Bill Clinton is getting $12 million for his memoirs.  Hillary got $8 million for hers.  That’s $20 million for the memories from two people, who for eight years repeatedly testified, under oath, that they couldn’t remember anything.

In London, the ad agency handling T-Mobile’s account wanted to increase youth subscriptions, and felt they could make T-Mobile cool by copying student-organized flash mobs, so for eight weeks they hired four hundred of London’s theater district’s dance troupes to, in the huge Liverpool London train station, dance to music piped in over station’s intercom system.  The dancers had two minutes to get everyone to dance to five different rhythms, some moves requiring years of training to do smoothly.  Here’s the result (link to the You Tube video):

(For those who can’t catch the link for any reason:  the center of a train station filled with travelers crossing the floor as the next trains are being announced.  Suddenly over the same loudspeaker comes the song, ‘Everybody Dance Now’.  In the middle of the crowd, a girl dramatically swings into dance.  In two seconds, twenty people around her join the next dance move.  Soon, fifty.  By the fourth verse, four hundred.  By the fifth verse, a thousand.  By the end of the song, over 2,000 people move to the music.

Do you think people remembered this more than their usual visits to train stations?  Many people said they were there The Day London Danced.

Connected thought:
Chaos theory calls the study of some natural theory ’science of chaos’, but what at first seems like chaos is actually a plan we didn’t initially know.  Does nature really lack order, or do we just not know how the order works?  Is the flash mob at London’s Liverpool station really unplanned?  Of course not, as people know when the see the expert dancers, but they love it and join–quickly.  That’s the spontaneous part.

Spiritually:
In one day, Joseph went from prison supervisor to second-in-command of his day’s most powerful nation, Egypt.  Now, churches and businesses require years of credentials and education.  College drop-out Bill Gates proved you can beat that model.
Fifty days after Peter denied Christ and totally backslid, he led the Church and proclaimed its first message.  Now, a pastor who makes a mistake either is simply dropped, or at best spends a year or more in recovery programs before he may regain respect, but never surpasses his previous authority.
Phillip rode in a chariot with an Ethiopian eunuch.  They saw water and by request Philip immediately baptized the eunuch.  Now, some churches delay baptism until after a six-month course.

God brings people to Spiritual wisdom and leadership–Abraham, nomadic herdsman, interceded with God to save a city; Moses, forsaken court son, murderer and shepherd, had court training in wisdom and literature but no training in leading a revolution and forming a new nation in the desert, yet did this; David herded sheep for years, then killed a giant and in days was leading soldiers; Jeremiah, son of priests but not trained for years to prophesy, carried God’s message to his people–and eventually to Daniel.  Daniel, teenager, stood up for his convictions, was promoted to major responsibility.  God’s Spirit taught people–many times very quickly.

A flash mob can instantly change people.  The world’s quickly-increasing billions need to know Jesus Christ–NOW.  God can upset rigid thinking (e.g, telling Nicodemus he must be ‘born again’) and bring people now to his will.

Later, in Heaven, we’ll know how God worked in our hearts, lives, churches and businesses, in us and through us for other people, changing us and them.

To learn to swim, we get in the water.  To learn to ride a bicycle, we get on it.  Or would you rather learn to ride with someone who learned to drive as Fozzie did–’I took a correspondence course’?

In the church, though some teaching on Spirit baptism benefits people, after that brief instruction, diminishing returns set in:  the longer people teach on ‘how to receive the Holy Spirit’, the more difficulty some people have.  Why?  It’s baptism–sudden.

Jesus, to grow his Church, started with twelve who spent 3 1/2 years with him, sent out 70 more, filled 120 who’d gathered for a week.  Then 3,000 came to Christ in one day.  Welcome to the flash mob.  Barnabas was probably one of those 3000–less experience in Christ than the twelve original apostles had, but sold his land, coordinated Antioch’s new congregation, mentored Paul.

Before we meet people, God met them–formed them wonderfully in the womb, knew them before their birth, and can make our meeting bring both them and us closer to Christ.  People should be born and called into our church, business or organization.  Not having everyone of the same race, tribe, caste, customs might cause discomfort, but we might trade that uniformity for being transformed by the power of Christ’s Spirit, and be his flash mob, like the Day of Pentecost.  Charisma magazine says nearly 1 billion Pentecostals trace their roots to the flash mob at Azusa Street.

This article differs from, but owes much to, and I am grateful for, Richard Gazowsky’s ‘Flash Mob:  The Holy Spirit’s Method of Training’.

In ‘Church Search:  Why American churchgoers like to shop around’ (Slate, 2009 February 27), Andrew Santella researches the Obama family’s church search.  Maybe the family won’t decide until 2012 or (God forbid) 2016.  Maybe the DC area doesn’t have (though I doubt this) a pastor with sufficiently incidiary opinions to match Obama’s former pastor and so make feel at home a First Lady who only began to feel proud of the nation when her husband ran for its presidency, and a husband whose name proclaims Islamic blessings.

Still, we must understand that once their family makes this decision, changing it would add unwanted furor on what they probably view as a side issue to their main focus of socializing liberty.

The Obama daughters while they do their homework on Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation desk can sing with Toni Tennille ‘My Momma told me you’d better shop around’ as they wonder where they’ll attend church next, and with relief because about a seventh of American adults change churches each year, while another sixth rotate their attendance (says marketing research firm Barna Group).  They also change denominations–a Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life survey said in 2008 that 44% of American adults have changed religious affiliations, and summarized, ‘Constant movement characterizes the American religious marketplace’ (since most religious gatherings have music, could we call this ‘move to the music’?).

The way churches market sometimes unnerves people.  This starts with marques in front of the building (Santella’s example:  ‘Prevent truth decay:  Brush up on your Bible’) and extends to video and audio web streaming (which allows people to stay home on the Lazyboy, snacks and drinks in hand, and raise a glass to the parts of the service they like best).  Consultants use focus groups, surveys, product giveaways (Santella’s example:  ‘free church-branded Frisbees, anyone?’) and, in pretence to be seekers, secret visits to churches to evaluate them.  So they practice deceit in the seat.

Does that cause ‘P.U.’ in the pew, ‘potentially spiritually corrupting…ecclesiological chaos’ (as Anthony Sacramone said in First Things)?  Or is that just the voice of old, established churches afraid of losing members to people doing something to gain them?  For instance, Pope Benedict XVI said of the ‘new explosion of religion’:  ‘if it’s pushed too far, religion becomes almsot a consumer product.  People choose what they like and some are even able to make a profit from it’.  We must be indulgent with his sentences on profiteering (’pay for masses for the dead, anyone?’)–I wonder if he said this from St Peter’s Cathedral?  No wonder about 10% of American adults are ex-Catholics.

Since America has no state religion (Massachusetts hung onto an official church until 1833, then swung to the other extreme and elected Ted Kennedy as senator), ministers also have freedom to evangelize and establish people in their churches.  This combines with Americans’ fierce individualism and capitalist marketplace to produce a competitive religious marketplace with decreasing brand loyalty.  Roger Finke and Rodney Stark are partially wrong to argue in Churching of America 1776-1990 that the pastors are the sales force; in larger churches, it’s the ministerial staff.  And when this doesn’t work, it’s called a staff infection.

Of course, being paid on commission encourages salesmanship that tells people what they want to hear (’the dress suits you beautifully!) to tickle itching ears.  Tithe could do the same, but the total picture is this:  church competition has increased people’s interest in churches–Stark and Fink say that in 1776 fewer than 1/5 of Americans belonged to a local church, but now, it’s 2/3 (that’s about the same % that approve of legalized abortion, so get with it on your church search, Obamas!).

Barna Group says believers look first for doctrine and belief, second for aesthetics like music, parking and seating.  Therefore, maybe ministers will concentrate on being well-informed in God’s Word, and on expressing that Faith well.

On aesthetics, choice helps.  Pope Benedict XVI, being of the old school, is trying to bring back Catholic Classic by allowing Latin Mass.  Obama’s United Church of Christ has a wide variety of churches.  I’ve long felt that even an apostolic local church could have four services on the weekend (Saturday night youth service with really current music and style, message on planning, future; Sunday morning very formal, begowned, high church style, meaty message on Christian teaching; Sunday afternoon yuppie service with mellow worship choruses, dressy casual, message about Christian life today; Sunday night standard box suit, Southern/country gospel music, sermon on Second Coming) and then the church staff could pass out on Monday.  Midweek services could be house churches to give the personal touch people need, mutual prayer, mutual confession, mutual love–and perhaps get us back to our roots of simply following Jesus Christ.

by Stanley Scism
Pew Forum interviewed 35,000+ Americans age 18 and older to find out–hold on to your hats and seats!  Surprise, Surprise!–that religious affiliation in the US is very diverse and extremely fluid (article by Pew Research, ‘US Religous Landscape Survey Reveals a Fluid and Diverse Pattern of Faith’, article dated 2008 February 25).

NOTE:  Pew Forum used self-report as the measure–that is, a person is Catholic if he says he’s Catholic, whether he attends Mass or not.  Atheists or agnostics are so if they say they are, even if some believe in some notion of God.  Using self-report fits with the UN’s Declaration in 1948 that a person’s religion is what he/she says it is.

Who paid them to interview 35,000 people to find out this?  We didn’t know this already, just by driving through American cities, seeing the multiplicity of churches, some progressing, some with brand new buildings, some with grass growing in the parking lot, seeing new temples and mosques, also?

Turns out they have a little more than that to say.  They announce:
44% of American adults either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated to being affiliated, or reverse.

51% of Americans say they are Protestant.  This divides into:
26% evangelical Protestant
18% mainline Protestant
7% historically black Protestant
24% Catholic (31% of the total population were raised Catholic)

NOTE:  The foreign-born adult population are 46% Catholics, 24% Protestant.  The native-born Americans are 55% Protestant, 21% Catholic.

16% say they’re unaffiliated with any faith (double the number who say that was true in childhood).  This divides into:
1.6% atheist
2.4% agnostic
12% ‘nothing in particular’–this divides into:
6.3% because it’s not important to me
5.8% it’s important to me, but not affiliated with anything
(25% of Americans age 18-29 are unaffiliated with any religion
1.7% Mormon
1.7% Jew (Orthodox, Conservative or Reform)
.7% Jehovah’s Witness
.7% Buddhist (Theravada, Tibetan or Zen)
.6% Orthodox
.6% Muslim (Sunni or Shia)
.4% Hindu

Race distribution:
Blacks are most likely to report formal affiliation.  Even those unaffiliated are 3/4 ‘religious unaffiliated’.
Only 1/3 of Buddhists are Asian.  Most are white.
Latinos are now 1/3 of all Catholics:  1/8 of all Catholics age 70+, 45% of all Catholics age 18-29.
This is due to immigration.

Immigration:
General Social Surveys by National Opinion Research Center at University of Chicago since 1972 say the US adult population’s Catholic share has held fairly steady at around 25%, but 1/3 of the people who say they were raised Catholic have left–that means about 10% of America is former Catholic.  These losses have been overcome a little by the 2.6% who have changed affiliation TO Catholicism, but more by the many Catholic immigrants (many illegal from Latin America).
Also,
2/3 of all Muslims are foreign-born
80% of all Hindus are foreign-born
3/4 of all Buddhists are converts, only 1/3 are foreign-born.

Age distribution:
Age 70+:  62% Protestant, 8% non-affiliated
Age 18-29:  43% Protestant, 25% non-affiliated
Of the non-affliated, 31% are under 30, 71% are under 50.
Of the population, 20% are under 30, 59% are under 50.
About 50% of Jews, and about 50$ of mainline Protestants, are over 50.
41% of the population at large are over 50.

Sex distribution:
20% of men say they have no religious affiliation, 13% of women

Marriage distribution:
Among married people, 37% are married to spouse of another religious affiliation (this includes Protestants married to another Protestant of a different denominational family, such as Baptists married to Methodists).  Hindus (78%) and Mormons (71%) are most likely to be married, and to be married to someone of the same religion (90%, 83%, respectively).

Largest families:  20% of Mormons and 15% of Muslims have 3 or more children at home.

Regional distribution:
The Midwest most resembles the nation as a whole.
The South has the largest concentration of evangelical Protestants.
The Northeast has the greatest concentration of Catholics.
The West has the greatest concentration of unaffiliateds.

Education distribution:  post-graduate education is obtained by
Almost 1/2 of Hindus
1/3 of Jews
1/4 of Buddhists
1/10 of total adult population overall

Income distribution:
Hindus and Jews report higher income levels.

Retention rate:
Only 37% of people raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses still are in that faith.

Predominant Protestants:  Baptists are…
1/3 of all Protestants
almost 1/5 of the total population
almost 2/3 of historically black Protestant churches

1.  Stay out of trouble.

2.  Aim for greater heights.

3.  Stay focused on your job.

4. Exercise to maintain good health.

5.  Rest and relax.

6.  Always take time to smile.

7.  Realize that nothing is impossible.

Seven days without prayer makes one weak

Forbidden fruit creates many jams

We have a prophet-sharing plan

Redemption:  God’s Recycling Plan

Want the Last Word?  Apologize

Forgiveness makes a soft pillow.

Or the retorts on http://wuzzadem.typepad.com/wuz/2006/03/church_sign_sma.html

by Stanley Scism

Some years ago, my father, Harry Scism, having heard of problems in our Kolkata church, went unannounced to see what was going on.  When he got to the business where our pastor worked, he found it was an Urdu newspaper (as the pastor had said) but also a Muslim newspaper.  He asked where the man was, and the editors said he was sick that day, and at home, then asked what my father had to do with him.  Harry Scism said, ‘He’s our pastor.’  They were very upset because they understood him to be a Muslim.  Dad said, ‘Are we talking about the same person?  He has a son about that tall, named Abraham’.  ‘Yes, but his name is Ibrahim.’

So my dad went to the man’s house.  The apartment was in a block that overlooked a small grassy area and, as my father approached, he saw a man standing in that grassy area who looked, from the back of his head, as if he might be the same man, but the man was smoking.  Dad walked up to and then around him, saw his face, confirmed that he was the same man, said he’d been to the office and that neither himself nor the editors appreciated the double life this man had been living, that he was therefore no longer a minister with our organization.

So there are times when you need to approach undercover, incognito.

Alexandra Alter in ‘Mystery Worshipper’ in Wall Street Journal, reports on churches using undercover inspectors to check on their own churches, to get an outside view.

For instance, Mr. Harrison, former pastor, now inspector who often says, ‘I was horrified’ of dust bunnies and rude church members, pretendes he’s a first-time churchgoer, sneaks around the bathroom, critiques the sermon, points out imperfections.

Here’s a checklist of things Harrison commented on.  Gives you an idea for creating your own:

CATEGORY: Sidewalks
COMMENT: “The brick-paved island in front of Arena needs attention. Some weeds are growing through the cracks.”
GRADE: Yellow Light

CATEGORY: Tissue
COMMENT: “Tissue boxes are placed at the end of each row. All looked tidy.”
GRADE: Green Light

CATEGORY: Parking-lot greeters
COMMENT: “From the parking lot into the church, I was not greeted by anyone. Upon leaving church and returning to my car, I was greeted by very friendly man who wished me ‘a good day.’ ”
GRADE: Yellow Light

CATEGORY: Greeters in the sanctuary
COMMENT: “I was not greeted upon entering the seating area in either service. In the second service, I even moved to a second area of the auditorium about 10 minutes into the service — but still no greeting.”
GRADE: Red Light

CATEGORY: Sermon
COMMENT: “The message is appropriate and meaningful. It is challenging and inspiring.”
GRADE: Green Light

[That 'green light] probably helped on his fee and the desire of the pastor to have him return.  To be fair, the very fact that the pastor hired him at all probably indicates the pastor really cares, and a higher chance that he would consider the congregation when he speaks.]

I’d love to be paid to come in, sit back, take notes, and fuss at everything about a church.  For some of us, this sort of thing comes naturally.  I’ve got the gift!

Here’s some more on Thomas Harrison’s list:  faded stripes in the parking lot, cobwebs, ceiling panels that leak, weeds growing in the parking lot, loose lighting fixtures, fuse box missing a lid.

If people see him snooping, he has his lie:  Says he’s the pastor’s friend, is tourist to get ideas before redoing his own church.

He’ll call to test voicemail, scroll through the church’s website, ask a clerk at a nearby shop if he knows anything about the church.  He has a ’round, dimpled face, a salt-and-pepper mustache and a talent for blending into crowds’–find that man!  He scribbles notes on a tiny pad in his palm.

How are the hospitality, cleanliness, and worship experience at your church?  Do you use ushers?  Do members ask visitors their name, church background, spiritual condition?  Do they invite them to return? Sure, consultants notice these things.  So do new members.  Get feedback from the new visitors, or, if they don’t get back to you, then from the members who invited them.

Do people reach right over the guest to shake a friend’s hand, without excusing or introducing themselves?  Do congregants complain about the pastor?

He was associate pastor at three churches in Oklahoma, had been a secret shopper for a pizza restaurant, read a book called ‘The Five Star Church’, thought churches could benefit from similar scrutiny, contacted the author and suggested a service based on the book.  The author liked it and offered to be the guinea pig.  The results shocked him. ‘We came in at 3.5.’

I wonder if Harrison could withstand this scrutiny himself if someone checked his house, his car, his life.  If not, doesn’t this nitpicking involve some hypocrisy?

Another pastor, in a booming area, but not attracting new members, asked his opinion, and he suggested changing the church’s name and its 25-year-old wooden sign with Old English-style lettering.  He recommended changing the worship music–have a traditional early morning service with well-known hymns for an older crowd, and a later service contemporary with a lively band.  Same idea I’ve given people.

Some fuddy-duddies who don’ t have to grow a congregation might complain that considering the people is a new-fangled motion, but the shepherd was always supposed to look after the sheep.  One pastor (with 2000 people) said, ‘My competition is Cracker Barrel restaurant down the street.  If they go in there and are treated more like family….then it’s lights out for me.”

Yes, we want the visitor’s view.  But we can get that from regular visitors by contacting them at the contact information on the visitor information cards, or from the friends, our church members, who invited them.

chocolate mug cake

• 4 tablespoons flour
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons cocoa
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
• A small splash of vanilla extract
• 1 large coffee mug (MicroSafe)

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.  Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well..
Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.
The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed!
Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).
And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world?
Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night!

Three contractors–one from Chicago, one from Tennessee, one from Minnesota–bid to fix a broken fence at the White House.  All three go with a White House official to examine the fence.

After work with a tape measure and calculation, the Minnesota contractor says, ‘I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me.’

The Tennessee contractor measures, calculates and says, ‘I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me.’

The Chicago contractor measures nothing, just leans over to the White House official and whispers, ‘$2,700.’

The official, incredulous, says, ‘You didn’t even measure like the other guys!  How did you come up with such a high figure?’

The Chicago contractor whispers back, ‘$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence.’

‘Done!’ replies the government official.

That’s how the new stimulus plan will work.  (If the Senate complains that this is illegal and/or unethical, a former community organizer who made it big will ‘put in a good word’ for the Chicago contractor–he has practice in this sort of thing regarding Senatorial replacements.)