• Saturday Tunes

    It’s going to be a fun weekend for the McLane family. Our friend Dave is headed down from San Fransisco for a quick trip. We’re not 100% exactly what we’ll be doing, but the weather will be warm and I have no doubt that we will find some fun.

    I’ve got a couple more hours until he comes, so you know the iPod will be on in the background of everything else. Here are the next 10 tunes I’ll be listening to. As always, this is completely random, no cheating, ratings included.

    #1 Replace Me by Family Force 5 ****

    #2 Battle Without Honor or Humanity by Electric Samurai ****

    #3 Lonely by Your Side by Johhny Blake ****

    #4 Opposite Way by Leeland ****

    #5 X-Girlfriend by Family Force 5 ****

    #6 Gotta Have You by The Weepies ****

    #7 I Need Words by David Crowder Band ****

    #8 Yes You Have by Leeland ****

    #9 Under Pressure by David Bowie & Queen *****

    #10 Pictures of You by Poison Kiss ****

  • Belfast City Hall




    Belfast City Hall

    Originally uploaded by mclanea

    I got an email this morning from Emma Williams, who is the managing editor of a new interactive mobile map dealio called Schmap. Anyway, she just wanted to let me know that her group had picked this pictured Kristen and I snapped of Belfast City Hall to appear in their “Belfast in a day” guide. Pretty cool. Check it out here:
    Belfast in a day

  • Sometimes your best idea is stupid

    Case in point…


    This is why you need really good friends. We all need people in our lives to tell us when we’re investing in stupid stuff.

  • A little housekeeping

    As I get myself further ingrained over at the YS Blog you may notice a shift in my youth ministry related blog posts from here to there. Here’s a few recent examples.

    #1 Don’t Give Up on What Makes You Unique, lessons from Mike Rowe.

    #2 Tech Bytes for Youth Ministry, cheap tech buys that’ll make you look like a pro.

    #3 Why You Need Help in Youth Ministry, because you can’t succeed on your own, you know?

    Here at adammclane.com I’ll continue doing pretty much everything else I’ve always done. Personal updates, rants on church life, rants on politics, sharing about our new experiences here in SoCal, what I’m excited about in our church, stuff too controversial to share on the YS blog, stuff I’m proud of, stuff I’m reading/listening to, pictures and videos. You know… everything else I always do here.

    OK, you get the point.

  • The tax code, simplified

    Brought to you by the United States Congress.

  • Hump Day!

    It’s Wednesday already. I was in 6th grade at camp and first heard the term, Hump Day, I’ve always giggled at that expression. I’m 32 years old and it still makes me snort a little.

    Here are some random tidbits going on in my life, none big enough for a whole thought.

    #1 We’re entering into the 21st century of television soon. When we moved to San Diego I cut back on our cable costs for a while until I could grasp all our bills. To say the least, housing in Southern California is a lot different than in Michigan and I feared there were other hidden costs I wasn’t seeing. With all that settled and a normal monthly budget in play, we upgraded. I know this surprises some people to know that we did analog cable, being that I’m such a total tech dork. So we will soon have a bazillion channels, including tons of HD choices, and a DVR. You mean I won’t need my VCR anymore?

    #2 Social networking tools and the church. Kristen and I are getting more and more engaged in the church in an awesome way. One thing I’ve agreed to help out with is getting their website in order. Now, in addition to that, we have a Facebook group and I’m asking the staff (no office, decentralized staff) to play with Google Groups for their collaborations instead of emailing everything all over the place. Next step for them, they want a team blog to help tell their story. The biggest challenge for me is that we truly are a multi-cultural church. Yet, I’ve never done a website in multiple languages. I have to figure this one out!

    #3 Proud of YS this week. There’s been quite a stir about our publication of the book, Barack Obama: An American Story. It’s a team that rallies together, prays for one another, and genuinely loves one another. We knew this release would cause some people to question our sanity so we weren’t taken by surprise by the response. But it’s really cool to see Marko (the president of YS) be transparent about it on his blog. I love the values of YS, always have, and am proud to be a part of what God is doing through them.

    #4 Speaking of politics. It’s been a slow news week. I’m pretty sure by the end of the week Katie Couric will have a story, “A Retrospective of My Time on The Today Show.” With gas prices diving, a peaceful presidential transition, all of my sports teams sucking, and even murders and teen pregnancy on the decline… there really isn’t much to report on.

    #5 One more week until NYWC Nashville. Half of me says, “I’m still tired from the first two!” The other half of me says, “Bring it on!” Someone in the YS office loves me. After being in the adjoining room to Marko’s suite in Pittsburgh, I got moved down to the adjoining room to our VP of Marketing’s suite in Nashville. I think Dave knows every person in Nashville! Sleep? Who needs sleep? Not going to lie, I’m a social butterfly so I’m looking forwad to it.

    #6 Our kids rock! Don’t take my word for it, read Megan’s guest blog post on Kristen’s blog yesterday. I think Megan will have a guest post here soon. Turns out mommy is paying Megan to be her editor now, $1 per piece. She’s going to need an agent soon.

    #7 The Wii is back. After a summer’s long hiatus, the kids noticed we had a Wii again. In fact, Paul told me… “Your friend Ian has a Wii, so I want to play.” Kid’s brains work in the weirdest ways. It is true, Ian has a Wii… Paul saw that when we dropped off a stray turtle at his house over the weekend.

    #8 Reading again. Glance over at my sidebar and you’ll see what’s currently on my nightstand. I really am reading all of those books at the same time. Perhaps that’s why I rarely finish books?

    #9 Kristen’s new job. It’s been a fun challenge as we’re figuring out life with both of us working. She’s doing customer service for Calorie King in nearby La Mesa. We now have an ongoing joke that while she is the Calorie Queen, I am the King of Calories.

    #10 I don’t really have a tenth one. It just sounded like a good idea since I had nine.

  • Great Texts as Word Clouds

    John 1

    Declaration of Independence

    Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech

    Luther’s 95 Thesis

    Create your own at Wordle. Post your links here!

  • Is Twitter Killing Blogs?

    The youth ministry world has seen a decline in the quantity and quality of youth ministry blogs. I don’t have any research to back that statement up, but as a person who spends his life blogging the world of youth ministry I can say that I find it harder and harder to find great blog posts about youth ministry. The known bloggers have gotten better, and there are plenty of youth groups who have a blog as their groups website. But by and large I find it harder and harder to find the middle of the road youth worker who is just blogging about day-to-day challenges.

    The flip side is that I see a huge increase in the number of Facebook users and Twitter users in the youth ministry world.

    – Does this represent a change from the personal website to mass microblogging?

    – Is it that blogging, as a fad, is fading?

    – Is it that I’m just stuck up and I don’t see some new bloggers out there who are doing a great job?

    – Or has Twitter provided a more immediate outlet for youth workers to connect? Is it just faster and easier?

    p.s. If you’re not already a friend of mine on Facebook or following me on Twitter consider yourselves invited.

  • How Should Church Staff Be Treated?

    One of the fascinating aspects of senior church leaders blogging is that you get an opportunity to see inside their minds a little. Sometimes it is encouraging and sometimes it is not. Recently, I’ve been disappointed by some comments and principles that would be considered unethical or illegal in the professional world in relation to their non-executive staff.

    It got me thinking about how churches treat their staff. Wouldn’t it be logical to think that a place which represent Jesus, the King of Justice and Mercy, would be generous to their staff? One would hope so yet we see over and over again that churches abuse the provisions of their charity status to avoid labor laws.

    Instead what I see is that non-executive staff are seen as expendable commodities. They are asked to have absolute dedication. They are asked to do their jobs plus “other duties as assigned.” They are asked to work long hours for less than market value. They are told that if they aren’t 10,000% sold out, they should quit. Worse yet, they are hired at low levels and told that higher education is a waste of time and money, thus locking them into that role until the leader tires of them. If they question leadership they are fired. If they try to move up in the world they are fired. If they do anything except what the leaders say, they are fired.

    Here’s why I am repulsed by this concept. This represents the very worst of business culture exemplified by the church as a best practice. This is aimed at short term gain instead of what studies consistently say… long term relationships matter in ministry. This leadership style says, “We have the right to hire and fire you at will, but you… as a low level employee… have no power to chose what you want.” This leadership style is confusing and hurtful to staff members and I can provide examples of hundreds of people who have been threatened, mistreated, fired, and manipulated into following a pastor’s will above God’s will.

    I promise you this. Mark my words.

    – The churches who will endure and endear this generation will be great places to work.

    – The churches who prevail into the next generation will invest in staff members through thick and thin.

    – They will pay for them to get higher education.

    – They will create opportunities for advancement.

    – They will constantly remind staff that the most important people are not the up-front speakers and performers but the front line servants.

    – They will give staff members time to find freedom from the grind and encourage staff members to love their families above all else.

    – They will work less that 50 hours consistently.

    – They will reward for things other than numeric growth.

    – They will facilitate innovation outside of the executive leaders.

    – They will be known in their communities as great employers.

    – They will pay a living wage and encourage staff to live within walking distance of the church.

    What do you think? Where do you see injustices as a staff member? What do you think churches of the future will do with the staff that they have? Will they even need staff?

  • Picasso Tapas in Hillcrest

    Last night Kristen and I discovered a fun little place in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego called Picasso Tapas. Walking around the neighborhood we settled there purely because it was busy when nothing else was. (Little travelers tip right there.) After wiggling our way past the door we found a nice seat and settled in to enjoy this cozy hole in the wall.

    If you’ve never done tapas you need to know this is a place to skip the entrees… tapas is all about ordering several “little plate” appetizers. The owner suggested we get 2 each and share, we were hungry and so we ordered 5. Also, tapas places typically have a European approach to a meal. So if you want something fast and have high expectations for minute attention to detail you’ll be disappointed. Since Kristen and I came with the idea that we’d be there a while so relaxed and enjoyed their famous sangria. Originally, we were going to grab a bite to eat then head to a movie but we ended up staying so long that dinner was plenty for one night.

    A couple of the things we ordered were good. Tasty but not special. But two items really stuck out and are worth the hassle of parking down on 4th & University. First, the turkey meat balls were about the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Full of flavor and tender, not dry, we actually had to cut the 5th one in half and contemplated another order. Second, the almond shrimp was stellar. I’ve had my fair share of shrimp in my life and I’ve never bit into a shrimp to taste almond. It was a great flavor and this order came with an abundance of very large shrimp. Both items were recommendations and I kind of wish we had just asked for more instead of taking chances on some of their other 37 tapas to chose from. One negative, like was mentioned in a few reviews elsewhere, we never got all of our 5th dish. I’d tell you about the mushroom tapas but it never arrived. That didn’t disuade us though as we just ordered a dessert, flan, and were quite pleased.

    The service was quaint and added to the cozy factor. I think midway through our meal we graduated from the owner, a man from southern Spain, to a “real server.” I can’t lie in saying that I preferred the owner talking about his wife (the chef from northern Spain) better than a boring server. All-in-all though the service was very typical of something I expect on the Continent.

    The price was right. We ordered a lot and I was stunned that the bill was so little. If you arrive before 7 PM there are some great deals to be had from the $5 menu. I actually suggest coming early as this small place fills up with locals and gets louder as the evening progresses. Also, if you have a party larger than 4 it may be hard to get a table.

    Overall, I highly recommend this place. No website and none needed. Check out some other reviews on Google and you’ll get the idea. Locals love it and critics don’t. My kind of place.