66 percent of young adults are searching for meaning and purpose in their lives.

And 62 percent considered themselves “spiritual” although almost  80 percent said they never attend church, or only attend once in a while.

The normal reaction would be to try and usher these young adults looking for meaning to the front door of their local church.

But United Methodist Church is doing the opposite.  They are promoting the back door into the church.

The UMC is launching a $20 million campaign this month to try and connect that desire for purpose and actual outlets to make a difference in a person’s circle of influence.

Through their PR, events and a television ad campaign, they are pushing the 18-34 year olds to the 10,000 doors website which is a portal for social gospel and other volunteer oppportunities worldwide (complete with a Google Maps mashup to visually find projects in your neighborhood). (more…)

The constantly nagging question for the Church is where should it focus and what are the measures for success?

The old model has clearly been the ABC model for doing Church: How large is your attendance?  Are you building out the physical plant of your church? Are you drawing people into your buildings?  Are you creating ministries and programs that reinforce your church as the fundamental epicenter?  How are you attracting people to your church? And are people giving out of their wallets? Tithing? Sacrificing for the offering plates?

The big trap is when the Church- literally – is the focus, purpose and intention of the ministry.

Let’s make sure we’re packing the pews the more people!  Is this program or that program supporting our objective to position the church (its vibrant programs and ministries!) as the center of attention and focal point of the community?  Are we successfully teaching people to empty their wallets into the offering plate so that we can plan more programs?

But some are arguing for a new old model.  Leonard Sweet’s latest text, frames what the body of Christ was called to do within a simple, yet beautiful M-R-I model.

The intro chapter of So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life and the Church gives a taste of Sweet’s message. . . (more…)

Easter 2009 was significant for the Church in more ways than one.

Are you keeping your eyes open?  It’s happening right in front of our eyes.  The Church (with a capital “C”) is engaging culture in the most proactive way.

If you’re taking note about what’s happening in our culture today, you’ll see the frenzy for connecting with each other online.

Twitter, Facebook and all the developments in social media is really changing how we relate to each other and live.  Heck, even Oprah has hopped on the bandwagon with thousands of official Twitter followers — even before she sent out her first tweet.  On Friday morning, before the Oprah show broadcast where she’ll tweet for the first time, all live, she literally had almost 100,000 official followers.  Some Twitterati have over 1 million syndicated followers -  just hungry for 140-character messages from the soon-to-be digital-culture leaders just like Oprah has done in other media arenas.

Celebrities aren’t alone in using the latest tech social structures to wield their influence.  (more…)

With the Amazon Kindle and Kindle2 blazing a trail amongst the digirati, it’s slowing becoming a standard device to carry just like the “holy grail of cell phones.”

Now Apple enthusiasts have added to their tool belt another super power – transforming the iPhone and iPod Touch into a mini Kindle device.

Amazon recently released a free Kindle-for-iPhone app or Kindle-for-iPod Toch app.  Download it and you can instantly begin to read e-books made for Kindle, but on your iPhone!

If you have the iPhone, you should get the Kindle for iPhone.  If you have the Kindle for iPhone app, you should get this (it doesn’t hurt that it’s completely free…kind of like something else that’s offered completely free to us which this book is all about, right? ):

LINK: Free ESV HOLY BIBLE For:

• KINDLE for iPhone
  

• or Apple iPod Touch KINDLE

• or AMAZON KINDLE DEVICE
  

• or AMAZON KINDLE 2 DEVICES

It does seem like a dream, but www.Godvertiser.com just got picked up by Guy Kawasaki‘s Alltop aggregation site under their http://christianity.alltop.com page.  Thanks to the hundreds of readers in the last months for finding my blog on church marketing + tech + an optimistic Gospel.

What other faith-related blogs are you reading?  Any recommendations?  Please leave them in the comments below.  (I know I’m probably going to regret this, but please don’t blatantly spam the comments, or we’ll have to kindly escort you out the back door.  If you do own your own faith-related blog, please disclose it, introduce yourself and give us a 1 line summary of the topical interest/focus of your blog).

I recently had a conversation about the importance of building rock-solid dynamics and culture for a new (or any church for that matter) church plant with Dave Ingland  — he’s on the frontlines doing kingdomwork on the “left coast”. As a church planter, he can identify with Craig Groeshel of LifeChurch.tv who has undoubtedly encountered this very same issue in his growing multi-site multi-state network of physical church sites (13 and counting?).

Groeshel’s recent book “IT” addresses the “IT” factor which determines whether a particular ministry is set for growth and vibrancy….or not.  So I asked Pastor Dave for his review of the “IT” book.  Enjoy!

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It: How Churches And Leaders Can Get It and Keep It is the first book from Craig Groeschel that I have read. If his other books are anything like It, then it is safe to say that if you appreciate Pastor Craig’s gift of preaching, you’ll appreciate his writing style as well—they are both very similar.

It is this essence of Groeschel’s delivery that really helps to connect people to his messages. It’s a very natural, humorous, and engaging form of communication.

The title suggests that a definition and answer of just what It is will be given. Forget about that happening!

Craig Groeschel shares something tangible in his description of what It is, yet never comes out and declares a definition. We learn what is not It, but have to find out for ourselves just what It is.  That is the beauty of the book!

The “ah-ha!” Moments come when Groeschel’s words connect with your own thoughts and cause sparks to fly and change to happen.

Not only does Pastor Craig share his experiences in his search for It, he also (more…)

As a parent, I’m always on the lookout for tips and reminders to help me be “on my toes” as a parent and work toward being the Super-Dad I want to be.

Today I received an email from Tumblon.com regarding developmental milestones of my 4 year old son.

The email from the parenting website that focuses on the 0-5 year old set shared some advice about the emotional development my son may be experiencing these days.

Here’s one segment of the email I received regarding moodiness of a 4 year old:

MOODINESS

Part of your child’s personality is moodiness. Even the most even-tempered child will experience moodiness at some time. Helping your child recognize what triggers his moodiness, learning how to control moodiness, and finding ways to overcome moodiness are essential to his development.

Part of managing moodiness is understanding the factors that trigger moodiness in your child. Some of the common factors are sleepiness, hunger, and frustration. Knowing what commonly triggers moodiness in your child and having him take ownership in avoiding situations that trigger it will help. For example, if hunger triggers it, remember to take a healthy snack when going out. Sometimes the type of diet your child has can affect his emotions. Paying attention to the way he reacts to different kinds of foods may help with some moodiness. . .

[exceprt from tumblon.com article]

In order to help my little guy in figuring out how to initiate, build, and manage his relationships over the next several months in particular I realize that the first step is to help him to self-inventory his own feelings at any given moment.

Being able to put a finger on how he feels right now will help him interact with his friends and sister (& mom and dad!) with much better results. Of course this is a classic win-win situation.

But then while I reflected upon this advice, it hit me (more…)

Some of the world’s biggest marketing successes weren’t launched by $1 million/minute Superbowl commercials, loss-leader discount promotions or gimmicky jingle-heavy radio spots.

Instead, a product, service, or person catches on when the right things come into alignment.  And many times none of this costs any money at all.

Did you know there’s a formalized discipline to crafting “buzz”?  Yup, there is.

This is the part where the Church could get a little extra boost by taking notes from. . . (more…)

I found myself in line at the grocery store in a daze, waiting for my turn to empty the wallet again (Am I the only one noticing that food prices have skyrocketed lately?).

But I suddenly awoke in noticing that the 3 people ahead of me all had these big colorful containers…of Mr. Peanut Dry Roasted Peanuts!  How odd. . .that 3 in a row picked-up the same item.

So I quickly turned around and scanned the end-caps for a promotional display. I didn’t find one, but did see the aisle in which peanuts would be found.  I abandoned the line and went in search of Mr. Peanut. Why? Purely because of the packaging.

Sure enough, I found Mr. Peanut and he accompanied me back to the checkout line (yes, I got the same spot in line again).

This impulse buy kept me thinking as I snacked throughout the week. It seemed like just another classic success story in product marketing. “Who better to serve American’s favorite peanuts than Mr. Peanut himself?”

But what I’ve come to understand in my week long relationship with Mr. Peanut is that the Church has something to learn from him: (more…)