Thursday Three For All: Small Church Friendliness, Disneyland Design, and Cow Playing Fetch
It’s Thursday, kiddies: the day when I roll out a few things I’ve been reading over the past week. Three of ‘em, to be exact. Enjoy. (Remember: click on the big bold print to read the entire article.)
Intentional Friendliness: Making A Great First Impression In A Smaller Church
(via @KarlVaters) I so appreciate Karl’s voice on behalf of smaller churches. In this post, he reminds us that friendly does not always equal intentional.
Being small is no excuse to do First Impressions poorly. In fact, it may be more important in a small church.
Coming to a small church for the first time is an act of great vulnerability. After all, it’s easy to walk into a room of hundreds or thousands. Everyone knows what to do as a member of a large audience. But what do you do when you walk into a church of 50 or 20? Sit alone in an empty room until the service starts? Walk up to strangers and interrupt their conversations?
It’s bad to go to an unfriendly big church. But an unfriendly small church is brutal!
The clever psychology of Disneyland’s design
(via @fastcompany) On Monday of this week, Disney’s Magic Kingdom celebrated its 47th birthday. But the precursor to the Orlando park was a little place called Disneyland. Here’s how Walt imagined the park even before it was created:
Today, with the rise of virtual reality, consumers are accustomed to feeling like they’re the center of an experience, whether it’s a music video or art therapy. But more than 50 years ago, such experiences were rare. Disneyland was a masterclass in the art of the immersive narrative. “You’re not only experiencing someone guiding you through a story, but you’re the main character,” Nichols says of the rides. “In Peter Pan’s Flight, there was no Peter Pan figure at the beginning, because you were Peter Pan. You’re not only in a story, you’re living it in the architecture, in the ride vehicles, in the costumes.” By making visitors central to each attraction, Disney created seductive experiences that visitors felt they couldn’t get anywhere else.
Cow Playing Fetch
(via @laughingsquid) “If I entertain them, maybe they won’t grill me.”
photo credit: Jason Mathis
