Back to Church topics – long gap – apologies – I didn’t say 60 CONSECUTIVE days :-).

I was reading an article a friend sent me about a super-hip new wave online t-shirt company called threadless. It was sent to me in the context of “the missional church could learn a lot from these guys.” And I agreed – both on the positive and the negative. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up (thank you Mandy Pantnkin):

Threadless comes up with new t-shirt art by holding online design contests that their community votes on. The winning designs get printed, the designer gains strett cred and web immortality, and the shirts sell out because the consumers of the product are directly involved in creating the product. Super-cool and a great online community they have developed over there.

WARNING: Feeling fairly philosophical – this may get a bit prose-y  :-).

My twin daughters are just past 2 years old. They have another sister or maybe a brother joining them next year. And I’ve been thinking about what I will tell them.

About what? About everything. About life and death and pain and joy and hope and despair and the meaning of it all. Life comes comes at you pretty fast (thank your Ferris Bueller). It’s easy in the middle of being a husband and an employee and a father and a son and a citizen and another face on the planet to forget that we are written into the great Story of time. And it can’t be told without us.

...there are many variations on the theme, but they are all similar to the plea "invite Jesus into your life" or "make Jesus the Lord of your life." There are even clever diagrams we are taught to draw, showing Jesus on the throne of your life as opposed to you being on the throne of your life and how bad that is and if Jesus is your co-pilot, you should switch seats" (thank you bumper sticker and church sign dudes).

American Dream, Church Edition
We all know the institutional Christian church in America, in every major form, denomination, faction, etc. is statistically plateaued or declining in raw number of attenders. This a national statistic with certain regional / stylistic expceptions, but is most directly felt in places like the greater Seattle area (wherest I bloggeth from). If you need the stats to know this for sure or disagree with that basic assertion, this blog will frustrate and anger you. Stop reading now – for your own sake. We just don’t have time to prove to you that the fleet is sinking. It is. If your particular boat is doing a little better – or a lot better – be happy and enjoy it.