Kung Fu Panda

Took the kids to see Kung Fu Panda today. It was truly going because its the only real kids movie out now and TJ has been begging to see it. Man did I have a good time. That movie was really good. No matter what issues you have in life that movie touched on them and taught you....stop waiting for a some magical thing and realize the 'magic' is inside you.

A Parent's Dilema

When I was younger one of my favorite songs was Parents Just dont Understand. Because truly we believed they did not understand what in the world we were going through. It was the age of pagers and 'instant communication'. We had to type our reports, and the Ti calculators were the most powerful handheld devices around. The way those calculators did math and stored formulas was amazing. We had the original Playstation and the Sega Genesis.

So it was no wonder our parents did not understand us....they did not exist in the same technological worlds as we did.

Now that I'm a parent, and a young parent, I can see both sides of this equation and realize that I truly dont understand.

My 8 year old and my 1 year old are going to live totally different technology childhoods. My 8 year old can create a pod cast...who knows what the 1 year old will do at 8.

But what problems does this cause for parents who dont understand that they dont understand.

What reprieve is there for the mother who cant understand why her son is rebelling against the family. Where can she turn, who can she call. Better yet how is she supposed to make sense of it all.

here is the fact...Kids today change more in 1 year than we did from age 10-18. I was in panera last week and a group of sophomores were talking about how OLD SCHOOL instant messaging is and how they could not understand why facebook would add such an outdated feature. At that moment I realized that I am still an avid IMer and these 15yr olds thought of it as old school.

If that's not enough for ya...these same kids were playing a sex positions game in Panera. Even if any of us were having sex at 15 we did not talk about it much less make games that we played loudly and in public.


So what do we do as parents....STOP TALKING...start listening...as parents we talk at our kids a lot, we talk at their friends...we tell them about how it was and what we would or would not do when we were their age. I'm not suggesting we accept disrespect from kids but I am saying that they realize that our reality does not match their reality...they realize that we dont understand and they believe we cant because we talk to much.

Human Directionals

Most people would say I'm pretty unconventional, I think. I like to push the envelope of innovation and our latest idea whereas it does not push innovation I think it pushes churches past their typical marketing realm.

We are going to use human directionals. These are the guys that stand on street corners with huge signs and perform sign acrobatics. they twirl and spin the signs. Conventionally they have been used for retail establishments but we figured the amount of attention they generate at strategic corners cant be beat. the best part is its dirt cheap...$37/hour.


I'll be mocking up our sign tonight and will post the graphic later.