Awesome post. Thanks for sharing it. You are right on and need to continue to challenge people to think differently. I love the story of Peter confessing who Jesus was. I am amazed that it took place 2 or even 3 years after Peter began following Jesus. Jesus keeps calling people to follow Him. He and His Spirit (according to Jesus in the passage with Peter) take care of the followers knowing He is the Son of God.

I find it interesting that we are happy with the "Christinizing" & "santifying" of the pagan holidays that are now celebrated as Christmas and Easter, yet Halloween that has more history as the evening (All Hallow's Eve) as the day before All Saints Day than it does as Samhain's Eve.

A Generous-Giver — okay, this one is specific to working at a church, but I would never work for a church where I didn’t believe in it enough to give as much as I possibly could.

I like the list, but I have found in my experience that {Generious Giver} this attitude in a church work environment is strongly abused. I no longer have the freedom to "give", I must give my work hours and then volunteer more time on top of that, not based on where I like to serve, but where my supervisor wants the most work done. This changes it from being giving to being unpaid overtime.

I agree that as a Christian, I should give to the church, but somewhere we need to break the abuse of "requiring" workers to "volunteer" instead of paying for their time or giving them option to actually volunteer where and how they choose.

I struggle with both sides of the No. Using the CEO to approve or disapprove seems to me to break the concept of every member is a Priest and is to come directly to God. There seems to be a strong understanding of this CEO with the approval in mission agencies, and many churches. While it allows for a very homogeneous group, it subtly teaches that individuals don't have a relationship with God, they have a relationship with God via their Leader (and I thought this was addressed during the reformation when it was in place through confession).

I think that the power of this is that they do seek to only give the best to the market. But that also means that they limit their "potential" buyers to those that can afford the best. This also subtly teaches that only the best deserve what is offered. That may work to a point in a culture where we can simply offer a church for every strata of society and every socio-economical breakdown. But will that work in places where they can only be one church for multiple language groups and socio-economic stata?

Christianity is not a marketing tool. It is not a business. We never go out of business. Yes we can learn a huge lesson from no using a methodology that is now outdated to reach people. I admire Apple a great deal for their willingness to make the leap forward. Too often missions especially stay focused on what worked 100 years ago. BUT there is no bottom line for the church, unless no one is being discipled and evangelized. It isn't about money its about changed lives.