The NY Times has reported that UPS, the delivery company with the brown trucks, has reduced “28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons.” How did they accomplish this? By not turning left (when practical). The concept is that they have those huge, gas-guzzling trucks and sitting in the left-turn lane waiting for the green light needlessly uses up excess gas (and time).

This kind of thinking is brilliant. It’s not something that would be world changing for an individual, but when done at the scale of UPS it is. How many little changes like this could churches make that would have a significant impact in our culture?

Back in 1997, the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) decision to boycott Disney was in the headlines everywhere. One of the biggest denominations was taking on one of the biggest names in the entertainment world. It was set to be a clash of titans, an epic battle. That battle officially ended in June 2005. My question is, who won?

Let’s flash back a bit. The SBC warned Disney in 1996 to return to their family-friendly roots or else a boycott was inevitable. They cited five reasons why they had concerns. They were: “(1) Establishing of an employee policy which accepts and embraces homosexual relationships for the purpose of insurance benefits; (2) Hosting of homosexual and lesbian theme nights at its parks; (3) Choosing of a convicted child molester to direct the Disney movie Powder through its subsidiary Miramax Productions; (4) Publishing of a book aimed at teenage homosexuals entitled Growing Up Gay: From Left Out to Coming Out through its subsidiary Hyperion, connecting Disney to the promotion of the homosexual agenda; (5) Producing, through its subsidiary corporations, of objectionable material such as the film Priest which disparages Christian values and depicts Christian leaders as morally defective.”

Disney didn’t take the warning seriously, so in 1997 the boycott officially began. The official wording of the boycott read: “BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED, That the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Dallas, Texas, June 17-19, 1997, urge every Southern Baptist to take the stewardship of their time, money, and resources so seriously that they refrain from patronizing The Disney Company and any of its related entities, understanding that this is not an attempt to bring The Disney Company down, but to bring Southern Baptists up to the moral standard of God.”

So, how much did the boycott affect Disney? A boycott is an attempt to persuade a company to make certain changes by impacting it financially. How much money did Disney lose from the boycott? Take a look at the following table of Disney’s finances during an 11 year period:

Disney’s Finances Before & During the SBC Boycott
Year	Revenue	Operating Income
1994	$10,055 mil	$1,965 mil
1995	$12,151 mil	$2,466 mil
1996	$18,739 mil	$3,333 mil
1997	$22,473 mil	$4,312 mil
1998	$22,976 mil	$4,079 mil
1999	$23,402 mil	$3,231 mil
2000	$25,325 mil	$4,112 mil
2001	$25,172 mil	$4,005 mil
2002	$25,329 mil	$2,822 mil
2003	$27,061 mil	$ 3,174 mil
2004	$30,752 mil	$4,488 mil

As you can see, there was only one year in which Disney had less revenue than the previous year. That year happened to also be 2001, which my point more to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 than the boycott. However, there was a fairly significant drop in their income from 1997-1999. That downward spiral quickly turned around, and, for the most part, they have been stable in their income.

The SBC wasn’t primarily concerned, however, with “bringing down Disney.” They wanted to make a statement so that they would turn back to making family-friendly films. Did that happen??? Well . . . in a word, no. In 1996, the SBC specifically mentioned Miramax as being one of their concerns. What has Miramax done since the boycott? Here’s a brief list of some of the films they have released from 1997-2005:
– 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)
– Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
– Chasing Amy (1997) Which happens to be about a man falling in love with a lesbian
– Chicago (2002)
– Dirty Pretty Things (2003)
– Kill Bill (2003)

Not really a list of movies you’d want your 5-year old to watch. So, why the sudden change? Why did the SBC all of the sudden decide it was time for the boycott to end? I don’t buy the line they tried to push: “For a boycott to be effective, it must be specifically targeted and of limited duration.” If they really wanted to have a limited boycott, why didn’t they say that in their original resolution??? And nothing really changed at Disney. According to Metro Weekly, a Washington DC gay & lesbian magazine, “the boycott had no effect on its business and the company never altered its policies in response.”

In case you forgot, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was released December 9, 2005 by Disney. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. The Disney boycott was ended in June 2005 only 6 months before the DISNEY movie Narnia? Was that a coincidence? I think not. I guarantee that the upcoming release of Narnia was discussed behind closed doors in the SBC leadership when they talked about ending the boycott of Disney. Think about it. If the boycott wasn’t ended, how many Baptist preachers would have to ignore the great sermon material that they would have at their disposal by not being able to endorse a Disney film.

I’m not really throwing stones at the SBC. I just think they pulled a very well executed move by ending the boycott early enough in the year that the national media wouldn’t put the pieces together. It also let them gracefully end it without having to admit defeat.

The best result of the ending of the boycott had to be that the grey-haired good baptist grandmothers can take their grandchildren to see one of the best allegories of the story of Christianity without a guilty conscience. So, with that in mind, I’d like to say good move SBC.

I’ve sat on this for a couple of days, but I have to write something about all the attention that Valley View Christian Church has gotten in the past week. In case you haven’t heard, Harriet Miers was a member of the church for over 20 years. Since she’s unknown to the national media, they’re looking for anything they can find to write about her. One of the things they’ve discovered is her longtime involvement in church.

There have been numerous articles written about Ms. Miers, and at least 300 have made some mention Valley View. Mostly the articles have just mentioned that she was very involved and that it’s a conservative Evangelical church. There has been one article, however, that focused almost all of its attention on the split that the church has recently gone through. The L.A. Times published an article entitled Church Changes Led Miers to Join a Splinter Group . In it, there are a number of claims made that I would like to address.

The following statements are personal opinions and are in no way official views of the church or its elders.

The first statement that I took offense to was this:

The dispute is one over style, but it has political undertones too. Some of the more traditional members of the church fear that its effort to be more contemporary could dampen its emphasis on social issues, including its teachings against abortion and homosexuality.

While I have no idea how any logically thinking person could make this jump in logic, my biggest issue is that VVCC has always, and will always hold biblical truth as authoritative truth. One of the values in our Mission, Values, Strategies, and Measures that was officially adopted by the church’s elders in April 2005 states this well. It reads, “We value biblical preaching and teaching because the Bible, and the Bible alone, is God’s infallible, inerrant Word in written form and the supreme source of truth in all things.” This is one of the ten values that will shape us in the future as a group of believers. We will not bow down to cultural pressure to ignore parts of the Bible just because they’re difficult or not culturally acceptable. We are a Bible-believing church and we will continue to be no matter what style of worship we have in our weekly worship gatherings.

Another statement that is not correct reads: “Much of the money that had been spent on foreign missionary work, the elders decided, was to be routed back into the church itself.” Let me just give you some statistics. In the annual budget for 2003, missions was alloted 23.4%. In 2004, the percentage was 23.2%. In 2005, missions has been budgeted 25.1%. I’ll let you come up will a conclusion, based on the objective statistics, as to whether or not we’ve turned our backs on missions.

Here is a statement in the article that contained a completely false fact:

[The elders] brought on Barry McCarty, a charismatic and influential minister. This summer, they wanted to make McCarty the church’s senior minister. But according to the church’s bylaws, such a move required a full vote of the congregation. The elders sidestepped the bylaws by creating a new title, naming McCarty “lead” minister. [italics mine]

Not true at all. Barry’s title has been “Preaching Minister” since he was hired and that title has not changed. The elders have asked him to lead the staff for now. This is not unusual. The previous Senior Minister served as Interim Senior Minister for about one and a half years before he was voted on by the congregation. There has to be someone serving as the point person during transitions until a permanent leader is decided on by the elders and then taken to the congregation. They have not violated the by-laws in any way.

There are other statements that upset me, but I’m not going to comment on them. My hope is that level-headed people will be able to see through the rumors and gossip that has now become national news and see that the elders of Valley View are indeed godly, trustworthy people.

It’s been sad to me to see the group of people leave. I will miss many of them dearly. I hope that God can use them to reach people that have never had a relationship with Jesus that would not have come to Valley View otherwise. My prayer for Valley View is that we will be strengthened through these tough times in order to accomplish a great work that I believe he has for us to do.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).