I finally started reading Mark Batterson’s “In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day” today.  (You can download the entire first chapter here.)  This book has been on my reading list since coming back from the Catalyst Conference last year.  We heard Mark speak at one of the pre-conference sessions.  WOW!  This man’s heart is amazing.  He’s pastoring National Community Church in Washington DC, a church that meets in theaters that are nearby metro stops.  Check out their Web site.

The reason for this post is that Batterson rocked my world today.  This one idea, emerging from the story of a man killing a lion with his bare hands, shook me up.  Batterson says:

Goodness is not the absence of badness.  You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right.  Our calling is much higher than simply running away from what’s wrong.  We’re called to chase lions - look for opportunities in our problems and obstacles, and take risks to reach for God’s best.

The line that shook me up: “You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right.”  This past year-and-a-half, I’ve changed.  I’ve settled happily in to “adult life.”  For the first time, I have a real job, a real pay check, and real bills.  It’s changed me.  Since I’ve become a bona fide “adult,” I’ve stopped taking risks, stopped chasing lions.

In college, I was the guy who decided, against all advisors, to follow God to Vermont for two years with barely any sign of a paycheck to work with people who were completely different from me.  That risk payed off hugely for me and hopefully also for the people that I worked with.  I consider it the most influential time in my life. I was a lion-chaser.

Hopefully as I finish the rest of Batterson’s book, I’ll learn how to chase lions where I am, in the course of my 9-to-5 duties and in the world that surrounds me.  I challenge you, as I challenge myself, don’t get so wrapped up with life and security that you miss the lions that are all around you.  Remember that you can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right.

When you go to buy something on eBay, you look at the seller’s reputation, their “Feedback Profile.” It’s that magic number that says this person is okay to buy from. What is interesting to me is that a rating of 97% is great, but you may not buy from the person if you see two people saying the same bad thing about the seller, even if there are 300 people saying the opposite same good thing about the seller.

If you’re looking at ChMS products for your church, don’t throw Fellowship One out of consideration because of one post that I’ve written.  For my church, ACS is the right solution.  For your church, Fellowship might well be the direction you need to head.  Weigh the pros and cons of each heavily before making such a spendy decision.  I write posts, good and bad, about what I know and who I’ve interacted with.  To me, not sharing what I know would be burdensome, so I hang it out there.  The decisions are always yours to make.

Please hear me well that I am not bashing Fellowship Technologies.  My interactions with them otherwise have always been positive.  They seem to be a terrific company overall.  In fact, I’ve personally recommended them to a couple of churches who have ended up purchasing the product.

I am very encouraged by the quick response of Fellowship on yesterday’s post, and I wanted to share that with you here.

Curtis Harris wrote in this morning:

Matthew, I can’t apologize enough for the blog comment that apparently came from our company.  This is nothing we would ever condone and certainly not something I would want to be a part of; for so many of us, me included, this is a chance to use our God given skills for His purpose… it is our mission field.  I am very embarrased that this type of thing has happened and prior to this took some pride that we were above all that.  Sorry again.  Curtis Harris, Co-Founder and Director of Product Strategy.

Ah, just as I’m writing this post, I noticed that Jeff Hook, the CEO of Fellowship Technologies commented on the previous one.  It’s certainly worth a read.
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You know me well enough now to understand that I’m pretty well-balanced. I don’t like to always operate in the negative, but I’m not at all ashamed to point it out when I see it.

Last week, I received a moderation e-mail from our church blog. Nothing seemed unusual at first glance since I receive so many of these on a regular basis. What was surprising was the contents of the message and most notably who’s IP address it came from.

A new comment on the post #185 "Vacation Bible School" is waiting for your approval
http://www.fbcbelton.org/2008/06/vacation-bible-school/

Author : Barb Jones (IP: 208.36.200.226 , mail.fellowshiptech.com)
E-mail : bjones@gmail.com
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=208.36.200.226
Comment:
Why can I not register for VBS online? Let’s get with the times!

There is so much about this comment that causes curiosity. I don’t believe that the IP address was forged - it looks like it did in fact come from a computer owned by Fellowship Technologies, makers of the ChMS product Fellowship One. I’m left with three questions that I want answers to:

1. Why would a company that we don’t have a relationship with post a comment that, in effect, demeans our church and the way we do ministry?
2. Is online registration the only way to share the life-saving message of Jesus Christ? We evaluated it extensively and we have a platform that is capable of handling the registrations, but we decided that this was not the year to do it.
3. Is Barb Jones on a personal crusade or is this a common corporate practice of Fellowship Technologies? Is Barb Jones a real person?

I’m hoping that Jeff Hook, president of Fellowship, will weigh in on this post. I know he reads my blog, and he’s even commented here before.

We’re in the midst of a church survey for our strategic planning council.  This is something we do about every five years, and we ask a ton of questions to our church members and regular attenders.  It helps us to discover the pulse of the church, what we’re doing right, and what needs improvement.  It also gives us massive insight into who we are reaching.

Previously, it has been done completely on paper.  The paper surveys would be turned in to the office and everything transcribed.  When looking at 1,000+ surveys at about 8 pages, this comes at considerable cost.  With some help, I finally convinced the church to put the survey online.  We are offering paper copies to anyone who absolutely cannot use the World Wide Web.

I’m hoping that everything is going well with the process.  See, I’m on a cruise ship right now and I’m disconnected from what is going on with the survey.  I hope that the members and visitors are finding it easy to use and navigate, that we haven’t crashed the Web server or database server with all the traffic we’re sending, and that we’ll have as many people complete it by this method as we used to on our all paper method.

After we’ve tabulated all of our results, I’ll post the URL so that you can play around.

Compassion is organizing a day of prayer and fasting for the global food crisis on June 25th. That’s Wednesday.

It breaks my heart to hear about the current global food crisis and how it affects children and their families. Rice, beans, corn and other food staples have become dramatically more costly in recent months, creating extreme hardship and suffering. This need cannot be overstated. For families earning just $2 per day or less, there is just no margin. The impact is truly devastating.

There’s a lot I don’t understand about the world. I don’t understand why I have everything I need and then some. I don’t understand why the world that had so little food before has even less now. I don’t understand why I have to run on the treadmill to burn off extra calories when the rest of the world is literally dying for those calories. Especially though, I don’t understand how we can sit back and do nothing. This thing is real. It affects real people with real families and real lives.

C’mon now - Take action: pray, then give.
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