Knowing Your Audience?

Over the past couple of months as I have been on the search for a call, I have had the opportunity to listen to a variety of pastors preaching across the country through different mediums. Sometimes live, sometimes on CD, sometimes on VHS and often on Podcasting. Knowing that I am also sending out sermon cds or pointing them to my audio archive online, I have begun to wonder about how we may be effectively and ineffectively preaching to our audience.

My mentor in college really helped me see that when writing a sermon we should be imagining that we are in a conversation with 1) the longterm member of the church, 2) the new Christian, and 3) the friend who got tricked into coming to the service. This has really helped me make sure that my language and my focus is spread wider than the normal sermon that focuses on the first group, or the evangelical event that focuses sololy on the last.

However, now I wonder if we need a forth person--the random Podcast listener.

While attending a service in person, the pastor kept saying "and for those of you who are listening online..." then would quickly describe some hand motion or nonverbal movement which they would have missed. Unfortunately, it felt like this was his main target group, and often overlooked connecting with the real, live people in front of him.

While I wonder how it would sound from the ipod side, I think by calling these particular groups out can often time alienate others.

Ellie's Travels and Adventures

With family vacations, roadtrips and job interviews: Ellie has managed to cover 16 states and one district in her first 4 1/2 months.
She has been to:

New Jersey

New York

Conneticut

Massachue....

Colorado

Delaware

Rhode Island

Maryland

Virginia

North Carolina

South Carolina

Georgia

Florida

West Virginia

Alabama

Pennasylvania

District of Columbia

She has been the best behaved of all of us. It all started when she was 6 weeks old and headed to Boston. Not sure how many sub-two month olds can say they have toured Brown, Harvard and Princeton campuses.

Savannah hates to ride in the car, so the 13 hour trip to Florida from New Jersey was a barking, whine fest. For the first two hours, Savannah would sit in the back making a racket as Ellie slept soundly.

The move from New Jersey to Georgia was another 13 hours in the car for all of us. For Ellie, this was now old habit. So We stopped in Davidson to show Ellie where her parents met, but unfortunately it was 95degrees and every building was locked up.

Then there was our trip over to Alabama yesterday for a job interview, as we headed through downtown Atlanta my Volvo's warning light came on. I figured I would just drive through it; the car, however, had other plans, and completely shut down on a tiny shoulder off I-20 in the heart of Atlanta. As crazy Atlanta drivers wizzed by us for 45 minutes while we waited for rescue, Ellie played with her toys in the back seat. We were rescued by my mom and the tow truck. My mom switched cars with us which allowed us to make our interview only 5 minutes late and speeding ticket free.

So it appears as though Ellie has more patience than all of us combined.

Once again, the world's best baby.

10 Things I won't miss about NJ

10) Jug-handles
9) Leaky basements
8) Excessive Tobacco taxes (48%)
7) Auto insurance rates
6) Philly Sports Radio
5) "Ez-pass" myass
4) Pink tile and 600sq foot apartments
3) Not being able to pump your own gas
2) Route 1
1) Deer ticks & Lyme Disease

All Clear

By the way, I forgot to post the results to my multiple doctor visits this summer, which has also added to the stress of transitions. The surgery was successful and they removed all the melanoma. I am glad to get that off my back (literally and figuratively).

It was funny that my first vacation was to the Florida. Needless to say, I sat under a canopy in a long sleeve shirt with SPF 99 splattered all over me.

Transitions

Lindsay and I have recently discovered the stress of transitions. With the addition of Baby Ellie, the concept of getting out the door on time and stress-free has escaped us. Getting ready to go, or just coming back from somewhere is a challenge course of obsticales we try to avoid.
On our 13 hour drive/move to Atlanta this past weekend, I realized that not only are these small transitions stressful but so are the large ones that loom over us for the next couple of weeks and months.
We have moved to Atlanta with a few suitcases and a ton of baby gear to live in my parents basement for the summer. Loading a storage POD with the rest of our belongings means that our comfort zones (i.e. the leather recliner or my playstation) are no longer available.
We are visiting churches over the next couple of weeks. This will provide not only the little concerns of what if Ellie starts to fuss during a meal, or what if I say something stupid, but also the larger transition of figuring out to where God is calling us.
The lack of consistency shall be an interesting challenge for our family, who most know thrive off of structure, organization and planning.
I will keep you posted...in the meantime my new email address is wbbary at mac.com. Peace

Beach Week

Needing to get out of New Jersey, we took a family trip to see the rest of our family.
Check out our photos

WWEntertainment?

Having been known to occasionally watch Monday night Raw while in college. Not to mention the fact that Johnny B. Badd was the evangelist who helped bring me to faith my sophomore year of college--I have been reflecting on the state of WWFE due to the Chris Benoit story. Long gone are the days of Hulkamania, the British Bulldog, Jake the Snake, Andre the Giant. I have come to the conclusion that they need to shut down wrestling. That NBC needs to stop carrying this show (it is not a sport because it lacks competition).
It employs, breeds and propogates a horrible image for our culture. Under Vince McMahon's management it has transformed from a Good/Evil show into a carnal expression of hedonism.
The actors become obsessively involved in their character's lives, to the point that they take on the personality in public. The violence displayed, though not legitimate, entices young viewers to try and do likewise. The punching, slapping, and hitting of women by men in the ring promotes domestic violence as an appropriate display of masculinity, which is then brought into the home by these actors (see Steve Austin) and the fans subconsciously condone it. The bra and panty show of the women only further objectifies the women such that they become mere props in this male fantasy. Not to mention the out of the ring situations, where an obvious abuse of steroids, the obsession with physique and the need for recreational drugs to "come down" has led to serious addictions.
While the argument has been made that WWE is the male version of a Soap Operas, the lack of critical reflection by their management (60 people under the age of 45 have died in 10 years) and the high rate of undereducated wrestlers who incapable of seeing the systemic problem this industry perpetuates means that someone else needs to step up and speak vehemently against this hedonistic industry.
Who is the target audience for WWE? I would guess 10-25 year old males. The product is placed during the family hour, and on family television. The over the top drama, basic plot-lines, and scantily clad women are alluring caricatures. Hopefully the Benoit case will open the publics eyes, like it has mine, to the seediness of this industry and like the XFL it will make an unceremonious exit.