Facing My Own Mortality

Last week was a difficult one for me. I was confronted with my own mortality through the deaths of several of my generation's icons, Michael Jackson, Farah Fawcett, Ed Mcmahon and even, Billy Mayes. Farah Fawcett and Mrs. Piggy posters hung side by side in my bedroom wall growing up. I didn't understand then as well as I do now that everyone dies; well, maybe Mrs. Piggy will live on through eternity, but all of us humans will eventually pass away. But I find myself, like many others in my generation, bucking the we-all-die trend. After all, Suzanne Sommers has me convinced that she'll live to be 150 and look 35. That's what I want.

Interestingly enough, I'm slow realizing that, like the reminder of the recently deceased icons, my own life is just as fleeting. Last Saturday I set out on a long run in the oppressive heat of the Florida summer. After an hour of running, and by the time I felt light headed and began seeing pixies flying around me, I was already in trouble. The onset of what I now think was a heat stroke was already impairing my judgment and I couldn't decide what to do next. I had enough sense, however, to get into the ocean and try to cool off before I lost consciousness.


I know that I'm not promised tomorrow here on earth, but often I live like I'm working and living for another day. I'll put up with the mediocre and keep on plugging in because of the great destination on the horizon. Who am I kidding? Beyond heaven, there's no destination, only the journey. Life is not a project that at retirement, or some other artificial date will come to fruition. I'll never hear "You have arrived" at some point during my life like I hear the disembodied voice of my GPS unit saying as I complete a trip.

I'm going to live forever, but not here. Meanwhile I plan on losing myself in every day I'm given, living, loving, learning until I'm called to be with Jesus. It might even happen at the end of a hot run. You'd never know.

Vacation Log: My Day at the Water Park

The Big Kahuna's Water Park is a vacation tradition for the boys. We must spend at least one day of our week-long vacation there. This year is no exception. I love the water park rides as well as the sea of humanity that shows up there. At Big Kahuna you're sure to encounter anything and everything. But I'm always aware I'm no where near Brazil for several reasons.

I was reminded I was not in South America by the generous amount of material on women's bathing suits. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful that the Brazilian dental floss bikini (now that's a mental picture for ya--and no I'm not posting a pic) has not made its way into the American beaches and water parks. The thought of seeing the women I saw today wearing the dental floss is pretty upsetting. But I'm also thankful for the men's long shorts in vogue here instead of the minimalist Speedo swimming suits my Brazilian friends wear. Granted, as a generalization, Brazilian men are somewhat leaner than the average guy at the water park today; however, I don't care how lean you are, at age 70, stuff just hangs. Enough said.

I also noticed that those of us without tattoos, or body "art" if you prefer, seem to be in the minority. Most every adult was sporting several tattoos. As an observer of culture, I would like to caution my friends who are thinking of getting tattoos to think long term with them. As you consider your art of choice and location, also take into consideration that your skin will lose its elasticity and that the area of the tattoo will grow, droop and change along with you. For example, I saw an older lady sporting a tattoo of what I imagine started out as a butterfly decades ago, that now looked like a vampire bat trying to craw out of her cleavage.

I saw a young man with large block letters tattooed across his entire abdomen that read: RELENTLESS. I even heard a young girl say: "I like your tattoo." That's fine today because the kid is young and has a flat stomach. But I can see the day where after too many beers and many missed gym workout one my look at his belly and just see a few letters, saying "LENT" or "RENTLESS" Again, thinking ahead.

All in all we had a blast-lots of sunshine, water and fun for everyone. Well, maybe not everyone. I'm not sure how the man whose hair piece came floating my me earlier in the day feels about losing it and then deciding whether or not checking with lost and found. A life guard saw it and retrieve it. I wish I had a picture of his face looking at the floating hair.

I'm curious how do you feel about tattoos? And if you have one what does it say?

Vacation Log: Captain Schedule Takes a Break

I'm on vacation this week. Vacations are weird things for me, since I'm so structured in my daily regimen that vacations are interruptions of my schedule. I'm not complaining, however, it's just the way it is. My friends and family call me "captain schedule" for my seemingly obsession with "redeeming the time."

I must confess I have gone overboard in the past. A few years ago I bought a software package that allowed me to customize our Disney World experience based on the age of our children, our food tastes and the best time to reach the rides and restaurants that we liked. I had a print out every day with a timeline for our park experience. I thought it was great; my family not so much.

This week I have decided not to have a schedule--well not a hard one. So far I have done well. The only thing I have scheduled are my morning runs, which unless I get up before the sun is out, 5 a.m., I can only manage to get in 4-5 miles in the heat and 150% humidity before getting light headed. I ran at 6:30 this morning and it was already a balmy 85 degrees.

During the day I take my kindle to the beach and read while the boys catch waves. I have cooked alongside my mother in law who is down here with us. The other day she made blackberry cobbler from scratch. How great is that?!

Today I have already run 4 miles and taken a dip in the cool gulf waters. The pool, however, is another story. The pool temperature hovers around 95 degrees, hardly refreshing. We call it the giant hot tub. I tried swimming laps, but got light headed again. Hmm. lots of light headed incidents. Maybe it's not Florida. Perhaps I have something wrong with me. Meanwhile, I'm trying my very best not to plan things on this vacation even thought it goes against my very core.

Are you a planner or do you just go with the flow? (even typing "go with the flow" makes me nervous)

Is the Creative Team Killing Good Preaching?

In the past few days I have heard from three different pastors the same story: my creative team has asked me to do something I'm not comfortable doing. One group had the Pastor repelling down from the rafters in a harness before delivering the sermon. But no matter the request, each of the men I talked with ended up arriving at the same conclusion: ultimately it's not the creative team that has to preach this message, I am, and I'm not comfortable doing what they have asked me to do or say.

Before you accuse me of being old school and not wanting to try new things, let me tell you I value creativity. My dad is an artist and I grew up in my parents' art gallery. The A Group, a business I own, is built on creativity and filled with creatives. And beyond all of that, I consult with pastors on how to make the most of their sermons through a creative outlet. "So what's your problem?" You might be asking.

Years ago I developed a creative team for my church that helped our teaching pastor to think of dynamic ways to illustrate a point, create a moment or bring a new perspective to an-age old question. It was something very new back in the early 90s for a church to have a creative team. Now it's almost the norm, specially for large churches.

It seems like what started as an helpful tool, has become the proverbial tale that wags the dog. More and more I see creative teams dictating what happens in the service down to the Pastor's illustration and overall direction of the service. Church leaders have somewhat elevated the creative team to the place they have become the ultimate decision makers on what happens during the weekend services.

Recently I watched a friend who had conceived a very poignant and timely teaching series having to change his direction and adapt his teaching to something very different because the Arts Pastor of his church had already created all the visuals for the following six weeks according to the team's vision and not the man who was preaching it.

I still believe creative teams are a great tool to help communicators do a better job. They can help bring perspective and powerful illustrations to a message when they are aligned with the speaker in both style and content. But ultimately, it's not creativity that wins the day; it's content. "Powerful" trumps "cool" every time. Pastors, if you don't feel good about it beforehand, you'll never feel good about it afterward. And we, those of us in the congregation, do pick up on that right away.

Ultimately, it's not creativity that wins the day; it's content. "Powerful" trumps "cool" every time.

Pastors, be creative. Find the most compelling illustration, song, video, prop that you can to drive you point home so people will understand just the magnitude of the God we worship. But please, don't let people talk you into something that's not aligned with your personal style or the message God has put in your heart.

Top Twitter Cartoons

I have been on Twitter for over an year now. I lost count of the number of times I have described it to people who look at me like I was completely insane. I love Twitter and I'll be writing about it more shortly. For now, let's just celebrate the best Twitter cartoons that have capture the best and worst of this micro blogging tool that has taken our planet by storm.

Top 25 Twitter Cartoons

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Google Wave to Change the Way We Communicate

Google has changed the way we catalog and access information. Now the geniuses are out to redefine and change the way we communicate. Google Wave is schedule to come out later this year, and if it is successful it will kill email as we know it. This is a long presentation, but it's worth your time to see how Wave might change the way we communicate.



How quick are you to adopt a new communication platform?

Making a Difference with Marketing

I chose "Making a Difference" for my blog title years ago because when I started The A Group, my intent was to help churches, ministries and businesses to make a difference in the lives of people in their communities and around the globe. And we have. Over the past 9 years we have helped our clients to become better and more effective at what they do. Last week I was reminded again that we are still making a difference.



Pastor Bruce Frank of Biltmore Baptist Church in Asheville, NC, spoke to the Groupers (that's what we call anyone on the The A Group team) on Friday about the impact our Easter marketing had on his church. We often hear of the percentage of increase in attendance during our media campaigns, total growth numbers over last year's attendance, and conversions. Those are great ways to measure the return on investment for the people we serve, and we love hearing good news. Pastor Frank's story was different. Yes, they had a very successful Easter with two thousand more people than last year, but he was excited to talk to us about a single person.

Right before Easter, one of Biltmore's members saw a man sitting alone at a restaurant and used one of the mini invites (business card-size invitations) we had designed and produced to invite the man to the Easter services. What she did not know, was that the man had planned on committing suicide after finishing his meal. That was his "last meal" according to his account. Her invitation gave him another option. He kept the bullet he brought along to the restaurant in his pocket and decided to give the church a try. He chose Hope on Easter and gave his life over to Jesus Christ. Last week Joe was baptized at the weekend church service and shared his story publicly with the entire congreation.

I know that our markting piece did not change Joe's life. God is the only one who can do that. But it made easier for a single lady to invite a stranger to come to church where his life was saved, literally twice.

What tools have you used to break the ice or make an invitation to someone you did not know well?

Churches and the Dangers of Line Extension

I have always banked on the notion that you cannot grow a strong church with a side-door strategy, and this week I was reminded of that first hand. Side doors are everything else a church does besides preach the gospel and help grow people in their faith. Somehow along the way church leaders have decided that music concerts, recreation, cafeterias, schools, bookstores and even quilting groups were church-worthy pursuits and a proliferation of side-door ministries began to show up in large churches.


What I experienced recently as I visited a great church last week reinforced my theory. What started as an outreach ministry of the church years ago, suddenly began to take a life of its own and became a huge resource and energy drain--so much so that the very thing that drove it into existence, evangelism, is no longer the focus.

I appreciate Thom Rainer's book Simple Church and its efforts to help churches do what they can do best: reach people for Christ, help them grow in their faith and equip them for ministry. When other things, albeit good things, get added into this mix, the main thing seems to weaken with the passing of time. In marketing we call this phenomenon: line extension.

Xerox learned the line extension lesson years ago when it decided that since it was so popular in its copier business, it should go into the computer business. Their logic was simple: We are the best selling copier maker in the world, since a copier is a machine and so is the computer, the people who bough our copiers will also buy our computers. Well, it did not work. People did not want to buy their computers from their copier maker. Several years into the PC venture and several millions of dollars later, Xerox finally got it: people want to buy copiers from us and nothing else. I hope churches are learning that lesson.

Difficult financial times forces us to look very strategically at where our resources go. I hope more churches are taking a hard look at all the expenditures outside of the core business of being the church and focus their effort on the main thing.

Is your church guilty of line extension?

How I Sold My House in Three Days (in a sucky market)

Last week we closed on the sale of our house. We lived there for almost 11 years. Here’s what’s interesting about the sale of our house: we put the house in the market on a Thursday, had an open house on Sunday, and had a full-price offer within a week, and closed in 6 weeks. Oh, and we did it without a Realtor. I know my experience is not typical in this market, but here’s how I did.


It’s Got to Look Good
First of all, my house was in good shape. No, it was in an amazing shape for a 25 year-old-house (that's the kind of endorsement you want from your wife after 25 years of marriage). In the past decade, we remodeled most everything about the house. New roof, new landscaping, Bathrooms with travertine counter tops, glass bowls, multiple showerheads. Our kitchen was my favorite room. Since I love to cook, we put in a 48 inch Wolf range with six gas burners, a grill and two ovens. The Subzero fridge was paneled to match the custom cabinets that included a warming drawer as well as Fisher and Paykel double drawer dishwasher. Ok, enough, I’m making myself regretful here.


No Excuse for Bad Photos
I took pictures of the house with a good camera and wide-angle lens. Rooms look twice as big as in real life with a wide-angle lens. Just make sure you don’t use the lens on your mother in law. The fall out is tremendous. I’m just sayin’. Make sure you have great pictures. You might have a ton of traffic on your ad but if you’re pictures are lame, people won’t give you a second look. (on another though, what does that say about your profile pictures? Ok, that’s for another blog post)


Go Online and Go for It
We listed our house on several online services like Zillow.com, craigslist.com, forsalebyowner.com. I spent about $300 on ads on some of these sites and uploaded my best pictures along with key words that are always associated with the area I live and the benefits of my house: best schools system in Tennessee, great house for entertaining, amazing upgrades, gourmet kitchen (interestingly, a lot of people love to upgrade their kitchens so they can have a nicer place to heat up their frozen fish sticks). We also created a microsite for the house that showcased it better than other online services.

There’s No Love Without the MLS
You can put your house everywhere on the web, but without a MLS (multiple Listing Service) listing, it’ virtually impossible to generate traffic. I believe that the MLS is key to real traffic. But in order to be on the directory, you need to work with a licensed Realtor. I did some research and found myigloo.com. They will list your house on the MLS for about $375. However, you have to fill out a ton of paper work that includes the size of each room, your property lines, taxes, and your weight history for the time you owned the house--well, just about.

Buyers Realtor Gets In the Deal
Even though we did not have a Realtor representing us, we knew that if we didn’t give a commission to the buyers’ Realtor, our house would, somehow, not make into the buyers’ list of properties to tour. That proved to be wise.

Priced to Sell
Now this next step was the most critical: pricing. How to reach the right price is both an art as well as a science. We looked at the prices of houses being sold in our neighborhood—well, those who were sold in the past year—and their price per sf. We looked at houses in our area that have been on the market unsold for a while, some of them for over a year. We also looked at the upgrades we made compared to those houses that were not moving and felt good about the curb appeal our house had. We settled on a price that was very competitive and realized that even though our per-square-foot asking price was on the high end, so was all the extras our home had to offer. Again we knew that we had an extra 3% we didn’t have to pay at closing to a realtor. That’s a significant amount of money.

We put our house on the MLS on a Thursday, had an open house on Sunday and had an offer on Monday. Some may say we didn’t ask enough and that we left money on the table. Well, while that might be true, we knew the pain and suffering some of our friends were going through selling their home, not to mention the expense of keeping up with two mortgages and expenses. We knew that the longer the house stayed on the market, the more difficult it became to sell. We had already closed on a new house at the end of January. Needless to say, we were very motivated to sell.

At the end, I'm thankful to God that we had a very short sale and everything went very smoothly. Last thursday we closed on the sale.

What has been your experience in selling real estate in this market?

The Christian Ghetto and Social Media

I’ve heard it a lot lately. You’d think as a business owner it would be music to my ears. But it isn’t. “We want The A Group to create a social network for our church.” “No, you don’t” is usually my reply.

Here’s the big question: should every church have its own alternative to Facebook?


Recently I ran across a term that describes our need recreate community as the “Christian Ghetto.” The Christian Ghetto is a place where you go to hang out with your Christian friends, fill up a website with Christian pictures and Christian videos of lots of happy people, loud preaching and youth camp promos. There’s not much witnessing and shedding of light in the ghetto since everyone is already convinced and the place is way too bright as is.

I understand the need for closed networks within several difference facets of ministry. For example, in managing small groups who need to connect in privacy or resourcing ministries that deal with evangelistic strategies where an open discussion in Facebook, would undermine their effectives.

So should the Church abandon social media altogether? Absolutely not. The church should redeem it . Christians are already there in millions strong among their unchurched friends. Instead of trying to pull your people out of Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Orkut or whatever the social media du jour is, your church should develop tools to engage, inspire and create dialog within these networks. We should resource our people with tools for integration and not segregation. We should take our Christian content into every part of the web we’re allowed to go. Go where the darkness is and shed light.

I say let’s break up the Christian Ghetto mindset we Christians tend to have and lets become more intentional in our social media outreach.

What's your take?