All Things NASCAR

Not having CaTV I soaked up each network telecast of the major NASCAR races growing up - watching Richard Petty, Cale Yarbourough and the likes bump and crash their way to the finish. It's a great treat now that NASCAR is on network TV most weekends, but there are a few improvements needed.

Things NASCAR needs to change:

1. It's great that they have a network TV deal, but they've got to insist that the networks put them on. I can't tolerate NBC broadcasting Bull Riding while NASCAR is relegated to TNT.
2. With the network TV deal, NASCAR should try to replace ice hockey as the fourth major sport in the USA. But to do so, they need to shorten their season moving the Chase for the Championship to August when the majority of fans don't have other competing interests (NFL, Baseball playoffs).
3. They need to drop NBC all together. Is it just my impression or does NBC regularly miss the action on the track? I find I get a better understanding of the race if I listen to the radio broadcast. Though they have former NASCAR drivers on their crew they don't seem to love, eat and drink NASCAR like their audience does.

Fantasy NASCAR
Though my favorite team, M&M's Racing, is out of the Chase, I'm in two Fantasy Leagues that are coming down to the wire. My Andoy team is tied for the lead in the Nextel Ultimate Fantasy League with GoJimmieGoJimmie. Our teams are against each other at Talladega this week so the tie will be broken one way or another.

In the Race Friends league after sitting in the basement for most of the season, the Comeback Kid has been on a surge of late, climbing up to 2nd place (only to fall back to 6th after a poor showing at Dover).

NASCAR Outreach
I've heard that several people at Grace have tossed around the idea of a NASCAR outreach. With the number of NASCAR fans that attend regularly, I think we need to think about using NASCAR as a Level 1. One thought I had was doing a Grace NASCAR Fantasy League next season open to anyone in greater-Lititz. We'd use it as a common-interest thing to strike up conversations and to build relationships. In addition, we'd have at least one or two races that we'd watch at the church. Something like projecting a night race on the side wall in the Auditorium (20+ feet high screen) and seeing a race in larger-than-life size or maybe we project on the outside of the Auditorium and we do an outdoor race. I've heard some argue that without alcohol you won't draw a crowd, but I'm willing to try anyway. NASCAR just seems like a perfect avenue to build bridges.

Church Directory

If you haven't already, be sure to fill out a Directory Update form for your family so we can include your correct information in the 2006 Church Directory.

What is the purpose of the directory?
My hope is that the directory will be a tool to build bridges within the church. Most everyone's address information is already published in the phone book, but it's a little cumbersome to try and figure out which Miller family I was talking to in church last Sunday. The church directory helps in that department. We also list the names of children so if you're teaching a Sunday School class you can associate the child with their parent(s).

Why does the Church ask for this information?
One, we would like the directory to be accurate, otherwise it's useless. Two, it helps us track our congregration. For us to be effective in our ministry, we need to have a good understanding of who are people are. Three, it helps us communicate things related to church like changes in event schedules or prayer requests and though we hope we rarely have to, emergency information. We ask for the work contact information in case we need to track people down during business hours. We recognize the information as sensitive, so we respect requests to keep phone numbers unlisted and we do not publish the work information outside of the church office.

Why doesn't the Church publish email addresses?
I've debated for the past five years whether we to publish email addresses and to date we've decided to leave them unpublished. Our reasoning is that email addresses seem to change more frequently than our other information which would render the directory inaccurate. We do keep the email addresses for church office use and work hard to keep it up-to-date, but it is a difficult challenge.

When will the next directory be published?
Our target publication date is Sunday, November 6. My goal is to have the directory available each year on the first Sunday in November. That gives us enough time to collect the address information from those who have started attending Grace in the Fall, yet getting the information out before the end of the calendar year.

When will the next pictorial directory be published?
Grace has been publishing pictorial directories every 3 years since the 1970s - you should see the archived copies :). The pictorial directory is designed to help put faces with names and they've also become a visual history of the church. We're slated to start working on our next directory in 2006 to be published in November 2006. Though we've used Olan Mills for many years, we will explore some other companies this time for a change of pace.

One Final Request
Always remember, the Church Directory is designed to help people at Grace Church connect. It is not to be used for business purposes. The directory is only as good as the information it contains. If it is used for business purposes, people may be less willing to give us their information which would decrease the value of the directory.

Sports Dreams & Wishes

Here are my list (at least what I can think of right now) of sporting events I dream of attending and the ones I've accomplished so far:
A baseball game at Yankee Stadium
A baseball game at Wrigley Field
A NASCAR race
The Indianapolis 500
A match at Wimbledon
A Duke/North Carolina men's basketball game in the Dean Dome
A Big-5 game at the Palestra
A UEFA Champions League soccer match
An Ajax soccer match in Amsterdam

2005-06-13 - Attend a baseball game at Fenway Park
2003-11-29 - Attend a North Carolina men's basketball game
2000-09-09 - Attend a Penn State game at Beaver Stadium
2000-09-03 - Attend a USA Men's National Team WorldCup qualifier

Fantasy Football Freak (F3)

I'm part of an AFF (Adult Football Fellowship not to be confused with an ABF) that meets every Sunday afternoon. In addition to watching the NFL each week, we also have a Fantasy Football league. I'm known as the freak. One of my weaknesses is I don't know how to draft. So last year, since all the top echelon running backs had been picked I didn't draft my running backs until the last rounds. Fortunately, Tiki Barber was one of them and he had an incredible first half of the season. But because I don't draft well, I have to compensate by adding/dropping free agents week-in and week-out. Last year I made something like 100 transactions over the course of the season. Yeah, I'm a freak. My team is off to a slow start this year, mostly due to poor management. I drafted Donovan McNabb, but after his less-than-stellar performance in week 1 and reports that he had a bruised chest I benched him for week 2. Donovan went out and ran up 62 points. Guess I won't do that again.

Diligence and things you never knew about Warwick Twp

It has been a real treat working on the due-diligence research on the property across the street. One of my tasks was to read the Warwick Township Zoning Ordinance cover to cover. I am impressed with the level of organization and order that is maintained in Warwick Township and it was fascinating to compare Warwick's Ordinance with Elizabeth Township's Ordinance. Just by looking at the size of the two documents you can tell that Warwick is much more developed and has experienced a lot more growth than Elizabeth Twp has. That's not to say that Elizabeth is not as good or anything like that, it's just the different in the two municipalities. I appreciate the work of Dan Zimmerman, Warwick Twp Manager and the direction he has charted for Warwick. His job regularly puts him in a difficult position, making people unhappy, but his approach has benefited the residents of Warwick Township as a whole. I commend him for his efforts.

In reading the Warwick Ordinance, I was struck by a few particulars that are probably not common knowledge. Did you know...

• You are only allowed to have up to 2 adult dogs in your house (§302 (10))?
• Vehicles without current license plates or inspection stickers are only allowed to be stored in enclosed buildings (§303 (6))?
• The Zoning Ordinance specifically states what car repairs you can and cannot make to your vehicle on your property unless it is in an enclosed building (§302 (9))?
• You are only permitted to hold 2 garage sales on your property each year and no garage sale can last for more than 3 days ((§302 (8))?
• The Ordinance specifically states that speed bumps should not exceed 3 inches in height and must have a warning sign (§312 (5))?

These standards and the others contained in the Ordinance help to maintain a community. I applaud the Township for recognizing the need for establishing such standards and consistently enforcing them. Check out the Warwick Township website for more information.

Over-caffeinated Distler

One of my weekly tasks is preparing Sunday's message recording for publishing to the internet. With the messages running between 20-40 minutes in length it can take a while to edit, so I often make use of the ability to speed the message up. We've all heard and been challenged by Pastor Scott's messages over the past year and he definitely gets into the subject when he's preaching, but to use his words, "imagine what it would sound like in double time". So I thought I'd take a moment to share with you what I get to experience on a weekly basis. Pastor Scott preaching in double time, truly a sound to behold...

I'm ready for some football

Okay, I've been reading my posts here and while informative, it's not high on the interest level and doesn't have a broad appeal. Thank goodness I love what I do! Anyway, I hope to intersperse some other topics here and there, hopefully to keep this from reading like an encyclopedia.

I love competition, put two groups against each other and I'm interested. The medium doesn't really matter - I'm even trying to get the church staff to compete to see who types the fastest. Right now it's football season and I enjoy good competition on the football field. I gave up rooting solely for one team when the Eagles lost the Superbowl XV to the Oakland Raiders. I was crushed that night and have been scarred ever since. I don't have strong loyalties to anyone team and I'm susceptible to being a bandwagon fan, but my main interest is seeing two evenly matched teams knock helmets for 60+ minutes of pounding football.

So when I'm asked who I route for, I often answer, "the referees." Have you ever observed the head referees in the NFL today? Many of them, in their own unique way add their own twist to the job:
Bernie Kukar announces first downs with an accent, "First doooooown"
Mike Carey motions the official signals as if he is an ex-cheerleader.
Tom White signals first down by punching his palm then signalling the first down
Ed Hochuli has huge biceps - I wouldn't want to run into him in a back alley

There's at least one other freak-fan out there who has taken notice and even posted pictures of each of these guys. I enjoy seeing who the NFL calls upon to call the big games and which referees make it to the playoffs and the SuperBowl. It's amazing that most of them have full time jobs during the week.

So, if you're looking for me on a Sunday afternoon between September and January, more than likely I'm flipping between multiple games not only watching the game, but mimicing the referees. Offsides on the defense, five yard penalty, first dooooooooown.

The role of the web at Grace

One of the biggest complaints I used to hear was that people didn't know what was going on at Grace; a lack of communication. We tried to communicate more effectively by reviving the monthly newsletter and adding more announcement slides before the Sunday services, but the perception still existed that people didn't know what was going on. Communicating all that is happening at church has it's challenges.

Sunday morning seems to be the most logical time for communication. After all, you've got a captive audience and in general it's a pretty safe assumption that the majority of those who want to know what's going on will be in church on Sunday morning. The problem is that people don't come for the announcements, they come to worship. And truly, the purpose of Sunday morning is worshipping God and connecting with people. We've worked hard to make worship and connecting the main thing on Sunday mornings, recognizing that we have to facilitate communication in other forums.

The Sunday bulletin is another seemingly obvious avenue for communication. But judging by the number of questions we field whose answers were printed in the Sunday bulletin, I perceive that the bulletin is not that effective. I've been very tempted to place tidbits in the middle of an announcement "If you are reading this sentence, call the church office this week and we'll buy you a gelati at Rita's", just to gauge who many people actually read the announcements we print. One group I think reads the bulletin cover to cover are first time guests who are interested in getting a feel for the entire scope of our ministry, but I wonder how many regular attenders pay attention to the weekly publication.

The struggle with the monthly newsletter will always involve getting articles written and keeping the publication from reporting events that occurred over a month ago. Well written articles take time to research, interview, write, edit and finally publish. With the amount of effort needed to produce one article, newsletters can easily fall behind schedule falling prey to reporting out-of-date information.

Direct mailings have their place, but sending a weekly mailing can get expensive. And I don't know how much junk mail you get at home, but my guess is that a weekly mailing from church would soon be joining the pile of mail that's still waiting to be read.

The internet has provided new avenues that we've been using for a while now. Though aspects of the church webpage a specifically designed for people who are considering making Grace their home church, other areas target the regular attender. In these sections, we often publish the same information that appears in the weekly bulletin, usually with more in-depth information or links to other pages with related material. I think the interactivity the web affords is a valuable asset the church can use to communicate more effectively with the church body and a way for the body to respond. I've been challenging the church staff to push themselves to use the web more and more with their ministries. I'm currently thinking through the advantages/disadvantages of moving a majority of our information/communications out of the bulletin and onto the website. Instead of directing people to a bulletin announcement, or a sign-up sheet in the lobby, we'd refer them to the webpage.

The direct email lists are another avenue that's grown in the last year. The key to lists is similar to direct postal mail, we have to use it sparingly. I don't want my inbox getting flooded with daily announcements from the church. Our current schedule of 3 messages a week to the church's main list is about as much as I hope to send on a weekly basis. We've recently added a Youth and Lititz Christian list, both of which are only schedule to send messages at specific intervals.

I foresee that the church website will play a larger communication role in the coming months. It will likely become the hub for accessing information from the church. I hope we can soon begin offering a web-equivalent sign-up for any activity in addition to the sign-up sheets you see at church.

I haven't heard a complaint about our lack of communication in some time. I'm sure some feel they are in the dark, but I think we've made some significant progress and I hope that momentum carries us forward.

Emergency Preparedness

Watching the evacuations and shelters in the South got me thinking about the role we might play in disasters in our area. Grace Church has had a standing agreement with the American Red Cross of the Susquehanna Valley to use our facility for emergency response. Our facility could be a great resource in handling a large emergency in our area.

The biggest threat to our building is likely a fire. Our building is equipped with a monitored fire alarm system that uses heat sensors, smoke detectors and pull stations. Our procedures for our Monday-Friday ministries meet the daycare/school standards. We conduct monthly fire drills, each held at a different time of day and each simulating a fire in a different part of the building. The daycare standard is to have the building evacuated in under 3 minutes; we regularly clear the building in around 2 minutes.

But weekend ministries, particularly Sunday morning, are a different challenge. The biggest challenge to a fire drill on a Sunday morning is for families to resist the instinct to go get their children, but instead to evacuate the building and reunite with their kids on the soccer field. Some day I'd like to have a fire drill on a Sunday morning. It would be very different from a normal fire drill. I would announce it publicly beforehand to let everyone know it's coming. I would have as much preplanning as possible so everyone knows what they're supposed to do and where they're supposed to go. I would be secretive about it at all because there's no reason to. My goals would be to educate people on what they were supposed to do, get them familiar with our alarm system and accustomed to reuniting with family in the parking lot.

The frequent storms during the summer of 2004 gave us an opportunity to practice our tornado preparedness. We evacuated something like 3 or 4 times last summer, moving everyone in the building into Room 201.

I've attempted to improve our emergency preparedness, but haven't had as much success as I'd like, mostly because I need qualified people with enough time to help me put it together.