• The Four Greatest Basketball Movies of All Time

    Everything I’m doing from Thursday to Sunday is measured by the following questions: “What  time does ___ start and who is playing now?” I love March Madness!

    And all of those basketball dreams lead me to this list:

    The Four Greatest Basketball Movies of All Time

    1. Hoosiers – Clearly, the best basketball movie ever made. I’m only slightly biased because I grew up in Indiana and my high school team won the 1994 State Championships.
    2. Hoop Dreams – (1994) The documentary which simultaneously helps you fall in love with high school basketball and the craft of documentary film making at the same time.
    3. White Men Can’t Jump – (1992) Wesley Snipes & Woody Harrelson in a basketball movie? Yes, please! I quote this movie all the time. Any time I receive unexpected money I proudly declare, “We goin’ Sizzler!“
    4. Coach Carter (2005) If this inspirational story doesn’t make you cry than you probably don’t like sports. I’m pretty sure Bobby Knight called Coach Carter to tell him to tone it down a little.

    Honorable mention: Basketball Diaries, The Super, Space Jam.

    Agree? Disagree? What is your favorite basketball movie of all time?

  • Worth fighting for

    The last few days I’ve been following the story of Shaun King, an Atlanta church planter and friend of YS, who recently discovered his former boss & pastor has admittedly molested and raped some children.* After doing some further research Shaun learned that other church leaders were aware of the situation but remained silent.

    Not Shaun. He took to Twitter to expose the problem. Here’s how he kicked things off:

    Bishop Johnathan Alvarado of Total Grace Christian Center is a child molester. In the name of Jesus I declare this must end RIGHT NOW. @shaunking – March 13th, 2011

    Here is the crux of his demand:

    I have heard the worst, learned of his admission of guilt, yet he continues to serve and preach. Kids get the raw end of this deal. No more. @shaunking – March 13th, 2011

    And he didn’t back down from there. He has continued to press on. Laying out his case and defending it with more evidence. Even if you don’t like Twitter, please take a few minutes to read through Shaun’s tweets from the past few days.

    You will see righteous anger in action. As he says, “I will STAND FOR KIDS 100 out of 100 times.”

    It is the embodiment of Ephesians 5:11-13:

    Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.

    I know many are offended by Shaun, his tactics, and think that he is somehow giving the church a bad name. Are you kidding me? If these allegations are true, (and it seems the pastor admitted to them) young men were raped, families paid off, and the pastor went right on preaching? That’s a disgrace and we need to applaud Shaun for speaking out! To be silent, to deal with that in private, is disturbing. If you’ll protect a rapist… who wouldn’t you protect?

    This morning I’m asking for 3 things:

    1. Pray for Shaun, Rai, and his kids. Pray for the victims and their families. Many in church circles are denouncing Shaun for speaking out. And sadly other people have sent him death threats. Pray that God protects Shaun as he stands in the gap for children in his community. Pray that justice prevails, not in the court of public opinion, but in a court of law.
    2. Reflect on the types of things worth fighting for in your life. What are things that you, as a child of God, would cause you to stand up and fight for, putting your reputation on the line for, even to the point of receiving death threats as you expose light to darkness?
    3. Act, act, act. I believe there are countless stories like this hidden in the confines of the church today. Expose them. Today. There is a devil-inspired lie that “true believers” settle things without the courts involvement. I’ve even heard people say that it’s a sin to sue a church. That is a lie. Examine 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 yourself. Rape is not trivial. Breaking the law is not trivial. Extortion is not trivial. On and on. Examine the context and reason Paul wrote those words. But yet this untruth has lead to countless victims and the continued victimization by people originally called to represent Jesus. Expose them. Do not take refuge in the reality that God will judge them. It is your responsibility as a believer to bring light to dark places. Search your heart, discover what is worth fighting for, and act. Today.

    *I’ll admit in sharing this story that I’m confused on some of the details. I don’t know how a person can rape children and settle that in court without criminal charges against the accused. I firmly believe that a person is innocent until proven guilty. If someone could help me understand Shaun’s statements that the person has admitted guilt and not received a criminal complaint, please enlighten me. Is this a statute of limitations thing?

  • 3 Big Questions

    I can’t decide if its the lack of sleep (ht to Jackson) that caused me to wake up asking myself these questions, if my “fasting from sleep” provided clarity on some things which brought these questions to the surface of my awareness, or if these are just really good questions that popped into my mind this morning after reading through some of the Gospel narrative on the way to the cross. You decide.
    1. What is the difference between what I will do today and what I am about today? I have a lot of stuff to do. Work stuff. Personal stuff. Stuff I want to do. And stuff I need to do. But which of that stuff am I about?
    2. With information, tragedy, and calls to action coming from everywhere in the world at once, am I called to take action globally or take action locally? (The sister question to this is: What can I actually do today to make the most impact for Jesus?) Because the idea that I’m supposed to respond to both is driving me crazy. How is that even possible?
    3. Why is it the relationship between learning facts and changing my behavior? I know all of the facts about big things that need to change in my life but I haven’t taken a single step. Conversely, I tend to change the most on things I’ve just learned about. Why is that? If facts don’t change my behavior, what does?

    This I do know and find soul rest in today:

    When I live with my struggles I deal with them. I grow through pain. When I pour myself out to God, declaring my weaknesses, it reveals His strength.

  • Common things I say as a creative

    I love naiveté. Not being sarcastic– for reals. For a lot of ministry folks I am the first creative person they’ve tried to hire.

    Here are things you may hear me say when I talk to a prospective McLane Creative client:

    Yes, I will help you if I have time. No, the best stuff in life is actually not free. Yes, I will charge you even if you are in ministry. No, I don’t discount because you are in ministry… so am I. Yes, there is a difference between being available and free. No, my job isn’t to do everything for you, it’s to give you ideas. No, I will not do a proposal since you called me. Yes, I will give you an estimate for free. No, you won’t get anything from me until you pay 50% down. No, I do not believe the concept that  there are no new ideas under the sun… otherwise you wouldn’t have called me. No, I don’t understand why you think it’s OK to ask me for ideas for free. If you are going to get paid for my ideas, shouldn’t I be able to get paid to? Yes, you can call me back after you think about it.

    That said– McLane Creative is growing! I now have  Adam 2.0 on my team. (aka Dave Luke Design) If you are looking for a WordPress solution for your own blog or your organization, average projects are $750 – $2000, contact me.

    Here’s our latest work: The Marin Foundation (Two more sites about to launch)

  • St. Patrick’s Day Prayer for the American Church

    Green beer, revelry, parades, and dyeing the river green.

    These are the things we think about to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

    However, when I think of Saint Patrick, I think of one of the greatest missionaries to have ever walked the planet. Born in Wales, trafficked as a teenager and sold into slavery in Ireland. Patrick miraculously escaped six years later, then after a time of preparation felt called back to the island of his captivity as a missionary. During his lifetime, despite early persecutions, he was instrumental to the success of Christianity on the island. By the time of his death he had planted nearly 500 churches.

    In honor of Patrick’s service, this is my St. Patrick’s Day Prayer for the American Church:

    Loving Father, Creator and Sustainer of our land. You are our Compass, our Standard, our Protector, and sole Provider.

    We are lost without you. In our own power we chose to make the Gospel about us. We are so busy being religious that we forget that it’s not only about us, it’s also about the lost.

    We are lost without you. We cannot sustain ourselves. We cannot rule ourselves. We cannot protect ourselves. We cannot provide for our people alone. We need you.

    Break our hearts, Lord. Help us to order our lives in ways that respect your Word.

    We are thankful, God, for Patrick’s ministry in Ireland. You called him from bondage to reach his captors. Instead of resentment you, you filled his heart with love. Instead of a life filled with nightmares from his past, he fulfilled his dreams day by day in the light of day.

    Raise up among us a new Patrick in our nation. A person to renew the heart of our nation for you. Millions among us have never heard Your Name nor felt Your presence nor tasted Your Grace.

    Prepare a young man or woman set free by your Spirit, who knows no fear, who will escape their present bondage and yet return to reach their captors.

    Awaken that person today, Lord. Echo Your calling in their ear. Begin in them an earnest desire to be filled with Your knowledge. Give them wisdom and understanding to penetrate to the marrow of our culture. Help them to cast out of our country far more dangerous realities than snakes.

    Give them boundless energy and laser-like focus.

    Open our ears, eyes, and heart to this new Patrick. Help us accept this person as Your servant among us.

    Refresh us, Lord. Awaken us, Lord. Remind us, Lord. Expand us, Lord.

    We need you now more than ever. Save us from modern day druids, from those who make us serfs, and from those who force us to acknowledge their power over Yours.

    Amen.

    See also:

  • Public Ministry Prerequisites

    A friend recently expressed a frustration that anyone who works in a church feels all the time. He said, “We just get the leftovers of people’s time, energy, and heart.”

    He said it in a negative way. I affirmed him in a positive way. “That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

    I get the same dirty look every time I say that.

    Here is what most believers in your church really want to know— but you won’t give them a straight answer.

    In your opinion, what does an “all-in” lifestyle look like?

    When am I doing enough for the Kingdom so that I have the right & responsibility to say no?

    This is the elephant in the room in every church. This is what people in the pews long to know. They all want to hear a simple answer to that simple question.

    They need a checkbox and you give them an essay. They ask for a cheeseburger and you bring them a Power Bar. And you wonder why they just tip instead of tithe? That disappointed look as people meander out of your sanctuary Sunday mornings? Yup, that’s it. They don’t know if they are doing enough. And you won’t tell them.

    Why? Because, as church leaders, we don’t like the answer.

    Mark 12:28-34 deals with this exact question. See what happens when a religious leader asks Jesus, “What am I supposed to be doing with my day-to-day life?“

    One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

    “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

    “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

    When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

    I love that last line– ZING!

    You didn’t see religious leaders lining up to ask the Messiah another question, did you? Nope. They didn’t like Jesus’ answer back then and church leaders don’t like it today.

    You can hear the groan of every single church staff member. Why didn’t Jesus implore people to give more time to the church? Why? Why?! WHY?!?!?!

    The frustrated staff

    Every staff member I talk to has the same 2-3 problems. (Youth pastors, worship pastors, senior pastors, children’s pastors, small groups pastors… all of ’em.)

    They have vision for great programs. Great ideas. But they struggle to find the resources and people to implement them.

    They all deal with the same pressure: In order to be judged as having done a good job, a noble ambition, they need the resources to implement their programs.

    The frustrated parishioner

    [Confession: I never saw this on church staff! Like literally… it was there, but I never saw it and no one ever articulated it to me. I didn’t see it until I transitioned from being on staff to becoming a parishioner.]

    Each week, sermons implore them to live out the Gospel in their daily life. At work, at home, with their friends, seek justice, etc. Then they are told they need to keep their relationship with God first and their ministry to their family second. But each week they are also asked to help with the programs of the church.

    They all deal with the same pressure: They have a 40-50 hour per week job to pay the bills, they have kids that need help with homework and other stuff in their lives, they need to keep their relationship with God growing, their relationship with their spouse and kids second… there isn’t much time or energy available after that. And the church gives them 30 hours worth of things they could be doing with the 4 hours they have available each week.

    Frustration by design?

    It’s not supposed to be like that. Jesus, our Groom, never intended a life in His church to be frustrating for the bride.

    Worse yet. Everyone is frustrated and it isn’t working. The church, as a whole, is reaching less people. Our population is exploding and our churches are happy to hold steady. That’s a net loss.

    We need to get back on course with what the Bible teaches us about our daily lives.

    Prerequisites to public ministry

    (These are the things you need to take care of BEFORE you consider anything at church. Otherwise, take a ticket and head to the end of the frustration line. You’ll be there a while.)

    1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Are you putting your relationship with Jesus on hold so you can serve? If so, you are being disobedient. No wonder you are frustrated.
    2. Love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus didn’t mean this metaphorically. He meant it literally. If you don’t know your neighbors names and are not actively loving them… then you aren’t qualified to help out at church. Define neighbors: If their property touches or is adjacent to yours, those are your neighbors. God placed you on your block because He is smarter than you are. He wants you to love and serve them. It’s not something you do when you have time. It’s something you make time to do. And it’s more important than helping at youth group or singing in the choir. That’s why it’s a prerequisite.
    3. Love your family. When Megan was 6 she said to me, “Daddy, I wish you spent as much time with me as you spend with the kids at church.”  Six. Years. Old. That’s when I knew I needed an extended break from public ministry. It wasn’t that I was unqualified. And it certainly wasn’t that I was unsuccessful. It’s that things had gotten out-of-order. Never again. If your family is groaning because you are spending too much time at church… it’s time to readjust.

    If you have those things in order than you can consider helping a program at church. And if you don’t have these three things covered, not just in your opinion, but in the opinion of the people in your life, than you need to stop doing public ministry.

    Trust me, the church will endure and prevail. She will be fine!

    To my frustrated church staff friends:

    Here are two things I learned the hard way.

    • You are not exempt. Being a pastor at the church does not mean you can be so busy you don’t spend time with God, don’t love your neighbors, and don’t love your family. In fact, having your house in order is a biblical requirement (1 Timothy 3:4) for leadership because it validates everything you do and say. #1 & #3 are usually OK with church staff… it’s #2 we forget to invest in.
    • It won’t get better until you change your behavior. I think I made the mistake of thinking that I could circumvent this if I created a good enough program or if I just invested in developing leaders more. It didn’t. It only spun more out of control as time went on. The reality was that it didn’t get better until I took care of those 3 prerequisites.

    “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” Romans 12:1

  • You know you’re becoming presbyterian…


    … when you recognize the dive bar in the background image of a slide during the worship service and snicker with your friends at the newfound irony to the words.

    Certainly, the Tower Bar is a visual landmark in City Heights. It’s essentially a historic place in the city of San Diego. But it’s also a central meeting spot for folks in our church. We meet there to walk around the corner to Bravo’s Taco Shop. (Best burrito in City Heights) Or maybe to plan a small group outing. Or even to debrief a rough night at youth group.

    And the joke is always that if someone has too much to drink they can get a tattoo in the upstair tattoo parlor aptly named, Tower Tattoo Parlor.

    The connection between the words from the song and slide being a favorite place we meet was delicious.

    I have a feeling that will become the official proper response for a meeting at the Tower from now on.

    Where You go, I’ll go
    Where you stay, I’ll stay
    Where you move, I’ll move
    I will follow You

  • 5 things gardens teach us about healthy churches

    Last year, Kristen and I made a commitment to grow organically or buy organically 25% of our families food. For us, that has meant starting and maintaing a garden.

    As they say, inch by inch and row by row– we have watched our garden grow.

    A native suburbanite, I’ve discovered many revelations about my perceptions of a healthy church shattered by the realities of staying in tune with more agrarian things in my backyard.

    The title of pastor is agrarian by etymology. To manage a flock is different than managing a business. Jesus could have chose to describe church leaders as business owners or organizational leaders… but instead Jesus chose an agrarian term, pastor.

    Here are 5 things that gardens teach us about healthy churches:

    1. Healthy organisms replicate. The hallmark of a good plant is its fruit. And the reason a plant creates fruit is simple: To replicate. Conversely, the mission of a church isn’t to grow infinitely, it’s to replicate and make impact on the community it serves. If it isn’t replicating (producing fruit) than it’s just wasting space. (Matthew 3:12)
    2. In order to grow strong you must water & feed regularly. I need to make sure my plants have sun, water, fertilizer, (organic, of course) and good soil. In order for the church to be healthy, you need to do the hard work of making sure you have healthy conditions for your church to grow. Are you teaching good stuff? Are you grounded in your mission? Is your staff team feeding from God’s Word? Are you leading people to be dependent on you… or are you teaching them to feed themselves?
    3. In order to produce good fruit you must weed & prune. Last year, I got enamored with a tomato plant which grew to more than 20 feet tall. It was exciting to see how big that plant would get. But the bad thing was that it choked out the growth of all the plants around it. That taught me a valuable lesson about pruning. The goal isn’t just to have one healthy plant in the garden, to have a healthy garden all of the plants need to be healthy. Which means I need to keep up with weeding and pruning. Likewise, a good pastor weeds & prunes his church regularly. He doesn’t wait for big problems to arise before acting. He nips things in the bud. (A pruning pun for you.)
    4. Everything tastes better when its home grown. We love our CSA. Every two weeks we pick up a great big box of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. But, in all honesty, that stuff is no where near as tasty as the stuff we grow in our backyard. And stuff we buy from the supermarket… that’s like ordering a salisbury steak when you can have prime rib. Too many churches go to the supermarket instead of looking at their garden for talent and ideas. There’s nothing wrong with going to the supermarket. But growing your own talent and implementing your own ideas is so much more sweet.
    5. Healthy gardens are a habitat to many species, not just the plants. At any given time I have 5-10 different types of things I’m growing in my garden. But at the same time my garden has a whole ecosystem of other plants, animals, bugs, and crawly things which survive and thrive off of our garden. There are bugs that hang out by our compost heap. There are different little plants supported by the back spillage of our drip watering system. There are good bugs who eat bad bugs. There are bees who pollenate. And there are birds who live in our yard who live off of the bugs. The same is true in a church. When you let go of control and instead chose to create a healthy environment, an entire ecosystem of impact unfolds.

    Our title of pastor is describing something agrarian. For most of us, like myself, we grew up completely separated from all things farming. Perhaps more of us need to spend more time in the garden or in the fields tending to flocks to understand the simplicity and complexity of our roles?

    What do you think? Should seminaries and conferences offer tracks which send you to the farm?

  • New is dangerous, old is noble

    The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.  ~Warren Chappell (1904-1991)

    I find that people have a curious attitude towards new ways of doing things.

    If I were to tell you that part of my job is to remain informed by reading journals on the study of adolescence, magazines to keep up with the latest trends in adolescent culture, network with youth workers around the world to hear what’s going on in the field of youth ministry, and read book after book of youth ministry training materials… you’d likely have a noble attitude towards my lifestyle.

    Wow, Adam McLane is a well-read, well-informed guy.

    But if I were to tell you that I do all of that sitting in front of a computer all day, reading dozens of blog posts, networking with people on Twitter and Facebook, and reading hundreds of pages of stuff every day to find the very best stuff out there.

    Oh, Adam McLane is addicted to the internet. [Make ugly, judgmental face]

    People’s attitudes towards acquiring news information and reading.

    6 hours of sitting and reading a book or digesting the latest newspaper = noble use of time.

    6 hours of sitting and reading online or digesting the latest news online = evil use of time.

    The same could be said of people’s attitudes towards mobile devices.

    6 hours of sitting behind a desk pushing paperwork around = noble use of time.

    6 hours of actively doing stuff in the field with 30-40 minutes of time away from that to send emails or communicating with co-workers = evil use of time.

    The same could be said about interacting with ones friends.

    I either see or call all of my friends nearly every day = noble use of time & energy.

    I connect or exchange messages with all of my friends nearly every day on either Facebook, Twitter, or text messaging = evil use of time & energy.

    What’s the point?

    I find it disturbing that people say, “You need to manage your time online or with your mobile device. You are probably addicted.” But you will never hear someone say, “Pray for Adam, he’s addicted to reading books. Holy cow, he sits and listens to his friends way too much. I think he is addicted. He’s a communication-aholic.”

    I’m not saying that there aren’t times when I’m horribly out-of-balance or that I’m somehow really perfect. (Because I’m actually quite messed up.)

    What I am saying is that people have had negative attitudes towards people who do things in new or innovative ways for as long people have invented stuff.

    Several thousand years ago there were probably people challenging villagers to not use this new thing called a “bridge” too much or you’d get addicted to it and not really appreciate walking around the canyon or wading through the icy river.

    It’s always been this way.

    Old is noble.

    New is dangerous.

  • Printable Lent Signs

    Click to see full-size

    This week we taught our kids about lent. So now that lent has begun, we wanted to make sure that we kept the long 40 days in front of us.

    With that in mind I made some sweet signs to hang up around the house. That way, if we see someone cheating we can kindly remind them of their commitment to fast from the thing we have chosen as we prepare, as a family, for Easter.

    If you’d like to download your own sign, I’ve added both a generic pdf and the original Photoshop files to my free downloads page. (Click the image below)

    [download id=”14″]

    For the record, here is what our family is giving up:

    • Megan – Reading in bed
    • Paul – Creamy peanut butter
    • Jackson – Everything but milk
    • Dad – Carbonated beverages
    • Mom – Twitter
    • Stoney (dog) – Chasing Lovely
    • Lovely (cat) – Bringing rodents in the house
    • Radicate (hamster) – Hiding treats