Welcome to my randomized study & miscellaneous thoughts about the Awesome God of the universe, who He is and what He wants us to be.

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Verse of the Day

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Today's Quote

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Building Webs

I had a window seat for my flight yesterday and noticed that a spider had somehow made its way between the plane's glass outer window and the plastic inner pane. The spider had built a web and lay dead--probably from starvation--near its center.

I know a metaphor when I see one.

Why do spiders build webs? Because they expect to catch dinner with them. And it usually works pretty well. An unsuspecting fly lands on the web, get's stuck, and eventually becomes an insect smoothie. But there were no flies between the windows. In fact, there had been no other living thing besides the hungry spider. This spider had built a web because that is what it always did to catch food. Never mind that it was a hopeless strategy in this case. The web only caught the spider.

How often do marketing people make this same mistake? They use the same tactics over and over without regard for changes in their environment. Are you "building webs" because that is what you always do or because they are the very best tactic for your environment?

Excerpt from Pyromarketing (http://pyromarketing.typepad.com/my_weblog/)

Isn't that the way it is? We do something succesfully once ...or we see or hear about something working somewhere else and we try to do it over and over again. And then we're amazed nd baffled when it doesn't work!

Have you ever seen the inside of a fisherman's tacklebox? I mean a real fisherman with a tacklebox full of real lures and plastic worms and bobbers and such! Why would he have so many different types and colors of lures?? Why not just use the same one over and over that caught a fish once? Because fishermen know that (a) different fish are attracted to different lures and (b) fish are attracted to different lures based on changes in weather, season, etc.

So when fishermen are not catching anything, they don't just pack up and go home. They try a different lure...method...tactic.

Why doesn't the church (collective and universal) do the same thing? You say that she does? Well, it's mighty slowly then! And I'm just using the illustration of "lures" not saying that we should be "luring" folks into the church...although I have heard of churches giving away large screen TVs and cars, motorcylecs...why even a house to attract people! I'm not so sure that Jesus would do it that way...but who knows? It doesn't seem to be something that I would be a proponent of anyway.

But I am a bg proponent of seeing where the people are, what their needs and hurts are and then trying to serve their needs thereby demonstrating the love of Christ. This may mean a counseling center, or food pantry. Maybe it's English as a second language classes or parenting classes. It would be different in each place and time.

I do know one thing that is universal and has the same stickiness as that spider's web we saw earlier. It's relationships. Real, authentic relationships matter to people. < Broad generalizations on> People are lonely and need to feel the touch of another human. Not in a sexual manner, but in a caring, loving manner. We all need to know that we matter to someone. That we make a difference and that someone cares and would miss us if we were gone. < /Broad generalizations off>

Look around your life this week. Is there someone on the fringes who's likely to slip away with some loving contact? Make a call. Invite someone to lunch. Invest some of yourself and your time in another person this week. Do for them. Do for yourself. Do it because God loves you so much that He sent Someone to meet you and show you that you are loved.

~ Jehovah agape ~
scribbled with crayon by dr. larry at 6:53 PM