• Write a review of my pre-release copy of Switch by Chip and Dan Heath.
• Finish reading The Me I Want to Be by John Ortberg.
• Write a review of The Me I Want to Be by John Ortberg. (Edited 2/12 to show completion.)
• Read Tithing from the Thomas Nelson BookSneeze program. I read this whole book yesterday, Saturday.
• Write a review of Tithing for BookSneeze. (Edited on 2/8 to show completion.)
  
• Read Linchpin by Seth Godin. (I did buy this one for my Kindle so I can start soon. Edited 2/12: I’m in the middle of this book now.  Wow!)
• Write a review of Linchpin.
• Update the template on my blog. (Take a look if you’re reading this through a feed reader or email.  I’m almost done.  See next item…)
• Add custom header image that Josh is creating for me.

Not bad for having a 100 degree fever.

“Challenging 30 years of ever more bloated software tradition, the changes here are about becoming a more effective middleware between the media and the hardware, reducing friction while becoming more useful by, well, being lighter, less visible.”  From Qizmodo

Tony challenges us in his reaction to the quote to consider our ministries and programming in the church.  Are we asking our people to do things that are slowing their progress to the end goal of spiritual maturity?  Are we bombarding them with too many messages that the main message is getting lost?

How does this relate to communications?  How can our publications and website add to experiences or hinder experiences?  If I create a worship guide that has 1,000 of little inserts that fall all over the place during worship or while Pastor Rob is preaching, is that a help or a hindrance?  If I try to cram a line about every possible opportunity or ministry into the bulletin, is a guest going to be overwhelmed by all the info and choices?  If I try to highlight everything on the main page of our website, will a member pay attention to anything we’re trying to say?

To reference Kem Meyer’s mantra, it’s all about “Less clutter. Less noise.”  It’s not about all of our “church” programming.  It’s about Jesus.  If the church is hindering people from really knowing Jesus and making him known, then, well, we’re wasting our time.

This past weekend we were in Hebrew 2:16-18.  There we saw that Jesus’ purpose in becoming human was to identify with us.  He experience all emotions and temptation.  Not that I didn’t say sin.  Temptation is not sin.  What we do with temptation can turn into sin.  Jesus knows our pain, feelings of betrayal, loss, death and more.  He had to be made like us to be a merciful high priest, a mediator between God and us.

Jesus is able to empathize with us, not just sympathize, because he’s been through everything we have.  We need help through our temptations and he knows the best way through every one.