• Houseguests that are fun!

    KatoNo, this isn’t about O.J. Simpson and the world’s most famous house guest.

    This weekend we hosted a missionary couple in our home who was visiting First Baptist. Since we have a few things in common I had a feeling we would get along… but I totally underestimated how much we were going to like having the Whiting’s with us.

    The are just as crazy as we are. If by "crazy" you mean, "faithful enough to follow God out of Ur" or "faithful enough to want to capture the Promised Land."

    These aren’t the first missionaries from the church we’ve hosted, so when the visit began I’ll admit that I was a little on edge. Within 10 minutes of their arrival we were sitting in our living room and I was answering questions about all the changes at the church. I wondered, "Are these people here to tear us down or are they just curious?" In fact… not only were they curious, they were exceedingly happy with all we’ve been up to. We both wrote down ideas that one another have used that we’ll consider here and they will consider in Croatia. (Local churches there call them crazy, too! We are not alone.)

    By Sunday afternoon we had progressed from sharing stories to coming up with new ideas discussing how to look at this community "more missiologically." And yesterday, before they left we talked again about engaging a culture and following Jesus’ command in Matthew 28 to "go" to our culture instead of waiting for them to come.

    Atlas_of_religions
    One thought that sticks in my mind was his categorization of things in the New Testament church.     He put things into the category of historical Jewish methods (come to us, be like us, to be reached by us) and historical Jesus methods. (go to them, be like them, to reach them)

    Here’s my thought for the day: Since America has become a mission field and there is general acknowledgment that we need to act like missionaries in order to reach our communities… we shouldn’t be studying the methods of church… we should be studying the methods of effective missionaries. (For another day I’ll contrast "effective missionaries" with "systematic missionaries.")

    Here’s a Gene Whiting thought to chew on: In Europe there are traditions based on centuries of history. In America, change is the tradition itself.

  • An amazing tool… from Microsoft

    I know. It seems almost like an oxymoron to say… but Microsoft has an amazing utility for web developers. I’ll even go this far, it’s better than anything Google has in this category?

    What is it?
    It’s Microsoft’s adCenter Labs

    What is it good for?
    If you are an internet marketer or an internet publisher… you need to know who your readers are and what the likelihood is that they’ll use your site for commercial reasons. In other words, are users of your site willing to spend money via ads on your site or not? Interestingly, saying "no" to that question is not saying "no" to advertising on your site. All it means is that you should run ads on your site for informational purposes or non-commercial purposes. (Still plenty of money in that, too.) And if you are an online marketer, you need to know if you are spending your money on sites that are both in your demographic and interested in buying products that you sell.

    It’s a powerful, simple tool that is worthy of a bookmark. Even for Microsoft haters. Or Google lovers like me.

  • It’s here

    Remedycross_2
    That’s all I have to say. I’ll be reviewing it later tonight and my review will publish next Monday before the release.

  • Some smokin’ stuff at Youth Ministry Exchange

    Ymx_nofullnameWith fall in full swing all over, things at YMX are rockin’ along. And I don’t just mean the forum community, but all over at YMX things are doing quite well.

    We’ve got better content than ever, better access to artists and new music, better reviews of books and other stuff, and quite nice free giveaways.

    And people are noticing! There is nothing more exciting for a small publisher than seeing people finally start to recognize that you are a producer of good content. And it’s fun from our point of view because we can see that loads more people are signing up for our free weekly newsletter and getting our stuff delivered to them on their feed reader.

    I may sound like a dweeb, but it is just plain fun to see stuff go from idea, to development, to implemtation, to "consumers" consuming and liking what you’ve produced. It’s kind of a little boy high.

    Perhaps again, I’m a dork. But it’s also very exciting for me to see that this infant site, which wasn’t more than a crazy idea 2 years ago… now is getting first class content from people like Thousand Foot Krutch, David Crowder, Erwin McManus, Shane Claiborne… and of course youth ministry "names" like Jeremy Del Rio, Dave Rahn, and Len Evans.

    Ateam
    All the time the YMX team just kind of sits up and looks around long enough to say… "Are you kidding me? Is all of this good stuff really happening? We’re just learning how all of this works!" YMX is clearly a God thing because we really just worked hard and dreamed and the rest of everything has fallen into place for us.

    The best part of where we are right now is that this isn’t the end of our dream for the site. In fact, this is just a milestone… a point of celebration from where we were on the way to where we want to go. Gotta love crazy goals!

  • Money Tightness

    CheckbookAs I mentioned a couple weeks back, Kristen and I were pleased with ourselves for being prepared for "Big Money Day" on September 15th.

    At the same time, that also means that times are pretty tight for us as we’ve just paid a massive amount of bills. In fact, this causes a little anxiety and a little "ahhhh!" every time I think about it. For whatever reason, even though that saved money was for this purpose now that it is gone makes me feel in a panic. (Even when there is nothing to really worry about, we’re fine!)

    Let me just articulate a couple of temptations I face when things get tight. Maybe it will be helpful to others who live on a salaried income… it’s not like I can just work a little overtime like in the old days. We simply have to budget our way back to "comfort."

    1. Stop doing healthy things like going on dates with Kristen.
    2. Get lazy (lazier than normal, that is) on home projects.
    3. Change our giving habits to the church and other charitable giving.
    4. Spend money in other areas of my life where I have spending abilities. (Church, YMX)
    5. Buy something completely unbudgeted, above what we can afford or have planned on, on a credit card.

    These are all pitfalls I fight when times are a little "thin" in the bank account. Here’s the thing… we live on a budgeted income. Not very many people can sit down in January and know exactly how many pennies of income they will bring home in 2007… but salaried people can. This actually makes budgeting simple and yet a lot of ministry friends struggle to budget the high’s and low’s of the year into their spending mentalities.

  • Four Handed Guitar


    HT to Brian Eberly

  • Saturday Tunes

    Saturday_tunes_2It’s a busy day for the McLane family… we’ve got soccer in the morning, friends coming in the afternoon, and house guests coming after the Notre Dame-Michigan game. So these are the next 10 tunes the family will be rockin’ this morning. As always, no cheating… ratings included.

    1. I’ve Found Jesus (Passion Worship Band) ***
    2. You Know I’m no Good (Amy Whinehouse) *****
    3. Hollywood (Collective Soul) ***** (Just did a review of this for YMX, it’ll post next week)
    4. Earthquake (Family Force 5) ****
    5. How Great is Our God (Chris Tomlin) *****
    6. Golden Slumbers (K.D. Lang; Happy Feet Soundtrack) ****
    7. When You are Here (Jeremy Camp) ***
    8. You Never Let Go (Matt Redman) ***** (Paul’s favorite song)
    9. Glory Revealed (Candi Pearson) ***
    10. Missa Papae Marcelli (Palestrina) *****

  • What ever happened to… my youth pastor?

    In my high school years, one man really sticks out as having invested in my spiritual development: Dan Evans. I’ve talked about this guy before.. but I thought it would be great to post a bit of an update.

    Dan_evansIt’s incredible to think that 15 years after he was my youth pastor, Dan & Barb are still working for the same organization. When I met them, they were living in Hanau, Germany and targeting their ministry towards students at Hanau American High School and Middle School. While most people don’t even know that the Defense Department runs a school district at one time it was probably the largest school district in the United States as they provided education to military dependents living overseas.

    When Dan came into my life, I was lost. I mean really lost. Hurting, confused, frustrated, and bored I was living  thousands of miles away from my hometown of South Bend, Indiana. More than anything… I needed someone stable and normal in my life and Dan provided that.

    So where is he now? Last year, Dan left student ministry after about 20 years of working with Cadence International’s Malachi Ministries. Never fear… they didn’t leave ministry altogether, they just kind of morphed into a logical step for a growing family… running a hospitality house. Better yet (for Dan the outdoorsmen) they have moved to Alaska!

    In an update we received last night, Barb tells us that they are busy with doing what they’re good at... connecting hurting people to a loving God. I wasn’t around the military very much (10 months) but I can tell you that folks who are stationed far from home crave deep relationships. For some this results in dysfunction as they fill that need for deep connections with crap. (drinking, partying, self-destructive habits) But Dan & Barb step into that void and try to fill those desires with good stuff. They are expert disciplers and I am proud to know them, pray for them, support them, and stand behind them to cheer them on.

    What about you?     Where are the people who had deep impacts on your life? Are you still in contact with them? Do you still pray for them?

  • CSR: MailChimp

    MailchimpFor about 2 months now, YMX has been using an e-mail marketing service for our now weekly newsletter.

    Location:
    www.mailchimp.com (based in Atlanta, Georgia)Csr_excellent

    Description:
    For those who don’t know how things like this work… an e-mail marketing service is the way that e-mail marketers get stuff into your mailbox in a mass kind of way. Way back in the day you could just send out messages via your e-mail out box… but that’s not working anymore. There was simply too much spam and ISP’s started blocking that kind of mail. So places like MailChimp popped up on the market who are extremely diligent in helping companies of all sizes get their wanted, not-spam, newsletters out to customers who actually have requested it. (By definition, that’s how something isn’t spam.) How MailChimp works is that they give you all the code for embedding your opt-in form onto your site (see our example) and then set-up a process where the person who says they want the newsletter "double opt’s in" to make sure they really want it. This makes your e-mail campaign 100% legal in the United States. If someone double opt’s than you cannot be sued by them as being a spammer.

    But MailChimp also offers two fantastic features. 1. The stats are unreal. 2. They have some smokin’ good looking templates for users.

    Service:
    First off, they have live assistance via instant message. Mega-kudos for that. next, they don’t have a nasty hierarchy for getting your stuff fixed. You talk to Dan or Jennifer directly, they are the experts. More than that, they do an incredible job of following up. I had a small issue this week and Jennifer was completely honest… she didn’t know the answer. But within an hour she sent me an e-mail, explained everything, and made sure I was 100% satisfied. One other thing that makes me give them my highest ranking is that they are not done learning. They are making a huge effort to learn from their users by actually leaving their offices and doing site visits. How cool is that for an online company?

    Cost:
    As you would expect, a super professional service with great customer service isn’t free. But it isn’t expensive either. They have two main options… you can buy credits to send your mail… like $.03/message or you can pay a monthly fee and send up to 8 messages per month. (This is what YMX does.) But we’re getting all of this, which really equals no hassle, for only $15/month. (Go here and click on "pricing") That’s the perfect cost for a small business or church.

    Rating:
    This is a first for me. But great/personable customer service, a powerful tool for any small business or church, and a reasonable, grow with you, price forces me to declare MailChimp my first ever Superior. It doesn’t get any better than MailChimp. They are best in class.

  • Who are you telling no?

    I’ve had a few conversations this week revolving the "n" word. No.

    It doesn’t matter if you are in full time ministry or not. When you start telling God what you are or are not going to do with your time, talent, energy, emotions, future, past, or whatever..

    When you start limiting what you are willing to do for God, life will get pretty complicated to you.

    But when you tell God… "take all of me. use me for Your glory. use my all of me. every last drop." When that’s your attitude to God, His Word, His people, His church, His _____. That’s where God will take that offering (ala Romans 12:1) and multiply you and your impact.

    If you aren’t having the impact you want… check yourself first before blaming it on circumstances.