Marketing

My church is doing a sermon series on money called “ChaChing“.

One of the topics that was brought up is about marketing.  How marketers spend lots of time and money studying people.  This is all done to figure out how to tempt consumers into spending their money to buy their products.  This was not said but I got the feeling during the sermon that the marketers are money hungry blood suckers.  Maybe I got this feeling because I have always felt that way.  The way apple does business was even mentioned.  Apple is all about the experience.  One of the reasons I choose not to use apple.  Even though I would love to have a desktop running OSX.

With all of this being said my thoughts were directed towards the church.  Church’s do all kinds of marketing to get people in their doors.  Does that make a church with an advertising/marketing campaign money hungry blood suckers?  Maybe some of them it does.  Others I would say no.  I know the church I go to is not like this at all.  The reason to get people inside of their doors is to save peoples lives by telling them about the message of Jesus Christ dying on the cross for them.  They don’t even want your offering/tithe if you are a visitor.  They want the service to be a gift to you.  How cool is that!

All I’m trying to say is check the motives of the marketing/ad campaign you choose to listen to.  False teachings and temptations are everywhere.

Look at how many google hits there are for marketing.

Wedding Party

I was reading Matthew last night and I came across this parable in Matthew 22.

Matthew 22

The Story of the Wedding Banquet

1-3 Jesus responded by telling still more stories. “God’s kingdom,” he said, “is like a king who threw a wedding banquet for his son. He sent out servants to call in all the invited guests. And they wouldn’t come!

4“He sent out another round of servants, instructing them to tell the guests, ‘Look, everything is on the table, the prime rib is ready for carving. Come to the feast!’

5-7“They only shrugged their shoulders and went off, one to weed his garden, another to work in his shop. The rest, with nothing better to do, beat up on the messengers and then killed them. The king was outraged and sent his soldiers to destroy those thugs and level their city.

8-10“Then he told his servants, ‘We have a wedding banquet all prepared but no guests. The ones I invited weren’t up to it. Go out into the busiest intersections in town and invite anyone you find to the banquet.’ The servants went out on the streets and rounded up everyone they laid eyes on, good and bad, regardless. And so the banquet was on—every place filled.

11-13“When the king entered and looked over the scene, he spotted a man who wasn’t properly dressed. He said to him, ‘Friend, how dare you come in here looking like that!’ The man was speechless. Then the king told his servants, ‘Get him out of here—fast. Tie him up and ship him to hell. And make sure he doesn’t get back in.’

14“That’s what I mean when I say, ‘Many get invited; only a few make it.’”

Wow wouldn’t that suck to show up in heaven and God comes along and say’s who are you?  What are you doing here?  Then motions for his servants to tie you up and send you to Hell.  Not good.

102 Fever

A friend of mine over at worship journey did a blog post and mentioned 102 fever and he said he got a lot of hits from it.  I was wondering what would happen if I did a post on 102 fever.  Just messing around. 

Four Things I Have Noticed About Teenagers and Christians

As my kids are growing up I have started seeing a trend develop. This is the same trend I went through when I was a young fella. You can probably ask any parent about their kids teenage years and they will agree. Ironically this is the same trend I see in a lot of Christians. This is by no means a complete list but it hits a few of the top items.

1. Ungrateful for all the things a parent does to make their lives better. They take for granted the small things like having a meal on the table everyday. A little praise and acknowledgment to a parent from a child would go a long way in your relationship with each other. Parents will provide for their children without praise but to hear it from their kids is very pleasing to them.
2. Ignore their parents when in public around their friends. As soon as they are around their peers parents are supposed to disappear. Don’t be ashamed of your parents. They are there to support you in everything you do.
3. Only come to their parents in a time of need. Parents will be there for their children for the little things and the big things. As children you don’t have to come to your parents only when the need is great. Parents love to be there for you no matter what.
4. They think they know everything. Your parents have a greater understanding and are wiser than you. Take a moment and listen to them and you to will gain wisdom.

So if your a teenager remember your parents love you very much and wouldn’t do anything to harm you. If your a Christian don’t forget about God he loves you very much. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Gasification Plant

Here is an article about a the approval of a new power plant. It will daily convert 400 metric tons of trash to 21 megawatts of net electricity. The plant will be able to power about 19,000 homes.

The plant, proposed by PlascoEnergy Group, will use gasification (rather than more commonly used incineration) to generate electricity, and they’re hoping they can use a cooler gasification process to lower the cost to a competitive price. The plant will utilize plasma-torch technology to break down trash into syngas – a mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide – which can be burned in turbines and engines to create electricity.

Check out the full article here Ottawa Building North America’s First Gasification Facility. I love to hear about these kinds of alternative energy solutions.

Tags: alternative energy, gasification

Camp Cornerstone

Vacation Bible school is going on at cornerstone this week in the evenings. I just wanted to say how much fun it is to worship with the kids at the end of the night. They are screaming and singing louder than the band that is playing through amplifiers. It is awesome to see so much excitement while singing to the Lord. Looking forward to being there tonight also.

“la la la la la ley”

“la la la la la ley”

“la la la la la ley”

“la la la la la ley”

“la la la la la ley”

Netvibes

I have been looking for a place to consolidate all of my online activity.  Places such as facebook, twitter, pownce, plurk, bookmarks, and e-mail.  I wanted to be able to get to all of these things from one location no matter what computer I was on.  It had to be a web based application.  I ran across a really cool application called netvibes.com.  I have been using it for a couple of weeks so far and I really like it.  Here is a screen shot of my personal netvibes page.

I’m able to keep track of all of my online accounts in one location no matter where I go.  Each application is added to my page in widget form and it updates automatically for you.  I just log into my netvibes page and it’s all there.  Very cool stuff.  Netvibes also has the ability for a user to create a public page others can look at see what your currently looking at around the internet or as a place to get communicate with that person.  Go here to see my netvibes external site. If you happen to setup up a page let me know so I can link to it.