Church marketing - what not to do

Now this is funny.

What if Starbucks marketed like the church? Click here to see this video parable, but be prepared to be needled.

Not sure I agree with all of the theology on their original site, but you have to admit there's some cleverness afoot here.

Election post-mortem

I sent in a portion of that prior post (Elections and the Church) to my local paper, and much to my surprise they accepted it for publication, so you can see me in print here once again.

It definitely feels good to be done with the election season. It's as though I can get back to the rest of my life now. Does anyone else have similar feelings?

And just to prove that everything is better under President-elect Obama, check out this image:



Yes, that's my scorecard from yesterday, the first day after the election, with a personal best two-under-part nine holes (I've never shot nine in under par before), complete with my first ever eagle on a short par four (chipped in from just off the green). Admittedly, it was a short/executive course, but I'll take golf success wherever I can get it. Clearly, this is a sign that the universe has seen a significant realignment...

Electoral predictions

OK, I've been resisting this all election season, mostly out of superstitious fear. However, I am now going to follow the advice of Oscar Wilde, "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it". Thus, here are my predictions for the outcome of the Presidential race.

Obama popular vote: 52%
Obama electoral vote: 364

McCain popular vote: 45%
McCain electoral vote: 174

If you really want to geek out on this stuff, click on this link to see the projected electoral map I created this morning.

Having voted early, I can now spend my day in search of free coffee from Starbucks and free ice cream from Ben & Jerry's (I think I'll pass on the free Krispy Kreme donut, though).

GO VOTE!!!

Elections and the church

The following is the text of a brief talk I'll be giving in my church this morning. If you like what it has to say (with the potential exception of specific denominational references, depending on your flavor of church), feel free to borrow excerpts for your own house of faith, especially the final paragraph. And one reference note - the phrase at the end is from RFK, quoting Aeschylus (and although this phrase is popularly attributed to that Greek tragedian, it has actually never been found in any of his extant works).

I’d like to take just a couple of minutes this morning to talk about the upcoming election. Because after all, you haven’t heard enough about the election yet, right?

Here’s a quick exercise, and at the end of it I expect all of you to have your hands in the air (even though we’re Methodists). How many of you have already voted? Great! Keep your hands up. Now, how many of the rest of you are certain that you will vote on Tuesday? Excellent.

OK, you can put your hands down now. I said that I expected everyone to have their hands in the air because I believe that we, as faithful Christians, have a solemn responsibility to exercise our civic duty by participating in our nation’s electoral process. Given our recent history of elections, no one can say that your individual vote doesn’t matter.

Along with this duty to participate is an equally important duty to be informed, to use your God-given intellect to make reasoned choices. To that end, I have a stack of copies of the United Methodist Church’s voter guide, as published by the Board of Church and Society. Unlike some of the other voter guides floating around other churches this morning, this guide specifically does not endorse any candidate or party. What it does do is set forth the United Methodist Church’s official positions on a variety of issues, drawing from published statements such as the Social Principles and the Book of Resolutions, and compares these with official statements from the platforms of the two major political parties. You can pick up a copy in the narthex on your way out today.

And finally, along with our responsibility to be informed participants, we have what I consider to be an even greater task. Come Wednesday there will be electoral winners and losers, joy and sadness, celebration and resentment. I believe that we, as people of faith, must take the lead in helping bring our nation back together after this election season. As Jesus said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” So I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, regardless of who you support, regardless of who receives your vote, and regardless of who wins or loses, at the end of the day let us come together as one people, let us bind up each other’s hurts, and let us move forward in prayer for our new political leaders. Let us work to reunify this nation that God, for a time, has entrusted to us, and let us, by our words and deeds, do our part to make gentle the life of this world. Thank you.

Election recommendations (Georgia)

Since I have received a few calls/texts/emails already asking my opinion on some of the candidates and questions on the ballot, I figured it might be helpful to list a few of my recommendations (I hesitate to call them "endorsements", since that implies someone in some position of authority might actually care what I think!). I welcome feedback, questions, follow-up comments, etc. 

I'm not going to list each and every race, because so many of them are district-specific and outside of my scope of knowledge, and others are ones where I don't have a strong opinion. Here goes:

President/VP: Obama/Biden

U.S. Senate: Jim Martin

State Court of Appeals: Christopher McFadden (although there are some other good candidates here too, like Edenfield and Meyer von Bremen)

Public Service Commission: Jim Powell

State Senate District 42: David Adelman

DeKalb County offices:

Superior Court: Tom Stubbs

Superior Court: Johnny Mason (note - there are two different judge races here)

School Board, District 2: Marshall Orson

School Board, District 9: Ernest Brown (although I know less about this race)

State Constitutional Amendments:

#1 - No, although I certainly understand why some would vote yes (and the Sierra Club has endorsed this one). Basically, it would give tax breaks to owners of large tracts of forest land who keep their land as forests for 15 years (owners of tracts under 200 acres already get this tax break). 

#2 - Yes. This allows for the funding of TADs (Tax Allocation Districts), such as funding the Beltline, by using money from school districts if they so choose.

#3 - No. This would give private developers the ability to raise bond money to pay for the development of "private cities".

DeKalb County Referenda:

Yes for CEO presiding over meetings with the Commission setting its own agenda

Yes for various homestead exemptions

Undecided for school uniforms (mostly I just think it's dumb that we vote on a nonbinding referendum on this topic - isn't this what we elect school board members to decide?)

Again, feedback, comments, and questions are welcomed. And whether or not you agree with me, you should go vote!