Think you understand the order in which scripts will fire in your HTML page? Here’s a quick little test to grade yourself:
Take a look at the highlighted lines below, and answer the question “in what order will these fire?”. Then copy & paste this code into a blank .html file and open it to see if you are right.
Hint: one of them doesn’t fire. Which one? Why doesn’t it fire?
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>JavaScript execution quiz</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
alert('inside the <head> tag!')
$(function() {
alert('jQuery.onReady"');
});
</script>
</head>
<body onload="alert('body.onload')">
<script type="text/javascript">
alert('in the <body>');
window.onload = function() {
alert('window.onload');
}
</script>
</body>
</html>
There’s a whole lot of information & opinions out there about what pastors should make. Which means there’s a whole lot of bad information out there. So allow me to add to the noise here…
For starters, paying the pastor is good. ”The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.”
(I read not a few comments of folks who look at Paul’s example in context, denying his right to take a salary, and decide therefore that pastors should work for free, or cheap. This is dumb. It is the minister’s discretion to return some or all of his salary. If he does, it’s a love offering; if you make him by withholding wages, it’s a tax).
So how much should pastors make?
Money is a wonderful tool for observing how much you value something. You always value what you pay through the nose for. In the business world, clients who spring for high-end vendors tend to be less of a headache to those vendors. Why? Because they are paying them to be the experts, resulting in respecting them as the experts. They treat them as a partner, not an employee. So if the church values the pastor, they should pay them a valuable wage. The pastor should feel valued. The pastor should look at his paycheck and think “wow, they must really value me!”
Here’s the truth: a pastor would work for free. Those who are called to preach are overjoyed to do so (most of the time). The world is full of successful businessmen who are starting new businesses, not for the money, but for love of the game. Similarly, the church is full of people who volunteer out of love for others and appreciation of the Gospel, and never see a nickel, including those who preach & teach long before they’re ever paid to do so.
The reason we pay pastors is to make it easier for them to work for free (get it?).
I still haven’t answered the question I set out to answer.
- Granted that your pastor and his wife are responsible with money, pay them enough of it so that they don’t have to worry about it. Practically speaking, I would comp up an above-average standard of living in their community, and then pay them more than that, so that if all their bills we’re auto-drafted, they’d never overdraw, and their savings would build over time.
- When in doubt, err on the side of paying your pastor too much, rather than too little. Good companies pay their employees above market value. Show the love.
- If tomorrow, the Rick Warrens and the John Pipers of the world find 100M extra in their accounts…nothing changes (other than the task of appointing stewards of their new wealth, and getting back to the joy of working for the church). These two guys have tons of money, and it has only served to free them up to serve Christ with all they have and be extra generous.
I work with a lot of creative guys, and we’re always coming up with product ideas (usually websites & mobile apps). Good ones. Even great ones.
But I’m training myself not to care, unless I first get an answer to “but how will you market it?” This is the hard question.
The magic of Craigslist, eBay, Pinterest, Twitter, etc., is not in the sauce (the product itself). But how did they get millions of people to taste their sauce?
“Hey Stephen, I’ve got a great idea for an app that does—”
“But how will you market it?”
“Don’t you want to hear my idea first?”
“No.”
When I was an arranging major in college, my prof (Paris Rutherford) gave me some great advice that spans all art. He suspected that I was attempting to write an opus, a masterpiece, a piece to be remembered and admired (and he was right). But my work was clunky, and more weird than anything. ”Stephen”, he began, “you don’t get good by writing a good chart (a jazz piece). You get good by writing charts.” Plural.
His point: you get good by repetition, not by a single best effort. You get good by crossing the finish line (and crossing it again and again and again), not by trying to run a marathon.
Wanna start a blog? Great. Aim for short, frequent posts. Don’t try to write well, just try to write often.
Wanna be a good cook? Don’t try making gumbo. Start with PB&J, then grilled cheese, then a hundred other things, then gumbo.
Wanna become a developer? Start with “Hello World” and ship it. Show your friends. Like this: (“Hey, look at my awesome iPhone app!”)
This morning I revisited a tradition from my youth; studying the box of cereal while eating said cereal. As a kid, I remember this being fun. As an adult, I am grossed out with the marketing.
A TV & an xBox? So far so good. I’m interested, so I turn the box over:
Now it’s suddenly “some of” the hottest toys. I’m growing suspect of their offer. It gets worse:
Actual prizes may vary?!? ”We showed you a picture of an xBox, but you actually won…a vacuum cleaner.”
Odds of winning: zero.
It was all a lie. Thanks, Kellogs. I’m done with my cereal now.
There is a half-joke out there that the best definition for a leader is found in Webster’s dictionary.
lead·er (noun \ˈlē-dər\): one who leads
And it’s true: To appoint a leader, find the guy (or gal) who is influential and respected, and give him a leadership role. In other words, identify the leader, and just start calling them “leader”.
To appoint a church elder, find a man who already meets the qualifications of an elder, and give him the role. You should find that very little changes, for he was already an elder of sorts. (Just be careful not to now “meeting” him to death!)
If you feel called into missions as a “goer” (or you think you might be), ask yourself, “Am I a ‘missionary’ here at home? Am I burdened for the lost in my neighborhood? Am I a prayer warrior? Am I an opportunistic evangelist? Do I have a handle on the Scriptures, armed to give an account for the hope within me?” If not, then don’t expect to become these things magically after you move. Like a leader and an elder, a missionary is already a missionary before getting the title. Or to put it simply…
mis·sion·ary (noun \ˈmi-shə-ˌner-ē\): A mature Christian who moves
The call to missions begins with the cross. Because of Jesus’ love for me, I want to tell others, that they might share in it.
So I went to Thailand (I just got back). While there, I came face to face with human trafficking. For four days I spent most of the day in poor villages where girls are trafficked away (either voluntarily or forcibly) from their families for financial gain. I saw the store fronts where those girls live & work. I saw transactions take place.
Reflecting on this heinousness, I saw the need for workers to rescue & rehabilitate these girls. To provide a means of escape to those trapped by the industry (there are those who are fighting this battle).
But rescue is not enough; the girls need a paradigm shift. To be taught that their lives are more valuable than that, that their bodies are sacred, and to be given purpose. These are fruits of the gospel, so we’re back at the cross.
I saw the need to decrease supply of trafficked girls. That if policies and enforcement would rise to a certain level, trafficking would decrease (there are those who are fighting this battle). But…
Supply exists because demand exists. The root of the problem is that creepy men want to buy girls. The marketplace exists in Thailand because it exists in the heart of evil men. So in order to fully solve the problem, these men need a conversion. They need a change of heart. We’re back at the cross again.
You’re probably heard several definitions of money. A common one is “money is a measure of value”. This is true, but it misses a big point: money doesn’t just measure something’s value; it measures your value of that something. That’s where charging for something comes in really handy: it exposes other people’s true motives.
For instance, I charge my church a tiny fee to host sermon files. Since my servers are already being paid for by other clients’ hosting fees, you might ask “why do you charge your church, when it doesn’t cost you anything?” The answer is: I want to make sure they want it. If they don’t want it, don’t waste my time.
I’ve learned to scrutinize when folks say they want something. They might be lying (to themselves first, and you second), and when you charge for something, it exposes the discrepancy. There are lots of people swearing they’ll buy the iPhone 5 when it comes out, and not all of them will.
- “I really really want X. It’s for a good cause. It’s a big part of what we’re doing. It’ll really help. We need this! You’re the guy for the job” (the lie)
- “I’m happy to help. I’ll charge $x for it” (the lie detector)
- “Nevermind”
- “Then you don’t really want it, do you?”
- “Hey look, a butterfly!”
Another thing: the church will automatically review my recurring charge every budget season. That means I don’t have to. By nature, the people being charged are accountable for the project.
A while back, Seth G. wrote a similar post worth checking out.
Have you ever had a glass of cheap wine? And I mean nasty stuff? How can that stuff even exist? ”Well, simple, there’s a market for it.” Very true: if you want to rid the world of cheap wine, you don’t go to Boones Farm and ask them to shut down their operation, because another will just pop up in its place. Rather, go to the indiscriminate public and convince them that they’re better off not ingesting that gross flavored apple wine product, because there are better, more enjoyable, and healthier alternatives out there.
If no one eats at McDonalds, McDonalds will either rebrand or shut down.
If the world upgrades from Folgers to Starbucks (and Starbucks is not the best), such that the demand for bad coffee diminishes below profitability for Keurig, Inc., they’ll start selling truly gourmet coffee. And the world will be a better place.
Praise and worship music is 99% bad wine — often intolerable by those of us who savor the good stuff. But I’ve come to see a fundamental shift in my gripe with the Christian music scene: my complaint is not first & foremost with the artists. Like bad wine shops, they’re creating something because the market asks for it. My frustration is that there’s so much bad wine out there, that it’s simply called “wine” now. If you say to me “praise & worship songs”, I hear “bad music about God”. Unfortunate 
I hope that the musical palette of the church becomes more sophisticated.
P.S. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that crappy music can’t lead you to worship. For many, it can (and does) solicit real, God-honoring worship. But I might throw out that better music & better lyrics leads to better worship.
