9 Easy New Year’s Resolutions for a Better You and World

If you’re wishing 2010 will be your best year yet here are a few easy things to try that aren’t difficult at all!

1.) First and most important, have a daily devotional. If you’re not already doing so, give it a try and you’re guaranteed to receive a blessing. There is nothing that will give you true happiness in life except God so give Him a chance to speak to you.

2.) Switch out at least one traditional cleaning product (or all!) with an earth friendly one like Seventh Generation, Method or Ecover. These products do cost a bit more but they protect our environment and wildlife. As Christians, it is our job to take care of the home God has given us not to indifferently pollute it because we’re cheap! Also know that unless it says otherwise on the package, the product you’re buying has been tested cruelly on animals.

3.) Eat clean! This means to eat as much living produce and whole grains as possible and avoiding highly processed foods. Next time you’re shopping, read the label on a product. The more ingredients listed, the less nutritional value you’ll receive from eating it and the more unnecessary chemicals you’ll ingest. Eating fresh (and local, if possible) produce has been proven to not only give you a healthier body but also to improve brain function. Who doesn’t like that?

4.) Try using eco-friendly reusable bags. There are many different types and styles to choose from whether you buy them online (One Bag at a Time, Ecobags) or simply pick some up at the store, they’re easy to find and use. Many stores also offer small rebates for each bag that you bring in and use. Several large metropolitan cities are either banning plastic bags altogether or are considering similar initiatives. If you have any lying around your house or can’t leave the store without them, recycle them! Many grocery stores and others have big bins by the entrance simply for recycling used plastic bags.

5.) Take care of an orphan or widow in their distress. Adopt an animal! Our country is extremely overpopulated with abandoned domesticated animals. Whether you would enjoy the companionship and loyalty of a dog or would prefer the company of a more low-maintenance animal like a cat, there is sure to be an animal that needs your help and would fit your personality at an animal shelter or humane society. Puppy mills are funded by pet shops so always consider adopting rather than buying a furry friend.

6.) Let’s face it recycling is common sense. What little our industrialized society knows about nature could even tell us that. It’s not just a hobby or even a pain in the neck—it’s about respecting our planet! If we continue to produce the same amount of garbage we have been, then we’ll be left with nothing. The easiest way to recycle is to buy a few plastic storage bins and sort out {a} paper and cardboard (virtually all kinds are recyclable) from {b} glass (all recycle), {c} aluminum and tin cans and {d} plastics that have the recycle symbol on them. Then find out where the nearest center is and. . . recycle!

7.) There are many benefits of taking a multivitamin. It’s nearly impossible to get all of the necessary vitamins and minerals from the foods we eat so taking a supplement is very beneficial. Others you might want to check out are vitamin D and Calcium if you don’t eat much dairy. Try to find some that are 100% vegetarian if possible, otherwise they may contain animal byproducts like gelatin.

8.) Make an effort to watch less television. There are many reasons to spend less time watching tv and movies but some are more important than others. Studies are now showing that there is a link between television and Alzheimer’s. Research has found that spending significant periods of time in front of the tv may speed up memory loss. Another good reason is that the media doesn’t have the same set of values that a Christian does. Ellen White says that, “At the present time, when the end of all things earthly is rapidly approaching, Satan is putting forth desperate efforts to ensnare the world. He is devising many plans to occupy minds, and to divert attention from the truths essential to salvation.” I believe that television is one of these time wasting inventions!

9.) Use it or lose it: exercise! The benefits of exercising really need no explanation. The human body was made to move. The harder you push yourself when being active will result in a more youthful body and overall better health. The best motivators are to enlist a pal and exercise together or invest in some home equipment like a treadmill or weight lifting tools.

Did I miss anything? Feel free to comment and share it. And good luck planning your best year yet!

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has. — Margaret Mead

Adventist TV: What I Want to Watch

If I can be honest, I’d have to say that there’s not really a “good” Adventist TV option for Adventists under 60 (not including kids shows). I’m 25, and I’d guess that if you asked other Adventists my age, at least 90% would agree with me. I’m definitely not trying to be negative – Hope Channel and 3ABN are nice stations for an older audience – they just don’t connect with younger demographics in the way I’d love to see. Just compare those websites to a site like MTV. I’m not promoting MTV’s content, just pointing out that they know how to market to youth and importantly, they have changed their presentation over the years as youth culture has changed. I was thinking recently about what kind of programming I would actually want to view on an Adventist TV network. Here’s what I came up with:

What I Want to Watch

How about some reality TV? What if there was a show that followed pastors through seminary, a vegetarian cooking competition, extreme sports evangelism hitting different towns (snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing, etc…) or a weight loss show? Some more awesome reality TV ideas would be missionary shows, a show that followed teens out on the streets to talk to actual people about God or help the homeless and in general shows that SHOW the Gospel in action and inspire those watching to action – presented in a “cool” way.

I’d love to see a well-produced news show that wasn’t “news about the TV station” but was actual news that talked about world events and the Bible. It would be great to have some reporters checking out world news, Adventist news and more.

A tech show that showed useful new gadgets for churches, missionaries, students, Adventist businesses etc…

Why not a clean situational comedy?

Cool nature and animal shows would be great too.

I would donate a ton of money to a station that had these shows. Of course, the graphics would have to be great. I think the station should be entirely run by people 30 years old and under. Programs with music for 30 or 60 minutes aren’t great for this audience – this audience has a short attention span and wants to pack as much into each segment as possible. I’d love to see a primetime lineup that could rival that of ABC, FOX or CBS – so good that it would actually peel younger viewers away from those networks to watch. Sound impossible? Gotta start somewhere. The core content of a “youth” Adventist channel would essentially be the same as the “older” channels but presented in a different way – you don’t talk to a teenager the same way you talk to a retiree. I know we’ve got the talent within the church: people to set it up and run it, writers, actors, etc… Also, I want to see some shows where people are dressed “real” (and obviously appropriate) and not wearing suits and ties for everything.

How I Want to Watch It

I want to watch the above programs on an Apple TV, XBOX 360 or PS3.  But there’s bad content on all of those systems, right? It would be bad to mix Adventist programming with secular shows… WRONG! There is objectionable content there, but I don’t see how this is any different than getting on DirecTV and then promoting DirecTV to church members. I’d love to see an internet only station (that would require WAY less to startup) – I could hook that up to my TV with a simple cable and tune into some awesome Adventist programs. I’d like to see something along the lines of Revision 3 or Hulu for Adventists. Best of all, I’d love to see 3, 4, 10 stations all producing their own content. Sure there might be some bombs, but again, you’ve got to start somewhere. What do you think? I’d love to hear your ideas.

How SDA Elementaries Should Spend Donated Money

I happened to hear that Helen Hyatt Elementary had received some money last year from an anonymous donor to be spent on marketing the school and that it was used to hire a person to contact alumni asking for money. I have no idea how that turned out, whether it increased enrollment and brought in any extra money or not. In this post I’m simply reflecting on what I would do personally if I was in charge of spending $30,000, or approximately enough money to hire a full time marketing person.

First of all, I wouldn’t take the route of contacting alumni – I don’t really see how that would bring new kids in to the school – instead I would concentrate on reaching out to the community. Chances are that people within the church, and obviously people who went to the school already know about it and have made their minds up about sending their kids there or not.

I also wouldn’t hire a full time person – instead I would hire someone who would be in charge of overseeing the money and be paid for their time – it’s not really a full time job suitable for an elementary in my mind. The situation reminds me of an old saying – “I’d rather have a fishing pole than I fish” – the fish that are currently in the “pond” are eventually going to leave so we need an effective method to catch new ones.

Here’s how I would put the cash to good use. I would put it into advertising programs – after all, how will people learn about the school if they don’t even know it exists? The school sits on a street that couldn’t reasonably be considered “high traffic” which means any kind of on-site sign isn’t going to pull many people in. Instead, I’d spend the money on newspaper advertising (both print an online), search engine ads through Google AdWords, billboard ads, a viral online video and on an interactive website and a great brochure to give to people who come to look at the school. I’d break it down like this (in order of importance):

• Website: $3,000
• Newspaper Ads, Print: $5,000 (Wednesdays and Sundays)
• Newspaper Ads, Online: $2,300 for 2 months in summer and fall (ROS leaderboard)
• Billboard Ads: $4,940 for 2 panels for 4 weeks each, summer and winter
• Viral Video Tour: $2,000
• Brochures $1,200
• Google AdWords: $1,200
• Well-run blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts: FREE!

These numbers come out to $19,640 which leaves $10,000 to pay the person responsible for organizing this effort and making it happen. Not bad.

These ad efforts would produce tangible and measurable results in the form of at least 177,214 minimum impressions (or views). That’s absolutely huge, even if these impressions aren’t equivalent to unique people, which is irrelevant since you are still reaching a huge amount of parents and families who could choose to send their children to the school. That number looks even more impressive when you take into account the total estimated population of Lincoln which is 251,624. When you compare this with contacting alumni, I don’t think there’s really a comparison.

It would be important to have the ads designed by a professional firm or agency (disclaimer – yes I am a graphic and Web designer). I am not suggesting that I am the person for the job – just that a professional should be used, not just someone somebody happens to know that tinkers with design as a hobby. The person in charge of designing these ads needs to have a real knowledge of how to make an effective ad.

Why would I spend money on a website if the school already has a free one? Simple – the better the website looks the more people you are going to attract – it’s the main touch point for people looking for information on the school – they will head straight to Google and either be immediately impressed or not. Not to say anything against the current website design or designer – it’s a great free website – but it takes money to make money (in this case raise enrollment). A one size fits all approach is not effective in this type of a situation – a thorough process needs to be gone through where goals are considered and objectively tackled; How do we want people to respond and react when they see this Website? What are the primary and secondary objectives of this Website? and so on… and only then should a Web design and ad campaign be designed.

In all honesty, the school has many great things to offer but reaching out to alumni will not bring in the revenue necessary to keep it alive! The solution is to spread the word to parts of the community who have no idea that the school even exists.

Well there you go, that’s how I would do it, not that anyone asked or cares : )

Why Our Colleges Need Entrepreneurs

First of all, I am in no way an expert on running a college or university, so keep that in mind. I am not proposing anything that would alter how those organizations are currently run, although there are a few things I would certainly like to see changed. Instead, I am proposing the creation of an organization that would support our colleges and universities and be operated in an autonomous fashion by experienced business professionals. More on that later.

So, what ’s the goal? To decrease college staff layoffs, declining finances and down enrollment.  What got me thinking about this in the first place? Well, I always thought there must be a better way for schools to make money than by bombarding alumni for cash and hiking tuition prices. Students shouldn’t have to graduate with so much debt and then be asked for more money on top of that. I thought there surely there has to be an alternative solution to this.

And I think there is. I’m not sure how practical it is, but there’s no way to find out except to give it a try. By the way, and very importantly, it could be started without spending a single penny. I’m talking about a startup incubator for Adventist college students. What is a startup incubator? According to Wikipedia, it’s:

… a program designed to accelerate the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed and orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the incubator and through its network of contacts.

I picture a non-profit organization run completely separate from the church (it will just run faster and smoother that way) that borrows a few ideas from the model Y Combinator pioneered for investing in early stage technology startups. Imagine if there was an organization designed to harness the untapped entrepreneurial assets (ie – students) that are currently lying dormant in our colleges. We could nurture new ministries and organizations that yes, could make money for and add more value to our colleges, provide jobs and experience  for students and also provide better job security for college staff!  Here’s what it looks like as a diagram:

What kind of crazy ideas do our students have that could turn into a great business opportunity? I have no idea. Maybe they will come up with new medical technologies, consulting services, web businesses or architectural firms. The possibilities are literally endless. Sure, some of these businesses will fail, that’s part of business, and great experience for students, but some of these businesses will undoubtedly succeed, and succeed big.

How could this be put into practice? Let’s say students who have an idea come to a bi-weekly meeting where they can bounce their ideas off of their peers and get some advice from seasoned business leaders who can steer them in the right direction. The serious students can bootstrap their projects – or – in another scenario, the incubator program can pick the best ideas from each college to back with a $5,000 investment. That’s hardly anything – some of the churchs well-to-do business men can put the money up, no big deal. I’d imagine that within 5 years of starting a program like this, there would be some real, tangible results. I’d love to talk more about it, but I’m sure no one has read this far!

Adventist leaders comment on Copenhagen climate summit

Finally!  I’ve never heard an Adventist leader address the issue of climate change or being environmentally responsible.  Read the article from Adventist News Network.

For a Great, Quick Devotion Thought. . .

Check out Shawn Boonstra’s A Better Way to Live. You can sign up for daily emails that you can read or watch in about 3 minutes.  To watch today’s click here.

The Message Everyone Needs But No One Shares

Especially in North America, our brains and bodies have been gradually weakened by convenience stores, elevators, auto dial, and remote control. Why expend the energy to do anything when it can all be done for you electronically?

We’ve all heard the warning: The church is in the world, but the world is not supposed to be in the church! (See John 17:16–18.) Yet sadly, the fact is that the trends of the world are having an obvious influence on our church. The same longing for easy living is infecting God’s people. In this age of fast food, everyone wants a sermonette. (A friend of mine once said, “Sermonettes are for christianettes.”) In fact, to secure popularity among the clamoring of comfort-loving members, many pastors are falling into the same pattern as politicians who travel from one district to another telling everybody what they think will please them.

What are some of the smooth, popular, yet poisonous doctrines that some pastors are telling their flocks these days?

• As long as you pray over your food, you can eat or drink anything without consequences.
• If you have enough faith, you’ll be prosperous and comfortable.
• Abortion is not really killing an unborn baby; it’s simply “pregnancy termination.”
• Practicing homosexuality is not really a sin; it’s simply 
an alternate lifestyle.
• It’s not necessary to honor the Sabbath commandment literally as long as you are resting in Jesus.
• Once you say the sinner’s prayer, you’re saved and you can’t be lost.
• The most prevalent and deadly lie: Jesus came to save us in our sins, rather than from them.

As we near the end of the world, seeing the imminence of the second coming, it is no time to proclaim smooth things. Every gospel presentation should be saturated with a sense of power and urgency. “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins” (Isaiah 58:1).

So what can you do to resist the temptation of gobbling up Satan’s sweet but deceptive delicacies?

1. Measure all teachings by the Word of God. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20).

2. Be willing to do His will, regardless of the consequences! “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God” (John 7:17).

3. Never accept a teaching just because it is popular. “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil” (Exodus 23:2).

4. Place yourself under a well-balanced diet of spiritual teaching and feed your own soul with God’s Word. “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

Taken from The Smooth Road to Destruction by Doug Batchelor.

If I Were a Missionary…

I was watching a missionary program on TV and it got me thinking – what if the church gave me the responsibility of creating a new missionary organization completely different than anything that was currently around? Well, I put some thought into it and this is what I came up with:

Missionary “PODS”

Each POD would be an elite, trained, well financed group consisting of 4 specialists including 2 adults and 2 students that can be effective in a variety of settings and situations including remote areas in the third-world and “civilized” first world cities:

1. Evangelist Missionary (EM)
2. Operations Missionary (OM)
3. Technology Missionary (TM)
4. Anchor Missionary (AM)

These PODS would be sent on a 1 year long mission. Missionaries are actually paid for their service. Students can apply money toward college education. Missions would put technology to use including Macs, Projectors, Solar Power, Digital SLR Cameras, Netbooks, Walkie Talkies and Satellite Phones among other things.

There would be an overarching not-for-profit organization run by an executive team (ET) to oversee and direct all of the PODS (in a way, like a venture capital firm). Each POD would receive an initial “investment” from the ET to get them started and each POD would benefit from the experience and wisdom of the ET.

Each POD mission would start with 2 months of training and fund-raising. Each POD team would then deploy for 9 months and return for a 1 month wrap-up.

I would brand the organization to be stylish and hip (think Product Red) to get youth involved. I would approach each situation with the innovative mind-set Steve Jobs uses when new markets and developing new products for Apple.

POD Member Roles and Responsibilities

Each POD member would have a very specific role to play in the mission:

OM: (Adult – Remote Team Leader – Paid $20,000) Secures overseas evangelism site. Purchases and handles supplies. In charge of party morale and security. Survival and emergency training.

EM: (Student – Paid $10,000) Onsite Bible studies, baptisms. Finds local interpreter. Raises awareness for overseas meetings.

TM: (Student – Paid $10,000) Overseas all overseas technology implementation and operation. Remote site tech setup. Communications.

AM: (Adult – Paid $20,000) Handles all domestic POD operations including securing funding, communicating with remote team, promotion, web updates.

Financing POD Missions

I bet you are wondering how I would finance all of these crazy ideas, aren’t ya? I would primarily use Micro-Financing and PayPal’s subscription functionality. By Micro-Financing I mean getting funding through a mass of people, the benefit of which is that it becomes entirely affordable for the average Joe to support a POD because his individual burden would be quite light. It would be the job of the AM to secure additional funding after the ET initially seeded the POD. The goal would be to get 128 people pledging a total of $10,000 per month ($120,000/y) to support each POD, broken down something like this:

• 45 people pledging $5/w ($900/m)
• 40 people pledging $10/w ($1,600/m)
• 25 people pledging $25/w ($2,500/m)
• 11 people pledging $50/w ($2,200/m)
• 7 people pledging $100/w ($2,800/m)

Essentially, 1-2 churches should easily be able to finance one POD per year. In addition to micro-financing each POD, the main organization would also sell printed mission action books and videos with awesome photos and stories of each POD mission to help raise money. The main organization would have a fund to help sustain PODs in financial trouble.

The Fun Part

The main organization would have a super cool website (hey, I am a web designer by day) where POD updates could be posted via Twitter and donations could be made. The site would also have cool stats on how many baptisms, Bible studies, villages and countries reached for God and more had been accomplished by the PODs. Think how fun it would be to receive a Twitter update 3 or 4 times a day talking about the latest baptisms and Bible studies. The whole idea of these POD missions would be to show those who are supporting the PODs the effects of their contributions in the work of God in real-time and in a tangible way. When the AM goes to churches promoting a POD they could show a Twitter feed of recent POD activity. I think it would be enough to get a lot of people who aren’t involved in missions excited about spreading the Word of God.

Conservationist Manifesto

“What are sweatshop jobs for us may be a dream job [for someone else] but all that goes out the window if we only buy local,” spouted a development specialist for the World Bank.  This was some creative disapproval from a worried food industrialist.  The local food movement is growing and the national supply of fresh produce is moving more and more often directly from farmers to local customers.

Barbara Kingsolver closes her novel with a reflective reminiscence as well as one final blow to the fossil-fuel driven conveniences of our society:  “Global-scale alteration from pollution didn’t happen when human societies started using a little bit of fossil fuel.  It happened after unrestrained growth, irresponsible management, and a cultural refusal to assign any moral value to excessive consumption.”  Global climate change (contrary to the stubborn beliefs of lazy individuals) is not a myth.  It has created dramatic new weather patterns, altered the migratory paths of birds, and shifted the habitats of disease-carrying organisms, opening the season on catastrophes that we are not prepared to predict or handle.

Eating locally grown and organic food isn’t about being pious or rich, snobby or pretentious.  It’s not only caring about your body and the people and world around you, it’s about making a change (even a small one!), opening your eyes and believing that you can make a positive difference. . . because you can.

The most important modern grocery ethics include fuel use, pesticide use, quality, and support for farms and farmers.  If you’re interested, here are a few guidelines that can help define responsible food choices.

• If items are available regionally, and are in season, get them from a farmer or ask a grocer to obtain them from a local source.
• Do as much as possible of your own cooking or preparation.  Making meals for the seasons prevents the veritable wild goose chase for ingredients.
• Food processing uses energy in two main ways: (1) extracting, dicing mixing and cooking the ingredients; (2) transporting each individual ingredient.  Products with fewer ingredients have probably wasted less fuel.
• If produce or a processed item needs to be refrigerated or frozen, energy was used to keep it cool from its point of origin to you.  How can you tell?  It’s refrigerated or frozen in the store!

I would describe the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle with this sentence:  Gardening teaches people respect for themselves and for the environment.

Thank you for accompanying me on this paperback pilgrimage.

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Research and insights taken from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle chapters 18-20.

Don’t miss the other posts with vital information from the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:  The Zorba Diet, A Virtuous Appetite and the Vegetable Apocalypse, Vegetannual Sweatshop, Pets are pets.  Food is food., Buy Cheap Eats, Easy Button Efficiency Ethics, Ode to Carpetbagging, FFB & CSA’s, Dig! Dig! Dig! And your muscles will grow big., and Seasonal Holiday Recipes!.

Kennedy, Constantine and Catholicism

What do you know about Constantine? Other than the fact that he created Constantinople, his fame has close to faded. But did you know that he played the main role in changing the Christian day of worship from Saturday to Sunday?  The Roman emperor was hailed as Constantine “the Great” for his contributions to Christianity.  Catholic historians presented him as an ideal ruler and even named him as the model of a Christian prince.  Through his Edict in AD 321, Constantine instructed that Christians and non-Christians should be united in observing and resting on the “venerable day of the sun.”  Eusebius, a bishop and Constantine flatterer unintentionally acknowledges that the grounds for changing the day of worship were not scripture based.  “All things whatever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s Day.” —Robert Cox, Sabbath Laws and Sabbath Duties, page 538.

U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy is in a brazen public battle with Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin regarding Catholic beliefs and his right to participate in Communion.  Kennedy is a Democrat and supporter of Pro-Choice.  Catholic former Democratic New York Gov. Mario Cuomo said, “Don’t ask me to make everybody live by [Catholic doctrine] because they are not members of the church,” Cuomo said. “If that were the operative rule, how could you get any Catholic politician in office? And would that be better for the Catholic church?”

One of the definitions of Communion is a religious or spiritual fellowship.  It is an act of remembering Christ and His sacrifice (1 Corinthians 11:24).  While supporting abortion is Biblically wrong, does a religious leader have the right to refuse a practice set in place by Jesus Himself simply due to a disagreement with someone?  Or possibly it’s (once again) all about exercising undue authority.