About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas.Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.

Acts 16.25-33

As Christians, the example we set matters. Even on the worst of days. 

It doesn't matter if we're in a nasty jail cell and imprisoned for all the wrong reasons, or just in a bad mood because our car won't start - our example matters. 

How people see you will be how they see Christianity. Will they see something positive like the Philippian jailer saw, or will they see negativity, confusion, and dissent?

We all decide the message we send out to others. Make yours a positive message today. 

Jerrie Barber is one of my favorite ministers, and I've only heard him speak a couple of times, mostly about being a preacher himself. Jerrie has what he calls a "Criticism Contract" that reads as follows: 

"All criticism about Jerrie Barber should be directed to Jerrie Barber and Jerrie Barber alone. Jerrie will listen to your criticism and embrace it. Likewise, any criticism about the staff or Elders must be directed to them as well." 

First of all, great policy. Second, Jerrie says that he embraces criticism. 

Do you embrace criticism? Or do you dread and loathe it?

Indirectly and unintentionally, I have always tried to encourage my youth committee and Elders to constructively criticize me in all things. I need to know when something is wrong and then, hopefully, I can fix it. I can't do anything about anything if the problem with me is not directed at me. Sneaking around and talking about someone to someone who can't fix the problem is just juvenile and anti-Christian. 

As ministers and youth ministers, we should have an attitude of embracing criticism, not abhorring it. We should tackle problems with solutions instead of getting depressed or something about what so-and-so complained about whatever you did, said, or didn't do. Our jobs are ones that invite every type of criticism, viable or not, and we need to learn to embrace it and take it, not dread it. 

Last week I had the honor and privilege to teach a class at the Revival Youth Minister's Retreat at Graymere Church of Christ in Columbia, Tenneessee. I got to talk to some youth ministers and give them the exact same talk that was on the Ministry Bits podcast this week. I got some great insight from those guys just talking with them about the subject of internet safety and digital parenting and how we can help parents be on top of it better. 

One thing that stuck out to me (that I actually wrote down because it was so good) was what Jon Morris said during the class: 

"If you're telling me that 60% of the internet is porn, then we as Christians and Christian parents need to start being radical and intentional with this whole internet safety thing."

Radical and intentional.

Two things I think that we as Christian parents have not been. 

We need to be radical in our thinking and intentional with our actions regarding our kids' safety on the internet. We need to be those parents who are relentless on keeping our kids safe and not apologize for doing it. We need to make sure that we don't let other parents influence our decisions to do these radical things. Protecting our children from these dangers and letting the internet be a tool for communication, rather than a method of destruction. 

I've gotten a great response to the podcast yesterday. This is a huge need for our parents and I'm glad to be able to help, even if just a tiny bit. Take a listen to episode 008 and let me know what you think. 

And then be radical and intentional with your own kids. 

I'll admit, sometimes I get a little carried away with stuff. 

When I get a good design in my head, it just has to get out. So when Paul Spurlin of Adventures in Ministry (AIM) contacted me about getting Ministry Bits on their podcast network, he wanted to some design assistance as well. 

Paul never approved or asked for a redesign. I was just presumptuous and sent him my idea. Fortunately for me, he really loved it. 

I won't talk about the old design, just the new one. I wanted to first simplify, simplify, simplify. As is with any project I tackle. I haven't done many logo redesigns, so this was rare for me. 

AIM Logo, version 1.0

AIM 2.0

One thing Paul said was that he liked the navy blue and gray colors. I was trying to find a way to incorporate this into the redesign while not taking anything away from the new logo. 

The result was a simple, two-tone effect made possible by the "crosshairs" that center on the "I" in AIM. Slightly slanted to give a alternate, moving effect, the two colors in the logo actually blend nicely. The font used was a standard modern font names Avenir Next, a favorite of typographers and designers lately. I used the "Heavy" weight for all the lettering. The only custom letter is the "A," which I added a missing strip on the left side to distinguish it just a bit more. 

The crosshairs in the new design accomplish three purposes. 1) It gives focus to the new dynamic of the logo, 2) it forms a cross, which is the universal Christian symbol, and 3) It gives an impression of seeking and hitting your mark. This is exactly what the underlying mission of Adventures in Ministry is all about: hitting your mark to make the most impact on spreading the Gospel and bringing people to God. 

The best thing about designing simple things is that most times they're actually simple to design. As I was testing out ideas for the logo, what did I use in Photoshop for the design? The Eraser and Paint Bucket tools. That's right. No fancy drawing in Illustrator, no vectorizing. Just simple typing the A-I-M out, getting my kerning the way I want it, rasterizing the type, and then working to erase the lines of the crosshairs the way I want them to look. 

Detail on the crosshairs.

The most difficult thing to accomplish was the rounded edges on the center of the crosshairs. I had to go in a basically erase pixel by pixel to get the exact curvature I wanted. This gave the crosshairs a "sweeping out" effect, if you will, as if they were moving.

All in all, I'd say the redesign was a smashing success. I'd never intended to come in as the AIM guys had invited me in and make sweeping changes, but I had an idea, ran with it, and took a chance and presented it to Paul. Usually, as a designer, that can go two ways. You're super-excited about an idea and when you pitch it to the client, but they hate it. Or worse, they're indifferent and don't have the gumption to tell you that they hate it. But Paul was honest with me in the design and said "I just want to keep that this way with these colors" and so on. Luckily, he loved the final design, and it is now AIM's official logo, both on the website and the app on iOS and Android. 

I am so very happy to be working with Paul, Eric, Jon, and Andrew on this venture. I see a lot of great things coming down the pipe. 

You can check out Adventures in Ministry, where they have links to the podcast network, devotionals and songs for download, as well as full resources like classes and retreats. Head over there and download some good stuff!

View fullsize

I got to have a great conversation with Robert Hatfield over at The Light Network about Getting a New Computer this week on his show Preachers In Training. It's very similar to the episode of Ministry Bits on Moving to a Mac this week as well, only Robert said and mentioned everything I didn't and in a much more eloquent way. So that's good. 

Give episode 40 a listen over at TheLightNetwork.tv or listen in iTunes.