WE INTERRUPT YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING FOR THIS IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:
Hello, this is Evan Doyle reporting for the Way We See It Blog. This morning in Kids Church while writing this blog post, I caused our media application to crash. We were watching a DVD, and it stopped. It never got started again, because I was tediously fast forwarding at just 2x the regular speed. The moral of this story: Don’t do other stuff on the computer during Kids Church. It’s a bad plan.
WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING.

The 10/40 window. We always hear about this area between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator. It is reported to be the part of the world where the fewest people have heard the true Gospel. It is the focus of most missions.

But that’s not the 10/40 window I’m talking about. The one I’m talking about is right here at home. Perhaps right next door. It’s the $10K-$40K a year income bracket. The most, perhaps, unchurched income bracket in the entire United States. How is this, you ask? It’s simply how churches have been and continue to be run.

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Lately I’ve been reading the book Purple Cow by Seth Godin (buy the book on Amazon.com).  Ryan Frank is letting me borrow it now that he’s done reading it.  In case you missed his book review on it earlier, it’s all about being remarkable.

Several years back, Apple (maker of the iPhone!  Evan is accepting donations to purchase his own.  ;)) ran an ad campaign called Think Different. The ad follows:

The ad is all about just being crazy enough to change things.  Now, normally, reading a business marketing book followed by a heavy dose of Bible reading may not be considered normal, but that’s what I did last night.  I was reading 1 Corinthians 3:18-23 for my nightly devotions.  Here’s what that passage says (ESV):

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And no, in this case I’m not talking about God. I’m talking about the Jimmy Dean commercials with the sunshine character in them. Very funny commercials, yes, but I digress.

Here’s the real reason why I’m mentioning him. Over the course of this blog, you’ll learn that I really like quotes from various people. Correction, I really LOVE quotes. But here’s a quote from Jimmy Dean, the man behind the sunshine (Not made in reference to ministry, but still applicable):
“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”

Ministry many times may seem ineffective. A few years ago, the “culture winds” were blowing one way, and so you adjusted your sails. But have you adjusted your sails recently, or on a regular basis?

Seeing as I am the only one who hasn’t posted yet, I figured I should do that. I have been reading “What You Didn’t Learn from Your Parents About Christianity”, written by Matthew Paul Turner and published by Th1nk, a division of NavPress. There was a section at the beginning of the book that hit me hard with relation to our ministry. I’m going to post a few excerpts of it here, and comment on each section immediately after.

“I started hanging out with Jesus when I was 4. I loved Him like I loved Big Bird. Of course, I knew He was much more important than Big Bird, by my affection for Him was similar. The songs we sang in Sunday School made Jesus seem more like a novelty act than a Savior. Jesus was someone who liked to give me hugs and pull me onto his lap, and every once in a while, he would teach me a great truth about how I should be treating my little sister.

See? JUST like Big Bird. Although sometimes Big Bird was actually a little cooler than Jesus. He had his own skating show: Big Bird on Ice. Jesus never put on ice skates, and he didn’t have cool friends like Bert and Ernie.”

Is this not what happens many times with our younger kids? We make Jesus look like the always happy, smiling face who always loves us. But yet at the same time, we make Him look like a total nerd who had no friends outside of church and even those friends weren’t that great. While there’s nothing wrong with singing “Jesus Loves Me” and “The B-I-B-L-E”, we have to tell kids that there is more than that to Jesus! He is deep. Many times we attempt to “dumb down” Jesus for younger kids, but it may be surprising to learn that many times they are not accepting Jesus younger because they are not learning Jesus younger. I accepted Christ at the age of 3, and I feel confident that I knew what I was doing. I don’t expect every kid to be ready then, but recognize that while you may be teaching them more, you can’t always guarantee that your volunteers are promoting the same ideology. Be consistent!
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