the pen is not mightier than the word

Yesterday I had a letter arrived at the church that was personally addressed to me. At least it will be if I ever change my first name to begin with the letter ‘R’. Still, all the rest of the details were correct so I opened the envelope.

Inside was a lovely pen with our church name and details lasered onto it, along with a letter inviting me to order lots of them for our church.

“How kind of them to send me such a nice gift,” I thought. How they knew that I needed an extra pen I can’t tell. The letter was inviting me to purchase 50 such pens and get another 50 free. It’s not a bad deal, but it’s not a deal that I want to take advantage of right now. However the deal is time-limited, and that’s a shame because it may be that in the space of a couple of months we might want to buy some pens with our church details lasered onto them. We just have not had that discussion at the moment and as it is a strategic decision related to how we welcome and integrate people into the church (honest) it will take a little longer than the 30 day length of the offer.

Many times in the past I have written bloggages about us being free samples of Jesus, and that would be an obvious analogy to draw from this. However I’m going to resist. The letter that accompanied the pen described it as “a pen customers and prospects will treasure and use every day.” It is quite possible that someone will use such an everyday item, perhaps they will treasure it. But will it persuade them to come back to our church?

I think the things that attract people to churches are not the things we give away but how much of ourselves we give away. Our church has a reputation for being warm and friendly. But “warm and friendly” is not the same as “loving”. It’s easy to love those whom we have got to know but how do we show love to the newcomer?

I haven’t got any profound answers to that question at the moment. We are working on it. but I think the way that we listen, value people, respond to their needs, open our homes, share our lives is far more significance than a pen.

Be blessed, be a blessing.

laws of computing (look for the pen*)

1. When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.

2. When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it’s probably obsolete.

3. The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you’d least expect to find it.

4. When the going gets tough, upgrade.

5. For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.

6. To err is human…to blame your computer for your mistakes is even more human, its downright natural.

7. He who laughs last, probably has a back-up.

8. The number one cause of computer problems is computer solutions.

9. A complex system that doesn’t work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.

10. A computer program will always do what you tell it to do, but rarely what you want it to do.

*these rules were offered to me when I did an Internet search for jokes about pens. I’m not sure whether pen is myself