My IHOP Confession

I have a confession: I like IHOP (International House of Pancakes). And yes, I am a senior citizen.

I love breakfast food, though I don’t get to eat a real, traditional breakfast that often. When I’m traveling for work, I often need to eat my dinner kind of late after completing an evening workshop. Breakfast food is usually a wiser choice than a late, heavy dinner.

So, this one night when I was traveling, I decided it was an IHOP night. Conveniently, the restaurant was a short walk from my hotel!

You might remember a few years back when IHOP (International House of Pancakes) attempted to rebrand itself as IHOB (International House of Burgers). This became a colossal public joke, to be remembered in marketing history with the disastrous launch of “New Coke.”

I took my seat in the IHOP, opened the menu, and what I saw made me laugh out loud! The menu included a whole section of “100% Angus beef pancakes!”

What do we do when we misstep and stumble, when we fall on our face? When the world is laughing at us and wondering, “How could they be so clueless to think this was a good idea?”

We can get angry; we can get defensive. We can be stubborn and refuse to budge. Or we can join the laughter, and be glad people are noticing us.

There are lessons here for churches. As you get ready for your fall campaign, as you’re planning how to build momentum for end-of-year giving, as you are strategizing how to get folks to let go of watching church in their PJs and get them back to church – be open to new and crazy ideas! They may not work out; they may become a joke. Laugh it off, knowing that one of these days, the crazy idea will be the game-changing idea!