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Cyber Monday Lived up to it’s Expectations

According to eMarketer.com Cyber Monday(November 27) surpassed expectations with it’s retail online tallies. Sales totaled $608 million, up 26% from Cyber Monday 2005. The first 27 days of November were also up 24% from 2005. All trends are pointing towards a record year for online shopping. Nothing is expected to change going into 2007, or the rest of the year for that matter.

With all this online shopping, it makes one think. Trends are pointing more and more to online activities increasing with no plateau. What is the church doing to keep up? Is it enough to have an e-mail address so that the young hipsters in the congregation can contact the youth pastor if needed? Or does the church need more? Does it need a website, maybe even a web ministry? Something online that is interactive and engages people who happen to pull up a church’s web address. Why are we still trying to reach teenagers that have grown up on X-Box, or even twenty-somthings that grew up on the original Nintendo, with Flanograf boards? I think the even bigger question is, why do we think that it’s alright?

It would seem like more and more people are using the internet for their financial purchases. Why not tithing and online giving? With reports that online users are going to buy 39% of their holiday gifts online (up 8% percent from last year), it seems like people are more and more comfortable with doing financial transactions online. Why shouldn’t the church be able to offer the same conveniences to their congregation?

Seems like a winner to me.

Until next time.

The NEW Nativity?

I was afforded the opportunity to see “The Nativity Story” at an early preview last night. Let me start out by saying that I wasn’t expecting a whole lot. How can you enjoy a movie where you already know the ending? But I have to say, I was surprised. New Line Cinema did a very good job to showing the realism of the time. Even more surprising was that the same company that put out the Austin Powers trilogy and American History X stayed very close to the Bible. Maybe not too surprising to the millions of Lord of the Rings trilogy fans who have said it stayed very close to the books.

Overall, even with a few things not quite lining up with the good book, I could recommend the movie to for all ages. The movie was excellent. Beyond the minor indescripancies, the movie told the story of our Lord’s birth well. It opens this Friday, 5 stars.

Until next time.

What if Church was all about ME

My dad used this clip in a sermon one time. I just found it on the web. Talk about a great way to drive a point home. Watch the video here from Worship House Media. Then think about how great a video like that really is. Why is it great? It hits the nail on the head that so many people get so worked up about things that really don’t matter and sometimes are very selfish. Oh, sorry, you thought it was just a great video. It is, watch it and tell me what you think.

Until next time.

Top Ten Blogging Mistakes

According to Jakob Nielsen, these are the the 10 biggest mistakes by bloggers. Find them in greater detail here.

No Author Biographies
No Author Photo
Nondescript Posting Titles
Links Don’t Say Where They Go
Classic Hits are Buried
The Calendar is the Only Navigation
Irregular Publishing Frequency
Mixing Topics
Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

What do you think, right or wrong? Are you a gulity of one of the above? Let me know, hopefully this will help improve your blog. Need to buy a quality blog, instead of just getting a free limited blog. Check out this site!

Until next time.

Bono and The Prez, on AIDS

Interesting transcript here. It’s Bono in February of this year at a National Prayer Breakfast with President Bush. I think it’s always interesting when politics and entertainment meet. What I like about Bono is that he sees his role as entertainer much differently. He understands that he is a role model and there is great responsibility with that. Of course alot of entertainers have their charities that they have founded or support. But with Bono there’s a tranparence there that you don’t see often.

What I also like is that he is plugging an organization that I have only recently become a part of. The One Campaign, the campaign to make poverty history. Here’s a good clip from the article,”God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.” That’s why ChurchForward supports organizations like The One Campaign and World Vision. Every time I go to the fridge, I see a picture of a little girl in Africa that we support monthly.

Bono understands something here that I think we forget alot of times. We are here for a purpose. That purpose may not always be clear, and sometimes very difficult to see. Whatever your purpose is, I pray you continue doing it with all your might.

Until next time.

So a friend of mine got hit by a car the other day A.K.A. The Numbness

I had a friend get hit by a car the other night. Before we get too far, she’s okay. Well, let me set it up for you. It was a rainy night and my friend had an umbrella trying to cross a fairly busy street in a college town. According to her, out of nowhere a car was coming towards her and slammed on it’s brakes. My friend flew onto the hood and hit the windshield. The lady driving the car only rolled down her windows without saying a word. My friend got off the car after about 30 seconds, and stood up in time to see the car take off.

Now just stop, re-read the first paragraph and think about the story I just told you.

Now let me begin by saying that there could be alot of different reasons as to why the lady drove off. It could have been because she was old, my friend guessed in her sixties to seventies. It could have been because she was an illegal alien because she was of hispanic descent and didn’t say a word, in a town filled with illegal hispanic immigrants. And I could go on about older people behind the wheel or the illegal population in this country and border control. But I want to take this entry in a different direction. Because, you see, I think there was a deeper issue here. One that goes beyond age or citizenship.

I believe the deeper issue here is a spiritual one. One where one person can cause another lethal harm and not care enough to even get out of the car to make sure that my friend wasn’t paralyzed from the impact. Whatever the reason, the lady in the car didn’t even care enough to get out of the car and even try to communicate. What makes one do that? I think there’s a numbness there. Just like there’s a numbness in this country. A numbness in this country of not caring and being okay with status quo.

A numbness in people’s lives that can only be cured with one prescription. His name is Jesus, you know it, I know it. The church knows it. But how are we getting rid of the numbness not only in our lives, but in our communities as well. If we had the cure to the common cold, I guarantee we would be shouting from the rooftops. Yet for some reason, we have the cure to a disease that lasts much longer than the common cold, and we only want to share it on Sunday mornings. What sense does that make. Help me today, by getting rid of the numbness in your community. Get out and tell someone!

That’s it, guess I should have called this ‘The Numbness’, maybe I will.

Until next time.