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I was watching a video over at the Harvard Business Review and they were talking about how Starbucks did a good job of training their customers to act as employees. Anne Morriss (aside from having too many letters in both of her names) gave the example of this training when she recounted the experience that many have had at Starbucks.

I’m sure you’ve experienced this, or did, perhaps several years ago. You walk in to your local Starbucks and say you want a “small cold blended coffee” and they shout back “short coffee frappuccino.”

“Oh no, I got the names wrong.” the power of this is that Starbucks, if you knew it or not, was educating you. Continue reading →

Jesus took some radical stands, and while I think most of us would answer correctly on the “was Jesus radical” true/false question on an exam, I don’t think most of us pay attention to his more painful commands. “Radical Jesus” is all well and good, as long as the “home” He hit’s close to isn’t mine.

This is the Jesus we don’t like, because Continue reading →

Today is the fourth day of May, so “May the fourth be with you”

I grew up as a church Star Wars fan, we are, after all, about the same age.

Star Wars is a great story of freedom, friendship, and faith in something greater than yourself. It’s a lesson in the truth that the world and your life are guided and directed by forces (i.e. THE force in the movies) that transcend the natural world.

But “The Force” is not God, and Star Wars presents anything but a Christian world view. Continue reading →

Have you ever been on a road trip?

We live in IL just East of St. Louis, and most of our family live over 600 miles away in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. I’m also a student at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, MO, and even though I’m a part-time student, I still drive the 4.5 hours (one way) to campus about 25 times a year.

We know road trips…

Road trips are a good metaphor for life, and they are a good analogy for a church’s Sunday School strategy. You should have a destination, follow the rules of the road, keep moving forward, stay within the boundaries, don’t speed, Continue reading →

Ron Edmondson is one of my favoriate pastor-bloggers. If you are interested in leadership, specifically as a minister or church leader, you need to add his blog to your Google reader list.

One thing I also respect about Ron is that he has a very successful ministry at a cutting-edge church, however he has recently begun the process of going to an older existing (and smaller) church to help them “turnaround.”

I believe in church planting, and I think there are far too few churches for the number of lost people, however, if pastors only go to new church starts, Continue reading →