This week an article in the Wall Street Journal made the rounds on the internet, and I resonated with it.  It mostly talks about how churches are trying to attract a younger crowd by being cooler in various ways.

His argument, and the part of the article that resonated with me, is that the more similar the church tries to make itself to the culture, the less it really has to offer people my age.  They can go to cooler concerts, hear more provocative speakers, and hang out in nicer buildings in places other than church.  By trying to imitate the culture, the church is kind of shooting itself in the foot by de-emphasizing the thing that makes it great, which is what it has to offer that the culture doesn’t.

Well, the next day I came across a blog post which took issue with the Wall Street Journal article.  It said that everything we experience we experience through the lens of culture and we can’t really escape it.  There’s no sense in clinging to outdated cultural trends, because even though they’re older, it doesn’t make them any better than current cultural trends.  I’ve got to say, that made a lot of sense to me.

Here is where I come down in all of this: There is a difference between engaging in the culture and trying to use the culture as a marketing tool.  If I’m preaching a sermon, and the lyrics to a Lady Gaga song really help me to understand the scripture I’m talking about, then I’ll talk about it in the sermon.  (I can’t imagine a circumstance were this would be the case, I’m just theorizing.)  However, just talking about Lady Gaga in a sermon because I think kids will get a kick out of it is disingenuous and people can see right through it.

Which brings us to the point of today’s comic.  Everybody can tell when you’re just trying to be hip with the kids.  If you talk about MySpace in the same category of Facebook and Twitter, we know you don’t use social networking.  NOBODY uses MySpace anymore.  If you try to relate to young people by talking about iPods, everybody knows you don’t get it.  It’s like talking about how cool your new landline telephone is.  Everybody takes them for granted.

This is where the first article got it right.  People who are out of touch with the cutting edge of trendy things should not try to incorporate them just because they saw some other pastor try it on TV.  People will see right through it!  However, if you happen to be the type of person who does keep up with that stuff, and you can incorporate it into your ministry in a genuine way, then go for it.  Culture is just that, culture.  You should operate within our own cultural understanding, while trying to communicate with people outside your culture.  You shouldn’t jump on a bandwagon just to bring people in.

It seems like I’m gettin a little silly with these Holy Clubs.  Actually, it’s the only direction that I think it can go.

It’s not too late to pre-order your Community Life book!  Only five dollars, what a deal!  Once this week is over you’re out of luck! (Not really, you’ll still be able to order it after that too.)

These pictures were taken by Heetae Kim in the fall in Wilmore!! Can you believe it!  Sept. 1st is the first day of fall.  Are you ready?

Let’s start taking those pictures.  We can’t wait to see them!!!

I’ve got like three Asimov books I want to read before the fall.  After that, I won’t have time to read anything with robots in it until NEXT summer.  By that time I’ll have a baby, so probably not then either.

By the way, did you know that I’m making a Community Life book?  You can preorder it right this instant for only five dollars!  Just head on over and send me the money and when I get it from the printer you will be guaranteed a copy.  In addition, for participating in the pre-order I will sign it and sketch whatever you want (within reason) in one of the pages.  It is a bargain!

The Community Life book is almost ready!  It’s so almost ready that I’m putting it on pre-order now!  It’s called When ‘That Guy’ Attacks and it’s only going to cost five dollars!  To reserve your copy, just let me know that you want one and then get me 5 bucks!  It really helps me if you participate in this pre-order because I have to pay for these books out of pocket and it helps me to have the money up front.  The deadline for the pre-order is August 20th.

There are two ways to get the money to me!

#1: SPO 5 bucks to me with your name attached to it somehow.  My SPO number is 1150.

#2: You can pay online through PayPal. Even if you don’t have a PayPal account, you can use it to pay with credit or check card. Look at the bottom where it says ‘Don’t have a PayPal account?’  Just click on the button below:

PayPal me $5

Anyway, the book is going to be really awesome and I hope you order a copy and enjoy it!

Here is this week’s photo of the week:

“Where am I?”

I know I’m not a fantastic artist, really.  But the paintings in the library crack me up.  I feel like I’m looking at still frames from a cartoon called ‘John Wesley and Pals.’  But I figured in the 2-d, poorly-drawn Asbury Seminary that my characters live in, they would look beyond realistic.

The comments from last week’s strip gave me some inspiration to do a spin-off of Community Life, which I’m going to call the Holy Club.  It’s what the statues of John Wesley and Francis Asbury and the ghost of Henry Clay Morrison do after the city of Wilmore goes to sleep (8PM).

It’s going to be a weekly thing from here on out.  The deal with these is, I don’t have time to actually draw and extra strip, so the pictures will remain the same.  They’re statues, after all, so how much are they going to move, really?  If you’ve ever read Dinosaur Comics, the idea is the same.

If you’d like to write the captions for the Holy Club, by all means, do it!  If you email me the dialogue, I’ll put it in a strip and run it.  Less work for me, right?  I’ll still be drawing Community Life, but I’ll move those to Thursdays and run Holy Club on Tuesdays.  So, enjoy the new comic strip!