When “Church” Doesn’t Work

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In our previous post, Remaking “Church”, I refuted this movement as being wrong. But what about when your “church” doesn’t work? What do you do? In this post I will look at some tips on dealing with a disfunctioning church.

Church works, when done God’s way.

The first thing that you have to recognize is that “church” as God defines it works. It has the power and authority of God behind, so if it “didn’t work”, then God would make it work divinely with his omnipotent power. But it does work. It works because God has used his divine and endless wisdom in designing it, and therefore it works because God is God. When we believe in God’s wisdom, and we accept it whether we understand it or not, then things can be set in order. Note that “order” means structured correctly. The idea of remaking the church has as its premise that either God has not given us any definite structure, or that structure is non-functioning and can be replaced with something else. These concepts strike at the authority of God, and at the perfectness of God. Let me emphasize this point again. Church works when done GOD’S WAY. Why churches have problems today is because they are not “doing church” according to Scripture. This is at the heart of church failures. Let me hasten to add that being “old fashioned” is not a failure. Many people insist that their religion and their church must conform to their thinking, and they reject anything except the Burger King philosophy, “Have it your way”. If they cannot get things “their way”, then they reject it as a failure. This is invalid. Salvation is only by God’s terms, and we do not define how or what or why, or anything else in salvation nor our Christian life. In true Christianity, we must submit, not invent. We must submit to what God has already said (in eternity past, so novelty is not going to get that). Trying to make God’s word and work into a “new, modern thing” isn’t going to work, because God has no interest in us (nor his work) being a modern novelty. Fashions and fads are not biblical. The biblical attitude is to be like the Bible says, and this means conforming to the old standards, not manufacturing new standards. The old methods worked and still work, and those are the things that we need to focus on. God’s methods and doctrines are not up for debate. To give in on a single minor thing that God has clearly declared is to misunderstand the authority of God, and to be confused on our situation before God. We are not partners with God in the design and method creation of His work, but rather we are under His instructions, and have to accept and do what He has commanded. God is God, and we are not gods. God by divine right has the authority and right to command because He created. We are creatures, his creatures, and we have to obey. Confusion on our position and relationship with God has caused this modern movement to gain strength over the years.

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Killer Presentation Skills

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whTwjG4ZIJg

 1. You have to make the audience comfortable and focused. You have to control anxiety, and this would be very important if the speech is too long. The point is that you as the speaker want your audience to focus on your message, and that won’t happen if they are not focused. Physical problems in the same environment as the speech will distract. Sometimes they cannot be helped. The worse offense is when the speaker himself takes a shipping company attitude, that every time you turn around, the speaker is saying something that causes the audience to leave his train of thought and travel away on some off comment he has made. “Journeys of Self-Discovery” there are all kinds of things you can discover on your own. Direct eye-contact promotes focus with the speaker. YOU MUST LOOK AT THE AUDIENCE

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Presentations: Storyboarding: Tips & Tricks

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In this post, I am going to give you some tips and tricks to storyboarding or moodboarding a missionary presentation.

Also see this website/series of pages: Effective Slide presentations

Recent Posts (last 3 months)

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Presentations: Actual Storyboarding & Software

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In “the olden days” a storyboard was made on 4×6 note cards, drawn in pencil, and arranged freely. This is still a valid method of doing things, although I am getting the impression that with each new generation, these people physically cannot pick up a pencil and write on paper. That “art” apparently has gone the way of the dinosaur. So I will suggest some storyboarding software for the modern generation. But before I do, please take the time to read how we do this with paper and pencil. It is important, and you will get the essentials here, before you go to software.

First thing, you are “brainstorming” here, taking what you have, getting ideas, trying to get some kind of direction (end goal, objective) in sight, and also getting some flow (select elements and put them in order).

The absolutely essential element in your brainstorming is that the means of doing this must be flexible where you can take two “slides” and insert a new one or ten in at that point, and also take a single slide or slides and move them to another place. You can do this with word processing software, or even with presentation software like PowerPoint which is probably the most well-know and serious presentation software.

Secondly, realize that what is on the paper is not the key. It is a representation of a reality in your head. It is a placeholder at this point. So arrange your presentation, and write down things as much or as little as needed depending on how ideas are flowing. You will go back and review what each slide has, and how to get images or design a slide to present that idea.

Again, flexibility is the key. You want your ideas “on paper” so that once there you can analyze them, change them, amplify them, reduce or delete them, or rearrange them. All of this is the brainstorming and storyboarding part of making a presentation. I don’t like the idea of using a big powerful program like Powerpoint for this. Microsoft has a program called Visio to do this before you start in PowerPoint, so PowerPoint really isn’t designed for this either.

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Authority endorsements

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One of the strong points of persuasion is authority endorsements. This is when somebody who has some kind of authority or familiarity with a person, product, or service endorses that thing/person. From research, it is found that even if the person has personal benefits from the endorsement, it still helps persuade people when they hear the endorsement.

For example, when some football sports jock endorses a tennis shoe, everybody knows that he receives millions probably for the commercial endorsement. But none-the-less, many people will buy the product because they saw him endorse it. Even actors that nobody knows endorse products, and we understand that these are not “free-will” endorsements, but paid, and that most of the times, the actor or person talking has never even used that particular product before the day of filming.

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