Our Rating

Every program that you watch on your TV has one greatly feared item. That item is its “rating,” the number of viewers that go to that show’s channel each time that program is on. Most shows also have a site for comments. They want to know the comments from each presentation. Each new presentation is based on the response from viewers of past shows.
Each show has one or more sponsors. They are the ones that pay the money to keep the show on the air. If the sponsor starts to see that show’s ratings declining, they go to the producers of the show and inform them that they must bring more viewers to the show or it will be canceled!
Now, let us take that same train of thought and move it from our TV set to the place we go for our religious instruction one or more times each week. How is its rating?
Are more old faces dying off, than new faces coming in to fill those recently vacated seats? Are we receiving enough interesting new material each week to give us a talking point for the week that follows? Are we being shown new ways to look and talk about the same thousand year old material we’ve heard about all of our lives?
Are we in the center of a protest of our teaching, a protest by people not showing up? Are we still trying to sell our product the same way it was sold in our father’s world?
Scriptures, or the interpretation of them, have modified over time, but in many places those who teach expect time to stand still. Look around us; we are living in the information age, things change by the minute! Our ratings are determined by our willingness to accept change!
It’s hard to move into the past, when the future is all around us. We must realize that our ratings are not a tool to use to judge ourselves. Those ratings are there to show each of us how to do things better. We have more tools and better tools than any generation before us. But, those tools are only as good as the use we put them to. The best tools in the world are worthless to the person that refuses to learn to use them.
The people that we talk to today are more thinking, more intelligent and more questioning than those of yesterday. Most want to hear more than; it’s so because I say it’s so, or that is my interpretation of what it says in the Book! Today’s peoples have learned to ask questions and expect answers. If we can’t give them those answers they’ll find them elsewhere. We must remember: the rest of the world is only a mouse click away!

Marketing God

Many of the large religious places of yesterday are standing as empty shells today, while others have far less activity than in days gone by. Most are using the same tools that worked well for them years ago, but many of those tools have become obsolete today.
With the coming of TV, the cel-phone or Smart phone, and most of all, the computer, many find their congregations falling by the way side. With most religions based on teachings based on hundreds to thousands of years of successful teaching, suddenly many find that today’s world requires that God has to be marketed in new ways!
The key words are “the people of today.” Today we face a more educated people! Those unafraid to ask questions and many refusing to accept; it is true because I say it’s true! One person’s interpretation means far less when people, with just a few clicks of the mouse, can go to that computer, in their own house, and find many different interpretations of that same statement! I believe that having the ability to contact the world is better than sitting week after week listening to someone preaching to the choir.
I believe religion, in general, has been handed the greatest tool to market God our world has ever seen! To give you an example; just before my eighty-fifth birthday I was told to start a blog. Me, one who had no idea what a blog was! I had never heard the word before! Now, less than two years later my blog has been read by someone on every continent in the world! This same world that at the time most of our sacred works were written, the people that wrote those words had no idea that the continent I’m writing this from today even existed!
I have a point I need to make before I go farther: it makes no difference to me what you call your religion! I know there is but one God, your God and my God. Doesn’t that make each one of us either a brother or a sister? Aren’t we each a part of all religions under that God? Isn’t that God, our God, the creator and started of all things?
A ways back I mentioned my blog, I had to learn many new things in a very short time to get it on line! I found that I had to learn Word (that I had never used before), next I found that I needed Face Book, then I heard about Skype! I’m working on that too. Can you imagine both of us sitting at home and talking face to face?
Lastly, in my spare time I’m starting to learn YouTube! When I become a “Tuber” you will be able to pull me up at your convenience and both watch and listen to my essays. I promise, each message will be three minutes or less. And, I look forward to your feedback on those. Today, I’m only on page 53 of that 440 page manual, but I’ll get there!
I have been very surprised by how far my blog has come with little financing, no formal writing training, and just my computer in my home! To the many people that have read my essays, I say thank you. If you see something you like please pass it on. I, like I’m sure you have wondered why I was chosen to do this, Then one day I realized that many times our God uses the least among us to do His work.
With the tools that have been provided for us today, many of the old world religious ideas have a lot to learn. Many of today’s young people learn from their cel phones, Smart phones, I pads or lap tops. Most messages are watched or listened to for a minute or two at the most and then deleted! If you can’t get your message out in that time it’s lost forever! There is no reason to expect those kids, in this new digital age to listen and watch the old long orations! There are too many more exciting things for them to do!
Many of today’s leaders are lazy! They love to address the sure things! They address their messages to the ones they know are already there! Many allow themselves to become computer illiterate. Many refuse to use those tools that God has laid at their feet! If they were salespersons for another product they would have been fired! We must realize that our God hands us new miracles every day, but we must learn to recognize those miracles to be able to use them!
A few minutes ago a man and an older lady came to my door trying to interest me in their interpretation of God. While we talked I told them about my blog. The lady was shocked; she told me that my computer was a tool of the Devil! Then she told me that her Bible told her the only way to reach people has to knock on doors! And, then she turned and walked away! See what I’ve been talking about?
For each door she knocks on, I’m able to knock on thousands! I want them to keep all of those easy ones, please give me the hard ones, because they are the important ones to me!

Learning Two

In the third or fourth grade I had a teacher that I disliked. In fact, I developed a hatred for her! She taught me English. She taught me if I wanted to learn or not!
Back then, each student was supposed to learn the “Palmer Method” of writing. It was a form of writing using ovals and lines that was supposed to make one a better writer. For me it just did not work! It taught me how to hold my pen, but nothing else! One day, about halfme to stay after school. She told me to sit at a desk just in front of her table!
With tears in her eyes, she told me that she never befo-way through the school year, my teacher pointed her ruler at me and told re had to give up on one of her students, but that she was giving up on me! She told me that she didn’t think that I would ever learn to write long-hand that could be read by others! Then, she told me that I should learn to PRINT! And, then she told me to go home!
The very next day, she again pointed that ruler at me and again told me to stay after school! This time she told me that even though she had given up on my hand writing, she had not given up on me speaking properly! In fact she said; if I did not learn proper English “we both would die trying!” All the while she talked she kept slapping the palm of her hand with that dreaded ruler! And, I was scared to death of that ruler!
Looking back today, I think she was one of my best teachers! She had learned to walk that fine line between love and fear! Although I can’t remember her name, I feel she and my Grandma were the two with the most effect on my early life! And, I can still remember the sting of that ruler on the back of my hand!!!
My guess would be that we only use a small percentage of what we learn, but you can’t use what you don’t have! I also feel it important to learn things that are considered impractical today, because they are the things that can change our today’s dreams into tomorrow’s reality. Only that last breath puts a limit on our learning!
I’m always surprised at how many times I refer to things I learned decades ago, when I write these essays. To those of the past who took the time to teach me to think and learn, I give you my warmest thank you!
Much of my school life, I looked upon my education as a group of teachers propagandizing captive people in a closed room. I now realize that, as I live each day, each of those teachers who took time to teach me is also living it with me.
I feel so sorry for all the kids that drop out of school today. Many will never have the chance to feel the excitement of learning all of those new things that I feel each day!
For me, life is the need to always have something to pursue! I thank those before me that taught me to ask questions. I’ve learned; what you get out of life, depends on what you bring to it!
P.S. every word in this essay was first printed by hand as per that third or fourth grade teacher!!!