Toolbox For Faith

The headline, “IPhone confession app gets church approval,” intrigued me even though I do not have an IPhone. The article explained that the app approved by the Roman Catholic Church had a custom examination of conscience based on your age, gender and marital status as well as a confessional walk thru including a place for people to add their custom sins. All of this for only a cost of $1.99.

For a person who pushes “O” constantly while listening to pleasant recorded messages giving me every option but talking to a real person when I call most businesses, the app reminded me how impersonal our society has become. Just this week I was reading about the high school football star who chose a different college than his mother wanted him to attend so he texted her the news and didn’t tell her in person or even by a call because he knew she wouldn’t approve. He took the easy way out which is what apps, texting and email can become.

I sincerely hope the IPhone confession app helps some people realize that they have moved away from God but I am convinced that our Christian faith is best demonstrated when we share it in person—when we can laugh together, cry together, talk together and support each other. I know the world is changing but our personal witness is still the central starting point in the midst of all the transformations happening in the world. That is something I never want to forget. Apps and modern media can help but they can never replace each of us personally sharing the faith.

And just so you know, pushing “O” constantly usually get me to a real person much quicker than waiting for it to be a last resort.

I was in a meeting last week and Pastor James Armentrout of St. Mark Lutheran Church in Roanoke, Virginia who shared a story about his desire to create a culture of gratitude at St. Mark. I thought James had a simple and helpful way of saying “Thank You”, so I asked him to write about it. Here is what James had to say and an example of what his “Thank You” space looks like.

As a pastor new to my current congregation I have worked very deliberately to develop a culture of gratitude. One of the first things I did after I arrived was to create dedicated “Thank You” space at the end of the weekly worship bulletin. Here I list, by name, every person who has been involved in some facet of congregational mission or ministry that week. The list includes the folks who folded bulletins or the newsletter, helped with the food pantry or clothes closet, those who came and read to or prepared lunch for the children in our preschool, prepared a meal after a funeral, etc. I keep a notepad handy at all times so that when some individual or group is doing something mission/ministry related I can write their names down. I’ve done this enough in my five months at St. Mark that now when ministry coordinators see me coming with my notepad they know right away what I’m doing and make sure I haven’t missed any names. In the bulletin I list everyone alphabetically with their names in bold type. At times, I do miss a name, but we simply acknowledge the mistake and print the name the next Sunday. Not surprisingly, people respond well when you express your gratitude publicly.

Thank You

Most churches do some sort of advertising at Christmas. This year, I am adding advertising on Facebook to our toolbox. Here’s a link to an article on a church communication website that provides details on how to create and place a Facebook ad. The article also includes a coupon code for $50 in free advertising. I followed the steps outlined in the article and used the coupon to create a targeted ad that will run in the days leading up to Christmas. We’ll see how it goes.

http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/2010/11/facebook-ads-for-your-church/

The best part of election day for me was the end of all the political commercials and phone calls, but an author named, Kevin Hendricks, found a series of lessons that churches can learn from the politicians about how not to communicate the Gospel. You can read the article here: Lessons from Political Marketing.

I read an interesting article this week entitled, “Think Visual” by Clive Thompson. Drawing on the work of an author named Dan Roam, Thompson argues that “our culture relies too heavily on words.” He believes that “dynamic, complicated problems . . . often can’t be boiled down to simple narratives. They’re systems; they have many little parts affecting one another. In those situations, drawing a picture can clarify what’s going on.”

In the church, we do words well. We have scripture. We have tradition. We have liturgies. We have prayer. We have lots and lots of words, so it shouldn’t be surprising that when faced with a problem we often try and talk our way to a solution. I was a part of a conversation last weekend where we discussed an organizational vision. One of the documents we were using had only words and one of them had a picture which incorporated the same ideas and fewer words. Guess which document was referenced again and again and which one was mostly ignored even though the concepts were virtually the same. Increasingly we live in a visual world and perhaps sketching out the problems we face may inspire us to see new connections and discover new solutions.

I carry my iPhone with me everywhere. I use it to check email, read the news, keep up with my daily tasks, keep my contact list, send texts and occasionally make phone calls. I’ve had my phone for about eight months now, so I am still fairly new to the smart-phone world, but I can already see how it is changing the way that I communicate and undertake ministry. In a previous time, I checked email occasionally while I was in the office. These days, I check email constantly and exchange messages with people in the congregation throughout the day. In a previous time, I would stay around the office waiting for people to call. These days, I have a growing number of church folks who send me texts to ask quick questions or update me with messages like, “Mom’s out of surgery.” In a previous time, I went back to my office to access ministry resources. These days, I have used my phone to look up hospital information for a family and to find directions to make a visit. In just eight months, my iPhone has become a tool I depend on to accomplish ministry on a daily basis.

As I think about these changes in myself and the way that I do ministry, I have started to wonder if congregations are adapting quickly enough to changes in communication. For example, should the church have a cell phone so we can send and receive text messages from the church to our youth? As people become accustomed to receiving a constant flow of information, what does it look like for a congregation to shift from a large monthly newsletter to a system which provides ministry news in small digestible bits through multiple streams? As everyone transitions away from having one home phone number to having their own personal phone number that they carry with them constantly, how will we respect the privacy of staff and congregants? In general, I guess it all boils down to this - how will we adapt to the possibilities these new communication tools provide and the expectations that they create?