As I was tracking the Apple tech conference yesterday – yes, I’m just that much of an Apple fan/geek – and noticed I was increasingly nonplussed – we all new about the bigger iPhone and had heard for months about the coming Apple Watch – I began to wonder just how longer we’ll care about Apple’s announcements. Perhaps, I thought, Apple’s day in the sun is over and we’re becoming as jaded to their innovations – okay, so they don’t really innovate as much as they take existing platforms to a higher and more beautiful level – as we are to innovations and evolutions in other industries. But then I found myself thinking...

The Church is not Apple. I know that. I wasn’t trying to suggest it was with last week’s riff on Guy Kawasaki’s post about learning from the Apple store. There are plenty of things about Apple that I don’t want to emulate (and, truth be told, plenty of stuff in the church – historically and presently – that I’m not proud of, either, but that’s for another post.) And there are lots of places where even a metaphorical comparison between Apple and the Church breaks down. So, let me say again: The Church is not Apple…. But…. And of course here’s where it gets interesting. Because while the Church is not Apple, and our...

What  follows below is a post from Guy Kawasaki who was for many years a “chief evangelist” for all things Apple and who continues to write about excellence in design, marketing, innovation, and retail. In this piece he summarizes some key insights from a book about the phenomenal retail success of the Apple store. As I was reading Guy’s post, I couldn’t help but think about how many of these same insights might apply to the ways we think about church. So I’ll place the whole of the original post below so that you can read Guy’s insights. But I’ll also comment (in italic) after each section, offering  a...