I've had this domain, www.mikegastin.com, for a few years now. I've used it to post personal ramblings, business ideas, family photos, theological and philosophical arguments and devotional musings. Basically, this site has been all over the place.

Recently I tried to focus on marketing. You can find a number of posts here that address marketing issues and that makes sense because that's in line with my business. But here's the problem, I don't get out of bed every morning because of marketing.

Don't get me wrong. I'm good at it and I enjoy it. I like my work, but let's face it. It's work.

I get out of bed every morning because I love my wife and kids and I want to serve Jesus. When it comes to being fulfilled, serving Jesus and living his kingdom on earth is where it's at for me. It gets my blood pumping and it arrests my attention day and night.

With that in mind I've decided to refocus this site on issues pertaining to following Christ and living his kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, here on earth.

I'll still talk biz from time to time, as what we do day in and out in our efforts to feed our families matters to God and it offers unique opportunities to manifest God in a dark world.

If you've been reading this blog because of my marketing posts, thank you. Please stick around! Even if the site is shifting away from its business focus you might find something here that's valuable. If you're not so inclined I'll understand.

I'm going to work on revising the look and feel as well as publishing some new content. Thanks to everyone for your readership. I'm excited about going forward and I hope you are too.

True story.

A few years ago a vendor approached us with an opportunity. They’re a large printer in town and their customer base stretches well beyond our local market. They had a customer in New England, a national financial company, that wanted to redesign a magazine. A great opportunity.

The idea was that we would go to New England with our vendor. Together we’d pitch their customer on using Bob Wright Creative to do the redesign and creative and our vendor would print the mag.

Simple enough, right?

We like to be prepared. We do presentations and pitches all the time and we win a lot. The reason we win is we come prepared. We take time to learn what problem our client or prospect is facing and we develop real solutions. It may sound simple but you’d be amazed at how many times our competitors have not done their homework and don’t correctly understand the problem.

I met with my contact at our vendor to talk about the opportunity and to begin to prepare how to approach our joint pitch.

“Oh, I can’t help you. Our owner is going to handle this one and he’s in NYC and is going to meet you at the customer’s HQ. Just go do your thing and it’ll be fine,” I was told.

A sense of dread mixed with panic started to set in, followed by a flurry of phone calls and emails on my part trying to get this thing nailed down, all to no avail. “Just do your thing.”

Like any smart business owner, I decided to take both my creative director and my senior project manager with me. If this baby was going south I was going to be flanked by the best. Of course, a smart business owner would have bailed and told our vendor “good luck.” Believe me, I thought about it, but felt like I was already committed and had to see it through, even if our partner was unresponsive.

So, my creative director, project manager and I drove eight hours to the hotel ready to ‘do our thing’ in the morning, whatever that meant. When we got to the hotel there was no sign of our vendor, so we went out and found a BBQ joint and had dinner. When we got back our vendor and his team of five employees were waiting for us, perturbed.

They were upset that we were not there to show them the presentation we had prepared for tomorrow.

Presentation? You’re kidding, right? We’re just going to wing it and “do our thing” like you told us. Besides, this is your customer and your presentation right? No, it’s all riding on me and my guys. Nice.

Back in my room I felt despair. What are we even doing here? We’re getting an attitude from the vendor who refused to give us any direction and now they want to know where our presentation is? Well, I was ready to go to bed, wake up the next day, skip the meeting and head home.

Fortunately, my creative director and project manager jumped in. We pulled an all-nighter and put a smashing presentation together. We had it nailed and ready to go. We crashed for a couple hours and then got ready for the day.

We met with the client and their team, about six women, and got to work. We put our presentation on and hit a home run. Lots of great dialog, great questions and thoughts from the client on how we would work together. It felt like we were winning the job. I was ready to close and ask for their business; get it done.

Then the owner of our vendor jumped in and shot it all to hell.

He said our two companies, Bob Wright Creative and his company, were like two fighter jets in a war, fighting on the same side. The Iraqi War had just begun. I knew at that moment we were doomed. But, just to make sure, the owner continued. He told all the women there to think of this as our first date. We would spend some time to get to know each other—over a figurative dinner. And then … then we could get more intimate, figuratively, of course. I was horrified.

I looked at my guys and I looked at the faces of the women in the room. We were going to bomb their village, my vendor and I, and we were going to make off with the women and have our way with them, after a nice dinner. It was stunning.

20 hours in a car, hundreds of dollars in hotel rooms, meals, fuel and tons of lost revenues for my top guys to be involved and this man was killing it all with just a few words. He was the Anti-Midas, turning everything he touched to turds.

We didn’t get the job but a legend was born that day. I can laugh about it now, but that printer doesn’t get our work anymore for fear that they might have another great opportunity for us.

Google has built quite a company by doing business with consumers. With a current market cap of close to $185 billion and income last year of almost $22 billion, Google is bigger than Amazon, Nike, the oft-maligned Haliburton and Pepsi. And it’s nipping at the heels of Coca Cola. But how can that be? How can a company that gives it’s products away to consumers become so big and make so much money?

The answer reveals a disturbing truth: In Google’s world you are not the consumer. You are the product.

The traditional business model casts you and I as the consumer. Companies offer products and services. If you and I see value we pay and then consume them. Companies make a profit, consumers get value and investors realize a dividend.

Google’s business model is different. Google serves well-made offerings to you and I for free. We gather around those offerings, congregating under Google’s tent, while advertisers pay Google to ‘consume’ us.

If you don’t believe me, just follow the money. Does Google make its money by giving away web searches, directions to Aunt Mabel’s or videos of baby Charlie biting his brother’s finger? No. Google makes its $22 billion a year by selling advertising. But, it can’t sell advertising if there’s no one to advertise to.

This model isn’t new. Media companies have been doing something similar for decades. They produce their offering, usually in the form of entertainment or news, serve it via print, television or radio and we congregate. Advertisers then pay to get access to us.

What makes Google different is their offering is free and they don’t pay a nickel to create it. Google’s news, search results, financial info and videos are created and financed by someone else!

If Fox News wants to run a story that they think will attract lots of readers, they have to pay journalists, photographers, fact checkers and editors to get the scoop and publish the story. That costs thousands for a piece that will fill 500 words on their site.

What does Google pay to run the same story? Nothing. They have an algorithm that searches the net, finds the Fox story—along with 15 other stories just like it—and then aggregates it on Google News. We do a search, get the Fox story for free while receiving messages from advertisers. Google makes money while Fox foots the bill.

In addition, Fox News, CBS, the Wall Street Journal, People Magazine and your local paper all have strong competition. If we don’t like what they offer we have many alternatives.

Where else can you get free high quality maps, searches, news, videos, email, language translation, voice mail, operating systems, internet browsers, images, stock quotes and spreadsheets all under one roof—other than Google? Who keeps Google in check by providing an alternative? No one.

Isn’t Google good? Their unofficial motto is, “Don’t Be Evil,” so why should we worry?

Look at Google when big money is on the line. When they moved into China the oppressive communist dictatorship insisted that Google filter its searches. This blocked the population from having access to politically sensitive content; content that would undermine the Chinese government.

Did Google fight back in favor of the people? No, they capitulated. And why should Google help? The people of China are not its concern. As long as Chinese citizens use Google’s offerings then Google is happy because people equal product and product equals potential profits.

If Google is willing to use people that live under a repressive regime for financial gain, how safe are you and I?

Google wants to put all books online, they’ve amassed satellite imagery of the world, and Google Wave is an all-encompassing discussion that makes Twitter and Facebook look like the Jitterbug. Are we ready to trust Google with every aspect of our lives?

Big game hunters know that the easiest way to find game is to get it to come to you. Hunters employ many tricks to make that happen, but one favorite is the salt lick. Hunters hang a big block of salt on a tree and then move off and hide within shooting range. Game seek it out and will lick the block for the mineral supplement. And when they do—blam! Hunters can take game all day long using a salt lick and for that reason it has been outlawed in many places; it’s just too easy.

Google’s offerings are the salt lick of commerce. We know there’s a cross-hair on our back, but $22 billion in revenues says we don’t really care, just as long as we can get a free lick.

We want so badly for everyone to know Jesus. We call a whole wing of the faith, filled with multiple millions of believers, Evangelicals, after the idea that we need to tell everyone the good news of Jesus. But, it's hard to get anyone to listen. We try but who really cares anymore? They don't take notice.

But our society has sat up and taken notice. It's agreed with us that Jesus is just who we said he is: our personal savior. And in agreeing with us, society has asked, nay, insisted, that we keep to our word and keep Jesus to ourselves, because after all, it's personal.

And there we are, emasculated, void of power and unable to answer the peril and pain the world faces because Jesus is a personal savior, he's just for us. We'd like him to be everyone's personal savior, but of course, that's a personal choice best left to the individual to make if they decide to have a personal relationship with Jesus.

We don't like it that our faith has been relegated to the closet of personal belief. We feel stripped of our strength and punch when we're told that what we believe is fine for us, but really, it's not appropriate to impose our personal views on others.

And so, we're left to sit quietly with our personal savior and watch the world go by, like an old man on a bench, people watching at the mall. Ah! How interesting it all looks, but we can't interact, engage or shape the world we witness; just look.

We put ourselves in this place. We insist that Jesus wants nothing more than to have a personal relationship with you! We insist that Jesus died on the cross for you! We insist that Jesus loves you! (yes, always with an exclamation mark, because we really mean it)

We insist that it is all about what Jesus can, wants and will do for the individual. And in doing so we have lifted the individual above our God. We have put the individual on the throne. We've handed over the right to decide what is and is not to the individual, reducing the Lord of All to nothing more than a mechanism for successful living and happiness.

We're begging people to let Jesus in and in return they are exercising the power we have given them and telling us to keep it to ourselves.

I'm not saying people should not have a relationship with Christ or that it should not be intimate. I'm all for that and enjoy it myself. Well, I don't always enjoy it, as at times knowing God is hard, painful and full of a lot of dying, but that's my fault, not His.

What I am saying is this: we've made following Christ this personal choice that puts the individual in charge. The fact is, Jesus is Lord. Folks may not agree, but it does not change the facts. If we know his Lordship to be true then we should live like it. We can be full of grace toward others and we don't need to shove the gospel down anyone's throat, but we can be confident and unapologetic as we engage society.

Jesus transforms the personal lives of individuals, but only when they bow at his feet and cast their life into his hands. We can start by living this submission to him and nothing else in our own lives. The rest will take care of itself.

You see, when you put Jesus on the throne you start to do things that don't respect the wishes of society. You eat with tax collectors, you heal the sick, you care for widows and orphans, you drive out the moneychangers in the temple and you feed the hungry. You make fools of Pharisees and you cast out demons.

Whatever you do in his name, you will do it with authority and with grace and the world around you will have no choice but to take notice. It can't help it because it's not personal anymore. It's Jesus, manifested to a sick and dying world in power and in love. That's not a personal choice but rather a reality with which all must grapple and come to terms with.

You might end-up on a cross just like he did, but it will be OK, because your prayer will be 'not my will, Lord, but yours be done'.

John Armstrong, in his excellent blog, addresses the decline of the church in North America in a couple of recent posts. You can read them here and here.

John points out that the church in America has been in decline sine the 70's and asks what should we do to stop the bleeding. His belief is we need to do a better job in making disciples and in many ways he is right. But, I don't think discipleship quite gets at the heart of the issue so I'm going to be blunt:

The church in America is dying because we refuse to die.

Tertullian said, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church" and I believe history supports his observation. From the time of Acts when the church began to experience persecution, though the horrors of the Roman Empire under Nero where christians were used as human torches to light his garden, the church grew in strength and in numbers.

These believers were not joining because the faith offered self-help, successful living or hot Starbucks on Sunday morning. They knew that their faith in Jesus, the Messiah, could cost them their lives. In fact, they knew that this same Jesus had required death when he told his followers to pick up their cross and to follow Him.

Look at our brothers and sisters in China. They have been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and even killed for their love of Jesus. The church in China is exploding right now with growth. Seems kind of outrageous when you think of what it costs a Chinese national to become a Christian, but there you have it: it will cost them their lives but they are coming in droves.

What about believers in Islamic countries? People like brother Haik Hovsepian who was a bishop of the church in Tehran before he was brutally murdered in 1994 or the Christians killed by Muslims in Somalia for their faith knew the cost of following Jesus, but they followed Him anyway.

The answer to our problem lies deeper than a renewed focus on discipleship. We need to learn how to die.

We have taken all cost out of the equation and have equated following Christ with going to church, tithing and listening to 'christian' music while giving up smoking, swearing and drinking alcohol.

We want to make it as easy as possible for someone to join the family, but in doing so we have reduced the faith to a seminar on successful living and a wimpy effeminate Lord who's only purpose was to get kicked around by God so we don't have to.

So, as long as we insist on peddling a gospel of the consumer's savior; a Jesus who exists to meet our needs and to provide eternal happiness at a great value, we can expect the church to decrease because that gospel has no power, it's got no juice. Who cares about a faith that is nice and polite and tidy? Who cares about a faith that puts on a great Sunday program? Folks can get that by switching on their favorite TV show or attending a football game. Sure, guys like Joel Osteen will still pack 'em in, just like there are folks that will gladly plunk down thousands to drive a Pontiac Aztec. There are always some who will buy the crap offered up. (Apologies to Aztec owners, but really, that's a sad sad vehicle.)

So, what are we supposed to do? We live in a society where no one is going to kill us if we go to church. We don't have to sneak around, meet in caves and basements for fellowship, share bits and scraps of bible pages because the book is outlawed or worry about being imprisoned and beaten for our belief that Jesus is the son of God. How can we die for Jesus?

We die when we submit our will to God. We die when we make His desires more important than ours. We die when we are obedient to Him and we offer up our lives to Him as a living sacrifice. Every. Single. Moment/Every. Single. Day.

Jesus said, "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven." Of course the prayer continues and you can read it in Matthew 6:9-13.

The part I want to draw your attention to is, "thy kingdom come; thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven."

Jesus is recognizing that God's kingdom is at hand and His will needs to be manifest on earth, like it already is in heaven. That happens when we die to ourselves and allow Him to live through us. That's what it means to be the Body of Christ—you're living Christ here on earth. It's a crazy concept, but it does not work when you are doing your own thing, even if you prayed 'the sinner's prayer'.

When the church in America has died to itself and its people are allowing Christ to live through them the church will thrive. That's a church with power, life and salvation. That's the holy body of Christ, without spot or wrinkle, a light shining like a city on a hill, drawing all men to it. and all it takes is for you and I to just die to ourselves.

It's what our Lord and brother did—He died—and if it was good enough for Him it's good enough for us. Our brothers and sisters are doing it all over the world. Let's pick-up our crosses and die so that the church can live.