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Sunday November 14, 2004
Posted by Ed and Lois
Manna Meets @ 10:42 AM at the Park Theatre
248 South River Avenue
Holland, Mi 49423-3201
Study: Want Community? Go Online
Posted by Mike Boyink
Nearly 40 percent of Americans say they participate in online communities, with sites around hobbies, shared personal interests, and health-related issues among the most popular. That’s according to a survey conducted by ACNielsen and commissioned by eBay.
Church Membership Cards
Posted by Mike Boyink
The most important component of this concept is that you’re gathering demographic information from the people who makeup your church. The pastor I met with actually has his congregation fill out a form EVERY week that asks all the demographic questions. He bases his questions around the same info that the city his church is in uses to measure the demographics of the city/county. This way he can make sure his church lines up with the city they are serving. Hello!
The church I grew up in used to pass those “membership tablets” every week. To me it always seemed like a silly waste of time, off-putting to visitors, and these days the fewer organizations collecting valuable “demographic data” about me the better.
How about you - would you be willing to swipe a “membership card” every week to help the church figure it’s place in the world out, or would it seem overly intrusive? Does it try to limit God’s ability to send just the right people, at just the right time?
TallSkinnyKiwi: Is God up to something in USA?
Posted by Mike Boyink
Is there a pattern here? According to the newspapers, THE CHURCH in USA put the person they chose into office last week. Earlier this year, THE CHURCH in USA turned a movie called The Passion from a predicted failure into an outrageous success. The year before, THE CHURCH in USA emerged as an economic entity in making Contempory Christian Music one of the stronger performers in sales of records. Political strength. Cultural strength. Economic strength. Regardless of whether you agree with the actual decisions made (most of you in blogdom DO NOT), we have to ask the question, “Is the American church being trained for something?” and “Is God up to something?”
Interesting post from the Tall guy…and a challenge to me personally to not give up on the “tradional church”.
‘Tomorrow’s Technology’ is true to Polar Express
Posted by Ed and Lois
By Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today)
The book, which has sold more than 5 million copies and is No. 18 on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list, tells the simple story of a boy who, wavering in his belief in Santa Claus, takes a mysterious train to the North Pole. The film adds characters and subplots; as Van Allsburg says, “If they had done a page-by-page retelling, the movie would last 12 minutes.”
In Polar Express, Van Allsburg says, Zemeckis, Hanks and screenwriter Bill Broyles Jr. have been “reasonably faithful” to the spirit of the book and “the possibilities of belief in a world that often doubts beliefs.” Usually, he says, Hollywood asks: “How do we keep some hyperactive 9-year-old in his seat for 90 minutes?”
At his home in Providence, Van Allsburg, 55, says, “There’s a paradoxical quality to the film being the beneficiary of absolutely cutting-edge technology while telling a story that’s quite different from most contemporary movies for kids.” He says the movie is “an earnest, old-fashioned story told with tomorrow’s technology