The Influence of Millennials

My wife Karen and I probably wouldn’t have known about KICKSTARTER if we hadn’t worked at establishing social relationships with younger people. Most folks our ages (78 and 71) don’t know a whole lot about these alternative funding channels.

So, we’ll admit it, one of the reasons we entered a project on KICKSTARTER was to better understand how the younger generation thinks. Millennials are into these different approaches to raising working capital.

In reality, KICKSTARTER funding can be seen as advance orders for the product we were wanting to fund. To be specific, we wanted to republish a new edition of our Kingdom Tales Trilogy with all-new, multiethnic art. This was as a legacy project to honor our son Jeremy (41), who died last November from aggressive lymphoma.

We didn’t have the capital to pull this off. So we figured out what the cost would be and then, through KICKSTARTER, asked people to help us reach this $22,500 amount. Praise the Lord, last week we made our goal. This was important, because if we hadn’t reached it, we wouldn’t receive any of what was pledged.

This final week, we are into what are called “Stretch Goals.” All donors, old and new, receive extra bonuses if new levels are met. In our case, for example, these are like free color prints of some of the new art, prints suitable for framing.

Hey, we’re feeling a little like we’re young again!

Check out the project by clicking here in order to go to the Mainstay webpage on KICKSTARTER, but you’ll have to do it soon, because our project ends on Sunday, August 3rd at midnight.

 

 

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Please click here to visit David Mains’ Sermon-Coach.com website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Please click here.

 

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Too Much of a Good Thing

I heard an excellent 30-minute sermon last week based on Hebrews 12:1–2. That’s the familiar text about running the race set before us. The message broke into three natural parts:

  1. Laying aside hindrances
  2. Running with perseverance
  3. Fixing our eyes on Jesus

Each point was covered well, and the applications were both creative and practical. If I were to offer a criticism, I would say it was almost too good! By that I mean it was so rich in content that about 20 minutes into it, I had almost received more than I could absorb.

To the speaker’s credit, I never lost interest. The pacing was good, and the illustrations were timely and powerful. But the truth be told, I was still processing “laying aside hindrances” and missed some of the “running with perseverance” section. The same thing happened when the message transitioned from point two to point three.

On the positive side, I’ve found myself thinking about this text and sermon for several days now! In all truth, this was one of the finest sermons I’ve listened to in years. I just wish it had been a three-part series with each point having a full sermon devoted to it.

All told, it made me even more conscious of working toward one well-developed point per presentation. “What’s my subject” and “What’s the response I’m calling for”—the two questions I come back to time and again—are worth re-emphasizing over and over. At least I’m convinced!

 

 

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Please click here to visit David Mains’ Sermon-Coach.com website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Please click here.

 

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A Special Announcement

This week, allow me to announce that my wife and I have decided to reprint our prize-winning children’s books, The Kingdom Tales Trilogy, and have mounted a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign to revise, re-illustrate, and republish the three books, Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance and Tales of the Restoration. We are almost halfway to our goal of raising $22,500 and need a boost in our momentum so that we not only reach the goal but EXCEED it.

The first book of the three was launched some 30 years ago and has kind of lingered in the publishing hinterlands with a rabid and eager following. The rights have now reverted to us, the climate for self-publishing is ripe, and we are eager to give these books a new life as we are in our 7th decade and they are in their third.

Allegorical, illustrated in beautiful full-color glory, each a book for kids of all ages, these storybooks have a 5-star rating on Amazon.com, and we are mounting this campaign as a memorial to our son Jeremy, who died last November. The protagonist of these tales is the King (yes, there is a real King). Our goal was to have every reader fall in love (or fall in love again) with him.

There are two ways you can help. One, you can make a donation to Mainstay Ministries to the “Artist Fund.” For this you will receive a receipt but no product. Send a check via snail mail to:

Mainstay Ministries
Box 30
Wheaton, IL 60187

Or you can phone with a charge card donation:

630-293-4500

Charge card numbers are not kept on file.

The second way is to become a Backer on the Kickstarter Web site. To do this, simply click here in order to go to the Mainstay webpage on Kickstarter. For this you will receive the designated product for which you sign up based on your donation level. This campaign ends on August 5th. If we don’t reach our goal, no one is charged what they have pledged.

The concept behind Kickstarter is that people become Backers by signing up on the Web site with what are really pre-orders for the books. This allows creative but underfunded people to have a chance at launching their ideas. Well, we’re creative and we have always been UNDERFUNDED! We think we qualify. Thank you for considering getting involved.

 

 

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Please click here to visit David Mains’ Sermon-Coach.com website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Please click here.

 

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Generation Z

Kingdom Tales Kickstarter CampaignWere you aware that there has been a 50% increase in the multiracial young population since 2000? The Website slideshare.net has released a comprehensive study of the age group they are tentatively calling Generation Z, those born in 1995 to the present. My wife, Karen, and I have conducted intensive research into the characteristics of the Millennial Generation—mostly because we are concerned with the fact that only some 15% of this group claim to be conservative Christians—and even many of those have little or limited connection with any local church. These are the young folk born in the years before 1995—specifically, sometime in the early eighties.

Interestingly enough, the Web site Slideshare.net makes the point in its study regarding the next generation (“Z”) following hard after the Millennials, “Modern families come in all colors and sizes. Long-standing views have been challenged by culture: celebrities, artists, politicians and athletes of mixed heritage have changed the discourse, along with trans-racial and international adoptions.”

In other words, the demographic for the coming generation is going to be a very mixed racial bag. This is one of the reasons Karen and I have decided to redesign and republish our award-winning children’s books, Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance and Tales of the Restoration—we want the artwork to reflect this interracial and multiethnic makeup of what will be the next generation of Americans (not to mention the children of the world).

The beautiful illustrations by Jack Stockman in the first two books don’t reflect the racial demographic of the members of our youngest society.

For the last four months, we have been working with the Pathmaker Marketing Group to design a Kickstarter campaign to re-illustrate, redesign and republish these books. Crowd-funding and crowd-sourcing are some of the exciting means that the Internet has evolved in recent days order to raise funds to launch new products or underwrite charitable projects. Our campaign to raise $22,500 by inviting backers to pre-order these newly reissued books can be viewed here. Check out some of the artwork we want to fund. Become a backer and receive a Kickerstarter Heritage Collectible Numbered Edition. Help us make these works visually accessible to the next really, remarkably mixed, culturally sophisticated young generation.

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