If no one tells them: How will they know?

The words of Romans chapter ten came a knocking on my head in the early hours of this morning:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? 
And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? 
And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 
And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

This passage talks about the means by which the Gospel is preached but (as I keep pointing out) the Church is a communications business: We exist to communicate the Gospel of Christ in Word, deed and (leaving the most important to last) in prayer.

Communication of the Gospel is our raison d'être (which, apparently, as I've just found out) doesn't mean 'the raisin I just ate'): We exist to make Jesus, the Christ, known to all - inside and outside the Church.

Communicating the love of God demands the very best we can can be in terms of lifestyle, integrity and the word (written, spoken and, of course, Living). this means that we need to be using all of the means open to us to ensure that we are reaching those outside our doors and ministering effective to all both inside and out. 

We are called and then, having answered that call, we are sent to make the Christ known so that none are ignorant of who Jesus is or what He achieved for us on the cross and so, having heard, others might be reconciled to God through the Christ.

Communication in evangelism is essential.

BUT (you knew there was going to be a 'But' didn't you?)

Communication in Church (universal) is essential too. But how do you do yours?

Here are a few thoughts on the ways I know:

i. The notices - those service stopping, rhythm-breaking, lists of things you've forgotten before the end of the song that followed it.  I am not a fan of notices because I've noticed that few appear to be noticing them and fewer still make a note of the notices you wanted noted and noticed!!

ii. The news sheet - A piece of paper with everything you might ever want to know about the events, activities and news in and around the church community (and perhaps wider). The problem with this is that unless you make sure the people take them home they are pretty useless and merely destroy trees in the paper (and the paper banknotes) that they use us.

A colleague told me that they use a new sheet and mention the things on it before the service and again at the end (for those with short-term memory loss and those who come in late I suppose). Not only do they emphasise the stuff on the sheet twice but the 'welcomers' (a mythical group of people who live under church floors I think)  also check to see that people leaving have a copy of the sheet in their hands when they leave.

Impressed at the enthusiasm and endeavour I asked what difference their active marketing approach had made to attendance of events on the sheet. The response was, 'None at all, but at least we are trying!'

iii. The church magazine - where I am the magazine finds its way into homes,doctors surgeries and even onto the internet (click on the link and you'll see July's edition). This a great way of getting information into the hands of members and inhabitants of the place you serve BUT (keeps cropping up that word) the offering needs to possess some quality.

Only recently I came across a magazine that was using 'cut and paste' methods in its production. Before you wonder what is so special about that, after all we all cut text and paste in back into the document elsewhere at times, I have to point out that this was proper 'cut and paste'. The editor cut out images and text and then glued them onto a sheet of A4 to form the completed page - once all the pages were done the whole magazine was photocopied onto A5 (landscape) and the magazine was sorted.

I have to be honest and say that I don't miss the wonky text, blurred images and multiple fonts!

If you're going to have a magazine: Please make sure it's the best quality you can afford to have - the church magazine, like eyes, is the window into our very being!

iv. The church web site - Now this is an excellent way of communicating the events, news and message of the church BUT (there it is again) only to those who are switched on and able to browse (and there are a number for whom social media, the web and even texting is still out of reach. Don't assume that everyone is able to receive or review stuff using technical means (after all, I bet people thought Gutenberg and his printing press were cutting edge technology once).

I've covered the web site recently and so all that needs to be said is to remember the C's:

Content - Currency - Cwality

(and speling)

v. Newspapers - Where I am the local newspapers are happy to have copy regarding events and the like. Don't forget this great two-way street (they need news and you need your news to be aired): Develop a good relationship with your local press and you'll do the community and your church a great service. 

vi. Radio - one of the greatest aids to getting our news and message out is by means of the local radio. They are often happy to have someone who will put the God viewpoint on things and will often mention things that are happening in your church (but don't flood them - only send things that are attractive, newsworthy and perhaps a little out of the ordinary).

Again, development of a partnership is a valuable and useful two-way street as you're both looking to serve the communities where you are.

vi. Texting - this is surely one of the best means of informing church members especially about prayer needs and events. We've been using a bulk text message app on our iPhones to keep the prayer group appraised of needs as they emerge for a number of years and it has worked very well. (we use Mass Text Message).

This is a great way to be in people's pockets and it seems to me that people will read, and respond to, a text message where other means don't always do as well.

vii. eMail - you can't forget email as a means of communicating information but - and this applies to text too as I recently sent a message to tell someone I had arrived only to find they got it six hours later - don't assume that because you have emailed or texted something the intended recipient actually got it.

If it's important then telephone is the best belt and braces approach!

viii. Social media - Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Bebo, Linkedin, What's App, Pinterest and much much more besides. Herein lies the means of getting your information out into the world (local and global) BUT (there it is again) please make sure that you don't look needy or blitz the people around you with stuff that is neither helpful or good - well not unless you really want to affirm all those negatives about Christians that far too many people already have that is!
I'm sure I've missed something (but I'm sure someone will tell me).

Pax

40 Acts - Share, Pray, Like

"Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7 (NLT)

I am a Social Media Scroll.

Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t say troll, the type who takes to twitter to harass and abuse (nor the small pink-haired plastic toy). An SMS is someone who spends time scrolling through timelines with no purpose, eyes glazed over, with about as much interest as a vegan at McDonald’s. Facebook is merely an extended photo album and Twitter an opportunity to catch the latest headlines and top hashtags. I only read the first few lines of a blog post and even 140 characters often pushes my reading limit (don’t even get me started on the ‘continue reading’ button).

To be honest, most of the time I simply haven’t got anything witty, intelligent or groundbreaking to say. And, when the world seems to be heading to hell in a hashtag, I don’t even know how to respond. However, I often forget that I have a much greater weapon than any tweet or blog post. I have the most powerful weapon in any arsenal, the weapon of prayer.

Which leads me to today’s challenge, to pray for your news feed.

Here’s the idea: as you scroll, don’t simply like, favourite, moan or troll. Stop and engage with the situation in a powerful way; pray.

There have been many debates as to whether engagement on social media makes any difference, whether endless memes and charity hashtags actually change the world. But one thing we know for certain; prayer works. And this isn’t just voicing stuff for our own benefit, a therapeutic announcement to get stuff of our chest. Jesus tells us that when we pray, God answers (Matthew 7:7); Paul says that Jesus himself sits on the right hand of the Father, nudging him on our behalf (Romans 8:34).

So why not give it a go? Pray as news breaks, as people moan; pray for the lovers and pray for the haters, the scrollers and the trollers; pray for your friends and pray for your enemies; pray when stuff makes you happy, sad, grumpy and mad. Don’t tweet without thinking, but (in the words of the prayerful apostle) pray without ceasing.

Sam Gibb

To see today's web page - Click HERE

Social Media - not about preaching . . .

Not about posting Bible passages on Twitter!

Not about preaching from a one-sided pulpit.

For me, one of the greatest benefits of the social media, twittersphere, blogging world is not that we take for ourselves a platform that makes us known but that in it we find a means to make ourselves more accessible, better understood and, most importantly, accountable.

Posting on Facebook on any of the other social media sites is not about being 'down with the kids' or evangelising. In fact if the only reason you post on a social media site is to 'win' people then might I most respectfully* suggest that you stop it and go buy yourself a sandwich board and at least have some integrity.

We don't win people to Christ by posting trite stuff, nor do we do it by posting contextually isolated (and often confusing) passages in cyberspace**; we win people to Christ by making ourselves open, honest and transparent.

I post here because, as I have said many times, it is a place of reflection and internal dialogue with the added benefit of inviting others to offer correctives where they might be required and to enter into the dialogue that I might better understand, be better understood and perhaps (for those reading and especially for me) shine a light on the world of faith that is Christianity.

God became man and was found among the people He came to save. This is what blogging, twitter and social media offers us - an opportunity to be part of the people around us and to learn of their needs and to make ourselves known in the hope that the same Spirit that raised jesus from the dead, that IS in fact Jesus, who is present in us, might just shine out, like a diamond in the darkness of a mine, in the darkness of our lives.

So - a Plea - to all who engage in making themselves known across the many facets of the internet.

Do it with integrity

Think about who the focus is in your scribbles

Remember that once posted it is there for ever - even if you delete it!

Remember that Jesus and His bride, the Church, might well be judged by what you write and think before you post.

Pax

* Well, with as much respect as I can honestly garner that is!

** And to then render it in the King James version is double-folly and compounds your first silly act into something of gigantic proportions in my book!

When social media becomes antisocial

I see a number of Police Forces around the country have posted something like this:

We would urge people to consider the very real impact of their online comments in relation to this matter.

We have received a number of reports from local members of the public about tweets and Facebook comments that could potentially incite racial hatred and violence.

These are currently being investigated. If such communications are reported to us and they do breach the law, those messages may be monitored; captured and robust police action will be considered.

(This version comes from the Lincolnshire Police force)

It seems to me that immediacy of the electronic communications world can lead us into many potentially dodgy places and open us up to criticism and more besides (as Emma Way found after tweeting about knocking a cyclist of his bike!).

I find myself dealing with situations where people have posted stuff as a kneejerk and found themselves starting WWIII as a result and it is not just terrible things like the Woolwich murder that has raised the passion - communication is great but not always beneficial!

Christmas Cards (2012) - 2

One of the many cards on with a Santa's sleigh theme. Still it made me smile:

Any suggestions most gratefully received.

Happy Monday

Christmas Cards (2012) - 1

This proved so successful a couple of years back that many people have asked whether I was going to do this again - and so, bowing to peer pressure, here we go again with ten cards to savour between now and Christmas day.

Enjoy :-)

Desperate (or switched on) clergy?

I chanced across an advert' for a church service this week.

Well actually I chanced across eight from the same person (on the same day) all of which were almost pleading with the reader to come to their church services. Then, quite by coincidence, I found them on Twitter and, Facebook? Yes you've probably guessed, the same services were advertised there too! So this got me wondering and so I trotted over to some of the other social media sites and found that they were quite prolific.

Now I think there is great merit to be found in social media sites with regard to disseminating information, dialoguing with people and being grounded but there was something in what I had stumbled across that caused me to think that what I was reading was bordering on the desperate and tacky rather than merely seeking to engage. It was all a bit like those conversations where you know the other person isn't going to come to Back to Church Sunday' or perhaps those where you struggle to make excuses for the fact that you won't be popping round to enjoy 'an evening with . . . .'

One of our church members recently recounted an encounter where they asked someone to a church event. Before they were halfway through the invitation the other person said, "We're busy on that day!"  "But I haven't told you the date yet," protested our evangelistic hero. "Oh, we're busy every ___day," came the reply. The sad thing is that this is a repeat of last year's encounter with the same person and probably the year before that as well - and I get to the stage where I don't think it's worth throwing 'good money after bad' and that the time comes when we shake the dust off of our shoes and leave them to their own designs, even if there was once a relationship. The door is always open and the welcome is always there for those who wish to come - even after a number of year's absence - but the time comes when you decide to use your energy where it is valued and effective (and yes, I know about the persistent woman and the magistrate!).

As one of my favourite sayings puts it,

'If you lend someone a tenner and never see them again, it was probably worth it!'

This applies equally well to some who have come and gone in that their departure can sometimes release us to be effective elsewhere.

But, as is often the case, I digress and so let us return to the desperation stakes minister.

The more I read the posts the more I felt saddened rather than uplifted and so I decided to give them a call to find out what they were doing and why (and how I might support them in prayer and any other ways). It transpired that they, like so many of us, were in the middle of an exercise to reduce clergy numbers and the events, services and other attractions on offer were part of an attempt to attract more people and get them known in the area so that people (especially pointyheaded people) would see how much they were doing and find their sacrificial sheep elsewhere.

I tried to tell them that reducing clergy numbers is about doing church more effectively and efficiently and is not (well it shouldn't be) a popularity contest! The idea that by throwing loads of services at the wall some of them will stick and a successful church will emerge from the shadows to help deflect the axeman's blow is folly and, in my humble (and brain-limited) opinion, will only cause more clergy depression and desperation. The potential for some to act like dancing bears to attract the crowds or start writing in the local paper about everything the church is doing in the hope that the community will be impressed is doing the wrong stuff for the wrong reasons.

So I write this saddened and concerned - we prayed on the telephone and I think I have found a potential friend in the social media minister. But the wounds, pressure and desire to perform to appease those above and continue to support those around them is neither healthy (for minister, congregation or Church) nor God-honouring.

Church - how do you do yours?

(and God: How should we be doing it? Give us a clue!)

ps. Think He has if we read our Bibles ;-)

Twitter as a barometer

One of the funny things about my posts over the past few of days is that, using Twitter, you can see the opinions register in much the same way as the 'clapometer' used to on some of the old TV talent shows!

Recently I wrote something and saw the 'followers' rise quite markedly. Then I wrote something which some didn't like (a few pm'd me to tell me before they left) and the numbers of 'followers' sank a bit.

I rather like this immediate response device, a bit like the stall warning flap on the leading edge of a wing it tells you when you are running out of air or perhaps about to enter into a bit of excitement (mind you letting the wing drop and kicking in loads of opposite rudder realllly makes it exciting - especially in a Harvard!!).

I know that when I rush in a splurge that it doesn't always make sense and that at other times (especially when remotely on an iPhone) the words are sometimes jumbled and the path through the wilderness of my mind is a long and winding road that leads to . . . . But thanks you to those who do keep up and mail me comments or post them on the blog, it's a real blessing and an aid (or perhaps a panacea) to my particular form of madness (something I need to address regarding others when I get back from inducting Chaplains).

Pax

Social Networking - a guide

I found this to be one of the best explanations of social networks and the way to get the best from it that I have seen.

Enjoy!

Don't Twitter - Follow

Rather funny and extremely apt for so many of us on the path!

Pax

ps. Rather liked this version too!