Digirati Star Power at work

Yes, I've already had a blog post today, but I found something out today that required immediate posting.

Last week Michelle and Jenette went to meet with a t-shirt company in Kansas City that had contacted us about doing some printing for us. This morning I was getting the details from Jenette on how the meeting went and asked how this all happened. She told me that they had called us and then went on to tell me that my blog had caused them to make that initial call.

What happened was Daniel King (who works for this company), son of Mike King, was helping his mom find something in an email and noticed a message with the subject "Mega Church Conference". It was a message I'd sent to Mike about an event we have coming up in February. Daniel clicked through to my blog, which led him to the CIY website. After some investigation he decided to place a call to our offices.

This is the best example I have heard lately of digirati star power at work. All right, Johnny being named on Gman's top 20 is a pretty big deal too.

Six years ago...

On Saturday night, OSU's mens basketball team did something that it hadn't done in 6 years. They took the court on January 27th. Coincidence? In part, given that their games generally fall on particular nights of the week. But in actuality there is a bigger reason the Cowboys had not played on that date since 2001.

On a cold night in Colorado, following a disappointing loss to the Buffalos one of the 2 planes carrying members of OSU's basketball traveling party went down in rural eastern Colorado - not far from I-70 east of Denver. On it, 10 men who filled various roles in OSU's basketball program - 2 players, a broadcaster, 3 student assistants, a sports information specialist, the director of basketball operations, 2 pilots - were all killed.

Word of that tragedy hit Stillwater later that night in the middle of a horrible rain storm - you know how in movies it always rains when something bad happens, well it was actually raining that night. For days the campus and the community merely went through the motions trying to move on. Stillwater and the OSU campus are very tightly knit, it is a proverbial college town (in the good and the bad sense), so a situation like this effected everyone.

Later that week memorials were held. One gathering saw a recently re-opened (after a huge renovation that doubled its size) Gallagher -Iba Arena filled nearly to capacity as the school and team honored those lost. Each family held their own service as well. As it happened I had become acquainted with the brother of one of the men on the plane just a couple of weeks before the crash. We were taking a class together and were put in a group together to complete projects for the semester. As a show of support the third member of that group and I attended Chad's brother Jared Weiberg's funeral in a small town in western Oklahoma. He was one of those guys that was well known by a community who loved him, he'd grown up and gone to a big school and made something of himself (Jared managed to walk-on to the OSU hoops squad and make the team for a couple of seasons while he was a student, at the time of the crash he was a graduate assistant under Eddie Sutton). From all accounts he was a class individual. I'm sure that the other memorials and funerals were just as emotional, honoring other men of character and great promise.

Over Christmas my wife and I went to see "We Are Marshall" - the movie about the plane crash that killed almost all the members of the Marshall football team and coaching staff back in the 70's. It's a great movie. Watching it brought back a lot of memories from the days and weeks that followed OSU's crash. I can't imagine what that school went through, the results of OSU's crash were so devastating and it was far fewer people.

As we are often forced to do after a loss, life had to move forward. OSU's basketball team won a inconsequential game against Missouri shortly after the crash in front of a very quiet, somber crowd at GI. It almost felt wrong to even play the game. Two road losses (at Nebraska and Kansas) followed.

But then came the night that I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. On Valentine's Day of all things, OSU had the Sooners coming to town for a Bedlam game that on paper was no matchup (but you know how those rivalry games go). OU was number 13 and OSU unranked. Before the game, Coach Sutton and Kelvin Sampson (OU's coach) came out to address the crowd (this was early enough that it was mostly OSU students in the Arena at this point). Kelvin - who I don't like - was a gentleman and showed more class than I knew he had. He communicated the support of the OU community for OSU during this time of loss and the two coaches urged the students to let the rivalry be less heated that night.

That is the one Bedlam game I have ever witnessed that was fairly civil. I was proud of my fellow students and fans for taking it easy on OU that night, the time for hating would come later.

But that night wasn't even about being nice. It was about seeing hope. OSU went on to beat OU 72-44 that night, the biggest basketball winning margin I've seen in Bedlam recently. During the game when it was clear that the team had turned the corner and were again playing with passion the crowd absolutely roared. I've watched lots of games in that Arena (touted as among the loudest in the country) and I've never heard it get that load before or since. The pain wasn't gone, but healing had begun.

Anyway, Saturday night OSU played on January 27th for the first time in 6 years, thankfully this time it was a fairly quiet win over Iowa State.

Customer Service 101

I want to disclose right up front that I am not the resident expert in the Conference Department on customer service. That said, I do consider myself somewhat knowledgeable on the topic. Customer service is very important to us at CIY, we serve local churches, youth workers, and students by presenting the Gospel through programs and resources. The fact that serving is right there in the description of what we do should indicate the importance we place on serving customers.

Recently I received an offer for a very well known business publication in the mail. In deed the offer was so good that I decided to take them up on it. I mentioned what I'd recieved to Chase, who also being a b-school guy, commented he wouldn't mind getting that magazine for that price. So before I mailed my check I called the customer service number. After finally convincing the automated system that I didn't have an account number, but still needed to talk to someone (the subject of automated phone systems alone could be the subject of several volumes on customer service) a woman came on the phone. I explained to her that I was about to send in this offer I'd received, but had a coworker that would like to subscribe as well. I then asked if she could send out the same offer to him.

Now in the world of buying and selling "hot lead" databases you've got to catch the significance of what is happening here. I was offering her a "hot lead" free of charge and as a matter of fact, they didn't even have to ask me to do it, I offered it all on my own. In the magazine business that would seem to be dominated by 3 things - number of subscribers, which helps generate all important ad revenue, and publication content - my offer was gold.

Her response? Those offers are sent out randomly, there's no way that I can have one sent out.

Taken aback I thought maybe she'd misunderstood, so I tried again. So you mean you don't want an additional subscriber? I'm just trying to throw you some business here.

Yeah, I can't really do that.

Now I wouldn't have been shocked if she'd transferred me to someone else and the transfer marathon had ensued (they transfer you 26 times, then the .2 in this marathon is when you hang up while on hold - sorry, bad attempt at runners humor during a business post). But she just said they weren't interested. Apparently this magazine has so many subscribers that it doesn't need more. She could have easily taken the information and sent him a lesser offer if the one I recieved was in fact as special a deal as the material claimed.

Lesson: When someone wants your product or service it is never a good idea to just blow them off. Now sometimes in business there are customers that cost you more than having them as a customer is worth (this is rare and is generally only seen in the B2B world). But when you are in a business that thrives on having people buy your product or use your service you are missing the boat when you turn "hot leads" away cold.

At CIY things are a little different. This is a ministry, dollars are not our bottom line - changed lives and Kingdom expansion is. However, if we treat those who participate in our programs (essentially they are our customers) poorly they will find other programs and resources for their ministries (there are lots out there to choose from). As such, we work very hard to make sure our "customers" have a positive experience from the time they register, through the event, and afterwards. There are certainly incidents each year that result in a youth minister, student, or parent being less than fully satisfied. We work to address those concerns when we are aware of them. The one thing we strive to always do is conduct ourselves in a Christ-like manner, treating others with respect. If a youth minister or student comes away from a CIY event and was treated with respect and the love of Christ that is a customer service win for us. It is of course a bigger win if they return the following year with friends or tell other ministries about the event because they had such a positive experience. (Please note: I'm dealing strictly with customer service here, our primary goal is always that the students encounter Christ and be challenged with or in a relationship with Him. Customer service is an auxillary component of what we do that helps feed the primary component - ministry.)

Oh, and we certainly don't turn away contact information for churches or youth ministers that our current customers try to give us. So if anyone reading out there knows of a church that doesn't currently attend CIY programs, but could benefit from them please give our offices a call (417-781-2273), we will gladly get receive that information. Or check CIY out on the internet.

Why I got 5 hours of sleep last night...

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

In case you missed it, OSU played a 3OT thriller with Texas last night at Gallagher-Iba. They finally sealed it when Mario Boggan - who simply refused to lose the game - hit a 3-pointer with OSU down one and less than 10 seconds to go (in the 3rd OT) with 2 guys on him. By the way, he shoots 15% from beyond the arc, so this was no John Lucas moment, it wasn't even the shot Sean Sutton wanted in that moment.

Highlights included Byron Eaton (pronounced E-taun) heaving a one hander from the time line (literally) as the shot clock expired. This managed to be ESPN's top play for Tuesday and was a big momentum changer (Texas was up 7 right after half on a 9-0 run when he hit the shot to bring OSU to within 4, I don't think OSU ever fell further than 4 behind again).

Texas has a freshman phenom that scored 37 and grabbed 12 boards and nearly finished OSU off a couple of times. Credit Boggan and Curry (who has been shaky at times and still has work to do) for refusing to lose on the home court. There were a couple of moments when I would have loved to see what the dB meter was reading, I'm sure it was deafening.

One of the pictures included shows former walk-on Tyler Hatch, who ended up playing 35 minutes last night, scoring and getting fouled. He was 0-3 at the line, any of which would have ended the game sooner, but this bucket was huge because it forced Texas to at least act like they were going to guard him. Up to that point Texas used their 5th guy to chase Boggan and generally create all sorts of problems in the paint. I'm not a fan of Hatch, or at least to this point I thought he needed to stay on the bench with the other walk-ons. However, he played good defense and rebounded well last night and provided OSU enough quality minutes to get a much needed win.

One last note, OSU played those three OTs with only 5 men. They used only 7 in the game, but Eaton and Dove fouled out late in the game (actually, Eaton might have made it into the first minute of OT, I can't remember) leaving just 5 to play the last 14-15 minutes. I thought a couple of times Sutton (who commentators thought was fainting during timeouts, turns out he hurt his back falling on the ice on Monday) might go to the bench for Bowman or Cooper, but he didn't. All I can say is it was a gutty performance by Boggan, Curry, Monds (who should never shoot outside the paint again), Harris, and yes, even Hatch. They looked terrible at times, nearly giving the game away repeatedly, but somehow managed to overcome it all and get a win they'll talk about in Stillwater for a while. I only hope this is the kind of big win that will send them on a run through Big 12 play.

I've been reading Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur. Thus far I've really enjoyed the in-depth look at the character and personality of each of the 12 Disciples. However, I hit a snag yesterday and today as I read MacArthur's take on Philip.

Philip was the "bean counter" of the Disciples - that's MacArthur's description. I object to that description on two levels. One he wasn't the accountant, Judas was. Second, the rest of the chapter reveals MacArthur's disdain for administrative types.

In truth there are only a few glimpses of Philip acting alone in the Gospels, actually they're all in John's gospel as best I can tell. MacArthur's interpretation of each of them is that Philip lacked faith and was too busy trying to figure out how to do things by earthly means to recognize Christ's power to accomplish the impossible. In MacArthur's words, "everything" was impossible for Philip.

I'd like to point out that there is certainly an element of creative interpretation when MacArthur starts filling in the blanks of what happened and was said to draw conclusions about the people involved. I'm not at all opposed to this type of writing, I enjoy reading a well educated author's conclusions about many of the stories in scripture. Certainly MacArthur has plenty of credibility to write in this manner.

My two objections to his slant on Philip are as follows:

1. He interprets everything Philip does negatively. Philip says, it would take more than 200 Denarii to feed the 5000. MacArthur assumes that was him trying to dissuade Jesus. And maybe he's right. As an administrative type I read that and hear Philip saying, "Lord, we can't do this with the cash on hand...if you want to feed them it's going to take something only you can do." But perhaps the original language makes it clear that Philip was telling Jesus it couldn't be done. It was Philip's job to give Jesus a status report on the physical resources at hand - my interpretation.

2. MacArthur projects everything negative he sees in Philip onto all administrative types - he makes 2 or 3 such references throughout the chapter. This is the part where I'll just go ahead and say, "John, sorry, you're wrong." If MacArthur is correct about what Philip's role was among the 12, then it is similar to what I do at CIY. I don't do the accounting, I do handle a lot of the logistics for the Conference Department. And I don't think those I work with would tell you that I see "everything" as impossible - if I find out otherwise I'll probably unpublish this post. MacArthur seems to think there are some inherent character flaws in those whose natural bent was designed for details and logistics. I suspect that his large ministry benefits greatly because he has a handful of top notch administrators ministering along-side him. I'm not aware of any enterprise of any significant size that can function without someone gifted at keeping things straight and moving on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps my objection to his statements indicate their truth, but it would concern me to work under a boss that appears to feel that a person is spiritually flawed because of the very gifts that make him/her good at what he/she is being hired to do.

With all that said, I recognize that there is a natural tendency in me to see the obstacles first. When Jayson comes in and wants to do something huge I often immediately start going through a checklist of things we'll have to do, get figured out, or overcome in order to accomplish what he has in mind. That doesn't mean I shoot his idea down, it means that my job is to figure out how to get things done. Sometimes the answer is, "This is something God will have to do, we can't on our own." Certainly when it comes to the large, long-range vision that CIY and the Conference Department has there is no way that we can reach those goals without God opening doors, providing resources we can't even imagine, and intervening in ways we don't even understand. Administrators may annoy visionaries, but let's be honest, Jesus saw fit to keep Philip around and I believe there are 2 reasons. First, He had specific plans for Philip in ministry. Second, Philip helped keep things moving and his administrative skills were valuable. Scripture is clear, it takes all types, God gave lots of types of gifts and He endowed each with value.

Creativity in Coaching

Article

From the second row of section 323 in Gallagher-Iba (which is actually a pretty good vantage point thanks to the engineers building the arena straight up, I was still close enough to see everything in great detail) Brittany and I watched Saturday as OSU held off a late charge by Baylor. Not exactly a signature win, but the game wasn't as close as the score looked. Baylor hit several late threes and OSU helped them out by not converting all their free throws during that span. OSU led most of the game by 10-12 points. The crowd was fairly quiet, not having the students in town probably had something to do with that. But it was great to see some Cowboy basketball on the famous 69 year old floor - now called Eddie Sutton Court.

The article linked above details a move that Sean Sutton is making in an effort to address his paper-thin bench situation as the team prepares for a trip to 9th ranked Kansas this week. With multiple injuries forcing Sutton to play only 7 with a former walk-on being the 8th (and in my opinion not a great option), the first-year coach has recruited Adarius Bowman from the Cowboy football team to join his squad. Bowman was all Big 12 this season as a wide receiver and was an outstanding basketball player in high school. I don't look for him to start or lead the team in scoring, but he may provide some critical minutes playing the 3 spot (at 6-4 they're not likely to send him inside too much, then again there was Byron Houston) or even the 2 when JamesOn Curry is forced to move to the point.

I like this move by Sutton. I don't care if Bowman doesn't do anything spectacular all season. Rather than just ride out the season, Sean is being proactive. Some coaches would try to circle the remaining healthy wagons and get it done with what's available - unwilling to add someone to the squad mid-season. No doubt that's worked for some. But I think in this situation, adding a guy like Bowman can be a lift for the team. Bowman is probably fairly well acquainted with the basketball team already - my observation was that the major sports teams seemed to know one another. And there's no real danger that the team is going to treat Bowman as an outsider - he's a Cowboy too, he just wears pads most of the time.

Thinking of that. I've been saying all season that OSU doesn't rebound very well and needs to be tougher inside. Reality is that they're mostly tall, lanky guys, so they're not going to bull too many people around (then again I've never seen a point guard that could be the second team fullback for the football squad, but I think Eaton could pull it off). However, I've been disappointed to watch Tennessee and now Baylor get all together too many rebounds against OSU. Eddie's decision a couple of years ago after a frustrating loss to Texas Tech to have the guys put on helmets and shoulder pads during practice was well documented (he stole the idea from another coach). Whether you like it or not, it worked. That team didn't get outrebounded again until (and I didn't check my facts on this, but I'm about 90% sure) they lost to Georgia Tech in the Final Four.

Sean, have Adarius bring his helmet and pads, in fact, have him bring enough for everyone. Mario is a stud, but Cooper and Monds aren't tough inside and Dove is too soft as well. By the way, tell Dove to quit doing that thing with his hands when he scores. It makes him look stupid. Maybe it would be all right if he only did it when he got a break-away jam. Wait, that's the only way ever scores anyway. Tell him to save it until he hits a game winner and then make sure the ball isn't in his hands with a game on the line. Tell Hatch he's not going in the game again until he cuts that stupid hair. One more thing, and you may want to pass this on to someone else. Tell that one crazy cheerleader to tone it down. My wife was ready to go down to the court and smack her by the time the game was over. It's like they gave a hyper girl speed or something.

Go Pokes!

Returning to the Homeland

In just a couple of hours my wife and I will be making a day trip to Stillwater to watch the Cowboys take on Baylor (men's basketball) at Gallagher-Iba Arena (repeatedly named the greatest college basketball venue in the country - CBS). Britt bought the tickets for me for Christmas - what a great gift!

It's been months since I've visited my alma mater, actually it might have been more than a year, I can't remember. It seems like only a short time ago that I lived there and never imagined being anywhere else. Funny how things turn out. Of course the memory tends to provide rose colored lenses when considering the past. If I'm honest I remember plenty of frustrating days in that town. The streets are terrible, they'll shake your car to pieces. Parking is a mess (for most). The wind blows all the time, I remember only a couple of dead calm days in the 5+ years I lived there.

While I wouldn't trade the life I've been blessed with today for anything - certainly I would never have met my wife if I hadn't moved to Joplin, nor would I have the amazing opportunity to invest in Kingdom work via CIY without having left Stillwater - I do appreciate the good things I experienced there more now than I did then.

I think one of the natural downfalls of most people is that we tend to underappreciate what we have until it's gone. Wise are those who can fully appreciate what they have while they have it, certainly nothing in this life is guaranteed forever. I see this tendency most in students and young adults. As an athletic has-been I get a little fired up when I see high school athletes who don't care about their athletic opportunities and make poor decisions that will hurt their performance in the future. Most will look back later with regret for having squandered their opportunities - or at least not having taken full advantage. This is just one example.

My wife says my posts are generally too long, so I'll draw this to a close with a prayer:

"Father, I thank you for the way that you shape and direct our lives - sometimes in spite of our efforts to take control. I thank you for the path you have led me down and the way you have blessed me, far beyond what I deserve. Help me to appreciate the good things you've put in my life and to learn from the trials that come my way. Forgive me when I take things for granted and when I don't recognize the blessings you've put in my life. Give me the wisdom to see the big picture and take advantage of the opportunities you place in my path. All of this I pray in your Son's name, Amen."

Loss of a Cowboy

ESPN Article

As most have heard by now, the Denver Broncos starting right cornerback Darrent Williams was shot and killed early Monday morning (1/1/07) in downtown Denver. He was apparently the victim of a drive-by shooting following some kind of altercation at a night club - an altercation that Williams himself apparently was not involved in, but took place between others in his party and another group in the nightclub.

Two others were injured in the incident, Brandon Flowers and Nicole Reindl. Javon Walker is thought to have been a passenger in the vehicle at the time, but has not confirmed this yet.

Williams played his college ball at Oklahoma State and stands out among the best defensive backs in recent OSU history (R.W. McQuarters being the other that comes to mind). The single play that I saw Darrent make that most stands out in my mind was an interception during his freshman year against Texas A&M on a nasty, rainy, cold day that sealed a win over the Aggies.

The loss has clearly been deep among those who knew him. Reactions around the league and the OSU community have been emotional. Tatum Bell (who played at OSU and on the Broncos with Williams) was very emotional when he talked to ESPN's Cold Pizza Monday morning. Statements from Mike Gundy (OSU head coach), Anthony Criss (William's high school coach), Kevin Williams (OSU teammate and Vikings Defensive lineman) all describe Darrent Williams as an exemplary individual who was realizing his dreams in the NFL. Time will tell what led to this tragic loss. My prayers go out to Darrent's family, teammates, friends, and especially his two young children.