Archive - September, 2007

YouVersion

September 27, 2007 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

Bobby Gruenewald and Terry Storch (and the Digirati crew) from LifeChurch.tv announced the public beta release of YouVersion.com. It is kinda like biblegateway meets wordpress meets facebook who hooks up with your journal and they spawn a really cool tool for digital discipleship. I was in on some of the early testing (Alpha release) and have nothing but good things to say about it.

The coolest thing about YouVersion is that it is just that. Now, you can’t change scripture or anything like that, but you are able to highlight a passage and write your own commentary off to the side. It is a great way to process through what you are reading and internalize it.

Go check it out. Hopefully this will assist in your spiritual walk today, friends.

Hump Day Fun Day

September 26, 2007 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

[youtube 6AvBL2Mx2xA nolink]

The Future of the Church

September 25, 2007 in Church, Church Planting with 1 Comment

I’ve been processing a lot of information lately regarding what the church of the future looks like. I’ve recently watched some videos on the LifeChurch.tv site centered around Life Groups that take place totally online. I was intrigued that there were women from all across the country, from Maine to Chicago to Ohio and beyond, that are in a Life Group together. They are members of LifeChurch.tv’s Internet Campus and traveled to the Oklahoma City campus for three of their women to get baptized. These women appear to be very involved in each other’s lives, using social networking, letters, phone calls and care packages to stay in touch and love each other. Their reasons for utilizing the internet tools ranged from being former members at the OKC campus to not having a church like LifeChurch.tv in their area (Maine isn’t known for innovative churches).

I was talking about this whole idea with my wife today. The idea that a church can be made up of people from all around the country can be a part of the same group, discipling each other and loving each other, it kind of mind bending. In a way, it is like the old days of AOL chat rooms or the old old school BBS (for the record, I never really experienced BBS, I’m not that g33ky). You are with like minded people who come together for a purpose. What is the difference between that or being part of a Life Group with a local church? If you are able to take the technology aspect out of it, there really isn’t a difference. A group of people doing life together. I have no doubt that the women in the group I described earlier do life together. They are on each other’s Myspace pages. They know about the struggles each one is going through. The argument that people might not be as involved in these Life Groups really doesn’t hold water because that same thing can be said for any gathering of people.

So what is the church of the future? There are many churches around the country that are planting multiple campuses and using a single teacher/preacher. Each of these campuses have a campus pastor or group of pastors on the ground who take care of the pastoral care and normal ‘church stuff.’ The difference is that the teaching isn’t always done by the campus pastor. Several weeks a year, in LifeChurch.tv’s campuses, the campus pastor will teach to the entire LifeChurch.tv Network. LifeChurch.tv really is just one of the churches using this model and doing it very well. Doesn’t this negate what God needs to say to the people locally? Maybe. Probably not, though. There are churches all over the country who have different preachers giving essentially the same message(sadly it is sometimes the exact same message that they stole from someone else anyway), so why can’t a preacher from OKC give a message to people in Dallas?

What would this look like in your area? Could you join LIfeChurch.tv’s network, plant a church and use the LifeChurch.tv messages and materials and take the area by storm? Does being a pastor of a local church mean that you have to preach the word on Sunday mornings? Essentially, doing church in this way is simply a different way to multi-site.
I’m just using LifeChurch.tv as an example. Some other churches that have some similarities:

Seacoast Church

National Community Church

Community Christian Church

NorthCoast Church

Discovery Church

NorthPoint Church

Your thoughts?

Church and Ministry Credit Card/Debit Card Processing

September 23, 2007 in Church, Church Planting, Work with 0 Comments

I’ve recently joined a group called The Tentmaker Group who has teamed up with Simplefy, Inc. to offer the best credit card processing rates available.

Simplêfy is a consulting arm for First Data. In our unique partnership we are able to leverage and negotiate the best pricing for our prospective clients. Typically, the merchant processing and the management of the processing portfolio of any company are handled by an Independent Service Organization or “ISO”. This “third party” vendor, be it Chase Merchant Services, Wells Fargo etc purchases the processing from First Data and resells it to the merchant.

Simplêfy can provide the most cost effective pricing for prospective clients because they literally usher the merchant directly to the source, thus the merchant receives their processing and contract from a FDMS (First Data Merchant Services) alliance bank. Simplêfy/FDMS conducts an audit of the prospect’s current fee schedule and exposes compliance issues that cost the merchant even more money, i.e?? Downgrades, EIRFs and any other compliance issue. Most ISO(s) encrypt day to day processing to make such compliance issues invisible to the untrained eye. We are committed to illuminating such fees and eliminating the “fat and gristle” in your merchant portfolio.

This opportunity not only provides Churches and Ministries with the ability to go with the global leader in credit card processing, but Simplefy will invest monthly on new accounts into Tentmakers. Tentmakers, through consultants like myself, will invest these monies into church planting and city transformation.

A huge distinction with Simplefy is the rates that you can get for accepting debit/check cards. Unlike many providers, Simplefy offers a separate rate for signature debit cards and pin debit cards. The savings for your bottom line in this area is HUGE!

Churches and Ministries: Recieve a free credit card processing audit for your church or ministry. If you are currently using any processing source, especially PayPal or the like, your ministry cannot afford not to take advantage of this free opportunity.

Companies: Recieve a free credit card processing audit for your company. Learn why companies such as DisneyLand, Wal-Mart and Jimmy Choo go directly to First Data to get the best rates and get support directly from the provider. Even if you do not currently accept cards, we can help you get set up.

That is Funny, I Don’t Care Who You Are

September 21, 2007 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

“Lastly, if you get an opportunity to see a fight live, have fun, and if you do so in Vegas, go like Jesus sent out his disciples, two by two, as it’s an amazing city but makes Corinth look like a homeschool co-op.”

–Mark Driscoll on his recent trip to see an Ultimate Fight in Vegas

Around the Blogosphere in 20 Seconds (or however long it takes you to read)

September 21, 2007 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Perry Noble asks, “What would you be willing to attempt for God if you knew you couldn’t fail?” Timely for me.

Gary Lamb challenges would be church planters to be secure in their calling. Also timely. It is a few weeks old, but worth reading!

Ben Arment gets personal. Good thoughts, Ben.

Todd Rhoades at Monday Morning Insight put up some funny pick up lines. You gotta love using TULIP to pick up a chick!

Steven Furtick has some good thoughts in general. This post particularly. Another timely one.

Best Week Ever/Worst Week Ever

September 19, 2007 in Church with 1 Comment

The last week of my life has been a lot of things. Seven days ago I posted a blog entry that would change the course of my life forever. As I sat in front of my computer that day I intended to write something about what I was feeling, but just do some freeform thought/feeling stuff. I found myself unable to write what I thought I was going to write. Instead, I found myself writing about what God has been laying on my heart for what has literally been years. I had an idea that as soon as I hit the ‘publish’ button that things would neccessarily change. I realized later that day that my time serving in an official capacity at Journey Church was over. I had to come to terms with what was going on inside of me and what that meant for my staff position. With the help of my best friend and my leadership coach, I was able to identify some things that I didn’t even know were in me. I had a meeting with the Lead Pastor last Friday and I gotta say it was probably one of the best meetings we have had over the past couple of years. I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I got was understanding and love. I got some good advice about what I need to be doing now in preparation for the future. I walked away feeling a mixture of sadness, happiness and freedom. I was sad because I was leaving behind something that I wanted to love so badly. I was happy because of the way this meeting went and I felt freedom because in that moment I was truly free to be who God is calling me to be. My attention isn’t divided anymore. I have a passion for church planting, I have a passion for outreach, I have a passion to see the Great Commission filled. The only problem is that God has called me to a specific people group and that people group resides 1500 miles away. It isn’t a cop out. It isn’t an excuse. It is just reality. That was the biggest realization that I had to come to terms with this past week.

Journey family: Thanks for the past couple years. Thanks for loving my family and I. We aren’t leaving yet and as long as we are here, we will call Journey home. We became girlfriend/boyfriend, then husband and wife and then parents and you have stood beside us though it all. We’ve invested our time, energy and resources where we could and hopefully we have left some value in our wake. I recognize that I’ve not been all there all the time and I’m sorry for that. The reality of life has dictated much of those decisions. You have helped me to fully discover who I am a Christ Follower, husband, father and minister of the Gospel.

Thank You.

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