to be sure, the web business suits me well and i seem to suit it equally as well.

it is a fascinating world to exist in; the ultimate goal of web, for business at least, is to make as much money as possible as fast as possible and as often as possible. yet success is measured not just in dollars and cents, but in cool as well. it is great to make money, but doing it in style is what seems to count.

what makes web most interesting however is the trichotmous and tenuous fulcrum on which it all rests. you see the web is an amalgam of ad-hoc creative efforts bound together by physical infrastructure and governed by primitive machine intelligence. that is: the web as we know it is a fragile synergy of three wholly competing interests often bound by a common thread—the idea of elegance.

the first interest is design, which pushes the visual appeal of the web and drives the human machine in use. the second, the machine intelligence, the behind the scenes programming and systems purposed for beauty and simplicity; code that is at once both powerful and obvious. finally the third, the yearning to be found and consumed: the content that is the stuff of the web.

what is called good web is nothing more than the convergence of the three.

the denizens of each interest are driven by their importance to the success of web; their primacy in the schema. at once self interested and at the same time seeking to push the other interests beyond comfort into innovation. none stand alone, yet each convinced of their place as the keystone; giving strength to the whole.

all three would be correct in claiming as such.

success on the web is simple: be wanted, be found, be relevant (content); be easy to use and appealing (design); and fulfill purpose without fail (development). none alone in the vacuum of space, yet never quite fully the same—set apart, together, for a shared purpose. with an ever changing landscape of technology and application possibilities web is a never ending dance of creation ebbing and flowing like the oceans tides; the ever swaying pendulum; an infinite loop of doing and change.

web is never done, just deployed.

there is poetry in the motion, and grace in the execution. the true beauty is that web is at once temporary and permanent; completed and never ending; whole and segmented. it is ethos, pathos and logos.

it is in the middle of this, the dance of binaries, i once again find myself.

i love my job.

this got the old crank and wheel going in my head and my thoughts began to churn, and that churning turned into an opine – and from the opine came two questions to be presented and answered.

the first of these questions is simply this – what is good or real marketing?  shankman argues (loosely) that this is a combination of good marketing strategy and well executing marketing that makes a difference.  and to some extent he is correct (in the midst of his diatribe against the shotgun method of social marketing he makes a few salient points).  as my friend charles lee pointed out, recent analytic trends show that social marketing is working, but the thrust of shankman’s assertions really hit home.

it is not as much about how you market, or what you market, it is about how good your marketing is.

hearkening back to my undergraduate days studying rhetorical criticism, my mind immediately shot to one of my favorite quotes.  roman rhetorician quintillian once said that persuasion is nothing more than “good man speaking well.”  paraphrasically, this can be understand thusly: an act of persuasion hinges on person with good motives, having a well crafted message, that is delivered well.

then it hit me, this is all that marketing really is (and by the way, wanting to increase profits is a good motive, we are capitalists after all).

the reality however, and i believe this is shankman’s underlying statement, is that social marketing allows shortcuts. and because of this, those who rely too much on social marketing either fall short on crafting a message well or delivering it well, or tragically, both.

at the end of the day, Church is no different – what distinguishes a growing church from a stagnating church is the message that it crafts and how well it delivers—not just on sunday mornings.  from top to bottom, we as the Church in america need to take a huge step forward and get better and do better at crafting and delivering the message of the Gospels.  from our logos and slogans to our sermons and studies and everywhere in between.

our message has the best motive of all:

“The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” – 2 Peter 3:9 (NASB)

which leads to the second question – what shall we do about it?

over those three weeks i have come to appreciate the ipad, how it is used, what it can do, the potential for it in the future, and how it is destined to change my work flow. as a technophile the ipad 2 (not the ipad) is a very attractive format; great hardware; expanded capabilities; awesome price point.  to say that i was upset about the crack in the screen would be accurate, i think i even muttered an expletive (to be completely fair it fell twice the same day – mysteriously my wife was in the room when both happened – i’m just saying).

so the ipad still works, just has a crack that i didn’t notice right away, in fact it was during a change in scenes in angry birds rio that i noticed it and it looked like a scratch not a crack.

i went to sleep last night a bit upset, having told my kids (after they were in bed) that i was upset that the ipad got cracked and generally antsy because i needed to set time aside to go see if it can be repaired.

then the next morning happened.

two things to be exact.  my son came to my room (after going pee in the toilet like he does every morning! hey he is three, it is a great day when he wakes up and pees in the can like a man!) and stood near me and started crying.  i asked him what was wrong and he said he was sad because he doesn’t know how to fix the ipad…

that loud thud you just heard was my heart hitting the floor.

all i could do was to take him into my hands and my arms and hold him, kiss him, tickle him and tell him how much i loved him and that it didn’t matter about the ipad.  it was the best morning; seeing roman xavier’s sincere desire to please me and the hurt in his little heart that i was disappointed in him, and seeing how much my show of love filled the hole in his heart he was feeling and how he came alive when i showered him with affection.  it was the best morning.

as i drove to my office, i realized that roman xavier was just like me and how i often cower before God stuck in my sin and depravity.   how often do i sit near the Lord, crying because i don’t know how to fix the mess i made of my life, feeling like i am such a wretch that i could never get close to Him again.  but God loves us much more than we can imagine:

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” – Matthew 7:11 (NASB)

the gift i was able to give my son is love and forgiveness and that is exactly what God has given us in Christ.  i pray that i can turn to Him, cry out and crawl into his arms and have him shower me with kisses and hugs.  with roman xavier, i reached out to him, and pulled him to me—God has already reached out to us through Christ.

i think i may leave the crack in my ipad…

this persona, however, has certain expectations – as my five year old daughter once quipped – “dad, i didn’t know you are a computer guy”. it comes with the territory. to put it another way, my family cares little that i hold an m.a., am a pastor, and have not held a technical job for fifteen years – they still call when they break their computers.

what some fail to see is that geekdom goes far beyond hard drives and processors, comic books and science fiction, fantasy and obscure popular culture. geekery is as much about a specific way of viewing the world as it is about stuff.

but it is that stuff that defines the paradigm.

the most common thread with geeks is the search for the fantastic. take a moment and imagine the geekiest geek you can imagine. let me help you out star wars, science, and comic books…

the hallmark of the geek paradigm boils down to these precepts: there is more to the universe than what we can see; it is cool to know as much as you can about as much as you can; and no matter what we discover about our solar system, pluto will always be a planet.

so yes, i am a geek – and not because i know who hari seldon is, but because i choose to see things through the geek paradigm.

the difference for me, i have seen what we are looking for, i have drunk from the cup, tasted the fruit. as molder always said, “the answer is out there.”

but what if the answer has already be given? what if the most fantastic thing to ever happen, already happened? what if the very thing so many have sought is right in front of us?

what if i told you it was God?

how geeky is that?

as i grew up in the late eighties/early nineties one of the most influential shows i watched was star trek the next generation. now my fascination with the show went far beyond fan boy geekery – i have always had a deep longing to understand my universe better. you see what made it such a compelling show is that it dealt with a great deal of philosophical ideas – from the origin of life, to the existing of all possible worlds, to the limits of human expression.

in the episode “chain of command” the lead character, captain picard is capture by an enemy and forced into extreme psychological torture – being told that if he was to simply say that he saw five lights all of the pain would end (in actuality there where only four lights) – picard never broke.

what this episode explores is the resilience and the toughness of the human spirit – the immense strength that we possess inside. you see God designed us with a resilient spirit, an unbreakable soul. nowhere is this more evident than the book of Job. at the end of job’s story we are meant to realize two things – God is beyond our comprehension and no one can take our spirit or souls – we can only give them away.

it is that same message that picard delivers at the end of that episode as he defiantly says to his captors as he is rescued “there are four lights!”

the other day i was playing world of warcraft, yes i roll like that, and i came across a character in the game who, when i interacted with him, said only, “there are four lights!”

with God, often it’s the little things…

you see, i grew up in a very remote part of northern california near the border of oregon. being so far out we had a wonderful view of the night time sky where i could see the milky way, our galaxy in all of its glory.

in the 80′s when haley’s comment came through i was able to see it without a telescope. this fascination with the stars lead me to wonder about the galaxy and space and as such i gravitated naturally to science fiction. i grew up truly wanting to live a long time ago, in a galaxy far away.

one thing that all science fiction deals with is the pure vastness of the universe – these sweeping space operas all deal with interstellar travel and the make great assumptions in how it can be practically accomplished.

this is necessary because the universe is really big.

the universe and all of creation is so big that we cannot begin to even describe its size – other than to say that earth is a certain size; and the solar system is a certain size; and the galaxy is made up of billions of other solar systems; and the universe is made up of billions upon billions of galaxies.

as we celebrate the birth of Christ this season, the advent of our salvation, we often forget the enormity of that cosmic realization –

the other day my son and i were hanging out outside goofing off waiting for mom and ate – he grabbed me in aghast amazement and said “we are outside! the whole wide wide world! it is soooo big” – he was fully immersed in that cosmic realization – the vastness of it all.

i often wonder why our response this time of year isn’t the same? in the entire enormity of everything – God gave us the greatest promise of all – the promise of a messiah – the promise of an eternal hope – the promise of an eternity spent with him.

over 300 times in the old testament God used the prophets and the father’s of our faith to deliver this promise to his people. take for example isaiah 9:6-7:

“for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;

and the government will rest on his shoulders;

and his name will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace.

there will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,

on the throne of david and over his kingdom,

to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness

from then on and forevermore.

the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.”

in these 8 lines of text God, through his prophet Isaiah, delivered fourteen prophecies about Christ:

1. he will be born a child
2. he will be born a son
3. he will be over all governments/rulers
4. he will be the wonderful counselor
5. he will be the mighty God
6. he will be the eternal father
7. he will be the prince of peace
8. his rule will grow beyond our imagination
9. his peace will grow beyond our imagination
10. he will be a descendant of david
11. he will rule over david’s kingdom
12. he will establish a new/different kingdom – a new israel
13. his rule will be just and righteous
14. his rule will last forever

so not only do we have a God who creates big – we have a God who promises big.

i don’t know about you, but if i made 14 promises in the span of 8 lines of text i would spend the rest of my life worrying about not messing it up – let alone about fulfilling it.

but just as God, in his super-infinite-awesome-greatness, created life, the universe, everything – he made an amazingly big promise – his promise was this:

even though we have made a mess of his creation (the small part the we see) and of ourselves, he will give us a messiah, a savior – to come and bring us back to him. isn’t that exciting.

think about it for one second, just sit and think about how huge the universe is. many brilliant men have spent their lives trying to grasp that question and at the end of it all, they all say the same thing – the more we discover, the more we discover we don’t know.

God’s super-immense-greatness cannot be understood through our imaginations. that is a chilling thought – that through our own selves we can never begin to grasp anything more than a fleeting glance at the nature of our creator.

now think about this: in all of the entirety of creation – God, who knows intimately everything he ever created – singled out a single world out of this expanding infinitum to love – and in that world of billions – God loves so much that he singled out you, me, all of us.

as the psalmist writes in psalm 139:13:

“for you formed my inward parts;

you wove me in my mother’s womb.”

God knew you, loved you before you were even born.

what we are here to celebrate is more than just the miracle of a virgin birth, it is more than the wonderfulness of a savior, it is more than just the advent of our messiah.

what we choose this time of year to celebrate is that an infinite God, who created an infinite universe, loved us with an infinite love, and singled us out from his infinite creation, and fulfilled the promises he made and gave us a savior, a hope, a reason to believe.

and God, in his infinite greatness, did not do this with a sword or a hammer, but in becoming part of his own creation, accomplished all of this in the most unexpected and simplest of ways – by being human.

the singularily most impressive feat in the entirety of all of creation is not creation itself, but it is this promise: that the God of the universe, the object of man’s speculation and imagination since the very dawn of time, would care so much about you – an infinitely small spec in an infinitely immense universe – that he would listen to the cries of our hearts – our sincere and deep yearning for a connection to him, and give you, give me, give all of us – the promise of a messiah, so that none of us would be separated from him –

and then he fulfilled that promise.

to be fair, i spent my formative years living in an isolated area with not much around.  to be sure i spent a great deal of time outside exploring and playing, but when the weather was bad i had few entertainment choices.  my mother instilled in me and my older sister a devout passion for literature – in fact all of my child hood pets somehow got named after tolkein characters.

i say all of this to say that to this day i struggle mightily with making the time and giving the effort to read the Word of God.  sure i can devour an asimov novel in a matter of days (if not a day depending on which one) or even get through war and peace in a few weeks.  but the bible sits as a dowager among princesses in my collection; always there – much more substantial; but not as flashy and easy as the other books that comprise my collection.

honestly, many days i would rather pick up plato’s republic; the confessions of st. augustine, or summa theologica rather than pick up my bible.  that is wrong.  and i suspect there are many of us out there that have the same problem.

whether you are a bibliophile, hate reading, or find it difficult to focus – anyone who claims a faith in Christ must be compelled to seek out scripture.  so why is it so hard?

for many, a daily reading plan helps bring structure, for some it is the life journal method; for me, and many that i know – both of those fail.  miss a day of reading and feel guilty for not doing it; miss a week and it is impossible to catch up.  so what then?

that is where this comes in.  in 2006 i took it upon myself to launch “THE BIBLE CHALLENGE” it was a challenge to myself to read the bible over a one year period.  long story short – it worked.

now it is time to do it again.  and i challenge you, or anyone who may to do the same.  are you ready?

“This issue is not about church and state – there are plenty of non-religious folk who are prejudice.