Thanks Jerry for writing this week’s guest blog.

New U.S. Lighting Standards: Friend or Foe?

The federal government is coming to take away your incandescent light bulbs!  No, not really, despite what alarmist radio talk shows and less-than-honest political operators might say.  In 2012 you will get more light out of most light bulbs for the dollars they cost to purchase and operate compared to your lighting in the past. The beloved incandescent bulb is part of an ever-growing number of more efficient consumer lighting choices that also include new generations of CFLs (compact fluorescent) and LEDs (light-emitting diode) bulbs. The new incandescent can provide the same light (about 1600 lumens) as an old 100-watt incandescent and you pay for only about 72-watts in electricity.  Various specialty bulbs and 22 types of traditional incandescent bulbs are exempt from the new efficiency standards. On balance, that’s all pretty enlightened.

But entrepreneurs don’t often innovate on a whim within an existing commodity market such as light bulbs if the market is dominated by a cheap “first cost,” traditional product (e.g. the 100-watt incandescent).  The marketplace is littered with ideas that have failed to displace cheap, traditional commodities such as light bulbs that consumers often simply buy as part of habit. Simple payback or “return-on-investment” incentives aren’t usually marketing for light bulb purchases. It’s generally a straight-up replacement of more of the same product, and has been for generations.

A bipartisan Congress decided in 2007 that lighting was too important to the national economy (14% of all U.S. building energy use) and national security, and had too much potential for improvement ($6 billion in savings to homeowners in 2015, alone, from new standards), to trust this potential wave of innovation to traditional commodity market habits.

Since 2007, when the bipartisan majority in Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA 2007), there has not been a ban on any light bulb type, just a ban on grossly inefficient bulbs.  Rather, the implementation of a national performance standard for all lighting with manufacturer input has been moving rapidly.  Most readers remember pre-CFL when choices were limited to “what size incandescent?” at home, plus a few, more efficient but less attractive commercial fluorescent tubes for the church and commercial space, or maybe the garage our utility room.  Even as choice has become less limited, many people still opt to just replace burn-outs with more of the same.  When electricity was cheap, and we didn’t realize what air pollution was doing to human health, who cared?

Electricity costs have gone up more than a little bit, and electricity use in America’s homes and places where we work, worship, shop, and play is responsible for more polluting emissions (due to inefficient electricity generation and use) than are our vehicles and industry.  In our buildings 90 percent of the electricity generated (mainly with coal) and that we pay for, is lost as waste heat.  That’s bad enough, but that expensive, useless waste heat may even lead to up to 20% higher air-conditioning costs.  With only 10% efficiency, old-type incandescent bulbs waste energy and dollars, and cause related pollution.  This waste, which may have been fine in Thomas Edison’s era when lighting was a new concept, is not fit for an America competing in a global economy, in which reliable, adequate electricity supply is critical. The faith community has also identified energy waste as a detriment to stewardship of creation and human health, especially children.

Practically speaking, what will be different when you go buy a new light bulb? Well, stores will be able to sell remaining inventory of old-type incandescents, but no more 100-watt incandescents are being manufactured or stocked as of January 1, 2012. Likewise, in January 2013, the old 75-watt will phase out and in January 2014, the old 40 and 60-watt incandescents will follow. Bulbs manufactured in 2012 will be a minimum of 25% more efficient, and some of the more competitive manufacturers are hitting efficiencies of 80% beyond the past average, and still offer a wide range of color and brightness.  But if you are a regular reader of the Cool Solution Group blog, then you already buy bulbs that provide the most light for the dollar, and you won’t notice the demise of the obsolete lighting, anyway.

For more information, check out the new lighting standard FAQs at the Department of Energy and ENERGY STAR’s lighting product webpages.

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Generic Ketchup

This week we conclude this guest post…Thanks David, great wisdom in these words!

Let me give some applications to church life:

• A. Here is the primary application – excellence matters. We often say that excellence honors God and inspires people. I don’t think that means you have to spend a lot of money to be excellent. It simply means that whatever we do – we need to do it well.
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• B.  We must look at our church facilities through the eyes of new people. At Northridge, we know that many who walk in our door for the first time are either non-believers, new believers, or immature believers. So the look of our facility matters. If they are turned off while checking out Northridge – let it be by the Gospel, not because the facility creeps them out a bit.
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• C. We tell our new employees and new interns that they are very valuable to us in their first six months because they will see things that we don’t notice anymore. They will ask, “Why do you do that?” And sadly, we never thought about how ineffective that was. And we try very hard to see everything through a new person’s eyes, but once you are no longer new – it is really difficult to see it through new eyes.
  
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• D.  We need to try to get feedback from new people. They will help us see things we don’t notice. We likely won’t change some or many of them, but being aware of what is hard to swallow for a visitor is very important. For example, we choose to stand and sing for ten to twenty minutes straight every week. That is not visitor friendly, but at this point – for the sake of corporate worship, we do it. But we need to be aware of that tension.

Here are four final applications:

• 1.  I think facilities are a big issue on the application of generic ketchup. At home, I don’t notice dirty walls anymore unless we are painting a room – then every dirty wall needing paint stands out. I don’t even notice that our 11year old carpet looks pretty bad in some places unless I intentionally look at it through the eyes of someone coming to buy our house. Churches need to look at their facilities through the eyes of those who are looking for a church to attend, serve in, give to, and have their children married in. Facilities matter.
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• 2.  The leaders of a church need to be the ones who speak for the first-time guests because they likely won’t give feedback – even if we ask for it. We need to look at our facilities through the eyes of visitors. We need to listen to our music – its excellence and how easy it is to learn through the perspective of those who are new. I want to make sure the preaching is challenging, understandable, and interesting – even if they disagree with what I say.
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• 3.  There are some things that loyal customers are willing to overlook that a new customer may not be willing to overlook.  In church, this might be the lady with the really terrible vibrato in her voice that no one really enjoys listening to but she’s been doing it for so long and it would hurt her feelings if we don’t ask her to sing – so the regulars don’t really mind it. Out of love, they let her keep singing, ten years beyond when she should have retired from solos. The impact of that on the new visitor who is not mature in Christ is not positive.
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• 4.  Old and run down might work well for diners (my daughters prefer one in town), but I don’t think it works well for churches. Diners have a nation-wide reputation for being old, run-down, but great prices and great food. Old, run-down yet effective diners are common. Ugly, smelly yet effective churches are not.
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One final thought – just because something would make us more popular and make it more comfortable for new people doesn’t mean we should do it. In no way am I espousing that theory. The Gospel will always offend. 75 minute services will be too long for most unbelievers. Me preaching for 45 minutes isn’t affective with lost people unless God is drawing them. Speaking out about issues of biblical truth and morality will turn people away quickly. We are okay with all of those things. In no way am I applying generic ketchup to truth and the Gospel. But I think it should apply to almost everything else.

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This is a 2 part blog by David…and I know you are going to enjoy it.

Generic Ketchup @ Pete’s Diner – Part 1

I went out of town Monday and met a great, old friend for breakfast on Tuesday. He took me to his favorite, local breakfast spot – Pete’s Diner.

We drove up and it looked like a typical diner (not sure what that means to you, but to me it means old, not particularly “shiny” or clean, a bit run down). But that’s ok… I wasn’t turned off by the outside or inside look of the place – I’ve been to enough diners to know that doesn’t necessarily reflect on the quality of food. But I did get turned off when I sat down and saw the generic ketchup.

When I see generic ketchup at a restaurant, I image this: If they are willing to save a penny per customer (two pennies at the most) by using generic ketchup and this is one of the most visible foods, then how are they saving money in the kitchen? And all of a sudden, I don’t want to eat there anymore.

The worst is a restaurant here in my town that I used to go to for breakfast. Not only was it generic ketchup, but the labels were falling off the plastic, generic ketchup bottle. And you’d open the cap to pour out the ketchup and it was obvious that the dried on ketchup around the cap wasn’t just a few hours or even days ago… It might be MONTHS old. In other words, not only were they using generic ketchup, but they were REFILLING the generic ketchup bottles. I avoid that local diner whenever possible (unless the person I’m meeting picks it).

And I don’t avoid it because I hate generic ketchup. I’m not sure I can tell the difference. But it tells me something about the restaurant’s priorities. And for the first time, while sitting there with my friend on Tuesday morning, the application to church hit me.

What messages are we sending to new people when we do things with less than excellence? What are the “generic ketchup” in our building (cheap things that we don’t even notice anymore)? What message is being received by new people that we aren’t intending to send, but we are clearly sending when we save a few bucks and put “generic ketchup” on the table?

Here are a few more thoughts I have on generic ketchup (while thinking of church applications):

• 1. I noticed the regulars never notice generic ketchup. They are used to it. It doesn’t bother them and they don’t think it should bother new people either.
• 2. In fact, the management and owners are focused on pleasing the regulars rather than focusing on making the best impression on first-time customers. By doing so – they are all overlooking glaring problems.
• 3. No one speaks for the first-time customer. If a regular doesn’t like something, they will speak up. If a new customer to the restaurant doesn’t like something, they won’t say anything. They simply won’t return. (This one happens in churches all the time!!)
• 4. There are some things that loyal customers are willing to overlook that a new customer may not be willing to overlook.
• 5. Even some positive, good changes will causes regular customers to complain, but the changes were helping new customers. Loyal customers may not like a new menu because they knew where everything was on the old one. Our family recently went to a restaurant to use a Groupon that was close to expiring. Apparently, a ton of other people were using it that night also – the restaurant was very busy! I’m sure regular customers were annoyed that on a week night there was a wait. But with 700 Groupons sold (what our server told us), I imagine that restaurant was introduced to many brand new customers. Regular customers don’t want to be inconvenienced so that new customers can be attracted to the restaurant.

• 6. Loyal customers tend to be blind to obvious faults that new people see immediately. That could be a smelly entryway (at our family’s favorite diner), ripped cushions in the booths, plates and coffee cups that are so old, they look dirty even though they are perfectly clean, etc…
• 7. Old and run down might work well for diners (my daughters prefer one in town), but I don’t think it works well for churches. Diners have a nation-wide reputation for being old, run-down, but great prices and great food. Old, run-down yet effective diners are common. Ugly, smelly yet effective churches are not.

Come back next week for Part 2 of this story…I think you can already start to get the point…

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Carol  is the content director for Production Media Inc., publishers of Worship Facilities Magazine (www.worshipfacilities.com), Worship Facilities Designer (www.wfdesigner.com), Church Production Magazine (www.churchproduction.com), and presenters of WFX – Worship Facilities Conference & Expo (www.wfxweb.com). She is also very passionate about ministry facilities and how they relate to our culture, the environment, the community as well as the body of Christ.  I told you you were going to enjoy these guest blogs!

The 2030 Challenge for Church Facilities

“… going green will actually reduce the ongoing operational cost of the building to allow more money for the church’s ministry.” D. Brady Smith, American Institute of Architects (AIA) member and LEED AP

I am fascinated by the design handiwork of churches, whose buildings impact our lives in several important ways. First, a church building provides a place to worship and connect with God. And secondly, church buildings stand as a symbol within our communities—of our belief in One greater than ourselves and in a vision of what we hope for in society. In essence, worship facilities touch us inside and out.

And yet, they are just buildings. A means to a spiritual end.

Can we fine-tune a building to better serve that all-important end? The answer is absolutely yes if you talk to a facilities manager, an operations-knowledgeable pastor or other church leader, certainly to a business administrator who has his or her eye on the bottom line, and to a technical director who seeks out technology to help deliver the Message more effectively.

When one thinks of the facility in these terms, then somewhat esoteric architectural design goals become suddenly more interesting and less pie-in-the-sky. Take, for instance, the 2030 Challenge, or the goal to make buildings carbon neutral by the year 2030.

The 2030 Challenge, according to www.architecture2030.com, is a sustainability movement that takes a look at buildings as the chief source of demand for energy and materials that produce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—or gasses that trap heat in the atmosphere, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A look at the EPA’s website, www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/index.html, shows that these GHG occur both naturally (carbon dioxide, for example) and as a result of human activity (such as the burning of fossil fuels). So while some of these gasses are natural and acceptable, too great an amount of build up in the atmosphere is reported to have deleterious effects on the healthy balance of our world.

To me, this means that churches with an eye on good environmental stewardship will probably be interested in finding ways to control and lessen GHG emissions from their facilities. In the spirit of the 2030 Challenge—or the goal to ensure that buildings will no longer use fossil fuel GHG-emitting energy to operate—WFM spoke with D. Brady Smith, American Institute of Architects (AIA) member and LEED AP (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional).  While Smith reports that it may be impossible for all buildings to reach the goal by 2030, he says the move in that direction is nonetheless worthy.

“Churches typically operate on very thin budgets, and going green will actually reduce the ongoing operational cost of the building to allow more money for the church’s ministry,” Smith says. “My clients always ask if a green building will cost more. I show them that any increases in the first cost will be offset by continuing savings year after year.”

Watch upcoming issues of WFM, as well as www.worshipfacilities.com, for practical ways that church leaders can help ensure sustainable structures and ongoing savings for ministry. And if you’re an architect, builder, engineer, or A/V/L designer, watch future issues of WF Designer (www.wfdesigner.com). Together, we can make a positive difference for God’s world.

Blessings,

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