Outside the Box

I don’t know how many people are aware of the 100 ton challenge presented by UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief).  They are trying to get churches to serve free trade coffee on Sunday morning, and take the opportunity to share the difference that choice has in the lives of farmers across the world.  There is a story behind the coffee and the story is of one making a difference in the world by picking a brand of coffee.  You can even buy and sell the coffee on Sunday mornings in a display.

Coffee in churches is all the rage, but this is a perfect union of intigrating a culturally relevant product with the love of people.  Please think about ordering their products.  If you are going to spend money on coffee, why not give the money to those in need instead of Starbucks.

I recently did a duet in the middle of a sermon at Arapaho UMC in Richardson.  It is the first time that I have ever heard myself recorded.  Check it out.

If you’re out there, by John Legend with sermon by Rev. Chris Dowd.  If You\’re Out There

I went on a litle road trip this weekend to visit some churches in Houston.  After singing at a wedding on Saturday evening, I decided to drive to Houston to visit a few churches for Sunday morning.  The line up included Faithbridge UMC, the Loft at the Woodlands UMC, and Ecclesia.  I spent the night in my car across the street from Faithbridge.  It was quite an adventure.  I thought I would sum up my thoughts:

Faithbridge UMC – I tried the Traditions Service, to see what a traditional service started from a contemporary background looked like.  I was hoping they were doing something unique, but it wasn’t that spectacular.  The preaching of course was wonderful.   The LIVE service next was everything I expected with great music and great preaching.

The Loft at the Woodlands – Wow!  The media at the Loft is something amazing!  The music was from a guest band called The Autumn Film with some great music from their new album Hymns, Page CXVI.

Ecclesia – Their converted old church facility throws every notion of what a growing church should look like off.  The Autumn Film followed me from the Loft to play the 5:30 worship service.  I love their bookstore and coffee shop.  I could have bought every book.  Their gallery was showcasing modern art depicting the 12 stages of the cross.  What a venue for the creative, artsy types such as me.

As one of my friends stated “Ecclesia is very grungy.”  I would agree that it is grungy, but not in a bad way.  The people are much more ecclectic, but overall a young congregation.  In an attempt to describe my experience through architecture, you got the sense that they spent money to make it nice, but not polished.  The grunge effect says something about the church’s philosophy about spending their resources on mission.  What a powerful statement in a world of million dollar mega-churches.

It has been quite a while since I updated on this blog.  It was in December, right before Christmas, that I learned that the architecture firm, specializing in church design, I was working for was laying me off.  It got me thinking about the health of architecture firms that specialize in church design.

While in college, I really wanted to specialize in designing and helping churches.  I have found two inherent problems with that mentallity.  First, firms that only specialize in church design, are hit hard when there is an economic down turn.  Church giving is directly affected by the economy as well as dreams for church building projects.  Second, and the one I am dealing with the most now, is that I find it hard to help influence churches as an architectural intern.  It breaks my heart to go for an interview and not receive the project.  I get so emotionally attached to every project and want to help them with a building that is unique to their ministry.  Unfortunately, churches see architecture firms as a a business, and not a ministry to help them.  Also, churches are the client and they might not see the vision for there church that I do.  I am praying about somehow helping churches before they get to the architecture phase.  An influence on their big plans, expand their dreams, broaden their horizons, enrich their influence and congregational dynamic.  I hate having bigger dreams for a church than they see for themselves.  Maybe that is why architects always design buildings over budget.

Please pray for me and how God can use me in the future.  It is hard to dream when no options are available.

I read a wonderful blog this morning, the Wesley Report, about churches who don’t use the Methodist name in their marketing.  I have to admit this blog was both fascinating and convicting.  The analogy given was between the Cola giants and the Protestant Denomination giants.  The Southern Baptist being Coca Cola (no. 1) and the United Methodist (no. 2) being Pepsi.  The idea of sub-branding is beautiful.  Multi-site churches already use brand familiarity to sub-brand a new congregation, but suppose the Methodist church saw how wonderful Granger Community Church was doing and started sub-branding more campuses across the country to attract young people.  Perhaps we could go from accidental sub-branding to intentionally using it to target a distinct audience.  Just like how most teenagers would buy a Mountain Due, but probably could care less about Pepsi.  Intentional sub-branding.  Yeah….

It has been an extremely long process to help my parents and members of St. Paul UMC in Bridge City to recover from Hurricane Ike.  I heard someone say the other day that people are only interested in your problems for about two weeks before they forget about you and move on to something else.  It has been several months now since Ike hit and my parents are still living without walls, without a floor, without a kitchen.  It is an extremely slow process and it is now that the spirits of the victims need the most encouragement and hope.  I was pleased to read an article from a first time volunteer who took their time to help these victims and found there is still much to be done three months later. Thanks to all those who continue to travel to this community and support them with your prayers.