What if your "church service" went "corporate"?

The combination of working with various not-for-profit organizations in various roles (ie. staff, board member, etc.) combined with the slower pace of life at a school during the summer months has led me to "dream" a little bit about the question, "What if your church service went corporate?" In other words, what if the advertisements you see on tv, or the product placements you see in various television shows/movies, began appearing in your church services (without any verbal comments) in the visuals (ie. powerpoint slides and/or bulletin). Here is a sample service order:

Prelude - "Amazing Grace" by Sue Smith
*Today's prelude is brought to you by e-harmony.com "Introducing people every day"

Opening Prayer (no advertisements here! We have some decency!)

Welcome
*Thanks for choosing to worship God here at XYZ Community Church. Be sure to visit our website xyzcommunitychurch.org for this weeks full services.

Opening Songs
How Great Thou Art & How Great is Our God
*This musical medley brought to you by "Hudson's Fine Furniture" - a classic, traditional look with modern, quality style.
Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus
*Don't forget your friends at Home Hardware: Help is close to home!

Children's Feature
*Don't forget that Big Idea Productions is releasing their latest VeggieTales movie on August 1. You can rent the movie at BlockBuster VideoStore or purchase it for your family through Big Idea productions.

Announcements & Offering
*The offerings given today will be used for the ongoing ministry of XYZ Community Church.
XYZ Community Church banks at ABC Bank - offering the lowest interest rates in the state on home mortgages.

Sermon - Standing for the Lord (Daniel 1)
Don't forget to visit Blessings Bookstore to purchase your Christian Living books.
Check us out at 123 Blessings Street, City, State Zip Code or online at blessingsbookstore.com

Closing Song - Dare to be a Daniel
As you leave today, Joe's Family Restaurant would like to remind you of their Special Sunday Lunch Buffet for only $10.95! At the Corner of 14th Ave & Lincoln Street.

Don't worry - there would be a small fee for such advertising... and that would take the pressure off you as a congregant in terms of church offerings! Its a win-win situation for everyone, right?

PS This is totally tongue-in-cheek/sarcastic...and I hope it never happens in your church!

The Greatest Health Care in the World

I just want to note quickly that I believe Canada has a superb health care system, arguably the greatest health care system in the world (though I admit I have not experimented with other systems). While I slightly appreciate the huge financial implications for the President Obama and the United States to change over to a Canadian-like system of health care, I would never want to be or have been in my life given my personal lifelong health challenges. There are gliches in any system and in a healthcare system, gliches can become life or death matters for real people. Nonetheless, the advertisements indicating how horrible and dangerous the Canadian health-care system will be are based upon very rare exceptions to genuinely top notch medicine by caring and compassionate doctors and medical staff.

I do not believe the Conservative government should waste their time defending our healthcare system against American "radicals." Spend the time helping our economy continue to get back on track so people are working and paying taxes to support our already excellent healthcare!

Friday afternoon thoughts

After spending three days this week camping with my mother-in-law's family at Gooseberry Lake, AB, I'm back in the office today and doing some "catching up." A few links to interesting articles and a few thoughts on them:


1) An article indicating that local church's giving has decreased thus far in 2009 even though church budgets were slightly increased. Hmmm! As one of our congregation's elders, I know that we also fit in that category. We saw it (and still do) as a step of faith... though I think we do need to be careful that the things we call faith are not "spiritual-eze" for wishful/stupid decisions. http://www.earnedmedia.org/cti0618.htm


2) An interesting article in The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell on "Why David beats Goliath." I was very challenged by Gladwell's most recent book, Outliers, and think he's an insightful writer... and he's Canadian too!

3) Ran across this article a couple weeks ago about the Facebook Generation vs. Fortune 500 and got to thinking about some of the implications for leaders, especially within a Christian community.

4) Looking forward to preaching this next Sunday (July 19) at Crossfield Baptist Church and then on July 26 at the Prairie Tabernacle Congregation. Lord willing, I'll be preaching from Daniel chapter 1 on "Standing for the Lord." I've been thinking about this topic recently for a variety of reasons, not only in relation to preparing the sermon. Along with praying for those who "get" to listen to me, you can pray for me too... but most importantly pray that the LORD will be the One who speaks to people's hearts and minds.

5) Finally, just wanted to reflect again on how fun it is to see God at work in all sorts of little ways... from me being in the office today so that I could receive and return a reference form for a recent PCA grad quickly, to a nice "unplanned" visit with another recent PCA grad at the post office, to hearing how my mother-in-law and her brothers met up at the "other school" near Consort with people who knew their grandma and aunts on Wednesday night, all "by coincidence." I trust that the Lord will help me to never stop seeing the appointments He arranges or the sequences of events that He orders that are just one of the many ways a person can see His Hand of Sovereignty among our world of chaos.

Book Review - The Hair-Raising Joys of Raising Boys

I purchased The Hair-Raising Joys of Raising Boys by Dave Meurer because it was looked like a good cheap book on Amazon that would get me over the $39 in order to get free shipping along with two other books. It has been a good investment as both Sarah and I read it (not together) and it has provided us with some good discussions.


The first thing I would recommend about this book is that it is funny! It is challenging for any author to convey the humour of stories in written form, yet Dave does exceptionally well and there were many times when Sarah would hear me chuckle and ask, "Which story is it?" Since Proverbs says, "laughter is the best medicine," this book was beneficially for that reason alone.


Secondly, this book reminds you to keep the daily challenges of raising boys in perspective! The music or hair "issues" are really not that important in light of eternity, though how you deal with them can have long-term relational consequnces (I'm reminded of Ephesians 6:4 - "Fathers, do not exasperate your children...").


Finally, this book is commendable because it really does deal with topics that are specific to raising boys. I can already see two or three of the areas where our son, Caleb, is "all boy" and I think my amazing wife wonders not only what he is doing but how and why that would ever enter into a person's little mind.

Admittedly, the book was not overly deep or insightful. From a faith perspective, I thought the author could have connected the stories more directly to a spiritual challenge/lesson. This does make it a useful book to share with any family seeking to raise boys who are well-adjusted, social and responsible citizens.