10 Years of Church Marketing Sucks

July 22, 2014 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

Ten years ago today, on July 22, 2004, a little website called Church Marketing Sucks went live. Our very first blog post went up and we’ve been challenging the church to communicate better ever since.

We’re still going strong today, and we’ve been throwing a month-long anniversary celebration for the month of July. After all, you only get to celebrate a 10-year anniversary once. We’ve got giveaways (T-shirts!), discounts and lots of posts exploring whether or not church marketing still sucks. We’re also doing a hangout next week and more is still coming.

It’s kind of incredible to be involved in something like this for so long. I’ve been the editor of Church Marketing Sucks for 10 years. In this day and age few people get to do anything for 10 years, never mind work on a website.

Church Marketing Sucks has out-lasted the fads, lived beyond the hype and been around long enough to become one of the dinosaurs of the Internet age. And hopefully we’ll be around for a while longer. We’ve been debating the question, but I’m convinced that church marketing does still suck. We’ve got work to do to help churches share the greatest story ever told.

Everything we’ve accomplished so far is really thanks to the vision and dedication of Brad Abare and the team of directors, board members and volunteers that make what we do happen. Brad not only had the vision to start this up 10 years ago, but the commitment to see it through and the trust to let someone like me run it.

Any number of things could have derailed us over the years. But I’m incredibly grateful for the dedication that made us a long-standing voice. I’m still humbled and thankful to be doing this, and I hope to be at it for a while longer.

Here’s to more frustration, education and motivation.

Books

Everything You Need to Survive the Apocalypse Isn’t About the Apocalypse

June 30, 2014 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

No, Everything You Need to Survive the Apocalypse by Lucas Klauss is not an apocalypse story. The dorky teen character Phillip is interested in the apocalypse, but that’s about it. Really it’s about Phillip getting involved with a girl who’s committed to her church and Phillip falling for both the girl and God. The exploration of Christian youth culture is eerily accurate, though ultimately it feels like it shortchanges the faith element.

There’s this open question of whether Phillip is really converting to Christianity as he gets closer to Rebekkah, or if he’s just interested in a girl. We get the whole church youth group experience, complete with awkward altar calls and outsider weirdness. The book nails it. I kept checking to see if it was from a Christian publisher.

We get the interesting dilemma of Phillip’s faith versus love and it’s treated well until the end. There’s a real exploration of faith happening, but it isn’t going very deep. It seems sincere, but then as Phillip loses the girl he loses the faith as well. It’s disappointing because it’s such a waste. Was any of it sincere?

I appreciated the effort and the otherwise honest way church was portrayed, but it all felt like a wasted effort at the end.

Books

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children

June 26, 2014 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills is an eye-opening look into the life of a trans-gendered person.

As a senior in high school, Liz decides she’s now Gabe. She’s never felt like a she, but getting everyone to accept her as a he is no easy task. Simple things like which bathroom to use and filling out W2 forms are stress-inducing for her—er, him.

My own confusion over which personal pronouns to use are a good example of how we really get a feel for what Gabe’s struggle is like. The story is in his voice so the struggle is personal and real. It’s not some out there issue we can easily dismiss.

Tackling that topic alone makes it a book worth reading, but no one wants to read a story about a token hot button character. Instead Gabe has this fabulous interest in music and wants to be a DJ. His neighbor is this washed up, old school disc jockey who shows him the ropes. Gabe starts his own community radio show and begins to flourish as he finds himself and generates a following.

It all comes together as a very real and lovely story about humanity.

In light of a recent Southern Baptist Convention resolution about transgendered people, I think a book like this is more necessary than ever. The resolution basically dismisses the struggles of transgendered people, saying God made them one way and they shouldn’t try to change it. Jesus will help them.

I don’t pretend to understand all the theological perspectives here, but where’s the compassion? The resolution did condemn any bullying, abuse or violence against transgendered people, but that feels like lipstick on a pig.

We’re broken people living in a broken world. There are a lot of things that aren’t the way they’re supposed to be. I’m not sure denial is very compassionate.

I see more of Jesus in Gabe and the friends who love him than I do in this church resolution. This is why I read. I don’t know anyone like Gabe personally. But now I have a tiny glimpse of what that life might be like, and I think it makes me a tiny bit more understanding, sympathetic and compassionate.

That feels more like Jesus to me.

Books

Kid vs. Squid Needs More Squid

June 24, 2014 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

Kid vs. Squid by Greg van Eekhout is a wacky summer adventure with lots of ocean-themed mayhem. It’s fast-paced and has moments of good humor, but it was also a little hard to follow.

But perhaps the most unforgivable sin of false advertising: The title is Kid vs. Squid and there’s no squid until page 169.

And the kid vs. squid fight barely lasts a chapter.

And it’s not really the kid who fights the squid, but seagulls who do most of the fighting.

Sorry, but Kid vs. Squid sold me on this book. I saw that title and didn’t need to know anything more.

But you have to follow through on that glorious promise. Otherwise it doesn’t matter how good the rest of the book is, you’ve let me down as a reader.

I read this one aloud to my kids and they enjoyed it, though were also disappointed at the lack of squid.

Books

Not a Drop to Drink

June 23, 2014 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

I haven’t read a good straight up post-apocalyptic story in a while, and Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis fit the bill.

Focused on water scarcity (something I haven’t seen a lot of in the genre, but will surely become more common), we get a strong teen character in Lynn who knows the dangers of the outside world but has to learn to recognize the potential joys.

How well does she know the dangers? Her mother raised her to shoot strangers on sight—no warnings, no questions asked.

The story is quick, sparse and avoids the temptation to draw things out or go for the cliche. Especially at the end [SPOILER ALERT] there were a number of overdone scenarios I thought I saw coming, but McGinnis steered away from what you’d expect. It could have turned into a series with the main bad guy getting away (though there is a companion novel, set 10 years later, coming out in the fall). The big battle at the end could have had the emotional pain of losing Stebbs, but instead McGinnis went for the bigger hurt. We even could have seen revenge on the coyote that killed Lynn’s mother. So big points for keeping things original.

In the realm of post-apocalyptic stories I think it falls short of some of the genre favorites. Things are a little too easy and clean cut. It also felt like there were some missed opportunities with a pretty great setup and characters. Rather than following the wanderers like most post-apocalyptic stories, we stay with the home base. Lynn is the danger the wanderers face. While much of the story is her learning to interact with others, it happens pretty quickly and I think there was an opportunity to play with that in interesting ways.

It’s still a great story, but it could have been more. Which is high praise, especially for a debut book.

Books

Randi Rhodes Ninja Detective: Characters Trump the Mystery

June 20, 2014 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

Randi Rhodes Ninja Detective: The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit by Octavia Spencer is a quick mystery featuring a kid detective and her friends. I’m not a big mystery fan, so I need to be really impressed. Not so much with this one.

The characters were good. I liked Randi Rhodes and her friends. They’re realistic and relatable, dealing with real problems. The biggest is Randi overcoming the death of her mother.

But the mystery didn’t stand up to the quality characters. It felt a little too simplistic (though it is a kids’ chapter book) and relied on a big reveal at the end. The Time-Capsule Bandit really didn’t hold my interest, but Randi and her friends did.

I’d be willing to read another volume in this series just for the characters, though I hope the mysteries pick up.

Books

The Living: What’s the Plural of Apocalypse?

June 19, 2014 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

Conspiracy and cover up in the midst of apocalyptic mayhem on a cruise ship—with a scary disease thrown in for good measure.

The hits just keep coming in The Living by Matt de la Peña.

The story centers on Shy, a hard-working kid stuck in the middle of it all. In many ways this book can’t quite decide what it is, and you get some of everything from class-based cruise ship hijinks to suicide mystery to Titanic sinking to adrift in a life boat.

It’s also the first in a series, so there’s not a lot of closure (though it’s better than most). The cruise ship apocalypse is taken care of in volume one, but there’s still the super disease conspiracy and a giant earthquake, which leaves plenty of mayhem for later in the series. It’ll be interesting to see if this turns into a post-apocalyptic tale or if it’s more firmly grounded in the midst of the apocalypse.

What’s the plural of apocalypse?

The relentless pace was fun, but it felt awfully jumbled.

Books

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

June 17, 2014 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

In a futuristic, post-apocalypse city state the political system is ruled by women and a summer king is elected every five years—only to be killed when the winter ends. Yes, The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson has a complicated, dystopian setup. In a nutshell, men couldn’t be trusted after ruining the world, so women held most of the power.

But this year’s summer king is pushing the rules and he inspires teenage artist June as she struggles to figure out her place. Like everyone else, she’s intrigued by the new summer king and begins to push the boundaries of her art, the technology the ruling class allows and the very rules of society.

This one is bizarre and intriguing. Set in what used to be Brazil, we’re constantly catching up with the future world and the South American setting. Not everything is explained immediately, which is OK. It also moves along at a good pace, frequently skipping ahead weeks or months and not getting derailed in daily detail.

But it also gets into strange technology and bizarre cultural situations where it’s hard to keep up with what’s happening. That kills any page-turner tendency the story was developing.

It’s been considered among the best—at least by Rolling Stone— but I’m not so convinced. It’s definitely different and breaks some new ground (a future not dominated by white Americans—gasp!), but it’s not the must-read I yearn for.

Books

Sideways Stories Wasn’t as Magical as I Remember

June 16, 2014 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

Sideways Stories From Wayside School by Louis Sachar was one of my favorite books growing up.

I read it to the kids and it wasn’t as magical and hilarious as I remember. It’s still fun and definitely quirky, but it’s also disjointed and sometimes just weird (dead rats?).

It makes me wonder how much of my enjoyment came because one of my teachers read it to us and those books always seem to be better?

It was also written 35 years ago and what was considered off-beat and quirky back then is pretty tame today. We have a lot weirder and more off-beat now, so it seems like a halfway approach.

It could also be that I’m no longer 8 and don’t laugh at the same stuff.

Books

The First Part Last: We Need More Bobbys

June 13, 2014 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

The second story in the Heaven trilogy, The First Part Last by Angela Johnson tells the story of Bobby and Feather and how this father-daughter duo from the first installment came to be together.

It’s just as quiet and simple as Heaven, but told in a then/now format that slowly builds to the climax. It’s the right amount of mystery and intrigue without spoiling things and without overpowering the story.

As a teenage father, Bobby is the hero we seldom see. We need more characters like Bobby. He’s a powerful, strong father in Heaven, and The First Part Last allows us to see how he gets there. It’s not an easy journey, but it’s worth the late nights and tired eyes.

A work-at-home dad wrestles with faith, social justice & story.