Modern Ekklesia

Does How You Dress Affect Your Ability To Connect With People?

Rodlie Ortiz — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:18:44 +0000

In the past, I always felt that people should be dressed very similarly to the people they’re trying to connect with and reach. So, if you’re a missionary in Papua New Guinea, you dress exactly like the locals do there. If you live in (fill in the blank) city, you should generally dress just like the people in that city. So that meant that as a pastor, I should generally be dressed down. I brought that same kind of thinking when I came here to Pioneer Memorial church. Part of my role was going to be to help with evangelism and discipleship and to connect with students. A part of me was thinking that I’d be dressing fairly casual–like the students–for the sake of the missionary imperative.

A few weeks after getting here, though, I found out that PMC has a dress code. Because it’s associated with the university, they generally want their pastors to look quite professionaly, which includes wearing a tie. When I first heard this news I was initially really disappointed. After all, how would I then be able to connect with the students? But…you do what you have to do, right? I went with it. And to be totally honest, I felt like I was compromising my missional integrity a little bit in the process.

Here’s two lessons that I’ve learned in the past six months, though:

1. It’s not about being dressed exactly the same, but about being dressed in a way that people would expect you to dress. On campus all the leaders dress with a tie–many with a jacket and tie. When I connect with students or people in the community, then, they’re not thinking–”wait a second? Does this guy think he’s better than me? Dressing all up like that…forget him!!” I’m dressed just like any leader on campus. People don’t blink an eye. It’s normal. I was reminded of this principle in the biography of Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China:

When the barber had done his best, the young missionary darkened his remaining hair to match the long braid which, at first, must do duty for his own. Then in the morning he put on as best he might the loose, unaccustomed garments, and appeared for the first time in the gown and satin shoes of the “Teacher,” or man of the scholarly class.

Everything opened up after that in a new way. On the return journey to Shanghai he was not even recognized as a foreigner, until he began to preach or distribute books and see patients. Then women and children came around much more freely, and the crowds were less noisy and excited. While missing some of the prestige attaching to Europeans, he found it more than made up for by the freedom his changed appearance gave him in moving among the people. Their homes were open to him as never before, and it was possible to get opportunities for quiet intercourse with those who seemed interested. -Location 640 on Kindle

In this story, Hudson Taylor took on the dress of a “teacher” in that culture. He wasn’t dressed exactly like everyone else, but dressed in a way befitting his profession.

Does it mean that it’s bad if someone is dressed down mostly? Not necessarily. I think it depends on the context. But if people are expecting a pastor or leader to dress in a certain way and they never see that, I think it could be hurting the influence potential of the leader. I know I’ve never been surprised to see a doctor wearing a white lab coat when I’m his patient.

2. People don’t care how you dress if you show that you love them and want to help them. I do take comfort in this. Even though I’m not dressed like a student, I don’t think that they ultimately care. They know I’m not a student. I’m not exactly one of them. But they know that I’m here to help. And that takes away most barriers that could have been there.

These kinds of issues fascinate me. I don’t think it’s an exact science, but I think the answer to the above titled question is “yes.” How we dress does affect our ability to connect with people. It’s something that we have to be mindful of and could affect our interactions with people–whether we’re dressing up or down.

By the way, here’s a very similar post I wrote back in the day regarding how pastor’s should dress while preaching: To Suit Or Not to Suit.

So what about you? What do you think? What have you learned in your context related to dress?

[image by lintmachine]

What You Should Know About Internet Censorship and SOPA

Rodlie Ortiz — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:32:19 +0000

Today, as I went to Google, I saw something like this:

And good luck if you tried to go to Wikipedia. You probably saw something like this:

Why are many websites effectively shutting themselves down today? Because of two menacing-sounding abbreviations called SOPA and PIPA. Here’s a nice explanation from Wikipedia:

SOPA is short for the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” and PIPA is an acronym for the “Protect IP Act.” (“IP” stands for “intellectual property.”) In short, these bills are efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites, but, in our opinion, they do so in a way that actually infringes free expression while harming the Internet. Detailed information about these bills can be found in the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act articles on Wikipedia, which are available during the blackout. GovTrack lets you follow both bills through the legislative process: SOPA on this page, and PIPA on this one. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to advocating for the public interest in the digital realm, has [http//www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech summarized why these bills are simply unacceptable] in a world that values an open, secure, and free Internet.

Check out this video from Google and below it one from Fight For the Future:

In short, I believe that businesses and entertainment companies should be allowed to protect their products from being pirated. However, it’s a dangerous thing when these companies are given inordinate powers to do so–effectively being able to censor what they think might prove to be a financial hindrance to them. And I don’t think it’s ever a good thing when companies are given the power to tinker with the internet. If they can do so for financial reasons, it will just be one or two more steps before they can do so just for not agreeing with your message. And that, my friends, would be the beginning of the end in every way.

Thoughts?

UPDATE:

Seems like SOPA and PIPA may have been stopped. Check out this link from Mashable for the full explanation.

Confessions Of An Internet Addict

Why Book Summary Services Like GetAbstract Might Not Be Worth Your Time Or Money

Rodlie Ortiz — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:22:35 +0000

I think we’ve all heard the phrase that “leaders are readers.” I’m convinced that one thing that sets growing leaders apart is the fact that they feed themselves and intellectually challenge themselves through interesting experiences and reading books.

That’s why my ears perked up when I heard about Get Abstract. It’s a book summary service where, for a membership fee, you can select various books that they’ve condensed into a five-page summary. Now, I read a decent amount of books per year, but I thought this would be an interesting way for me to “read” some books that I normally would not have purchased.

So before I totally spill the guts on my experience with Get Abstract, let me first share a screen shot on how it actually works.

There are two price points:

1. The silver. For $89 per year you can download up to 30 book summaries. The good thing is that they do have a quite large database of books (mostly business and leadership), so I think most people would be able to find something of interest.

2. The gold. In the gold package, you can choose between a 6 month subscription for $179, or you can buy a year at a time for $299, which gives you some savings.

I’ll say up front that they do have a 30 day money back guarantee if you read less than 7 books, so taking the plunge seems a lot less scary if you don’t find it useful. I ended up going with the $179 plan. After browsing their online catalog, I quickly downloaded three books: The World Cafe, Confessions of A Public Speaker, and The Truth About Leadership. One really positive thing is that they offer books in different formats including PDF’s, Kindle, and audio. True to advertising, it took me about 5 minutes to study through and read the five pages of content of the first book.

Each of the book summaries are divided into a few different sections:

1. Ratings: Here the book is rated between overall, applicability, innovation, and style.

2. Take-Aways: This is a series of about ten bullet points with some of the main ideas of the book.

3. What You Will Learn: In this section there’s usually a breakdown of about 3-4 things overall that will be addressed.

4. Recommendation: This covers the “Why should I care about this author?” question and gives a brief bio and what makes him/her an expert in the given field.

5. Abstract: This is the meat of the section. If there are 8 main principles that the author is addressing, there will be 8 little sections. Usually each chapter is condensed in to about 1-2 paragraphs.

6. Quotes: The summaries finish with a section on about 10 selected quotes from the book.

The Bottom Line

This service ultimately didn’t work for me for one primary reason: people remember stories and narratives, not bullet points. I would often finish one of the books and not really be able to remember what I read. Because they’re trying to condense a whole chapter into one or two paragraphs, they leave out stories–the soul of each chapter–and what actually holds the book together. Instead, you feel like you’re reading a recipe book: do this, avoid that, make sure to do this.

There are books that I read years ago in which I can still remember the main ideas. How is that possible? It’s easy to remember powerful stories and illustrations. This is the central sin of Get Abstract. Because there’s no stories or illustrations, you’re not really let with much to remember each summary by. Which, by the way, I think is a powerful lesson for most of us to remember–people aren’t going to remember a bunch of bullet point–they’ll remember the main idea and the stories.

I ultimately ended up getting a refund. The service seems like a good idea, but it definitely didn’t work for me. I’d rather (**gasp**) read the whole book and be able to speak more-or-less intelligently on it, than to say that I’ve read the book, but not be able to remember one thing about it.

What about you? Have you ever given one of these services a while? Would you?

[Image by Ben Oh]

Why I Don’t Use Digital Devices For My Devotional Time

Rodlie Ortiz — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:33:54 +0000

I’m a tech geek. It is what it is. I love technology and follow technology blogs, and this blog itself seeks to touch upon the intersection of church, leadership, and technology. But there’s one area in which I don’t allow technology to get too close: my devotional time with God. It hasn’t always been this way. In the past, I’ve experimented with following a Bible reading plan from my iPhone, or reading the Bible from my computer, and even memorizing Scripture from my iPhone, but I’ve left those behind. Why? Because I’ve noticed that the temptation is too great to do other stuff during that time.

If I pick up my iPhone to read the Bible it’s too easy to read some emails or check out some tweets. And it just takes one really-important-sounding email to derail me and get me sucked into “work mode.” So, I decided I’m not going to do it. I prepare myself a cup of soy milk with Roma (don’t knock it till you try it!), I grab my Bible with real pages, and I sit.

And read.

And spend time with God.

In silence.

No dings and no alerts means no distractions. And that works for me.

What about you? What works for you?

Four New Features of YouVersion That Will Help Get You More Into the Bible

Rodlie Ortiz — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:51:30 +0000

I’ve been a fan of YouVersion ever since they came out.

What’s not to like? They offer online access to a huge amount of different Bible translations: 209 versions in 75 languages, to be exact. You can easily bookmark your reading and share it online via Facebook or Twitter. They have YouVersion apps for every conceivable device out there.

Here’s a nice blurb from the site in case you’re not too familiar with the background of the site and app:

YouVersion and the Bible App were created by a team at LifeChurch.tv in Edmond, Okla., to help increase access and engagement with the Bible. Featuring more than 100 versions and many languages, YouVersion was created to help people with busy, on-the-go lifestyles read the Bible at any time and in any place. Since its creation, YouVersion has remained in the top five downloaded apps in the reference category and is the No. 1 downloaded Bible on iTunes.

Two years ago they introduced some great Bible reading plans that were received to much fanfare. And finally, very recently, they release several new features that I’d like to highlight:

1. New Bible reading plans. I stopped counting at 75 different plans! They even have some great plans including ones to help you read the Bible chronologically, one from Mem-Lok to help you memorize Scripture, or more conventional ones like this (I’m doing this one) to help you read the Bible through in a year.

2. Receive reading plan reminders via email. I think this is a huge feature. Here’s a pic of an email I received:

Yes, I started the reading plan a few days after the new year.

Further down in the email is the actual content of those chapters. So you could read your daily passages right from your inbox. I like to pull out my “physical” copy and read from there, but I like that they try to make is convenient for you. And I like that you can select what time of the day you want to receive these emails: morning, noon, or evening. The morning one goes at around 4:30am. That should be early enough for most people.

3. Catch me up. This is a great little feature. Last year I tried to do the plan where you read the Bible through in 90 days. Not a great idea for those that like to simmer through Scripture slowly. The problem was that if you missed a day for whatever reason, the next day you’d have an insurmountable amount of Scripture to read. I eventually left that plan because I felt guilty. With their new “catch me up feature,” if you miss a day, it will simply reset you to continue from where you last left off. Very nice.

4. Audio version. This is another great feature: you can listen to the Bible in dozens of different languages and versions. So if you can open your laptop, click play, and then listen from your couch. Or if you want to go on a walk with your iPhone, you can get it going, and then listen to Scripture as you get some exercise.

So…if you haven’t signed up for a reading plan yet, this is your time. Go!

What about you? Have you signed up? Are you following any particular reading plan this year?

How Would Jesus Reach Out To Porn Stars? (Video)

Rodlie Ortiz — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:33:34 +0000

I know, a crazy title, huh?

Here’s the video below:

So what do you think about this form of outreach? Is this something Jesus would be involved with?

The Ten Most Popular Modern Ekklesia Posts of 2011 and a Review of How We’re Doing

Rodlie Ortiz — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 04:17:53 +0000

Before I share the top posts with you, I’d like to take a moment to share how we’re doing as a site. I always like to take a few moments at the end of every year to do some comparison and inventory. So here’s some stats I pulled from Google Analytics.

The first one here is showing the stats comparing 2010 and 2011.

I’m not sure how well you can see that, but what you should be able to see is that we more than doubled our hits over the previous year. The orange marker is 2010 and the blue one is 2011. That’s always a nice little sign that things seem to be connecting with people. You see, in my blogging world, there are dozens and dozens of posts that never get any comments, and I admit that, at times, I wonder if anybody ever reads the posts or receives benefit from them. So seeing numbers go up is a sign that, yes, some people are benefiting from them, even if there are few comments.

The second screenshot shows the complete raw data of how we did in 2011:

Here’s one thing that I’ll point out: the graph on the bottom right shows the percentage of new visitors vs returning visitors. When I first started Modern Ekklesia the numbers were almost completely reversed. About seventy-five percent of the viewers were “returning visitors” (friends checking it out) while I was getting very few “new visitors.” But now the numbers are flipped. Why is this significant? It means that more and more people are organically “bumping” in to the blog while doing searches in google. This is a good thing and it’s the result of adding content to the site consistently. The more you write, the more “real estate” your blog will take up in the web world and make it easier to be found.

By the way, I hope this doesn’t come across as me trying to brag about stats. This is a relatively teenie-tiny blog as far as blogs are concerned. Please understand that I recognize that. These stats are a drop in the bucket compared to some blogs that I admire. So why do I share these stats, then? For two reasons: Firstly, because I want to affirm the principle that slow and steady pays off versus fast, but erratic. I think that’s one of the keys to success in life. Superstars are rare. For the rest of us, we need to make sure to do our best work consistently. Slowly. Make your yes yes and your no no. Secondly, I share these stats because I actually see this as a collaborative effort. Many of you share these posts or retweet them and are involved in the community that we’ve been trying to foster here since we started in November 2008. Wow…seems like such a long time ago.

Alright, enough with the tech-talk mumbo-jumbo, here’s what you actually came here for.

Here’s the ten most popular posts of 2011:

By the way, in case you’re curious what the all time most popular posts are on Modern Ekklesia, I’ll include them as well. These are the ones that bring up the most organic searches on Google.

Anything stand out to you from the list? Any surprises? See you next year!