A couple of folks have asked me about the battle of Mars Hill that broke out last week.
There really hasn’t been a huge response. But I’m guessing that it’ll be a topic of conversation at the Emergent Village Gathering this week.
Here’s the blog response about the incident on Emergent Village. Those big tough buys from Emergent are battling with winks. I’ll bet everyone is shaking in their boots about it.
Kristen and I are infamous "non-planners" when it comes to vacation time. Rather, we aren’t the type to make elaborate plans months in advance of a trip. And to be honest this is mostly my trait and Kristen has just learned to go along with it.
As a result, we are always amazed at how God (and His people) just seems to take care of us. We never presume this is going to happen, I just try hard to not sweat the details of a trip to leave room for God-sized stuff to happen.
That seems to be happening with our upcoming trip next week. We made the "big plan" for the trip 6 months ago or so. We knew where we were going (on a cruise) so we knew when it left and when we’d return. We also had some big black hole unknowns that we chose to not try to work out from here. We always feel as though we’re better off making plans locally for the details than we are trying to figure it out from thousands of miles away. So the details of where we would stay and what we would do before and after the cruise were/are still up in the air.
Yet bit by bit, those details are getting worked out in far cooler ways than we previously imagined. I can’t wait to share those details later. And I’m not the only one stoked about this trip. I got this note from the captain of our boat last night:
I’m so looking forward to our trip!! Exactly 7 days from now we’ll be cruising up the westside of San Juan
Island, perhaps among a group of Orcas, on the way to our first nights
anchorage. Count it down!!
Last night Patti and I revealed our secret plan to destroy the planet by raising the subscription rates at Youth Ministry Exchange from $5 per year to $12 per year.
The vast majority of our users will be fine with the increase… after all, $1/month is pretty cheap for something a typical user will use every day. (We’re even offering a special for current members to make it more affordable.) But then there are (will be) those who just disagree on more fundamental terms.
Community is free, why should I pay to be on a forum?
Is community free? Is your church providing community for free? Is your public library? Is your community where you live free? When you share community with friends, does it cost the host to have a house or get snacks? The reality is that running YMX isn’t any more free than any other community in the world. Running the site to the standards our subscribers expect is expensive. Offering a stable online community isn’t free. It costs hours of labor, professional designers and developers help, top-notch web hosting, and loads of other costs. None of which is free.
Everything on the internet should be free, why isn’t YMX?
I call this the "google-ization" of the internet. Next time you are enjoying something free at one of google’s sites (I’m a huge Google fan for this reason!) ask yourself, "Why is google’s stock over $550 per share?" Google spends billions of dollars to provide stuff on the internet for free and makes huge profits. We don’t have the advertising engine that Google has at YMX to offset business expenses. YMX users are notoriously cheap. They don’t click on income producing ads, they won’t use the site’s store to make purchases, but yet the site should be free? Smelling salt time!
I thought YMX was a ministry, how can you act like a business and ask people to pay?
That’s where there is some legitimate misunderstanding. YMX has always been a business. We are an LLC and not a charity meaning that all income is taxable to us and that we don’t accept donations. People put up capital to launch the business and continue to invest in the business. Why are they doing that? At the very least they would like their capital back… but the assumption in investing in a company is that you will yield a return on that investment. It is a ministry… but it is also a business. This is similar to Youth Specialties, Group, and Simply Youth Ministry. They are all for-profit ministries.
Aren’t you just trying to get rich?
Check out my new car! Actually, I just bought Kristen a new gold rake for all the money that is rolling in. She just couldn’t get it into our mailbox fast enough. In reality, we’re just happy to see the site break even. Last year we took a pretty good hit. A couple things strike me about YMX in comparison to other online communities in "ministry world." We have no offices and no full time staff! When you compare what we are able to do with no full time staff and no offices you realize that YMX is a movement of God and not some brilliant marketing plan to get rich. We simply said "yes" to God at the right moment and He has done the rest.
Here’s my take on it, this will end my rant about this
You get what you pay for in life. I can tell the difference between a Bible Study I pull off of Pastor2Youth.com and one I buy from Group Publishers. In the same regard, I hope that those who come to YMX will say the same thing in comparing to us having a "free forum" on one of the many link farm sites out there. YMX is a stable and growing community firmly comfortable with it’s goal to encourage youth workers.
Patti and I aren’t in this to get rich.
(Anyone who has met us would know that) If we were, the site would be set up completely differently… we do know how to run a company, you know? Patti and I are doing everything we can to increase other streams of revenue for the company to not have to pass along all of the expenses to subscribers. (Advertising, web hosting, taking the site to NYWC, launching new sites and partnerships under development)
But Patti and I aren’t in this to lose money either. We’ve invested too much to be in it to lose money.
Stepping off my ranting box.
It was my fault. I was trying to make tea so I put the kettle on and walked away. I have a habit of turning the wrong burner on… and about 3 minutes later you hear a big "kaboom!" coming from the kitchen. I assumed that one of the kittens had knocked something off of the counter and scurried out when a bowl shattered.
It turns out that I had exploded a Pyrex bowl into a billion pieces all over the kitchen. (Thankfully, no one was hurt.) The molten glass even burned the kitchen floor a little.
As Paul said, "Daddy, you are in big trouble. You’re a very bad boy." It’s true.
Finally someone has taken the gay buffer and made a video so that everyone can understand. This explains, to some detail, the effects of breaking the code in the potty.
Since this involves potty humor… I’m going to make people who want to see the video click "read more…" for those on a feed… you’ll have to come check it out.
In just a week Kristen and I are off on our second big vacation of the year. This is a great vacation year for us! We’re headed off to a cruise in the San Juan Islands on the Pacific Catalyst with Bill and Mama Shan. We’re spending serious quality time with some friends from YMX.
Since no one I know really gets why we are so excited about this I thought I’d post a video.
When you are the world’s largest retail chain and one of the world’s largest private employers, you are going to get punked here and there. Here are my two favorites of the moment.
Tesco is Cheaper
Baby Got Back at Wal*Mart
I will admit that I enjoyed my initial experiences with Newsvine. It was a fun social/news bookmarking site for a while.
To me, it is representative of all that is bad about a social network…
I suppose this proves hos finicky a web-user can be. 6-9 months ago I loved the site and liked getting email reminders the second things posted in my categories I’ve tagged. Today, I deleted my account when I realized that I hadn’t logged in in 4-5 months. Best part is, no one noticed or cared.
I’m waiting for my form letter.
Hard to believe that MainStreet is only a couple days away. Tonight I finalized a very odd little commercial. If you don’t find it funny, just relax knowing that it’s funny to me.
p.s. I fixed the type-o… it won’t appear in church but I don’t want to resubmit it to YouTube.
