Presentation matters.  It matters in our jobs, our restaurants and our demeanors.  It even matters in our churches.  I know that some of you are sitting there thinking, oh, here he goes.  Another “do it like this church does it” post.  Nope.  Not going there.  This is across the board in my opinion.

Presentation is much more than the style of the church.  It’s more than the music.  It’s more than the preacher.  It’s more than how technologically advanced the church is.  Those things are part of it, but many times we over look the other parts of presentation.  As church staff and volunteers, we have to remember that all of us are there each and every week to reach out to people and present them with the truth and love of God.  That starts from the second they find out about the church, to pulling into the parking lot, to the atmosphere we create, to even the way we leave.

We forget that people can tell when we are superficially “interested” in them.  We forget that if we wouldn’t take our own kids to the kids ministry, why should they?  We forget that people don’t like it when we waste their time and that church isn’t a good excuse for it.  We forget that people have places to go after church.  We forget that the volume we love isn’t the best for everyone.  We forget that the songs that are our favorite aren’t the ones that are truly leading the people.  We forget that they aren’t there to be part of our job but part of our life.

How we present ourselves to people is crucial.  We may be the only thing left between them and eternity and when we forget these things we are falling very short of the presentation that we are called to.  We forget and many times cause major distractions and road blocks.  I don’t know about you but I have to continue to remind myself of several of these things that I forget.  I’m just thankful that our God is bigger than me and is fully capable of showing Himself even when my presentation is lacking.

I hate election season (yet I will stay up late and watch until all the polls are in and counting is done).  I am all for the voting process and change when it is needed.  I am all for the representation and such.  But I absolutely hate political ads and commercials.  They always start off nice.

Hi, I’m Candidate A.  I have these qualifications.  I wanna do these things to help you.  Vote for me.

But for some reason they never can stay there.  They have to take a leap into the abyss and completely lose me.

Did you know that Candidate B sucks?  Well you should.  Candidate B is a stupid, idiotic, ignoramus-y poopy face.  If you vote for Candidate B you are asking for more of your money to be stolen by the evil government, given to terrorists in exchange for sacrificial lambs and sacrificed to the gods of Sodom and Gomorrah.   Oh and did we mention that Wikipedia says that Candidate B is the reason you lost your job and that actually a 5-year-old in Laos does it now for far less money and better skill that you?  PS – I approved this message.

It’s ridiculous.  Every election the TV is smeared with smear ads.  I’m sure the intention is to get me to like message approver more, but in all honesty, does that work for anyone?  I mean, I guess it must for some people or they wouldn’t do it, but every time I see one, I want less and less to vote for that message approver.

The more I see them, the less I want to vote at all!

But if you think about it, how often do we as the church do the same thing to other churches?  Many times we really don’t know what they believe but we know what we have heard about them and how they like to charm snakes while using tambourines to bludgeon non-believers over the head so as not to ruin a perfectly good Gideon stamped Bible.  We don’t agree with them so they can’t possibly be doing any good to the community.

So we try to win people over by smearing the other guys.  I know I have been guilty of this.  But the truth is that we should be known for what we are for and not only for shouting at people what we are against.  That is a major turn off.  No one is converted by what appears to outsiders as fighting amongst ourselves.  Just like watching the political smear ads back to back, one against the other, it makes people want to run in the opposite direction.

I want me, my family and my church to be known for loving others and showing the world around us what we are for and not just making sure you know what we are against.

What about you?  How do the political ads sway you?  Do you tend to show the world what you are for or what you are against?

Many of you have no doubt already seen this video, but for those of you that haven’t, it’s pretty funny.  It’s a spoof of the cut-and-paste, packaged modern church.  Definitely makes you stop to think if you are in ministry!  But enough of my rambling because…Sunday’s Coming!

Yeah. That’s right. I said it.  I didn’t go to church on Sunday. We are on vacation and just didn’t go.  We are out in Anchorage, AK and I’m sure there are some great churches around here, but we didn’t attend one.  We didn’t even try.  Occasionally it’s nice to have some different God time (like the amazing scenery in Alaska for instance). Then I started thinking.

I wonder how often we as churchgoers or Christ followers, however you prefer to look at this, go to church just to go to church.  We aren’t going to serve someone.  We aren’t going to pray.  And we really aren’t going to meet with God.  We just go because it’s church and that’s what we are supposed to do.  Maybe you grew up in church so you have just always known that on Sundays you get up and go to church.  Maybe you go just to see your friends and instead of with a godly heart.  Maybe you feel like you need to be there because it makes up for the other bad things you did last week.

Don’t get me wrong.  Church is a great thing.  The messages and community that is hopefully found in your church is a HUGE blessing.  But for me as a follower of Christ, I wanna go to church because I am hoping and waiting to hear from God there and not just because that’s what we did when I was growing up.  I wanna be there to serve others and not just talk to my friends.

What about you?  Why do you show up on Sundays?  Is it just because or is it because He is there?

As the church many times we miss the point of the music in our experiences.  I am not claiming that for all churches or that I am not guilty of this because I would be severely wrong in many cases.  But what is really the point in singing songs together while reading the words off the screen?  Do we do it because we like the songs?  Do we do it out of habit?  Do we do it because it makes us feel good?  Is it because the music is good?  Do we do it out of tradition?  What is it?  I mean if you think about it, as a friend of mine put it, it’s really a weird thing to come together and sing like that.  We really don’t do that very often outside of church.  I think that a lot of the time we just lose our focus (assuming it was directed in the right place to start with is a big jump but I hope that happens).  Our mind goes to things like the music is too loud, I don’t know this song so I will just tune out, I don’t have a good voice so I don’t sing, I don’t want people around me to hear me, etc.  But our main problem isn’t what is good or bad with the music or what we like or don’t like, but where our focus is.

When we are worried about any range of little things our focus is no longer where it should be.  We have now shifted to focusing on ourselves.  What do I want?  What do I like?  What if they hear me?  What if blah, blah, blah?  Our little world is now revolving around us and not where it should be.  If our focus is in the right direction, on God, then we stop thinking about what our neighbor thinks of our harmonizing or how we never really learned the words to this song and we starting realizing that God just wants our worship.  He wants our hearts.  When we are truly worshiping with our hearts it doesn’t matter if we know the words to the song.  It doesn’t matter if there are words to the song.  It doesn’t matter what the people next to us smell like, look like or sing like.  The ONLY thing that matters is that God knows we are just releasing everything to Him and expressing our hearts in a musical form!

My prayer for our church is that we learn that worship is more than singing songs.  I hope that we can see that this time of worship music, whether long or short, is a time for us to escape our crazy selfish lives and give all that we have to our Daddy.  I want the people there on Sundays and our staff and me and my band to see this time as a time to focus on He who created us and loves us and gives up everything for us.  It is a time to reflect on how very big our God is and how everything is done because He alone allows it.  It is a time to celebrate how awesome our God is and the things that He has done.  I pray that everyone from the grandparents to the musicians to the ushers understands that music is just a gift and a creative vessel in which we can easily glorify our God.

So sing your hearts out!  Clap and shout!  Rip up that solo!  Harmonize like the Beach Boys!  But do it all for Him.  Let’s stop singing just to sing.  Let’s really make it worship from our hearts.

So I was thinking this morning, are routines good or bad?  Are they both?  Sometimes we say, “well as soon as I get back into my routine I’ll be fine”, but we also say, ” I’m just stuck in a routine and I need to break out of it.”  I think it may be safe to be down the middle here.  

Sometimes it is hard to do things well or consistently without a routine.  Working out is that way, at least for me it is.  If I can get my self into a routine of working out consistently (whatever it may be) then I find it much easier to stay at it for much longer.  Yes life does happen to break our routine sometime, but if I don’t get myself back into my routine then it is hard for me to keep going.  There have been several times in my life that reading the Bible has been that way.  If I break my routine then I forget…I know that sounds bad, but it happens.  I know some people that have a routine, or “process” in the morning and at night for getting out or into bed (yes you, baby).  There is nothing wrong with that.  Sometimes doing things in order helps us not forget things along the way.  You know.  Step 1 leads to step 2 which leads to step 3 and so on.  I would say those are good routines.  Right?  Maybe its just a routine of eating better.  I know that when I get myself into a routine of eating healthy it makes it much easier to stay that way.  My boy Terrace always used to say “if you dress nice, you test nice.”  While I personally believe that to be crap, it works here.  If you shop healthy, you eat healthy.  

Well what about bad routines?  Maybe a bad routine would be consistently being lazy at a certain part of the day.  Or maybe the dates you take your significant other on are always exactly the same.  I would say those could be routines that anyone should break out of.  We could be more productive during that part of the day or be more spontaneous with our significant others and keep some of that mystery and surprise in the relationships that we all know the girls like (the guys might too, but you may be hard pressed to get them to admit something like that…I don’t know).  I know for people in the church ministry routines seem to be more of bad things.  I think that when church staffs get into routines, that is when things start moving from a true ministry and experience to the state of just going through the motions.  With some jobs that might not be a horrible thing, but I think when we start letting our ministry (ANY ministry…yes even those outside of so called church) become just a job or a paycheck or something we are just supposed to do, that is when we lose.  Maybe we lose relevance.  Maybe we aren’t being real anymore.  Maybe we aren’t reaching the people that we have been called to reach anymore.  

I think it is a scary thing when churches lose the battle of routines.  I’m not saying that we should do church just on the fly and see what happens.  That may work for some people, but I am pretty sure it wouldn’t for all.  But I am saying that we should try things.  Try new things.  Look at the things that you do and see what things you should get rid of.  Our new two time oath saying President Barack Obama said it well in his inaugural speech when he talked about examining the programs that we have.  If they are working we move forward.  If they are not, the programs will end.  I think this is a pretty good mindset for our lives and churches and families as well.  

Maybe you need to get in a routine.  Maybe you need to break out of one.  What are some good or bad routines that you get in?

It’s crazy how different each church is from the next. Even churches that have planted sister churches. I think I like that. I dont think differences are bad. I think the different styles attrach and reach different demographics which is very good. Most people probably need or want to experience it different than the next person. Here are some of the things that my wife and I have observed and the vision that we have for our ministry.

One of the things that I didn’t like about my move to Fort Worth was that when I moved down (Oct. 28, 2005) I didn’t have time to check out any other churches in the area. To this day I have still never been to another church on a weekend. Three years in the area and I can’t tell you from first hand experience what any of them do. That’s crazy. So we wanted to do things differently this time. So far we have been to 4 different churches and talked in depth with several others. I like that. I gives us a very good idea of what is going on around here and how we may fit here too. We have seen and heard lots of things. We have been to contemporary churches, more progressive churches, and some in the middle. We have seen choirs, ensembles, and bands. Some places do dramas. Some do dance. Some do both. Some write their own music while others use popular Christian music. Some play secular music, some strictly Christian and others no music. Some places are very churchy and others aren’t. Some have very churchy buildings and others have warehouses. Some dress up. Others are casual. Some places we feel very welcome by the volunteers and the people in general and in others we didn’t. Some have been genuinely interested in us as people and others don’t seem that way. Some have been very inviting while others aren’t.

Personally I like that we can find a church that fits who we are. Not just me and KK but anyone. That’s good because we don’t all fit in the same size shoe. For us we like non churchy church (if that even makes sense). We like church that tried to reach a crowd that lots don’t (people burnt on church, hate church, that have never been) by doing church different than what is traditional. We like church that isn’t scared to speak the truth. We like church that is loud and exciting with electric guitar solos and drums! We like churches that do everything they can to minimize distractions (because let’s face it…those of you that know me know that this is true…I don’t always have the longest attention span…I mean blogging takes me forever sometimes!). We like churches that really do care about us and want us to be there and part of their family and not just another number to count to make them look better. We like places that don’t cater to or treat differently the people that tithe the most. We like church that is easy to understand so the youth learn from it too! We like church that really does live life together and not only preach that. We like church that has focus and doesn’t try to do everything and spread themselves too thin. We like church that everyone working there enjoys working there. The list goes on and on.

These things are important to us! I could keep going for quite some time but that’s enough for know. If you really wanna discuss more, email me or comment here! What about you? What kind of church fits you? I don’t believe there is a wrong answer to that question (unless you are into some really weird crazy crap like punching old lady or something).

Well, today is the first Sunday since moving on from LifeChurch.tv.  I gotta say its pretty weird.  This is the first Sunday in the last 6+ years that I haven’t been a part of LifeChurch.tv.  That’s really, really weird.  Of course I have taken weekends off (though not many) and gotten away for vacation and that sort of thing, but it is different this weekend.  I wasn’t worried about whether or not everyone was on time.  I wasn’t concerned about Pro Tools and my timing.  I wasn’t worried about making sure every transition was hit perfectly.  I didn’t have to get up at 5:30 AM to get there on time.  But on the other hand, I didn’t see any of our friends.  I didn’t get to play with my band boys.  That part sucks.  But I can honestly say that today has been the most stressless Sunday of the past 5 years!

My wife and I are thinking about trying out this church called The Met while we are still in town.  Hopefully that won’t be long, but we still have to sell our house.  I hear they have a really awesome new youth pastor!  We just might have to check that out!

Now before you freak out, I’m not actually asking if there is more than one way to heaven.  But yes, I would like your semi to fully spiritual thoughts and answers.  Just wait for the question! 

So recently, I was given the privilege of being introduced to a new televised church show.  Those are always good times.  While I didn’t really understand what was going on, it left me thinking, how many people don’t understand what we do?  You know.  You’re church isn’t the same as mine.  And contrary to popular belief, THAT’S OK!  I know.  Crazy.

So here it is.  The question for the day.  What things have you seen that are different than other churches that were cool, fun, engaging, worth a shot?  For those of you that maybe go to the same church, what are some things that are different that you enjoy?  What might be worth trying?