Story Telling Value - the Good Samaritan example

My pastor gave a sermon yesterday, and he was talking about the story of the Good Samaritan.  I got to thinking about the example Jesus showed of how to do explaining in a compelling manner.  Yes, you can talk with facts and data, but sometimes the stories can be more effective.  You use your relating skills to tell a story that makes a more compelling argument than a fact based explanation.  The problem sometimes is that the 30 Percenters can tie you up in a fact based argument that will take you to a point that you no longer have the facts to convince.  Then you can get on the defensive and make things worse.         

Take a look at this series of verses from Luke 10.           

25 One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”             

26 Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”                      

27 The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”             

28 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”                      

29 The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”             

Parable of the Good Samaritan             

30 Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.                      

31 “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by.

32 A Temple assistant[d] walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.                      

33 “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him.

34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him.

35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins,[e] telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’                      

36 “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.              

37 The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”           

The guy could not even say the word Samaritan, but he knew he was busted!  Think about your story telling ability.  Have you ever said, I can't tell stories?  Well you can tell stories about yourself all day long if you just practice, and commit to try.  And here is the cool part.  No one can argue your personal story, no matter how many facts they have.  Jesus knew what he was doing when he used this story! 

Perspective - how it is our friend and enemy in relationships

So I taught college Sunday school this week. The topic was moral relativism. I passed out different kinds of nails to each group of two or three and asked them not to show each other. I told them, “This is your truth.”  After that, I went to the whiteboard and asked each of them to help me draw the nail. The discussion was interesting as each had different size heads, lengths, scoring, etc. Finally, one of the exasperated students said, “Depending on our truth, the nail will look very different.” AH HA! She got it!

So the first part of the message was that if everyone has a different truth, there is no one real truth, as everyone has their own, and they can be entirely different.  Then I took one nail, and had three different people draw it on the board.  Each time I told them it was wrong, since they drew a side view. I then showed them the right way to draw it was looking straight at the nail point, basically two concentric circles and a dot for the point. What I was trying to get across is that even when we have the same truth, it is viewed from our own perspective, which is based on lots of factors from our childhood and adult experiences and learning. 

So, when we are explaining to others about stuff, whether they are knowledgeable or not, they are going to have a perspective. If it is business, they will have paradigms from their past, if it is scripture, it will be affected by past learning’s as well as their opinions in general.  Perspective can hurt our attempts to explain as we find out they are seeing a completely different truth, or if they view truth from a much different point of view than we do.

That is why relating is so very important as a partner to explaining. Relating helps us to discover the perspective of others. This knowledge can impart wisdom as to whether you are even on the same page as the other person, much less the same sentence.   Relating can prevent serious interpersonal barriers from forming as others get defensive as to their position. Relating can show us when explaining is not a good idea at the time. It all works together!

Does Search Engine Marketing Matter to a Church?

Does Search Engine Marketing Matter to a Church?

Chris Byrd, Wisdom Selling

Your church has great opportunities to take advantage of the internet to grow your ministries.  Check out the link at the bottom for one opportunity coming up this weekend.

Persons new to your community are most likely now to search for a church on the internet first, before visiting around.  Therefore a website is a must for a growing church.  Once you have a site, though, you want people to find it.  Search Engine Optimization can be a very valuable tool for a church to use if the goal of the church is to be the first church identified by a seeker when searching on-line for a church.  Google, Yahoo, Bing and other Search Engines (answer providers) are always looking to provide the most relevant information to their customers.  This is how they justify their fees to advertisers.  Therefore, they are always going to do their best to Search all the websites and other information on the internet to find the best answers to questions that might be asked.

The formulas they use are always changing, as websites try to beat the system and get more notice.  For example, websites began buying text links from each other to appear more widely accepted.  Therefore, the search engines had to put restrictions on text links to keep the information credible.  However, there are many legitimate ways to increase the value of your presence on the web, which is the process of optimizing your site to be favorable to search engines.   In doing so, you create greater likelihood of being found by those in your community looking on –line for information about churches.

Search Engine Marketing has different methods to it, depending on your goals.  There are search goals that focus on relevance by location.  There are others that focus on relevance by keyword.  There are other marketing methods when you want to advertise events, messages or other saleable items.  A good webhosting provider will have these resources available to you.  OurChurch.com is a great webhosting provider, with the extra benefits of being one of the larger webhosting sites focused entirely on Churches and Christian Businesses.  This allows them to understand more fully the search engine needs of churches relative to geography (being the top of the list in your zip code, for example) and relative to keywords (childrens programs, etc).  Regardless of where your site is hosted, they can help.

There are fees for Search Engine Optimization, as there are real people doing real work to make this happen, but OurChurch.com is very competitive as they realize the needs and assets of the market in which they work.  If you would like more information about this very valuable support, email me at chrisbyrd@wisdomselling.com.  You can learn more about this as well by visiting http://marketing.ourchurch.com/marketing-church-marketing-services.php .

Thank you for taking the time to read this information.  Here is the link I recommend for you. 

http://blog.ourchurch.com/2011/05/03/14-ways-to-learn-live-lead-and-leverage-your-faith-for-internet-evangelism-day/