Finally...an update from Dave Murrow

You may have wondered why I haven't posted in a while.

A funny thing happened in May. I was finishing up my new book, which is going to be titled, "The Map: The Way of All Great Men." One afternoon I got a call from Gov. Sarah Palin's office. They offered me a job. I took it.

So, on June 9 I finished my book, and on June 10 I went to work in the Alaska Governor's office as the communications director.

One of my first duties for Gov. Palin was to plan her now famous lakeside news conference where she announced she would be resigning. Then I coordinated the big media event up in Fairbanks where she handed the reins over to our new Governor. You all know his name, right?

I'm still working full time in the Governor's office and it's been a steep learning curve. This is my first full-time job in 22 years. Working 8 to 5, wearing a tie, and going to an office every day is a completely new experience for me, but I'm enjoying it. I'm finally settling into a groove and can turn some of my attention back to Church for Men.

On my next post, I'll give you a sneak preview of my new book. THE MAP is very different than my two previous books. One reviewer described it as "Jason Bourne meets Dallas Willard." He called it "the world's first spiritual formation thriller." It's half adventure tale, and half advice book. I think you'll like it.

The first verb in the Bible...

Pop quiz: what’s the first verb in the Bible?

Created.

Of all the things the Bible teaches us about God, creativity is revealed first. That’s significant.

Here’s another way of putting it: creativity is God’s first nature. When we are creative, we are being like God. Look at the amazing creativity of Jesus. Every time he opens his mouth, something unexpected tumbles out. There was no predicting him.

We see this in our churches. The congregations that are fresh, innovative and creative (within the bounds of scripture) are drawing huge crowds. Those churches that offer predictable religious fare are in decline.

Next time you pray, ask God to give you the gift of creativity. If you preach or teach, you should ask for a double portion. Creativity is one of the most direct ways any person can “be like Jesus."

How spiritual disciplines drive men away from God

It happened again last Sunday. The preacher advised me to get up early and start my day with devotions. "Spend time alone with God," he said. "Read your Bible every day. Pray to God in secret."

But this good advice, repeated millions of times in our churches every year, has an unintended consequence: it's isolating our men. We're teaching men that the Christian faith is something you do alone. In private. And it puts pressure on men to generate a relationship with Someone who doesn't say much (audibly, at least). 

As important as private prayer and study are, I think fellowship is more important. That's right — I believe that hanging out with other Christians is more important than reading your Bible or praying. My mother had a saying, "David, take a good look at your friends, because that's who you're becoming." 

Think about how Jesus started his ministry. He didn't teach the crowds how to study the scriptures or pray. Instead, he chose 12 men and forced them to hang out together. In fact, the disciples had to ask Jesus, "Teach us to pray." Then he gave them the a brief model to follow. Soon he was back to team building.

When Christ sent 72 men out to minister (Luke 10) he paired them up. Jesus never sent anyone out alone. Similarly, the Apostle Paul's missionary journeys were taken in the company of other men.

Looking back at my spiritual life, I'm most like Jesus when I'm in close proximity to other godly men. My deepest failures have come when I am alone. 

I'm really going to climb out on a limb here: I think a Christian life consisting of individual Bible reading, prayer and church attendance is little threat to the kingdom of darkness. But when two or three gather to pray, the evil one trembles.

Men tend to isolate themselves. By pressing men to practice a God-and-me-alone religion, the church is setting men up to fail. I challenge preachers and teachers to emphasize corporate spiritual disciplines as much or more than personal devotions. 

Teaching for the Male Brain

November 19, 1863, two men were scheduled to speak at the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery in southern Pennsylvania. The first was Edward Everett, considered the greatest orator of his day. This distinguished gentleman was an ordained minister who had served as president of Harvard University and US Secretary of State. He was elected governor of Massachusetts and a United States senator.

Everett, following the custom of his day, had prepared a florid speech, eulogizing the fifty-one thousand men killed, wounded, and missing following the battle that had been fought over this piece of ground. For two hours he held the assembled crowd spellbound. He descended from the platform to thunderous applause.

As the commotion died, a tall, thin man strode to the podium. He gazed out at the assembled crowd, cleared his throat, and began to speak. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Less than two minutes later, it was over. And the world had changed—forever.
The Gettysburg Address, widely regarded as greatest speech in American history, clocked in at just under two minutes.

My question to those who preach and teach in church is this: do you want to preach and teach? Or do you want to change the world? If the latter, follow the example of Jesus Christ and Abraham Lincoln. Keep it brief.

Like the orators of old, modern Christians still teach to fill the allotted time. Sunday school is forty-five minutes long? Then that’s how long the lesson will be. Sermon slot is thirty minutes? Then that’s how long I’ll preach.

Pastor, what might happen if you preached for two minutes, then allowed the Spirit to work? Teacher, what if you taught for thirty-eight seconds, and then let people have at it?

Whenever I mention these ideas, people are stunned. They think I’m loony. Two-minute lesson? Ten-minute sermon? People are already biblically illiterate as it is! How can we starve them with a two-minute message?

Jesus did. I’ll prove it: One time I was stuck on a long cross-country flight. I had my Bible and some time to kill. I happened to have with me a list of the parables of Jesus. So I timed each one with a stopwatch. Then I took an average. Go ahead, take a guess: how long do you think it takes to preach the average parable of Jesus?

Thirty-eight seconds.

The lessons that changed the course of history comfortably preach in under a minute.
For you trivia buffs, the longest parable in Scripture took me two minutes, twenty seconds to read (Luke 15:11–32). The shortest: five seconds (Matt. 13:33).

That day, cruising at 35,000 feet, God showed me a simple truth: it is not the length of your teaching, but its impact that changes men’s hearts.

Actually, there is a place for in-depth Bible study and teaching. Just not on Sunday morning in a sermon. We all know that sermons do an absolutely lousy job of equipping the saints. Thom and Joani Schultz polled churchgoers about the sermon and found:

* Just 12 percent say they usually remember the message.
* Eighty-seven percent say their mind wanders during sermons.
* Thirty-five percent say the sermons are too long.
* Eleven percent of women and 5 percent of men credit sermons as their primary source of knowledge about God.1

Why is a typical sermon so hard to remember? A University of California study found that only 7 percent of what a listener receives from a speech comes from the words that are chosen. How a speaker sounds communicates 38 percent of the message, and what listeners see communicates the other 55 percent.2 (I suspect this last percentage is higher still for men.)

Want to have some fun? Some Sunday night, grab the church phone directory and call five friends. Ask them what the sermon was about. Then ask them what the children’s sermon was about. Which one do you think they’ll more easily remember? Which one is brief, focused on one topic, and contains an object lesson?

Folks, we’re playing for keeps. Jesus commanded us to make disciples, baptize them, and teach them everything He commanded. But we’ve got it backward: we do a ton of teaching, some baptizing, but we’re producing very few genuine disciples.

What’s wrong? How can we fix it?

Studies show that a long monologue is the least effective means of communication. What’s most effective? Personal experience.

Whenever you teach men, you must break up your monologue every few minutes. You should use everyday objects and strong, memorable illustrations so men cannot help but remember. 

Whenever possible, allow your students to personally experience the lesson. 

Why don’t more preachers and teachers build visuals and objects into their lessons?

• Pastors are not taught how to do it. Seminaries barely cover visual communication techniques. This is because seminary professors are bookworms. They have no problem retaining information from reading and lecture. They pass this academic-inspired teaching model on to their students.

• The people don’t demand it. John Hull writes, “It does not matter to the listeners that they are unable to repeat even the main theme of the sermon five minutes later; the important thing is the comforting emotion of familiarity and belonging which swept over them as they were listening.

• Ideas for using visuals and objects are not widely available. Most Christian teacher guides do not include hands-on or visual lesson material.

• It’s just easier to get up and talk. People think using visuals in a lesson is hard to do, but your audience will love it so much that it’s worth the effort.

It’s been said that a good sermon is like a good skirt: long enough to cover the essentials, but short enough to keep you interested.

Jesus taught for the male brain, and everyone marveled at His teaching. As you prepare for your next class, remember to keep it concise, visual, and interactive. Follow His example and you’ll draw men—and women—to Him.

Sarah Palin, a friend of mine

People around the world are asking, “Who is Sarah Palin?” I thought you might appreciate an analysis from someone who has worked with John McCain’s pick for Vice President.

Before I wrote Why Men Hate Going to Church, I was a full-time television producer in Anchorage, Alaska. I did quite a bit of political consulting in election years. Sarah came to me in 2002 and asked me to produce media for her Lt. Governor campaign. I knew right away she was a different kind of politician. She was confident but not arrogant. She was down-home approachable, yet sophisticated. She seemed utterly uninterested in the trappings of power, yet ambitious to wield power for good. As cameras rolled for her first commercial, I knew that Sarah Palin was a gifted communicator.

And she was a savvy negotiator. At our first meeting she made it clear she would be running a shoestring campaign. She told me she liked my work and wanted me to produce her electronic media, but she had no fat cat donors to bankroll her run.

I don’t cut my rates for anybody. But I did what Christians are supposed to do: I went home and prayed about the decision. Frankly, I didn’t expect an answer. God doesn’t usually prompt me regarding my business decisions. But in the case of Sarah I had an immediate impression that I should help her, and that I was not to worry about the money. I called Sarah the next day and signed on for her long-shot campaign.

Sarah has been a guest in my home. She’s had dinner with my family and I’ve been to her house in Wasilla to film one of her commercials. We’ve worked together through the pressures of the campaign season. We took a moment to stop and pray when the campaign got tough. Sarah also encouraged me to complete my first book, and came to a book signing at Barnes and Noble in Anchorage in 2005 (see photo).

Her rapid rise in politics is a direct result of her unwavering moral compass. Sarah makes her decisions based on one criterion: what’s the right thing to do? In 2003, Gov. Frank Murkowski offered her an appointment to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. (I advised her not to take the position. She ignored my advice, and took the job anyway.) Shortly after taking her seat on the commission, she noticed that one of her fellow commissioners, Randy Reudrich, was doing political business on state time. Reudrich was (and still is) chairman of the state Republican party. Randy controls the flow of money to Republican candidates.

Once a year all political appointees in Alaska are required to sign a conflict of interest statement. Part of the statement requires commissioners to report any violation by their colleagues. Sarah felt she had no choice but to tell the truth about Reudrich’s abuses, even though she would be turning in a fellow Republican. In the days following her allegations many who follow Alaska politics (myself included) thought Sarah had committed political suicide. But her courageous stand against corruption endeared her to the citizens of Alaska.

In 2006 Sarah Palin decided to run for governor. You have no idea what a quixotic mission this was. To win elections in Alaska a candidate must gather the backing of at least one powerful group: the oil industry, the media or the labor unions. Sarah had none of these. Nevertheless, she won the Republican nomination handily. In the general election, the power groups stepped up their opposition. The media dismissed her as a lightweight (and too conservative). The oil industry and labor unions backed her Democratic challenger. Even her own Republican Party (under the control of Reudrich) offered only token support. In the end only one group stood behind her: the people. She rolled to victory and began cleaning house.

Sarah tightened the states ethics laws. She sponsored an ingenious new tax regime on the oil industry, sweeping away a law passed a year earlier under the taint of corruption. And she jump-started Alaska’s long-stalled dream of a natural gas pipeline to the Lower 48 states. Instead of begging the big oil companies to build a pipeline (as her predecessor had) she opened the process for competitive bidding. Today, Alaska has two groups competing to build the line, with a possible third group waiting in the wings. She enjoys an 80+ percent approval rating here in Alaska.

Most politicians learn early in their careers to carefully parse every word that flows from their mouths. Not Sarah. She has a tendency to speak her mind, and say things that might one day come back to haunt her. More than once I've rolled my eyes and thought to myself, Sarah, why did you say that? But our governor keeps following that moral compass – and comes up smelling like a rose. All the controversy that’s swirling around her this week is vintage Sarah. I’ve seen this movie before, and it always ends the same way: with Sarah Palin standing taller than ever.

The last time I saw Sarah was about two months ago. She was here in my hometown of Chugiak, with her newborn son Trig, walking around a local craft fair on a Sunday afternoon. I was struck by the simplicity of it: the Governor of Alaska, visiting a craft fair with no media entourage, no security guards, no big crowd. Just a mother and son enjoying a beautiful Alaska summer day. We had a nice talk about everything except politics.

As far as her religious beliefs go, Sarah is your garden-variety evangelical Christian. She’s a woman of genuine faith, but not a zealot or weirdo. She has not hidden her faith during her term as governor, but neither has she worn it on her lapel. I think that’s a good thing.

So, is she ready to lead the free world? I have no doubt Sarah Palin would be a tough-as-nails negotiator during any political crisis. She’s stood up to corruption in her own party. She’s stared down Exxon and won. Heck, even she got me to lower my production rates! I see in her the grit, resolve and complete lack of political pretense that brought Teddy Roosevelt to power a century ago. I think she’s ready to be Vice President, and will be prepared to assume the Oval Office if the need arises.