Perhaps it’s the donning for a new year. Perhaps it’s the inspiration from my friend Rhett. Perhaps it’s the buzz surrounding the most recent announcements from Apple at Macworld 2009. Whatever it is, I’m feeling goal-oriented six days into the new year.

With that, 2009 proves to be an exciting one and there’s a few things that I want to experience and/or accomplish. In no particular order, here’s my list:

1. Build interactivity into my preaching and teaching: I’ve just recently come to the conclusion that the last thing most people need to hear is another sermon … And that’s what I do for a living. By and large, a non-Christian world is watching and is not impressed. At all. Some of it is squarely on the shoulders of Christ-followers, but a large majority is just sheer ignorance of how life outside the Christian bubble works. Simply put, people are tired of being preached at and want to take part in what they’re being told. A shared experience, if you will.

In light of that, I want to build interactivity into my preaching and teaching of God’s word. I just discovered a live-texting service at Jarbyco.com, a service which, amongst other things, allows listeners to text in questions to the preacher while they are preaching and have them answered in real time. I’ll be integrating this into my message this week at Immersion, and I want this week to be the first of many where skeptics and sold-out Jesus folk alike can have access to the person in the pulpit. (This is part of breaking down the “fourth wall” as I discussed in an earlier post.)

2. Get simple: From house decor, to the food I put in my body, to my schedule, to our finances, to the way that I approach graphic design, the name of the game in 2009 boils down to one word: Simple. The world is complex and loud. I don’t have to buy into this. Pruning and getting as “lean” as possible is my goal for a prosperous 2009.

3. Integrate digital life into my church: 3 out of every 4 people are online in some fashion. Information is exploding in a way that history has not seen. Social media sites are some of the fastest growing sites ever. A new generation is speaking a new language, and the vernacular is largely digital. To effectively be the church, you must speak the language of the culture. If you don’t do this, you fail. Not “the Church”, but certainly your church. If you tell a non-English speaker that they just won one million dollars without translating that good news into a language that this non-English hearer can understand, the power is lost. The message, no matter how powerful it is, gets “lost in translation.”

People can’t understand what you’re saying.

So it is with Christianity. If our services, messages, outreach events, and discipleship efforts don’t migrate, at least in part, to the digital arena, we will be far less effective than we could be (and should be, in my opinion.)

4. Lose some poundage: I’m not in dire need to lose a ton of weight, but as I get older I’m finding that “lighter is better.” 5-10 lbs. max. I’d like to get under 210. Current weight at the gym this morning: 217. (Update: Want to see how others are doing in their New Year’s weight-loss goals? Follow Des Moines Juice on Twitter to watch the “Juice Fitness Challenge” unfold.)

5. Procreate: Bring life into this world. 2009 is the year that many would never thought happen: I produce offspring. It shall be glorious.

What about you? Do you have any goals that are just bubbling forth from your unclouded, simplified, fit cranium? Do share. In the meantime, here’s to 2009!

Have you ever watched a sitcom where the actors are huddled around a kitchen table and taken notice where they sit?

The most noticeable example that sticks out in my mind is “The Cosby Show“: Theo, Cliff, and Claire may be enjoying a nice Sunday morning brunch; perhaps a stern warning to Theo about the dangers of teenage drinking. No matter how many of the Huxtables were gathered around the table, you never saw anyone sitting with their back to the camera.

Ever.

Why? Because this is what people in the industry refer to as “the fourth wall. ” It is the invisible boundary that says, “I am here acting, you are there watching. No matter how much I want to portray real life events, there is a ‘fourth wall’ between us that boundaries us. I cannot get to you and you cannot get to me.“

For some, this is a hindrance. For others, it is a blessing. For some, it maintains the allusion that “I am different, I am other, I am actor.” For others, it is a real obstacle to connecting with an audience.

Take notice of this the next time you watch something on TV or catch a play at the local theatre: No one ever sits with their back to the camera (or audience.) I never really though much about this until I majored in TV broadcasting in college. It smacks of “duh”, but if an actor or broadcaster is sitting with their back to the audience, no one can see them.

Seems obvious, right?

But no matter the “stage blocking” there is still the “fourth wall.“

Why am I belaboring this point? An interesting discussion has popped up in the Twitterspehere about “the fourth wall.” Preachers, whether they know it or not, experience the “fourth wall”, the invisible boundary between us and the congregation. Because of that, whether conscious or not, there is an element of “performance” that sneaks into the delivery of even the best preacher. I have experienced it, and I know others have to.

The question as of late is “how do we break through the fourth wall in a digital, global, and relativistic world?” Luther felt this tension in his time. He stepped down from the pulpit and preached from within the congregation, wandering back and forth through the aisles as he taught (a practice that continues in most Lutheran churches to this day.) How do we, as modern preachers, teachers, and communicators “wander through the aisles” of our modern day congregations?

Solutions abound, we’ll discuss some of them in part two of this “Fourth Wall” series. Stay tuned!