The Changing Culture

            Times are different from what they once were. It used to be that everyone pretty much assumed everyone had good intentions. It used to be the case that you could leave you home and not lock the door, expecting fully that everything would be just the way you left it when you returned. It used to be assumed that when you got married you stayed married. It also used to be the case that everyone believe the Bible was from God, even if they didn't follow it and accept it. These days are passed, and it's time for us to realize it.

            The largest group inside of Christendom that has realized this is a movement called the Emerging Church Movement. This movement has some major flaws and as a whole is entirely heretical (many more details forthcoming). The problem is that when they are the only people addressing this situation (the change in culture) they get to dictate the response to it. It is time for the Lord's people to step up, acknowledge the change in culture, and figure out how to keep on sounding the unchanging message to the changing culture. If we fail to do this the others who teach a Gospel of full embrace of the culture, which is not really another Gospel, will continue to set the pace for those looking towards Christianity.

            What are some ways we can better understand our culture and address it? First of all, our culture is media saturated. Don't believe me? Internet, Sattalite HDTVs, IPhones, IPods, Laptops, Desktops, TV's in the car, TV's on airplanes, everywhere you turn you are hit hard with media. Our culture suffers from media overload. There is so much information thrown out that people cannot possibly take it all in. That being the case, they surely aren't going to give material a second glance if it is not presented in such a way as to catch their attention. We must find ways to utilize media and communicate God's message through it, instead of having an attitude that media is just bad. When you get down to it, words are media. The printed page of the Bible is media. If media is inherently bad then the Bible is inherently bad – none of us are going to say that are we?

            Second, we have to start addressing the questions people are asking. People today question whether or not truth exists. They question whether Jesus was a real person. They question whether or not the Bible is really God's word, or just a bunch of man's stories. They question the very concept of exclusion. All of these fundamental questions must be addressed. We have to start putting more effort into confronting these questions so that we can lead people to the One person they desperately need – Christ.

            Your challenge is to start thinking about the culture you live in. Instead of merely being upset about it, start thinking about how to reach it. What can you do to better communicate God's message to the culture where you live? How can you cut through the media fog with the crystal clear message of Christ?

Sow the Seed,

Caleb O'Hara

Using Facebook Ads to Reach the Lost

This morning I was interviewed on a podcast called iPreach. It's a podcast co-hosted by Dale Jenkins of the Spring Meadows church of Christ and Adam Faughn of the Lebanon Road church of Christ. You can listen to the podcast below and it will help add some context to everything else in this posting.



This post is designed to help you go step by step through the process of setting up Facebook Ads for outreach. The first thing you need to do is login to your facebook page (If you don't know how to do this then learn it and come back). Once you have logged into your facebook page I recommend you create a “fan page” for your congregation if you don't already have one. After I show you how to create a fan page I will give you instructions on how to create a Facebook Ad.

To create a fan page:

1. Scroll down to the bottom of your page and lick on "advertising"






2. On the left side click on "pages"

3. Click "Create Page"

4. Select category, enter a name, and click create

5. Now that your page is created you can click "edit page" to make it all fancy.

6. Once you are done with that click "suggest to friends" and select all the members of your congregation


7. Drink a Dr Pepper and celebrate you have made it this far!

To Create an Ad:

1. Scroll down to the bottom of your page and click on "advertising"

2. click on "create ad"

3. Now you have to design your ad.

     - Decide where you want the people to end up at when they click your ad. If it's your website or something on your website enter the address in the "destination URL." If you want people to end up on your Facebook Fan Page or Event Page click on "I want to advertise something I have on Facebook."

     - Give your Ad a Title that will stand out, get peoples attention, and gives an idea of what your ad is all about

     - Give a brief, interesting, informative description of whatever it is you are advertising

     - Choose an image. Image size is limited to 110v80 pixels. Make sure your image stands out and is related to what you are advertising!

4. Select your target audience for this Ad (Listen to Podcast for details on these factors)

5. Select the Method of Advertising

     - By naming the campaign you can group your ads together. Maybe you want to run three different ads for one event. They would all go in the same campaign.

     - Set your daily budget. How much is the most you are willing to spend PER DAY on this entire set of ads in your ad campaign

     - If this is for an event, or you know when you want the ad to stop, click "run my ad only during specified dates" and specify the dates. Otherwise leave it how it is.

     - Now you have to decide if you want to pay on a cost per click basis or a cost per 1,000 impressions basis. There are benefits to both... again... listen to the podcast and I will explain some of that.

     - Now select your bid. The suggested bid amount gives you an idea of what ads are going for to your same target audience. Remember, the higher you bid the more likely your ad will be displayed. The amount you enter is the most you are willing to spend on a click or per 1,000 impressions (it may be lower than this amount).

6. Click Create

7. Drink another Dr Pepper and pray that the Lord blesses your efforts to reach the lost. You can always get back to your advertising by clicking on the "advertising" button on the bottom of the Facebook screen. This will allow you to track all the details of how your ads are performing, as well as edit, add, and remove your ads.

I hope this has been somewhat helpful to you. If you have used Facebook Ads before, or you are going to be using them, PLEASE contact me and let me know what you have done that has worked and what hasn't worked. Hopefully we can use this as just another one of many tools to reach the lost.

Sow the Seed,

Caleb O'Hara

Souls are at stake in 2008

It's a new year! This year I'm going to do my best to blog about once a week. I'm also going to try and do a lot of audio blogging on here. I enjoy speaking... I can't really say I "enjoy" writing. Why? I don't know.

This Sunday will be the start of my third year with the Ripon church of Christ. Wow - what a great family to be a part of. In my humble opinion, one of our greatest assets here is that the leadership stands strongly together. We are in constant communication and always working on projects together.

It's a new year. I've been here over 2 years now. I made it! The statistics are shattered! It's amazing that most preachers don't make it past 2 years. I think I know many of the reasons why. Maybe someday I will share those thoughts with you all. But today what I want to talk about is my new theme for the year in Ripon: "Souls are at stake in 2008." This Sunday I will kick the year off with a message that is designed to inspire the congregation to start thinking evangelistically. Last year we spent a lot of time talking about what biblical church growth is, and this year we are going to start implementing some of those things we talked about. To summarize, the main idea of church growth is to become more like Christ (Ephesians 4:11-16). Christ came to preach so as to seek and save the lost (Mark 1:38; Luke 19:10). Therefore, if I am becoming more like Christ I will be preaching to seek and save the lost.

Many times we make "evangelism" way too complicated. We think of it as a program. We think of it as a marketing plan. We look at it from an ungodly perspective of numbers in the water. So we design an "evangelism" program that gets as many people in the water as quickly as possible. It's time for an exegetical theology towards evangelism.

In brief, Jesus described evangelism as showing people who Jesus was, making people disciples (that means they start to become like Christ - Matthew 10:25), baptizing them, and teaching them to endure all things Christ has commanded (Matthew 28-28-20). Evangelism is "good newsing." We take the good news and we preach it, and then we live it, and continue to teach it. Much more is in store as the year moves on! This is just a teaser. I'm looking forward to preaching this message on Sunday.

Sow the Seed Faithfully,
Caleb O'Hara