Remembering Ken Neller

I just learned about the passing of a very dear friend of mine named Ken Neller. Dr. Neller was a New Testament professor at Harding University, and he had a profound impact on my life. As I understand it, he had a heart attack very suddenly today. It was completely unexpected, and quite a shock.

As I started thinking about our connections over the years, it really amazed me how many blessings I experienced because of him. I first had him as a freshman at Harding for advanced New Testament Survey. Later, when I was adjuncting for Harding, I would base my class point system on the one he used for us. He was always prepared, and was very clear about his expectations for us. He took time to answer questions, and a lot of our discussions in class have still continued to stick with me over the years. He was a fan of mnemonic devices...I'll never forget the story of him tackling Brian Brophy for the sake of giving the class something to remember. Nor will I ever forget in Greek that when dia occurs with the genetive case, it means "through", due to a rather awkward mnemonic tip he gave us. Dr. Neller was never afraid to talk about anything, even taboo subjects. This helped me to be more courageous as a teacher myself. Still today, when a hard question is posed, I think of how Dr. Neller never shied away from any topic, because he knew that Scripture speaks powerfully to real life issues and challenges. I knew from very early on that he was a person I could trust, because he never tried to hide anything. He was an honest person. He taught me that if I'm going to believe something, I should know why, and that my reasons should be good reasons.

He always had all of his classes over to his house each semester for an excellent meal (for which he readily gave much credit to his wife Barbara), and some fun out in the yard. I will also remember him for the way he made an effort every week to eat lunch in the cafeteria with the students. He wanted to sit with us and to make himself available to us however he could. He wanted to understand our needs and perspectives.

I loved him as a professor, and as I graduated and began my own work in ministry, I continued to appreciate him even more. He's continued over the years to be a true friend and encourager. Even as recently as a few months ago, when I faced a hard dilemma, he was one of a couple of people I contacted for good advice, with which he was quick to respond.

Every time I've been back on campus, if he's seen me, he's immediately come to ask how I'm doing, how my ministry is going, and how my "lovely wife" is. The last time I saw him was this year at the lectureship. I'm doubly thankful that I was able to go this year. He walked with me some around campus and caught me up on some of the good stuff he's been involved with. He never missed an opportunity to verbalize, "I'm really proud of all you're doing."

In terms of losing Dr. Neller, any time would have seemed too soon. I know I am just one person of many who could say so many good things about how Dr. Neller has blessed our lives. I'm sure that over the next few days, many others will share their stories, too. He was an excellent shepherd for the Downtown congregation in Searcy for many years. He truly gave his life one day at a time to the service of the Kingdom, and I'll miss him so much until I see him again.

I would not be who I am were it not for Ken Neller. With this post come prayers for his family, as they will miss him deeply. He's given them much to be proud of and many reasons to be comforted in his passing.

A Word of Advice For Ministers About Shirt Designs

With camp coming up, my mind is beginning to focus on themes, logos, and shirts. One of my pet peeves is the way I often see people design shirts for youth groups. I believe that if you're going to go to the trouble and expense of getting shirts made, they should be of a quality equal to whatever the kids could buy at a name brand store.

I have known of many people to get shirts designed who meant well, but produced some shirts that must have quickly made it into either the back corner of the closet (best case), or to the local Goodwill (worst case). Here are some common pitfalls to avoid:

1. Bad Color Choices. This is always apparent when you're at an airport and you see a church group traveling. You know it's a church group because they are all wearing shirts that are some neon, radioactive canary color. Sure, when EVERYONE has one, it makes it look a little better and you can spot people. But individually, no one wants to wear a shirt that is so conspicuous, not to mention it could give you a headache. Stay away from neon colors. Most colors can work fine, if the rest of the color scheme is carefully thought out.

2. Not enough colors. People who get shirts designed often worry too much about budgeting. I fully sympathize that we have to not be wasteful, but if you go for the cheapest option possible, with one color printed on one side, the result will be an ugly shirt that feels cheap. One of my club brothers at HU got us a shirt one time that had the right colors, but all that was on it was a one color image on the back with no text, and nothing on the front. He was happy he had kept the cost down, and everyone got one, but most of us only used it for sweating in. Especially when you're thinking about representing your church, and therefore your God, you don't want something that says, "This is not worth spending an extra dime on."

In your attempts to be frugal, you're actually wasting more money than if you had spent an extra few bucks per shirt, because no one will want to wear it. Let's be honest, if you can afford a $7 shirt, you can afford a $10 shirt; especially if it is one that looks good.

3. A bad designer. I have also seen a lot of shirts put together by people with no artistic inclinations whatsoever, because they thought they could whip something together that would be "good enough". Know yourself well enough to know if you aren't an artist. There are lots of designers available who typically do not charge much for a shirt design. Whatever it costs you, to have a shirt professionally designed is completely worth it, and it reflects well on your group. Do not cut corners on getting your design.

4. Following fashions from the wrong era. Nothing makes me more uncomfortable than when I see something for a youth group that looks like it came straight out of the mid 80s. Words like awesome, radical, extreme, totally, etc., in spray-paint looking fonts and a full rainbow of colors are simply not how it needs to be done these days.

Since I've given you some things to avoid, let me make some constructive suggestions on how to have some great shirts:

1. DO spend some time looking at the current trends in shirts to get ideas for yours. Whenever I have given much input into whatever shirts I've had made, I began by doing research into what is popular. Go to the malls and look at the Ts. Look at them online. Take notes about colors, design styles, font styles, and material types. Are they earth tones or brighter colors? Ringer Ts or regular Ts? Is the type bright, or made to look faded?

I get that Christians are to be different than the world in the way we conduct ourselves. There are plenty of verses that urge modesty, but modest is not a synonym for "ugly."

2. Unless you are an artistic prodigy, or have formal training in graphic design, DO hire someone to do your design work for you. I've found that there are a lot of Christian graphic designers who are actually thrilled to do design work for churches at reasonable rates. It gives them an opportunity to use their gifts for God. Ask, seek, knock, and you'll have much better shirts. If you're in the boat of needing a design and you don't know where to find a designer, just ask me; I can refer you to several people who will do a good job. In fact, if you already have a shirt company in mind to use (I can suggest those also), they often have a designer on staff, or one they work with often. It really isn't that hard to find one if you just ask.

3. To make suggestions to your designer, I've had great luck by actually purchasing a shirt that resembles what I want, then giving it to them as a way to help them conceptualize what they will make. The most popular shirt I ever had made was when I was president of my social club. I bought a shirt at Old Navy that I thought looked good, then I gave it to my designer buddy and said, "Make it something like this." Everyone loved it, and no one complained a single time about the price, which was a few dollars higher than usual ($12 instead of the previous $7). I even heard people who joined the club later lamenting that they didn't get to have one. Of course, my designer deserves a lot of the credit here, because he's good, but any artistic person should be able to take an idea and run with it if you give them something of sufficient quality.

4. DO remember that quality communicates. If you spend the time and money to get something that really looks sharp, people notice. Nothing makes me happier than when I'm wearing a church camp shirt and someone says, "Wow...those look really good...where did you get them?"

For some examples, here are a couple of shirts I had made last year. One was for our Monterrey Mexico trip, and the other was for Church Camp. The Monterrey shirt was a darker, earth-tone color. The camp shirt is bright red. It is definitely possible to use bright colors--though I still would hesitate at neons--if everything else is done well.

Preachers and ministers are already viewed in our culture as uncool and suspicious. If I am going to encourage my teens to bring their friends and to represent the Church, then to the extent that I can, I should make sure they don't have to be embarrassed about the things I give them to represent us.

Inspiring Passion and Action Through Communcation

Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.

I loved this video. I love the idea of starting with the things available to you, and combining them in new and wonderful ways. I believe that God has give each of us the ability to bloom where we're planted, and it's up to us to seek out the best ways to bloom.

I've been working on some ideas for what we'll be doing at church over the next year. We're trying to emphasize outreach and evangelism. While we have what I think are some great ways to move forward in this direction, one of the areas that Don and I have seen most challenging is the preaching. Sure, you can get up and fuss at people and say, "We all need to be more evangelistic!" As a preacher, you can always just blurt out what needs to be said, pat yourself on the back for speaking "the truth in love", and saying, "If they don't do it, it's their problem." I think we can--and must--do better than that in teaching and equipping our members.

Fred Craddock's approach to communicating is the best I've seen. "Inductive preaching", he calls it. Rather than state the major point you're making, you walk them through the thoughts and emotions that built up to your point, allowing them to reach the conclusion through their own thought processes. Inductive preaching is much more difficult to do than deductive preaching, but when it connects, it's very powerful. I feel like we've got to find some ways to talk about reaching the lost that will evoke feelings of compassion for the lost souls of the world, but it is so difficult to help people develop passion unless there is some already there.

I'm curious about what you think: How can you communicate with people about evangelism in a way that makes them feel motivated to be more evangelistic?

How do you inspire passion in people?

What has your minister/church leader done that has caused passion about God's work to well up from within you?