M.C. Wright

Making Sense Of Social Media: The Rebirth of "Tribe"

Many people wonder what the big deal is about social media. Others wonder what social media is, while others are twittering, facebooking, myspacing, digging, youtubing, tumbler-ing, friendfeeding, kindle-ing, blogging....the list seems endless!

Social media played a powerful role in the last election, not only in votes, but in donations. Social media has, in many ways, changed the way we interact, reconnect with friends from ages past, and have interactions on some level with people who are continents away, as well as in the other room!

As I look at the fabric of social media, I see opportunities to create change by connecting with people of like mind and heart. Not only do you get to connect on a social level, but you are also able to connect "tribal-ly" whether you want to be in a "conservative or liberal tribe," a "vegan or a red-meat tribe," or even a "online or a board gamer tribe." The type and affinity of tribes is limitless, and the potentialities of what a tribe that is focused can do is amazing.

The ability to create and form tribes is the catalyst that can change the world, it has already changed the rules of almost everything we experience.

Seth Godin, an entrepreneur, writer and blogger, has written some fascinating books. From "Purple Cow, and the Big Moo" to his new book "Tribes." He is the creator of Squidoo, a web site where uses share links, ideas and so much more. Take a moment and watch this video of Seth giving a talk about "Tribes." In the video Seth argues that the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes. Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change. He urges us to do so.

Dei Gratia,
Monty

The You Tube Symphony @ Carnegie Hall

I saw this You Tube project last week on Facebook. When I found some time to actually engage in the presentation I was blown away. You Tube put out the call to all the budding musicians who upload their talent on a daily basis, to make an audition piece. The best players would be selected from the You Tube videos and brought together to perform live at Carnegie Hall.

The result is incredible. Since this is a You Tube project, the video quality is exceptional and they allowed the full concert length of about an hour to be seen as one file.

Get comfortable, turn up the sound, check out the visuals and enjoy some incredible talent.

Monty

Everything's Amazing and Nobody's happy

I am not sure who this guy is, but as I watched his interaction with Conan on the Conan O'brien show, I found myself laughing, nodding and agreeing on so many levels.

We are a blessed, fortunate, and privileged nation, and yet we are never satisfied. Sometimes it's good to get a voice that reminds us that we live in an amazing time...be grateful!

So...what do you think?

Dei Gratia,

Monty

I Love Jesus...But I Drink A Little!

Okay...this is just perhaps one of the funniest clips I have ever seen...Get ready to laugh out loud!

Seattle Nudity Ban...Oh My!

Okay, so I'm watching the news tonight and there is a segment dealing with the Nude Bike rallies through Capital Hill and Freemont, and the demonstrators lathering it up in the International Fountain, and hanging out (no pun intended) in parks around the city after the ride.

Apparently the Seattle Parks Department feels things have gotten out of hand, and are attempting to limit the nude expression and they have ran into some angry naked folks. The report noted that all the different nude events are legal, and that in fact the Seattle Police Department has sent letters out explaining their limitations legally in dealing with the nude demonstrations and behavior.

Now, I had assumed, wrongly I now know, that the nude bike riders were simply sneaking into other planned events or parades to make their point. Nope, they are planned and permitted events by the city itself. You can check out the King 5 News piece at:

http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_111308WAB_parks_nudity_KS.1ac93ea38.html

So, now it's gotten out of hand and they are wanting to ban nudity in public parks and on beaches. Well kudos for that, it's really not the healthiest societal plan to allow mass nudity next to our kid's swing set, but my question is, "Why would they even think that would actually benefit our community in the first place?"

The report noted that:

In Seattle it's illegal to flash someone but perfectly legal to run around nude.

"The bare facts of the law are that if you knowingly show yourself naked with the intent to alarm and offend people that's illegal, said Sergeant Sean Whitcom, of the Seattle Police Department. "Just being nude is not against the law."

It seems to me that most forms of public demonstration that are radically counter-cultural -do- intend to alarm and offend people's sensibilities, that's why they do it. This is no different.Now I realize that most of the Seattle participants will vehemently disagree with me, but I can't even imagine why it was ever allowed in the first place. It comes down to asking ourselves the questions about what behaviors most benefit the whole community, I just don't see how a bunch of naked people frolicking in the fountain at Seattle Center, riding their bikes through the city, or turning public beaches into nude beaches adds to who we are as a whole.

***NEWS FLASH*** as I am typing, King 5 news just said the city council delayed the vote on banning the nudity because not enough people were upset...

Man, what ever happened to civic leaders actually leading!

What do you think..

MC

Right Brain Left Brain Portal

Transport over to my after thoughts page to work on your right/left brain default!

www.mcwright.blogs.com/afterthoughts

Marketing or Life Change

I just finished reading a book called "The Starbucks Experience" Most people who breathe know the success story of Seattle-based Coffee Giant Starbucks. While Starbucks has had a great marketing plan and growth strategy, the thing in my estimation, that has made it a movement and not just a coffee house, is the experience inside the doors.

I know, I know, many of you feel that the Starbucks of today is radically different than the Starbucks of yesterday. The coffee is still good, there is still an experience, but it is not what it was right? Starbucks like any movement has deal with and figure out the transition from passion to movement...from movement to machine...from machine to monument...and then if there is any energy left, from monument back to movement if possible.

The church has to deal with that as well. People will come in and receive an experience that transforms them, changes them, gives them hope. Then more people come, and more people come, and soon the experience naturally undergoes change because the people quotient, or the people dynamic necessitates that it change to address the needs of more people.

Here is where most movements become churches, and get stuck in the monument mode.. They need to re-structure their original experiences to accommodate the changing culture as they grow-and generally something is lost. Many do transition well, while there is some loss, the gain is even better.

In the book "The Starbucks Experience" I think they nail what it takes to create the experience with the 5 principles of the book:

1. Make It Your Own: Stop trying to copy someone else. You can't deliver what they deliver and you probably don't want to...Be you.

2. Everything Matters: This is even more true for a church. From the parking lot to the nursery. From paint colors to music choice...this sets the tone of the experience for people. Will the small things hinder or help people encounter God.

3. Surprise and Delight: In otherwords, leave them wanting more. Most churches over-sell and under deliver. I would say under sell and over deliver...your experience will multiply!

4. Embrace Resistance: Listen to what people are saying. Listen to their struggles. Listen to their dreams. They might be different from yours, but they will give you insight into the Holy Discontent that surrounds the church today like L.A smog. Consider how you can address and change that mind-set through your experience. Empower people to make a difference without a ton of red tape!

5. Leave Your Mark: Never let your church be an end in and of itself. The church exists with a prime directive to change the community and culture through grace, truth, mercy and love. Give back with no expectations and no agenda other than love.

Those are great experience makers...the next question is how do you sustain it over the long haul. Day in and day out. I remember when I was in Disneyland last summer  with my daughter Emma. We were standing in line (surprise, surprise!) and  I was listening to some of the Cast Members talk. In years past, the dialog between Cast members that I heard was always positive and upbeat, but on this day, it seemed that most every cast member was not exuding that Disney sparkle, rather they were tired and angry workers who couldn't wait to get off shift or be somewhere else.

What once was an experience where customers and Cast Members were all transported to a different world, had become an amusement park that was cool, but had lost the Magic. Disney knows how to create magic and ethos...but now how do they sustain the movement without the nuances of everyday life creeping into the attitudes of the cast members?

In otherwords, what I am trying to say here is that every member of a church is critical to creating the experience . Just as a disgruntled Disney Cast Member can crush the mood of a wide-eyed customer...a disgruntled church member can run off people coming to experience God like a plague of locusts!

The church has the opportunity to create an experience that is more important than coffee and extreme rides...we create the experience that produces life change, transformation, eternal destination differences!

So...here ya go...how do we sustain a life transformational experience? What do you think we need to do. What creates and keeps the magic? Does it matter to you?

It matters to me because people matter to God.

Illuminate Deo,
Monty

Tag You're It!

I shared this anonymous letter on Sunday and have had some requests for it...so tag you're it!  MC

***************

To whom it may concern,

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult, I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8 year old again. I want to go to MacDonald's and think that it's a four star restaurant. I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make ripples with rocks. I want to think M&Ms are better than money because you can eat them. I want to play dodgeball at recess and paint with watercolors in rt. I want to lie under a big oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summers day.

I want to return to a time when life was simple. When all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, but that didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't care. All you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset.

I want to think the world is fair. That everyone is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible. Somewhere in our youth, we matured and learned too much. There are nuclear weapons, war, prejudice, and abused children. Lies, unhappy marriages, illness, pain, and death. A world where companies poison our water and our soil, and children kill. What happened to the time when we thought that everyone would live forever, because we didn't grasp the concept of death? When the worst thing in the world was if someone took the jump rope from you or picked you last for kickball. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again. I want to return to the days when children played hide-n-seek outside instead of being glued to a television, when video games were as harmless as Pac Man...instead of spine-ripping blood-splattering mind numbers like Mortal Combat, and TV still had some shows on that weren't about sex, killing, and lies.

I remember being naive and thinking everyone was happy because I was. Afternoons were spent climbing trees and fences and riding my bike. I never worried about time, bills, or where I was going to find the money to fix my car. I used to wonder what I was going to do or be when I grew up, not worry about what I'll do if this doesn't work out. I want to live simple again.

I don't want my days to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, and loss of loved ones. I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow.

So...here's my checkbook and my car-keys, my credit card bills and my 401K statements. I am officially resigning from adulthood.  And if you want to discuss this further, you'll have to catch me..."Tag!! you're it!"

*(this was submitted to the Good Clean Funnies List by Robert Jentzsch)

Signs of the Times?

Have you noticed that whenever tragedy strikes in the world, there seems to be no short supply of Christian leaders who step up to the podium of the media and espouse a doctrine of divine retribution? In the last few years we have heard remarks made about 911 being God's judgment on America for condoning abortion...the Tsunami in India as God's judgment on them for their idolatry and false religious system...Hurricane Katrina as God's judgment against the U.S for accepting homosexuals...and the list goes on.

Anytime anything bad happens, there seems to be this auto response that shouts,"Daddy isn't happy!" Now seriously, catastrophic events are happening around the world daily...are we to assume every natural disaster, or any time a particular political party's candidate does not gain office, is God's wrath?

Well it could be, but I doubt it. We seem to have forgotten that we live in a world that is affected by sin, a fallen world, and that is the reason God sent His Son Jesus into the world...in order to save it, not condemn it. If we believe in the truth of original sin, then why are we so perplexed at the result of it in our world?

Are we afraid to stand up for God because He didn't intervene...so, instead, we feel the need to help His P.R department out and do some spiritual spin so that He looks good, and humanity looks bad? Do we really believe that God sits in the heavens daily and casts thunderbolts of pain upon the very ones He created, loved, and experienced the loss of His Son so that there could be reconciliation?

Ya know, if that is true, then we need to also logically look at the converse. If everything bad that happens is a result of God's wrath...then is everything good a result of people doing the right thing? So when we experience blessing as a country, God is happy with us. That's a good feeling eh. And there is some truth to that  as well. God does bless when we obey, and we do experience His correction when we miss the mark. But then we have the problem that God is both happy and mad at the same time. So one minute it's thunder and lighting, and the next rain upon dry farmland!

Since many people grew up in a house that acted much like that, it is pretty easy to project our experience of imperfect parenting upon God. The problem is that God is not like our parents...He is perfect, just, fair, merciful, truthful. We simply do not have the available brain power to conceive of His perfections, so very often we create Him in our own image, or at least in our own experience.

 

Now Seattle has a reputation among the spiritual to be the darkest city in the U.S. So then, in light of this particular theology, since the Seahawks are going to the Superbowl, that must mean that we are holiest city now right? Hmm...I think life is deeper than whimsical judgments based upon natural disasters that happen because we live in a fallen world.

Part of God's plan of redemption actually goes beyond human salvation, and extends to the entire universe. The Bible tells us that sin has affected the whole of creation, and that creation is moaning, as with birth pangs, as it waits for the full experience of Christ's sacrifice upon the cross.

So is God's wrath the answer to every world catastrophe? I don't know...but hey, the Seahawks are going to the Superbowl!

It's time to let God be God. It's Okay to live in the mystery of pain and uncertainty. It's time to stop trying to find someone to blame, and rather, offer the compassionate hand of Jesus to all who experience pain and loss as a result of these tragic events whether they are God ordained or natural in causation.

As long as our energy is spent on finding blame...we will not have the time or the energy to be the physical representation of Jesus upon the earth...His hands and His feet.

Does God author disasters and allow certain events to unfold...yes...Even Jesus made mention of a tragic event in one of His discourses. He talked about the tower of Siloam, and how it fell and killed some innocent people (Luke 13:1-5). Jesus point in the story was that those who experienced a tragic death were no worse sinners than anyone else...the reality is that anyone who doesn't turn to God will face death in one way or another...therefore get right with God.

What blows me away is what happens when God's people act like God's people when disaster strikes...instead of wrath and judgment, you see the outflow of grace and truth, and whenever truth is offered in the spirit of grace, powerful things happen!

The prayer that Jesus taught His disciples to pray says, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

That means that God's perfect will is not happening on the earth right now. Jesus' sacrifice assures that it will one day be happening on earth, but until He returns He has left us to be His voice and love and missional agents pushing back the darkness.

My desire? To be a light-bearer, not a candle snuffer, and to live in the tension of Mystery, for that is where God dwells.

Illuminate Deo
MC

God In The Doorway

Annie Dillard is one on my favorite writers. As a Christmas meditation read through her short piece God In The Doorway...I hope it resonates and causes some meditation in your heart this Christmas season. God has come near to every heart, and Christmas has the potentiality of removing so many veils that shroud our souls...May the Christ of Christmas grace your doorway today!

Illuminate Deo, Monty

God In The Doorway

One cold Christmas Eve I was up unnaturally late because we had all gone out to dinner-my parents, my baby sister, and I. We had come home to a warm living room, and Christmas Eve. Our stockings drooped from the mantle; beside them, a special table bore a bottle of ginger ale and a plate of cookies.

I had taken off my fancy winter coat and was standing on the heat register to bake my shoe soles and warm my bare legs. There was a commotion at the front door; it opened, and cold winter blew around my dress.

Everyone was calling me. “Look who’s here! Look who’s here!” I looked. It was Santa Claus. Whom I never-ever-wanted to meet. Santa Claus was looming in the doorway and looking around for me. My mother’s voice was thrilled: “Look who’s here!” I ran upstairs.

Like everyone in his right mind, I feared Santa Claus, thinking he was God. I was still thoughtless and brute, reactive. I knew right from wrong, but had barely tested the possibility of shaping my own behavior, and then only from fear, and not yet from love. Santa Claus was an old man whom you never saw, but who nevertheless saw you; he knew when you’d been bad or good. He knew when you’d been bad or good! And I had been bad.

My mother called and called, enthusiastic, pleading; I wouldn’t come down. My father encouraged me; my sister howled. I wouldn’t come down, but I could bend over the stairwell and see: Santa Claus stood in the doorway with night over his shoulder, letting in all the cold air of the sky; Santa Claus stood in the doorway monstrous and bright, powerless, ringing a loud bell and repeating Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. I never came down. I don’t know who ate the cookies.

For so many years now I have known that this Santa Claus was actually a rigged-up Miss White, who lived across the street, that I confuse the dramatis personae in my mind, making Santa Claus, God, and Miss White an awesome, vulnerable trinity. This is really a story about Miss White.

Miss White was old; she lived alone in the big house across the street. She liked having me around; she plied me with cookies, taught me things about the world, and tried to interest me in finger painting, in which she herself took great pleasure. She would set up easels in her kitchen, tack enormous slick soaking papers to their frames, and paint undulating undersea scenes: horizontal smears of color sparked by occasional vertical streaks which were understood to be fixed kelp. I liked her. She meant no harm on earth, and yet half a year after her failed visit as Santa Claus, I ran from her again.

That day, a day of the following summer, Miss White and I knelt in her yard while she showed me a magnifying glass. It was a large, strong hand lens. She lifted my hand and, holding it very still, focused a dab of sunshine on my palm. The glowing crescent wobbled, spread, and finally contracted to a point. It burned; I was burned; I ripped my hand away and ran home crying. Miss White called after me, sorry, explaining, but I didn’t look back.

Even now I wonder: if I meet God, will he take and hold my bare hand in his, and focus his eye on my palm, and kindle that spot and let me burn?

But no. It is I who misunderstood everything and let everybody down. Miss White, God, I am sorry I ran from you. I am still running, running from that knowledge, that eye, that love from which there is no refuge. For you meant only love, and love, and I felt only fear, and pain. So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.

*Taken from…”Teaching a Stone to Talk, by Annie Dillard