Where Does Your Bridge Span?

Do you stop to consider the influence you have on the people you encounter? We are a seeking world for relational connections; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc are social and professional cyber-relational gathering places for us to connect and re-connect with acquaintances, friends and family members. Do you ever have the opportunity to come face-to-face with an opportunity based on a relationship? Let me explain:

I am currently visiting my father in my home town. I haven’t lived here for 33 years, yet I attended church with my family this past Sunday and roamed the halls where I was once the third angel on the right in the annual Christmas pageant. I came upon a friend of my long-deceased Mother who asked about what I was doing in my life. I shared with her I was no longer in the television industry but had returned to school and now own and run my own web design business. As I type this, I am waiting for a meeting with the local museum who is interested in becoming a client all because of this encounter two days ago.

We never know who or how we will touch someone. You may not think you influence people because you do not always see the results. Your website can be influential to those surfing the internet or those who couldn’t to make it to church last week or those who can’t get to church. You never know when a picture, a caption, or a sermon one reads or listens to might touch them and change their day. You may not realize the calendar reminder helped that one soul who couldn’t remember the time of the meeting or the visitor who didn’t know the way to your door and got directions through your website.

Where does your bridge of relationship lead? We sometimes know the path and sometimes God’s breath brushes it into the arms of someone we cannot imagine.

Donation$ : Is Ca$h a Four-Lettered Word?

Fall’s a comin’. Yes, school resumes, Sunday School commences and hopefully the followers start refilling the pews and the offering plates. Fall, particularly October and November, is the time of year many churches run their annual stewardship campaign. It’s often an uncomfortable time, squirmy time, for some folk; especially the clergy because talking about money makes us uncomfortable.

Let’s push away from fall and look at where you are now. How’s the money doing? Is your giving, personal and corporate, on a positive trend? You don’t need me to lecture on our current economic climate. But are you doing everything you can to help your congregation GIVE?

Credit card and debit donation IS something your church needs to consider. We live in a digital age where paper money and checkbooks may not always be a hands-grasp away. People carry cards. As a consumer, I actively chose to purchase from a card, be it a debit card or credit card. I ALWAYS have a record of my purchases. I ALWAYS have my money accepted. And I Always can keep track of my spending trends online. ….EXCEPT… when it comes to church. I write a check WHEN, I’m in the pew. I want to emphasize WHEN to you as I travel quite a bit so I’m not always in my home pew. My giving is current because I make it a priority in my life. But what about my pew mate that doesn’t?

Do you encourage direct deposit? Do you have the ability to accept a credit card? Or a debit card? Accepting these forms of payments could also come in handy for those church bazaar’s, children & youth trips, couple’s weekends. Start to think about it. Does your church help people give?

Two of my client’s currently use each of these methods: One, direct deposit; the other, credit cards. St James Episcopal Church in Midvale, Utah (http://tiny.cc/Zz8rq ) provides a link to download a direct deposit form allowing funds from a local bank to directly deposit contributions from participants in this program. They also provide an ongoing link to anyone wishing to fill out pledge form anytime throughout the year. What a concept; allowing persons the ability to commit to giving at any time during the year, not just at stewardship/pledge time.

All Saints Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City (http://www.allsaintsslc.org/ ) asked me for a quote to implement online donations on their website last fall. They took that dramatic step this summer and now have a couple of areas on their website where users can donate.

This may be an option for your church to consider. Before stewardship rolls around, as you are forming Sunday School classes, maybe consider a time where this discussion can take place with your congregants. Would it be helpful? Is it a right thing for your church? I personally like Paypal’s program where you are only charged per usage but if you’re serious, shop around and learn. This needs research and prayer. It may be a good option for your congregation.

Gazing

It’s hot! Sure ‘enough in Dallas it’s hot and when the air conditioner can’t keep up with the heat in the house, it makes you want to just do nothing. Summer is like that. We take a breather. We take vacations. We play a couple of games of solitaire of visit with co-workers a little more as we have this brief lull in our very busy lives.

While you can hopefully take a breather, let me pose this question? Have you looked at your website lately? If you don’t’ have one, well maybe it’s time to ask that session or body of people to take that step. But, have you looked around your website? Is the information current? Are there pictures that need to be updated? Are their people in leadership positions who are no longer serving in that capacity?

We’re all guilty of setting up websites, brochures, and flyers about our organization that once completed; we breathe a sigh of relief, push that task off our to-do list and forget about it. Like the batteries in our smoke detectors, we need to replace our data once in a while.

So consider this your reminder. Take a few minutes to explore your church or organization as if you are new visitor seeing it for the first time? Can you find your way around? Are there some cobwebs that need to be cleaned out?

In the meantime, stay cool and enjoy a refreshing drink, whatever your poison may be.

Peace, folks.

Losing Touch

A friend of mine sends me daily devotionals. I admit sometimes I just think I’m too busy to stop and take the time to read these three or four short paragraphs of thought. Why? I could give countless excuses but it truly boils down to the preference and priority of the moment. It boils down to our personal in-mind check list of delete-open- categorize for later; the internal interest barometer.

Today, I started to just click off of it and again, not read this short story that might make me stop and think about God and my faith. But today, I stopped. Today’s message: “Faith Book”, (Susanne Scheppmann of Proverbs 31 Ministry). Her story: Our addiction to Facebook. Internet social networking. It’s quiet and seductive seeking into our lives that absorbs time faster than Bounty quicker-picker-upper.

I don’t know if you “do” social networking. I got into last fall and have rediscovered friends from years ago and made a few new ones. I don’t necessarily “chat” but send cute little application icons of flowers, animals, smiley faces, and get involved in cyber food-fights with old college classmates. Working from home, alone, it gives me a sense of connectedness.

On a positive side, social networking can be productive, especially in the right forum. It keeps fellowship and ideas flowing. It allows the sometimes timid to be bold and the constant talker to be silent. I actually encourage you to explore how this medium could work for your church. The link to your group can easily be shared through your newsletter or website. It can be an open or closed group; the administrator decides.

On the other side and back to the devotion I read today. Are we too engrossed in social networking and other electronic devised that we’ve forgotten how to spend time with God? With our families? Looking into the face of the person in the room with us instead of glancing at them as we briefly acknowledge they are speaking before we bury our head back into the screen?

Today’s devotion point: Do you network with God before networking with friends?

ps: yesterday I was diagnosed with tension headaches caused from too much time at the computer screen. Hmmm. Is God speaking?

One Tribe Ya'll

So Independence Day is rolling around and it made me stop and ponder how the Internet epitomizes our independence by allowing us to express our every thought; communicate so many ideas, expressions, topics, images. Are we expressing inclusivity? Are we absorbing new levels of understanding of each other’s communications? Or are we just finding a new way to tell our same story?

I’ve been traveling these last couple of weeks, experiencing new vistas of this very big land we live in. And as I drove down the interstate, I listened to my iPod music. I just recently downloaded the Black Eyed Peas newest album: The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies) (2009).

One song has lingered with me as I’ve traveled through several southeastern states. Its theme in wrap prose echoes the mantra I believe we are still trying to master: One tribe. We rally around our individual causes and gather round ‘those who think like we do’. We wrap ourselves in our independent freedom to think as we desire while castigating those who won’t, can’t, don’t, or will never get why our way is right.

I’ve just walked through the downtown gardens of Birmingham where our independent thought injured and killed fellow humans because of their skin color. I saw the many signs along the highways marking battle grounds of our civil war over 400 years ago. Today I stepped on the ground of land of the great Cherokee nation, forced from their land and marched to Oklahoma because people of independence craved land. So in today’s world, I ask myself if I’m following in my ancestor’s footsteps of neglectful exclusivity. Do I merely scatter my values where I may and not stop to listen to the other side? Do I easily slash at the opposition via the distant, yet so intimate, cyber highway that makes me so invincible?

Independence and freedom are delicate precious commodities to treat with tenderness and respect as we wield our feelings across our intertwined lives, our intertwined cyber networks of friends and friends of friends. My barometer is often skewed, I admit, usually to the left, but on this day, I still strive to dream that one day I will comprehend my brother’s adverse view.

Here are the lyrics to the song: “One Tribe” [Black Eyed Peas]
One Tri...
One Tri...
One Tribe, one time, one planet, one race
It's all one blood, don't care about your face
The color of your eye or the tone of your skin
Don't care where ya are
Don't care where ya been
Cause where we gonna go
Is where we wanna be
The place where the little language is unity
And the continent is called Pangaea
And the main ideas are connected like a spear
No propaganda, They tried to upper hand us
Cause man I'm loving this peace
Man, man, I'm loving this peace
Man, man, I'm loving this peace
I don't need no leader
That's gonna force feed a
Concept that make me think I need to
Fear my brother and fear my sister
And shoot my neighbor or my big missile
If I had an enemy to {enemy}
If I had an enemy to {enemy}
If I had an enemy, then my enemy is gonna try to come and kill me
Cause I'm his enemy
There's one tribe ya'll

One tribe ya'll
One tribe ya'll
One tribe ya'll
We are one people
Let's cast amnesia, forget about all that evil
Forget about all that evil, that evil that they feed ya
Let's cast amnesia, forget about all that evil
That evil that they feed ya
Remember that we're one people
We are one people
One people, one people {One People}
One people, one people {One People}
One people, one people {One People}

One tribe, one tribe
One tribe, one time, one planet, one {race}
Race, one love, one people, one {and}
Too many things that's causing one {to}
To forget about the main cause
Connecting, uniting
But the evil is seen and alive in us
So our hopes are colliding
And our peace is sinking like Poseidon
But, we know that the one {one}
The evil one is threatened by the sum {sum}
So he'll come and try and separate the sum
But he dumb, he didn't know we had a way to overcome
Rejuvenated by the beating of the drum
Come together by the cycle of the hum
Freedom when all become one {one}
Forever

One tribe ya'll
One tribe ya'll
One tribe ya'll
We are one people
Let's cast amnesia
Forget about all that evil {evil}
Forget about all that evil {evil}
That evil that they feed ya
Let's cast amnesia
Forget about all that evil {evil}
That evil, that they feed ya {feed ya}
Remember that we're one people
We are one people
One people, one people {One People}
One people, one people {One People}
One people, one people {One People}

One love, one blood, one people
One heart, one beat, we equal
Connected like the internet
United that's how we do
Let's break walls, so we see through
Let love and peace lead you
We could overcome the complication cause we need to
Help each other, make these changes
Brother, sister, rearrange this
The way I'm thinking that we can change this bad condition
Wait, use you mind and not your greed
Let's connect and then proceed
This is something I believe
We are one, we're all just people

One tribe ya'll
One tribe ya'll
One tribe ya'll
We are one people
Let's cast amnesia
Forget about all that evil
Forget about all that evil, that evil that they feed ya
Let's cast amnesia
Let's cast amnesia, forget about all that evil
That evil, that they feed ya
We're one tribe ya'll
We people, we people
One tribe ya'll
One people, one people {One People}
One people, one people {One People}
One people, one people {One People}
One people, one people {One People}
One people, one people {One People}
One people, one people {One People}

Let's, let's cast amnesia
Lord help me out
Trying to figure out what it's all about {what it's all about}
Cause we're one in the same {one in the same}
Same joy, same pain
And I hope that you're there when I need ya
Cause maybe we need amnesia
And I don't wanna sound like a preacher
But we need to be one

One world, one love, one passion
One tribe, one understanding
Cause you and me can become one.