are completely relationally disassociated and disconnected with one of the most intimate things about us… our food.

    If you are what you eat and you don’t know the people where your food comes from– You probably need to take 4-5 hours and watch some of the amazing documentaries that have come out in the past decade about our food system. You’ll see they at the molecular level most of what you eat is genetically modified corn filler, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and other chemicals designed to kill pests on the farm. It’s scary.

    Kristen and I decided 2 years ago that we wanted to know where our food came from. Starting in 2010, we made a commitment that 25% of our food budget would go to food we have a relationship with. So we planted a garden. Next, we joined a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Finally, we committed to going to a local farmers market bi-weekly. (Not only to look, smell, and sample– But to buy and support!)

    That’s when we met the Rodriguez family of Escindido and their farm, JR Organics. Joe, Jr. and his wife Joan E are fourth generation farmers in Southern California. Their 80 acre farm in north San Diego county employs their family and about 10 others. We know this because we’ve taken the time to get to know them.

    Yesterday, our family went to our second farm tour on their property. It’s one thing to go and get our box full of fruits and veggies but it’s entirely another thing to go to their farm and see how things get into those boxes. Who are the people who do the work? What makes something organic? What is the science involved? What techniques are they innovating?

    The day at the farm is amazing. It’s fun to meet people who, like you, are members of the CSA. And it’s fun that they have a tour just for kids and to see them running around the paths between fields in ways children have played for millennia. And, of course, the monster feast they put on is a wonderful reward. It’s one of those days we put on our calendar and circle three times: We wouldn’t miss it.

    Now that we’ve known the Rodriguez family for two years and done business with them, here are two things that strike me:

    First, their values and hearts are in the right place. They absolutely want (and need to) make money at farming. But their values also shine through in how they make money, how they treat their employees, and especially how they care for their farm. Values and heart pour from everything they do. That’s evident when we pick up our box, eat the food they produce, and it’s on display when we visit their farm.

    Second, Joe is off the charts intelligent. Listening to Joe, Jr. give the tour yesterday was an absolute clinic in soft innovation. While Joe doesn’t have a PhD in agricultural science he has a PhD in his land and how to work it and that’s far more valuable to him. Joe knows that how he farms directly impacts his bottom line. (And that how he farms becomes the marketing for his farm.) But he also has to deal with market conditions, the weather, bugs and other pests, and the ever-changing standards of remaining an organic farm. As families listened to his presentation and walked his property yesterday they had no idea how much work, discovery, and science went behind each of the things they nodded their heads to.

    Here’s my encouragement– get to know where your food comes from. The net results in our family have been astounding. Sure, we are all eating more healthy. But we are also more aware of the people who produce our food and see how our relationship directly impacts them.

    Tips for getting started

    • Grow something, anything. Even if you don’t have room for a garden you can grow something to eat. Maybe it’s a tomato plant in a 5 gallon bucket on your balcony? Or maybe its a square foot garden on your patio?
    • Slice off a piece of your overall food budget for locally produced foods. Our CSA membership costs about $800 per year. You spend it in chunks so it feels like you’re spending more. But, in truth, our overall grocery bills are down.
    • Learn to eat what is in season, not what you see on TV. This has been a fun lesson for our family. We eat what is growing. So we eat lots of citrus when our trees ripen in January, lots of leafy greens all winter, and pig out on tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries all summer. And we’ve even had to learn how to cook/enjoy things we never would have purchased in the grocery store. All great things!

    What does this have anything to do with my life with Jesus? Everything.

    Notes:

  • When your kids go adrift

    For those who don’t know what drifting is… here’s a video.

    For those who have ever watched a kid go adrift in his life– You know the parents typically just sit there with the camera running rather than doing anything.

  • The Parent Gap

    As a kid, my parents weren’t that involved in church. There was a time when half of my family had some friends in church and did some stuff around the church. But by and large I was the church-e-est of the bunch from about 5th grade until now.

    I think my reality as a high school student has peppered my entire career in youth ministry.

    • We are paid by, and charged to serve, the needs of 5% of the population who pay our salary.
    • We are called by, and charged by Jesus, to reach the 95% of the populations with our very lives. (Romans 12:1)

    It’s not truly an either or situation. It isn’t that you need to make a choice to only serve Christian families or only serve non-Christian families.

    Yet it is that you need to bear in mind that your youth ministry can’t assume that every family is like your “best” Christian families. My parents were actually very supportive of my church-life. They drove me to stuff. They paid for stuff. And even though they were only passively interested in the Christian life for themselves, they were highly appreciative that men and women were investing in my faith development.

    Ultimately, Christian families aren’t your primary target audience. God is holding them responsible for their faith development of their children. Research shows that the biggest influence on the faith development of a child growing up in a Christian home is the parent… not the church. (No matter how cool the youth pastor is.)

    How can we expect students who aren’t from Christian homes to bridge that gap and be a part of a ministry with constant parental involvement demands? That’s just not realistic.

    To reach more people we don’t need a new program. We need a new strategy.

    Questions:

    1. Am I just off my rocker here?
    2. What are some ways you’ve had success engaging the general parent population in your community?
    3. Do you see Christian parents in your ministry as those you serve or those you empower to reach their peers with the Gospel?
    4. How do you, as a youth pastor or youth ministry volunteer, hold Christian parents of teenagers accountable to their responsibilities in the home?

  • The problem with one-size fits all is…

    The problem with one-size fits all is… One-size doesn’t fit all.

    We are faced with a tiny percentage of the population actively involved in the local church. (>10%) Yet, I’m continually perplexed to see no one looking hard at the big, obvious problems of bottlenecks & gatekeepers which keep churches small with a strategy that lost its effectiveness 25 years ago.

    Most churches have the same exact strategy. It’s the manifestations of that strategy which differ.

    Faced with impossible statistical opposition first Century church leaders in Acts rejected the culturally accepted strategy of building a religion. Instead, they decentralized power, they empowered the powerless and served the cast-offs, and they didn’t get tied down to buildings, staffing, and overhead. As a direct result within 200 years this ragtag insurrection and their Gospel message essentially overthrew the government of Rome. Statistically speaking, when they got away from that and started to act like a religion with firm control, structure, and facilities… the churches growth slowed.

    Simply put. The reason we are reaching >10% of the population is that we have replaced a rebellion for nice.

    To reach more people you don’t need a new program.

    You need a new strategy.

  • Doug Fields joins us at YS

    Here’s the press release.

    FACT: When I added the press release category to the design of the YS site I never thought we’d actually use it. But that area has gotten a workout!