Winning on Wednesday - Churches Suffering From Complications

The first complication(s) - I've been suffering from so major writer's block / spiritual doldrums (all my fault) / general frustration with life. Enough of that...

Whenever we visit someone in the hospital, we know things are serious when they are "suffering from complications". I believe that we as Christians today and, in a larger sense, the church, are suffering from complications. These "complications" are causing our mission and message to become muddled. Therefore, without a clear message, I believe it's hard to reach those looking at Christianity from the "outside".

As evidence, an Associated Press story on April 25th, highlighted the decline in Southern Baptist membership.

Total membership was 16,266,920 last year, down nearly 40,000 from 2006.

The dropping number of followers in the nation's largest Protestant denomination reflects a trend in other mainline Protestant churches, while non-denominational churches are gaining and the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing.

My biggest concern is that there is a trend not just in the Southern Baptist Convention, but among all protestant churches. The number of people that are "Unaffiliated" continues to grow. To me, this is a sign that the Christians and the protestant church in general are suffering from complications. Looking further:

Part of the blame can be placed on a notion that Baptists have been known too much in recent years for "what we're against" than "what we're for," Page said.

"Our culture is increasingly antagonistic and sometimes adverse to a conversation about a faith in Christ," he said. "Sometimes that's our fault because we have not always presented a winsome Christian life that would engender trust and a desire on the part of many people to engage in a conversation on the Gospel.

For clarity, these quotes are from Rev. Frank Page, the current Southern Baptist Convention president. However, I believe this statement has broader implications beyond Baptist churches. This is where the "complications" come in.

Instead of the complications you might be thinking of, mine are different. I believe that we as Christians are over-complicating the message of the Gospel. How? the message of the Gospel is very simple. To use the simple ABC Gospel formula, becoming a Christian is simply:

• Admit - Admit that you've done things God doesn't like. Admit that even in a world that doesn't believe in the concepts of "right" and "wrong", you've done things that are wrong.
• Believe - Believe that God sent His Son to take the penalty for the things you've done wrong. Believe that Jesus died for your wrongdoings and as a result of the penalty He paid, you can now be forgiven for those things you've done wrong.
• Commit - Commit to live your life differently than you did before. Commit to learn more about Jesus and learn how to follow His teachings.
  

That's it. Nothing more and nothing less.

But, what do we do on Sundays? As I've posted before, I believe we run the risk of getting the method before the message. The effectiveness of our worship is measured based on the quality of the media, music, lighting, artists and the emotion they engender. Sermons are graded on how they make us feel or how edgy and current they might be.

Then, we grade who should attend church based on how they dress, what problems they currently have (and should correct before they attend), the color of their skin, their nationality, their economic status and what they can "add" to our church. Lastly, we determine what ministries to offer or which groups we try to reach based on who we want to be around or what exposure will our church get for this project.

All of these items add complexity to a message, method and purpose that should be simple. The challenge? Don't let your Christian walk or your church suffer from serious complications. Simplify. Ensure that you're clearly conveying the message of the Gospel, which is strong enough to stand on its own. Also, remember the Gospel applies to everyone.

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Technorati: Winning on Wednesday

Presentation Skills 101

A major hat tip to Greg Atkinson at Church Video Ideas, where I first saw this video on presentations. As some of you may know, I'm in telecommunications and my job requires that I give a good number of presentations. I definitely found this video as a challenge to my speaking and presenting skills.

I challenge all of my friends in both corporate and church related work to watch this video and consider your own skills. There are very good points to consider.


PresenTired: "The Voicemail" from Scott Schwertly on Vimeo.

So, what do you think?

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Technorati: public speaking

Barack and Hillary - Windfall Profits...Not Again

As we continue to move through the (seemingly) endless Democrat campaigning, an interesting topic has resurfaced - taxes on windfall profits. What's most interesting is that the topic is being floated to the American public by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Since fuel prices have gone up significantly - along with many other products (mainly since all other products depend on fuel to get them to market), attacking the oil companies seems to be an easy way to stir up frustration among the general public.

In fact, Sen. Clinton appeared on MSNBC's "Countdown", on Monday, April 21 - the night before the PA primary. The exchange regarding a windfall profits tax went like this:

OLBERMANN: Let’s start with something that got remarkably short shrift in last week’s debate. Is the election in the fall, in your estimation, going to be decided on the price of a gallon of gas and is it not true that a president can’t really do anything about the price of a gallon of gas?

CLINTON: Well, I think it’s going to be very much influenced by the economy. I don’t know what else might happen between now and then but it appears to me that the economy is not going to recover and in fact the price of gas is going to be a big issue. I think oil hit $117 a barrel today which is just unbelievable. When George Bush became president it was $20 a barrel.

I do think there are things that we can do in the short run. I would, if I were president, launch an investigation to make sure that there’s not market manipulation going on. I am still haunted by what we learned during the Enron scandal about those electricity traders manipulating the market and causing the people in California, Oregon and Washington to pay such high prices that were not at all related to supply and demand.

I’d also release some of the oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That has in the past had a good effect on lowering the cost at least in the short term. And I would do what I could to try to alleviate the cost right now if we could come up with a way to make up for the lost revenue with a gas tax holiday, like, for example, a windfall profits tax on the oil companies on a basis to try to fill the highway trust fund while we let people off from paying the federal gas taxes. (emphasis added)

I would consider that. But you’re right. Ultimately we’re going to have to have an energy policy that actually moves us from our dependence on foreign oil and being literally over the oil barrel with the oil producing countries and companies. I think if the president were to make a speech tomorrow, Keith, and that’s the kind of speech I would give right now, that we are finally serious. We’ve had enough of the problems that come from being so dependent and not looking to ourselves to produce homegrown energy to fuel our vehicles, try to help our auto companies and auto workers, quickly move to higher gas mileage cars and more biofuels and all of the other solutions that are out there, you would see the price drop because I think the companies and the countries that supply our oil would be worried that we actually meant it this time.

And they would once again try to lull us into a false sense of security. So I would do all of that and I think it would have an impact and then of course we have to follow through to make sure that we do everything we can to take back control over our own energy destiny.

Sen. Clinton slips in the mention of a windfall profits tax and supports it with a statement about a gas tax holiday for consumers while shifting the burden of taxation to the oil companies. Can you believe that? Sadly, most politicians do not understand the business environment. Energy companies are stock driven companies. Their investors demand a return on their investment. If taxes are increased (i.e. windfall profits tax), then those companies will increase revenues or other fees to offset those increased costs.

But, Sen. Clinton is not alone. In fact, Sen. Obama has gone one step farther. He actually talked about penalties on oil companies' windfall profits in a television ad:



OK, both Democrat candidates have expressed a willingness to implement windfall profit taxes and/or penalties. I first blogged on this in April of 2006. If you're interested, you can read the entire posts here and here.

For space, I'm just going to include a few important excerpts:

Normal profits are those required for the business cycle to maintain itself. Windfall profits are supposedly those above and beyond what is required for the normal business cycle to continue. (That's a rough definition for all the pseudo-economists in the audience.) But as Walter E. Williams writes: "Windfall profits serve as a signal that there are unmet human wants."

and

Demand has increased steadily in the United States due to many factors and they aren't all related to the dreaded SUV.

and

However, no new refining capacity has been added in the United States in 30 years. Couple that with the fact that there were a total of 45 different gasoline blends in production in the US in 2004 and one can begin to see the constraints on the supply chain.

THEN

If it were not for the precedent of the original Windfall Profit Tax Act, I don't believe we'd be discussing it today. It wasn't that successful then, because inflation adjusted gas prices weren't dramatically affected and it won't be successful now. 58% of the cost of a gallon of gas is due to the cost of crude oil. The majority of the cost is due to world markets, supply and concern over disruptions in supply.

Finally,

I still don't see where anyone is getting the concept of a windfall profit being made by the oil companies. Granted, the DOLLAR amount of profit is a large number. BUT, the PERCENTAGE of profit, net profit margin, is not. If my company has sales of $100,000,000 and I have a net profit margin of 10% then I profit $10,000,000. If my sales are $100,000,000,000 and I have the same net profit margin of 10% then I profit $10,000,000,000. This is the exact same scenario that people are getting their panties in a wad over with the oil companies.

So, looking quickly at a few selected companies and their Net Profit Margin - all from MSN Money today -, we see the following:

• ExxonMobil 10.04%
• Apple 15.37%
• IBM 10.76%
• Coca-Cola 1.38%
• PepsiCo 14.33
• Bank of America 16.78%
• AT&T 10.41%
• Chevron-Texaco 8.46%
• British Petroleum 7.26%
• Valero Energy 4.79%

I could go on, but I hope the point has been made. Windfall profit taxes didn't work the last time and they won't work this time! Especially considering that energy companies are not experiencing windfall profits - unless of course you want to enforce the same rules against Bank of America, Pepsico, AT&T and thousands of other publicly traded companies.

The short term answer lies with increasing our exploration and extraction of energy reserves here AND increasing refining capacity coupled with sensible conservation. The long term answer lies with continued investigation in alternative energy sources and implementation of solutions that make sense....biofuels is currently not a good solution. But that's a whole different post on biofuels and the global impact on food supplies.

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Technorati: windfall profits, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed

If you haven't seen this yet, you ought to check it out. Ben Stein, of Ferris Bueller's Day Off fame, has made a rather controversial film. The film - Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed - explores the premise that any ideas contrary to the Theory of Evolution are excluded from the academic arena.

It looks pretty interesting and, personally, I'd like to see it. Check it out for yourself - it opened on April 18.



What do you think?

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Technorati: Expelled, Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed, Ben Stein

Oprah's New Religious Push

This is worth watching. You may not realize it, but Oprah is exercising her popularity to promote these new religious beliefs. What's alarming is that there are those who will follow it simply because she says it's good.

What do you think?