I spend a ton of time traveling, both in the air and driving (when can I please start sailing again?!) and most of the time I have my iPod on.  Only rarely am I listening to music, although I have a nice collection ranging from Eva Cassidy to the Rolling Stones, from James Taylor to J.S. Bach.  No, I’m catching up on Podcasts, mainly sermon series from Rob Bell, Mark Batterson, Andy Stanley… and about ten others.  I do this in blasts, waiting for a pastor to finish a series and then I listen to the whole thing in one shot.

I did that today, listening to Kent Dobson filling in for Rob Bell, then jumping over to Andy Stanley on the will of God.  If you have anything to do with podcasts here’s some advice I’ll pass on from today’s listening:

[Read more →]

Public Relations is a mix of art and science and is a practice every professional needs to master, even if it’s just to market yourself. Today you’ll learn a lesson at the expense of Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for the office of President of the United States.

It’s clear the flak that Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. has caught from his two-decades long association with his radical Afro-centric pastor, Jeremiah Wright has McCain’s attention. McCain is afraid that being endorsed by John Hagee and Rod Parsley will become his own Jeremiah Wright. Unfortunately, McCain did the knee jerk reaction, and in the humble opinion of your simple scribe, he has hurt himself.

McCain has denounced the endorsements of Hagee (based on his beliefs about the Catholic church, Israel’s rightful claim to the Holy Land and other issues) and of Parsley (primarily because of his historically-accurate teachings on Islam). By doing this he might have distanced himself from some political fallout, but he also distanced himself from many tens of thousands of evangelical voters who weren’t entirely in love with McCain to begin with.

Here’s what he should have done. (Get out your notebooks.) [Read more →]

Check out the new Collide site.  I liked the print version of the magazine and was ready not to be impressed with the web version, but it’s tremendous.

My buddies Yuri and Travis at the Church Media Group did an incredible job on this site. (They also did a great job with a kiosk project for me at Grand Rapids First.  I’d recommend these guys to anyone.) The design is clean and intuitive and keeps the cutting edge feel of the print magazine without having the design and architecture draw attention to itself. 

Great article by the first man of non-profit branding, Phil Cooke on the site.  Check it out.

I was listening to NPR today on my weekly trip to Lowe’s, and the anchor did a phone interview with an aid worker named Joy who was in China for Mercy Corps. I produced a series of radio programs for them a million years ago and I highly respect their founder Dan O’Neill, so I really excited to hear they were getting some good PR on NPR.

This girl sounded cute, but come on, take advantage of the PR opportunity. She never talked about the great overwhelming need and that only because of people’s generosity can they immeadiately jump into action. She didn’t have to give a web site (but she could have done that) but she should have at least given people the idea to donate to any charity that is working over there.

What really got to me is that there was no mention of Christ. The reporter really set the aid worker up nicely asking “why do you do this?” The reply was nice but she talked about her career choice and why it’s important to her. Maybe Mercy Corps has left its Christian roots. I hope not.

Finally, we can all learn from this. Joy, the aid worker, seemed to think this was more of a personal profile than a corporate PR opportunity. Please remember this, when someone puts a microphone in front of you first think about God and what He would have you say to give Him glory and second, think about the people who give you a paycheck… somewhere down the list you can think about yourself.

Today I was in a creative session with one of the largest Christian television ministries and we discussed the needs of the world, and what we should do to help.  Have you noticed what’s going on in the world right now?

• Untold thousands dead in Myanmar, and it’s going to get worse as disease spreads.
• China digging out from a major earthquake, tens of thousands dead and that’s if the dam doesn’t break.
• Tornados flatten towns in Oklahoma and Missouri.
• Violence errupts in Kenya.
• Darfur rebels attempt a coup which will lead to a bloody payback.
• And this is just mentioning the obvious examples.

So, the problem is this: as Christians we must respond, but here in America we’re paying around $4 for a gallon of gas. For many, the pain from filling the gas tank eclipses the pain of those around the world who have lost everything and for whom the cost of gas isn’t even on their radar.

We are the body of Christ. We must respond — both to the hurting in America and to those around the world who will never see the face of Christ unless we show up.

I love technology, I’m not on the bloody edge of tech, but I’m usually an early adopter.  That being said, what’s up with Twitter?  I’m not sure if it’s cool or just weird.  (But that didn’t keep me from signing up!) http://twitter.com/joesindorf

I mean, I love Michael Buckingham, but I’m not sure I couldn’t live without knowing that he was “off to coffeeshop to work on HOW stuff”.  Oh wait, that was a Twit (or is it a Tweet?) from yesterday.

Oh no!  Where’s he now, and what’s he doing?  I must know!

Help me out.  Has anyone found a good reason to twitter your life away?