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Africa's Favorite American

Because my father worked for the government when I was growing up, and because he valued giving my sister and I a global perspective, I had the privilege of traveling quite a bit around the world.  One of the first trips I went on was to Ecuador in the mid-nineties. 

Now about two years ago I went to South Africa, a delay of about 15 years.  And in that time you know what the biggest difference was?  The delay of the people in receiving and embracing American culture.  When I first traveled the people I encountered were about ten years behind American pop-culture (You like Duran Duran?).  But when, I travel now I find that the teenagers I encounter are about ten weeks behind american culture (You like Justin Beiber!?).  What caused the change? Two things.

Availability and Access.  First the culture is available through the internet.  This doesn't sound breathtaking until you meet a guy in the Transkei who likes Chamillionaire because he saw his video on youtube.  But the second reason is equally important access. By and large the teenagers that I met in Africa had mobile phones.  They didn't always have the money to buy minutes for them, but through text and sharing songs on their phones culture spread rapidly.

Now since you're sharp you are probably thinking that this is all nice and good, but you say, "What does this have to do with Next Level Church?"  Simple.  We want to increase your access to the culture of NLC.  We are striving to create a culture that loves and honors God with their lives. So to make access as easy as possible we've started a text service. Our goal is one text update per month, plus special reminders.  Here's what you do to sign up for text updates.

Matthews - text the word nextlevel to 24587

Blakeney - text the word blakeney to 24587

Students - text the word students to 24587