QR Tag linking to huhns.org

I am adding something new to my sermon notes this Sunday – a QR tag that links to this website.  For those of you unfamiliar, a QR tag is that squiggly box to the right that you can scan with a newer model cell phone (like the Iphone or Android based phones.)  Some of you reading this likely got here by scanning this tag with your phone.  If so, welcome!  I’m glad you are here!

The QR tag is really a ‘next step’ into a larger arena that the church as a whole has not done well adapting towards.  We do well, for example, in using print media for distributing information and for ads.  To a lesser extent we also do a decent job extending information via a website, even if many churches (including ours) are in need of a website makeover.  But in a world that is quickly adapting to text messages, twitter, and facebook as primary means of connection, we struggle to use these ‘social media’ in consistent and strategic ways.  Sure, we may have a facebook page for our organization (or even a twitter account), but we don’t often use it as part of an overall strategy for communication.

This is where we need your help.  What ideas do you have for us as a church on how we can use facebook, twitter, and to a lesser extent texting to communicate with a generation that uses these tools daily to get the information they need about what is going on in the lives of their community?

(Special thanks also to Ryan Smith for his previous post on churches using twitter.)

Happy New Year!  Have you made a New Year’s Resolution to get in better health?  What about your spiritual health?  We’ve developed this great tool to help you assess your spiritual health and give you suggestions on how to grow in the new year.  Print off the PDF below and take a few minutes to see how you are doing and where/how you can grow in your faith in 2011.

spiritual health assessment – lettersized

The article below is from a close friend, Rev. Rob Renfroe, who is the President of Good News Magazine.  If we want to understand some of the struggles we have on a national level as United Methodists, here is a good place to start.

Tone deafness and the Call to Action

Editorial by Rob Renfroe

It doesn’t happen often that I read something that stops me dead in my tracks and makes me think, “C’mon, he didn’t really say that, did he?” But it happened last week when I was perusing an article from the United Methodist News Service about the Call to Action Committee.

Concerned about the general effectiveness of our denomination and our continuing numerical decline, the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table commissioned the Call to Action Committee in 2009 to bring forward “…a plan of action that will lead to reordering the life of the church.” To its credit, the 16-member committee has taken its work seriously and hired two well-respected, secular consulting firms (Towers Watson and Apex Healthcare Consulting) to study the church and its structures.

More than 400 UM leaders were surveyed and the results were reported in a 95-page summary. One of the findings that did not surprise me was that “general lack of trust within the Church was a pervasive and recurring theme in the majority of interviews.” Nor did it surprise me that Apex reported “lack of accountability was…cited as a root cause of distrust—when people are not accountable for their actions and behaviors, they cannot be trusted.” Specifically mentioned was the lack of trust between “the pew and the leadership.”

Another conclusion, hardly unexpected, was the unfavorable view of the church’s general boards and agencies. They were seen as less than effective in making “disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” According to another United Methodist News Service article regarding the survey’s results, “the autonomous organization structure of the agencies has lessened their value to the church, according to the ‘Operational Assessment of the Connectional Church.’”

Bottom line: people in the pew have a problem trusting our leadership, in general, and our autonomous (read “unaccountable”) boards and agencies, in particular—some, I’m sure more than others. Continue reading →