I do my best thinking on Sunday morning…

Probably because it is the least pressured day in my life right now. It wasn’t always that way. My schedule used to start earlier on Sunday than any other day of the week… such was life in the ministry… work really, really, really hard and hope that it pays off someday.

Back in the day, I would never admit to myself (or anyone else) that my secret hope was to be able to support a  family on what the ministry paid… no, I told myself that the payoff was “souls saved”, “hearts renewed”, “seeds planted”, “lives touched”, “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…”.

Not that all of that isn’t important – because it is.

Somebody has to do it. Somebody has to live in the ministry trenches. Somebody has to fall on the grenade, sacrifice their life and do it with a smile. For a preacher, that’s what it means to “take up your cross”.

Imagine where you would be today if somebody didn’t reach out and touch your life at a point when you really needed it… when you were hurt, sick, desperate, hopeless, struggling, depressed, hungry, confused, angry or bitter. Come on, where would you be today?

The main problem with reaching people who are in this position is that you have to keep a constant watch in the trenches. If you’re going to do it right, you have to live there. Unless you’re Jesus, you never know when somebody is going to come along who needs ministry.

Come to think of it, the Bible says that Jesus was counted among the transgressors. He could have used his super-human powers to drop in when needed, but he was content to hang out with sinners – prostitutes, drunks, liars, cheaters, and tax collectors. You know, the dregs of society. Jesus laid down the example of “ministry in the trenches”.

You know you’re in the trench when you smell like the trench!

I know, Jesus didn’t have a family to raise. No cell phone bills, no school clothes, no birthday or Christmas presents to buy, no mortgage, no car payment, no utility bills, no anniversary or Valentine’s gifts to buy (wow, talk about pressure). If Jesus ever got hungry, he could break out a few loaves and fishes.

Still, it begs the question, “If your preacher isn’t working the trenches, what is he doing?”

If your preacher needs a security guard to protect him from the trench touching him, he’s probably not working the trenches.

If your preacher’s BMW looks great parked in his special spot at church, but never visits the reserved clergy parking at the hospital, he’s probably not working the trenches.

If you get his voice mail or the church receptionist takes a message every time you call, or worse, if your preacher only calls back after it’s common knowledge that everything is okay, your preacher is not working the trenches.

Does Your Preacher Suck?

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Your Preacher Sucks

In my first post about humiliation, I referenced the verse in Proverbs, “… humility goes before honor” and I was about to offer my opinion about the usefulness of this often unwanted position.

Now, where was I… Oh Yeah, I was telling you about selling vacuum cleaners and telemarketing health insurance leads for the NASE.

The Day The Compound Burned

I remember the month was April, it seems like everything crazy that happens in America happens in April, and I was sitting in the break room watching TV.

How could I forget that day?

was watching David Koresh’s compound down in Waco TX burn to the ground. Yeah, you remember where you were on that day too, don’t you?

Shortly after leaving my break, everyone in the office was called into the manager’s office to find out we were getting a $1 an hour cut in pay. He put it something like this, “If you don’t want to play, punt!”. Indignant – I quit on the spot. I don’t have to put up with this! Telemarketing is hard enough, and now you want to pay me even less to torture myself? I don’t think so!

Back at home (1 bedroom apartment), I explained the situation to my wife – who then told me I had to go back right away and beg for my job back.

So, I drug myself back to ”Mr. Punt or Play” and humbly asked for my job handcuffs back. He took me back (after a short, well-deserved rebuke) and I hooked my weary ear up to that merciless auto-dialer for another several months while looking for a new, better-paying job.

$1 MORE AN HOUR @ AT&T

As you can probably guess by the title above, I found a job doing contract labor for AT&T. At the time they were upgrading existing customers to their new (more expensive) business service. Once again, my weary ear was attached to the merciless auto-dialer… “Beep… Hello! This is Mike with AT&T. May I please speak with Mr. Jones?”

Somebody around there thought I was doing a good job. So, I was “promoted” to their new personal 800 service. After a few days of training, I was off and running taking phone calls (rather than making phone calls!). That’s when I had a earth-shattering enlightenment – There’s a world of difference when somebody calls you and when you have to call them.

Okay, time is ticking away again… hopefully, I’ll get to the usefulness of humility in my next Dallas SEO post on this topic.

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More Honor = More Humiliation

Three $20 bills ago, I had an empty gas tank.

It’s not that I miss my $60 because that full gas tank represents freedom for me and my family. I would rather have my freedom than my $60. It seems like a fair exchange for 350 miles of go anywhere you want to go unrestrained freedom, but it started me to thinking – twenty years ago, $60 meant different things to me.

Twenty years ago, I would have to mow 4-5 yards to make $60.

I probably had a dozen or more lawn customers. At the low-end I would get $7 and at the high-end $20 per yard. I did have one customer willing pay $30, but I ditched them because they were 10 times the hassle of my $10 customers.

Twenty years ago, I would have to put in 20 hours at the local pizza place to make $60.

My dad got me a job at the local pizza place one summer back in the ’80′s. Funny thing, I really liked that place until I started working there. Since I didn’t have much enthusiasm for my job, my boss didn’t have much enthusiasm to put me on the schedule.

I never got fired, they just lowered my hours from 20 a week to 10 a week to 5 a week to 3 a week to check back next week. Eventually, I just quit checking back… I had lawns to mow!

Twenty years ago, my Grandma would sneak me $60 every once in awhile.

Her first husband died several years before I was born. I called her second husband “PaPa” and loved him very dearly. However, it wasn’t until “PaPa” passed away that I figured out Grandma didn’t have a whole lot of freedom to spend money. She had to scrimp, sneak and salvage to put together a little bit of cash… which she would then promptly pass on to me and my siblings.

Funny thing is, I always thought Grandma’s came pre-loaded with $20 bills to hand out at all the special occasions or for no occasion at all. Right about now, I would give back all those twenty’s and double it for another Thanksgiving with Grandma.

Peace,
Mike
Dallas SEO

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$60

My wife likes to joke about me liking the computer more than anyone else…

That’s her way of saying, “You better show me some attention – NOW!” Since I’m not completely stupid, I’ll shut down the computer for several hours and join the land of the living. Some days, I need to quit being the Dallas SEO and concentrate on being my wife’s husband.

It’s not that I don’t know there’s a whole world going on outside of cyber-space – it’s just that I sometimes forget what’s really important. Days like to today, Father’s Day, help bring things back into focus for me.

Running another landing page split-test or finding another 100 keywords to explore will seem like a trivial thing when I think back and wish I would have spent more time with the kids growing up.

The sad thing is, I hadn’t really noticed how much my daughter had grown until I took a good look at my screensaver . “Holy Cow! I think she’s getting taller”. I needed my screensaver to tell me that? (That’s why they call it a screen “saver”).

So, what am I going to do today – on this day devoted to Father’s?

• I’m going look intently into the face of my wife and kids.
• I’m going to have real conversations with the ones I love.
• I’m going to connect with the people who most want to connect with me.
• I’m going to think about what it means to be a son.
• I’m going to be available for my family.

So, for all the people out there who just read this and are now wondering, “Hmm. So, does this mean I’m not going to hear back from Mike on my project today?”

Yeah, if that’s all you got out of reading this… that’s what it means.

Peace,
Mike

Dallas SEO and Pay Per Click Management

Sorry, I’m not available today…

I’ve read this verse from Proverbs 18:12 at least a hundred times before, ”…humility goes before honor“, but it literally jumped off the page and slapped me in the face this week.

I read the word humility, but my mind thought the word humiliation. The two words are closely related. A quick glance at Dictionary.com showed me that humility comes from the word humilitatem meaning “lowness, insignificance.”

This is how that proverb sounded to me: “Honor comes after you’ve been humiliated”

Humiliation! Now that’s something I know a few things about. One of my first jobs out of college was selling FairFax vacuum cleaners door to door. I sold 3… one to my mom, one to my mom’s friend (who couldn’t qualify for financing) and one to a sweet little old lady who used to let me mow her yard when I was a kid.

She bought my $1,300 vacuum cleaner and gave me her brand new Kirby as a trade-in. When I think back on that career choice, only one word comes to mind… humiliation!

Actually, my very first job out of college was working for a small church out in the East Texas town of Athens. I was responsible for the teenagers, calling on sick folks and pastoral care (i.e. whatever the pastor doesn’t care to do himself).

So much went wrong that the pastor finally asked me and my wife to secretly slip out the side door after telling my Sunday School class I wouldn’t be back again. I don’t know what he told the rest of the church. I can only imagine. That was humiliating!

I spent the next 12 years, after my debacle in Athens, helping my father-in-law pioneer (start from scratch) a new church. He was willing to take me on even though I had been a glorious failure in my last church. Those were the 12 best years of my life so far. It never paid all the bills. So, I was constantly looking for a way to make more money. That’s how I learned even more humility:

Shortly before selling vacuum cleaners, I had my first stint in telemarketing. I called J.C. Penny cardholders and convinced them to buy AD&D (accidental death & dismemberment) insurance. Now, I couldn’t actually sell the insurance because I wasn’t a licensed, but I could call an agent anytime I had someone ready to buy. They would close the deal and I would take the next call – “beep!”. I guess the only thing more humiliating than being the telemarketer was being a licensed insurance agent working a telemarketing room.

After I sold those (3) vacuum cleaners, I returned to the fabulous life of telemarketing. This time I was selling long-distance and setting health insurance leads for NASE (National Association of the Self-Employed). It was at about this time that the real hatred for telemarketers started surfacing. I got quite a few good comments from the people I called. My favorite retort was short & sweet and went something like this:

Me: “Hello, is Mr. Jones available?”
Them: “No, he’s not here… he has a real job!”

I’m sorry but I’ve got to get some clothes ironed for church this morning. So, I’ll continue this post later in the Dallas SEO Sunday Morning section…

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Humility Comes Before Honor