Changing the Label

Heinz Ketchup is changing the label it puts on its ketchup bottles.  There is concern that people are not making the connection that ketchup comes from tomatoes, so out with the gherkin pickle (it's a long story) and in with a tomato on the vine.  The idea is to tap into the desire of people to eat more wholesome, natural foods.  There will also be a new tag-line: "Grown not Made."  I'm interested in rebranding because like ketchup, ministry sometimes loses touch with what it's supposed to represent.  So: what to do when people lose sight of what you are doing in ministry?  Rebrand it.  Call it something else, so people won't be turned off by it.  The question is: What else do you have to change besides the brand or the label.

Back to the ketchup.  What will Heinz do differently now that it has changed the label?  More natural wholesome tomatoes?  Somehow help farmers who are doing a better job growing and caring for tomatoes?  What about the poor gherkin farmers and producers who they are leaving behind.  And the people who prefer to have their ketchup made not grown, the people who are realistic about the fact that ketchup does not grow on trees?  And what about all the people who dedicate their lives to making the ketchup.  Is this a slight to them?

And to ministry.  What do we have to change when we start calling a ministry something else? Are we committed to changing the ministry and the lives it touches?  Or just what we call it?

Unmade beds a problem?

For years we battled the problem of the kid who wouldn't make up her bed:

1.  Keep the door closed.

2.  Make up your bed.

3.  Make up your bed or else.

4.  I mean it this time, make up your bed.

5.  I'll just do it.

An then out of the blue, the bed is made up everyday.  "She's making up her bed everyday", my wife tells me  "Why I ask." "Because", my wife says, "she loves her room."

Women it seems like to rearrange rooms.  Redecorate, redo.  Knock out a wall if possible.  My reaction usually is "Didn't you just redo the room?"

I've come to realize though, there are advantages to this room makeover thing.  By allowing our daughter a space that is hers she behaved better.  By participating with her in the planning, designing, thinking about, and implementing, we were able to let go of worrying about the bed getting made up.

I wonder what other areas of life would this this kind of approach be worthwhile?

A colleague mentioned that when he asked a group of middle high boys (notorious for not really participating in such activities) to talk about the person they were in 2008 and the person they would like to be in 2009, they were extremely interested in participating.

Maybe it has something to do with taking an interest in the interests of our children.

And what they would like to do about it.

Coffee and Communion

I was met with kindness and grace upon arriving late to my connection through coffee making session last Sunday.  I learned how to make coffee with the industrial Binford 2ooo coffee machine and where it all goes and how people talk to and connect with the "coffee man", and I learned about the dangers of saving a few cents by adding a few fresh grounds to the base of grounds from the last batch and running it again.  (High risk, reward- this can lead to the machine backing up and overflowing).  After a great time of visiting with and helping out my coffee making partner, I headed into 9:00 a.m. Worship.  I was supposed to help serve Communion, so I sought a seat up front.  Wouldn't you know it, there was my coffee making partner, so I sat next to him.  When the minister called for those helping with Communion to come forward: coincidence, my coffee making partner got up also, and we served Communion together.  For the second time that day.

I remember a quote I took to heart from Mother Teresa.  "As soon as we receive Jesus in Holy Communion, let us go in haste to give him to our sisters, to our poor, to the sick, to the dying, to the lepers, to the unwanted, and the unloved.  By this we make Jesus present in the world today."

Here's to Communion.  And to coffee.