salesmen are supposed to sell

until recently with his retirement my dad was a salesman. ironically the "hobby" that he has developed over the past few years to keep him busy during his retirement is selling used cars. like i said he is a salesman. though i never heard my dad say the title of the post i still learned it from him through being aroudn his business. by watching him i learned that the purpose of a sales person is to sale a product. you do it ethically. you do it because you believe in the product. you do it because you believe that your product really is better for your customer than someone else's product. still though your purpose is to sale the product. if you can't sale the product because you're too worried about your image or too worried about what you might have to do to sale the product (i.e. go out and do a demonstration of the product at 10 p.m. or show the maintence personnel how to use the product, etc.) then you are not going to be a very good sales person.

the reason i say this is because i was dissappointed today. every 4 weeks or so i do the chapel for our preschool. today was one of those days. today i was supposed to talk about how GOD knows and loves us for who we really are. the problem as that i was speaking to 150 4-5 year olds. 4 & 5 year olds are not kown for their ability to understand and remember tough messages. still i figure the purpose of a preacher is to CONVEY truth, not just say true things. i'm supposed to help other people understand the good news of JESUS. if i simply speak the gospel and the people i am speaking with don't understand what i am saying then i have failed. so if i don't convey the truth in a manner that those listening can understand then then i have not preformed a very good job. so i decided to use the fact that most of these kids will be wearing costumes tonight to help them to understand that GOD knows who they really are on the inside. so i purchased an elvis halloween costume and did my message in it while slowing removing parts of it to show who i really am. the kids loved it. the teachers loved it. some of the leadership said it was the best chapel they had ever had.

now i will be the first to admit that having the costume was fun. it was fun to see people thrown off and confused when i walked down the hall. it was fun to see my fellow ministers laugh. when i was talking with one of my fellow ministers about the costume they said "i could never do that, i'm afraid no one would ever take me seriously anymore." of course, this is also why the 4 & 5 year olds squirm and never remember anything when he does their chapel.

the purpose of a preacher is to convey the truth of the good news of JESUS CHRIST. nothing else matters compared to that.

[Listening to: Ants Marching - Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds - Live at Luther College (disc 2) (5:26)]

some like it hot

last night at the view, our youth worship service, i was speaking about goodness as a fruit of the spirit. as a part of the message i decided to steal a play from rob bell's gamebook and make salsa during my message. i didn't steal bell's message (that would be wrong and bad .. badong) but i definitely took the salsa idea. i figured it was okay because pam and i have been perfecting the world's most perfect salsa recipe over the past two months. i did the message, i made the salsa and then i simply hoped that the illustration helped the kids understand. by the end of the evening i knew that the kids like the salsa. that was pretty easy to find out since many of the told me that it was the greatest salsa they had ever eaten (and it wasn't even my best batch). still i wasn't really making the salsa for the kids to like it ... it was a sermon illustration.

this afternoon i got the feedback i was hoping for. a couple of my teens dropped by and told me how great the salsa was. when i asked if they remembered what the message was about they told me what the main idea of the message was and what the points were. then we were able to discuss what they thought about the ideas. BINGO!

just a test

i'm just testing to see if my w.bloggar setup is correct. please continue with your lives as they were before.

[Listening to: Come Fall On Us (Psalm 50) - Psalm 18 (2) - 100 Portraits and Waterdeep - Enter the Worship Circle (13:41)]

lying in the name of GOD?

pam, my lovely, intelligent, can caring wife, brought this article to my attention. it hit an interesting never considering our interim pastor announced yesterday that he would be leaving in december i thought it was appropriate.

are CHRISTians also human beings? are we permitted to talk about our lives the way other humans do? can we admit mistakes, confess uncertainty, and be honest about conflicts? is it okay not to have an airtight spiritual explanation for everything that happens?

one of the greatest causes of cynicism among CHRISTians is the way we lather GOD-talk over our lives in order to obscure realities we consider too painful to discuss directly.

JESUS greeting?

if you get the wittenberg door's update email you have probably already seen this but i figured i would throw it out there just in case. it would appear that JESUS is now making a little money on the side by doing intros for websites. at leat that's what i'm guessing since this youth group's website has a greeting from JESUS. i feel a little unworthy as a youth minister since i can't seem to get HIM to do one of these for me.

two side points: 1)apparently all those older paintings of JESUS with blue eyes were right (very odd for an ancient near eastern hebrew, but who can deny video?), 2)watch HIS eyes as you move the cursor around. remember HE is watching.