I got a chance to watch Invisible Children at House Blend Cafe in Ocoee last night. My heart has really begun to wrap itself around the poor, impoverished and forsaken people all around us and this movie is doing its part to help. I know that this is what Jesus really had in store for the church not the institutional monster that it has become.

Invisible Children is an amazing story of three American guys that traveled to the Southern Sudan to learn about the genocide and atrocities that are happening there and found another truly amazing story that needed to be told. How children were traveling each night (they called them night commuters) from a rural village to sleep under verandas any where they could find to keep safe from a rebel army, the LRA, that is abducting 8 to I think 12 or 14 years to brainwash them and turn them in to murderers that will fight their war against the Ugandan Government.

People there are stories out there that we are not even hearing about. Why is that? Because they don’t think you will stomach this kind of news and all you want to hear about this the silly bickering over the War in Iraqi and Global Warming. People are dying all over the world and we can help but we have to get up off our couches and do something about it. I’m planning a city wide rally in DeLand to show the Invisible Children documentary as many places and to as many people will listen so I can get the word out and tell their story.

Get involved where you are and find a worth cause that you can serve and try and make the world really a better place one person at a time.

Tonight in 15 cities around the US there are people voluntary deciding to live in a Displacement Camp like those that the Ugandan government has decided to make the people of Northern Uganda live in as a way to keep them safe from the LRA, but these camps are making the situation worse for the people and are not a viable means to end this situation there. Here is a link to a news story about the group closet to me that camped at UCF.

[tags]Invisible Children, Social Justice, DeLand, Get Involved, House Blend Cafe, Displace Me, UCF[/tags]

Wednesday I got the privilege of hanging out with the guys from House Blend Cafe from Ocoee, FL and serving coffee to all the church planters here. It’s really cool to think of all the people they will impact for God.

As I look around though and see all the displays and booths I’m reminded of what a guy said during product tour yesterday (more on that another time), he said that being relevant is just keeping up with what is cool today. Now he was talking about how his product was different from others like it, but what about the church what are we trying to be as relevant as? As MTV or myspace, as the church next door? Should there be any elements of innovation, which is the opposite of relevant right? How can the church be different and do more that is innovative, more to be different?

I have more questions than answers at his point but feel free to chime in and give your thoughts.

As April is coming to a close here a few highlights.

-I’ve never sat on a search team for bringing a new staff member on board let alone the search for a new lead minister. I’ve been up to my neck in resumes, phone calls, meetings, emails but all really cool. I’m seeing a great sense of unity among the team which is awesome and great bunch of quality resumes have come in, which I am very pleased about. We’re moving pretty quick for a search team which is also really cool because I’ve seen and heard these take their time and drag out.

-I finished In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day by Mark Batterson, I’m in the middle of Confessions of a Pastor by Graig Groeschel and after this I’m diving into Simple Church by Thom Rainer. Confessions is a great book! I’m really digging the way Graig writes, he’s very down to earth and seems to be an average kinda guy. He doesn’t hide the struggles that he is going through or has been through, which is very refreshing from a genre of books that all seem to be by guys who are painted as having it all together. I have and still do struggle with many, if not all of the things he has talked about in the book at one time or another in my life and to see his example is great encouragement for me.

-I’m working on a new design for our church website, still in the preliminary design stage but hope to role it out this summer. Designed a desktop/ message graphic for a teaching series I’m doing on Jesus. You can see it here. And also finished our ministry logo (here) and a poster with our mission on it.

-Had some great family time with a day trip to Disney. Yes from where we live we can make Disney a day trip, a very long day trip. We got a great deal on 3 day passes and our daughter is at a good age for Disney. It was very cool, she loved Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain but the highlight of her day was meeting Ariel the Mermaid and getting her picture taken and getting to talk with her.

-Wednesday I’m headed to Orlando to help serve coffee with House Blend Cafe at the National New Church Conference. I wish I could have gone even though I’m not in a new church or gearing up to plant one yet but they cover some great topics and have some great speakers. Actually I passed up NNCC for the Buzz Conference in DC in June.

I posted the other day about the idea of strategically planning services geared towards men (I rephrased my wording since the last post). On Chris’ blog he mentioned that he points people who ask him about this idea to Gary Lamb. Gary in the lead guy at a church plant in Canton, GA. He has a great blog and a really different approach to ministry than most (not that these two things go hand in hand). He really doesn’t take much crap from anyone and is a slave to the vision that God has given him for his church (which is aswsome), Ridge Stone. I really think he is doing an amazing job up there. He definitely come to mind when talking about churches that focus on getting guys to hear the good news about Jesus Christ. I think it was last year that they kicked off a series called Drive on Mother’s Day. He said something to the affect of “that Mother’s Day is one of the times a year when a husband that doesn’t normally come to church will and we usually give them a message designed for women”. So they didn’t and if I remember correctly they had a great response to it.

Mark Driscoll also comes to mind when talking about getting men to church. Mars Hill Seattle is one of the greatest examples of churches targeting men. Their decor is very manly with plain black walls, a simple gray podium, simple back drops and like Gary messages that specifically target men.

When we talked about making our services/ gatherings more manly in Savannah a reality hit us. A wife is more capable of pulling out meaning in a service geared towards men than men are of getting anything out of a service geared towards women. Wives will put up with guy designed decor and teachings because it gets their husbands to church while we can see that a high percentage of husbands won’t put up with fluffy women specific churches. And when single guys hear that you have a time for them and start coming and hear about being Godly guys and life transformation comes because they see they don’t serve a neutered Jesus, single women will come looking for these Godly guys and begin to even out the population a little more. Just a thought.

[tags]Chris Elrod, Church for Men, Gary Lamb, Ridge Stone, Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill[/tags]

I don’t exactly remember how I got on to Chris Elrod’s blog the other day but I did and I found a great article about church’s that are focusing on men. Well today Church Marketing Sucks Blog picked up on the idea and linked to a site called Church for Men. Real interesting stuff. Back when I served in Savannah we talked about the idea of creating an atmosphere and environment that was more man friendly. Its funny that we don’t ask ourselves this question more often. Why would a man want to come to a church that is flowery and plays soft music? Can we really expect them to come with their families to churches that play more to a woman’s needs? I know that some men come to church. Some, like myself have gotten over feminine aspects of church and aren’t bothered by it but many, many are bothered by it and don’t come.

I know the some of the answers. Women are more likely to volunteer and so we got more of a woman’s touch. Guys don’t want to talk about decorating so we hand it off to the woman who gladly volunteer. Back to the point above, we don’t even think about it.

But how do we change this? Church for Men’s site says that on a given Sunday 61% of church attendance is women and 39% is men. But a better question might be why should we change this? What if more father’s came to church and had their lives transformed by a relationship with Jesus? Don’t you think that would permeate through his family. More Godly dad equals more Godly family.

Check out Church for Men.com, and the book Why Men Hate Going To Church. Check out Chris Elrod’s post about how he got tangled up in this discussion and ask yourself the question does my church do anything to create an environment for non-Christian men?

HT to CMS Blog

[tags]Church for men, Chris Elrod, Church Marketing Sucks, Why Men Hate Going To Church[/tags]

I finally got a chance to read Mark Batterson’s book In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day. I am not the kind of person who jumps on someones band wagon because everyone else is but I really like Mark’s stuff: this book, his blog and the church where he is the lead guy.

Back to the book. I was really surprised at how much encouragement, correction, vision and wisdom you could pull out of 2 verses in the Old Testament but he did it. In A Pit is a great book to help you pull yourself up by your boot straps and get back on the right path that God is leading you down. It was full of great reminders packaged in new and thought provoking ways. My favorite quote from the book is “maybe faith has less to do with gaining knowledge and more to do with causing wonder?” I was challenged and encouraged to look at the situation that God has put me in ask myself how I was looking at it. Did I need to reframe it or like my friend Chris leave my position? Mark did a great job of writing this book so that everyone could read it and be challenged in their unique situation. I hope that you will give In A Pit a chance to benefit your life and ministry. Mark has also put together the resources his church put together for their series based on the book free over at www.chasethelion.com.

[tags] Mark Batterson, In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day, Chase The Lion [/tags]

I heard Dave Furegson use the term Christ-follower for the first time a couple of years ago and resonated with him for the reason to use the term. Many people have made the term Christian meaningless. Years of bashing everything, inactivity, hypocrisy and the like have people turned off to the name Christian. Of course Christian means Christ-followers so why there has been so much up in arms about it makes no sense but that its the same people that have rendered the name useless that want to still hold on to it.

Anyways, Community Christian Church has put together some great PC vs Mac parodies of Christian vs Christ-follower.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

And of course there are those who have something to say about it. Now this guy is not far of base but still defending those who want to keep the name and live like they always have. Maybe I misunderstood what he was trying to get at, anyways read his comment below (MonT-SteR) and let him explain it in his own words

Check out all the video’s and the guys response and watch the video at the end of his blog post it hilarious.

[tags]Christ-follower, youtube videos, parody[/tags]

I write this in a bit of passion as I just finished watching Blood Diamond. I have wanted to see this movie since it came out but we aren’t much for going to the movie theater.

It saddens my heart the way people treat each other and the reasons we do so. Blood Diamond is about what are called conflict diamonds. Diamonds that are in some way shape or form, dug up and moved through illegal means that are then sold and the money goes back to support some kind of war. Whites against Africans, Africans against other Africans, civil wars, drug wars, war wars. The problem is evident. But like some many other problems we are unaware and ignorant or just don’t care.

Andrew Peterson so eloquently puts it, “I am shackled by the comforts of my couch” and I think of these words every time I watch or read something about the plight of Africa. Whether its the genocide in Darfur, the conflict diamonds of Angola or Sierra Leone, slavery still being practiced or corrupt governments sucking the life out of their people so they can live in luxury a get out of the mire of poverty that corrupt governments before them only made worse. Blood Diamond is right up there with Hotel Rwanda in my books of movies that do an amazing job of telling the story after it happens. These topics never make front page news or get a second of coverage on national news. Why? Because we don’t care (if I were a cusser I would use a few explicatives to express my frustrations, but I’m not). We don’t give a flip what is happening on our watch because it isn’t happening here on our streets in our cities. Diamonds are a girls best friend only because she never saw the blood that covered it when it was pulled from the ground. I’m not some crazed activist. But someone who knows his call to administer grace a justice to those in need of it. My life has been changed by my forays into social justice and spreading the word. I have seen man at his worst and man at is best and know day after day both are happening. I want to be a person who does more good than bad in the world, trying to be aware of the world around me and letting my life be transformed by the nudging of the Holy Spirit to see all people the way Jesus saw them. That is what it is all about: A world in need of a Savior!

In the end our desire for material gain pays out: sometimes in cash, sometimes in possessions, but more often than not it is first paid for in blood. We get what we pay for.

Check out both movies Blood Diamond and Hotel Rwanda and sites like Make Poverty History, One, Save Darfur and get involved or if you are passionate about something else find it or start your own. Ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

[tags]Blood Diamond, Hotel Rwanda, social justice, conflict diamonds, One, Make Poverty History, Save Darfur[/tags]

I sit and wonder sometimes if Jesus was referring to rock stars when in Luke 19 He says, “that if they were silent, the vary rocks would cry out”. He telling the Pharisees this as they are trying to get Him to quite the crowd as they are singing His praise during the Triumphal Entry. But these days very few are crying out to God but it sure seems like a lot of bands are. Check out and enjoy If Everyone Cared video by NickelBack.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-QfLJbEN3k 425 350]

HT: to Bill Kinnon

[tags]NickelBack, If Everyone Cared, Luke 19[/tags]

Lately I’ve let myself get in a funk, a pit. The funny thing is that I just started reading Mark Batterson’s book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. I have really been enjoying the book and will post a review of it when I’m finished. But as I was reading last night when one part stuck out at me and hit me in the face. In chapter 4 Mark says, “but sometimes the biggest problems present the greatest opportunities for God to reveal His glory and work for His purposes. No one likes being in the pits or put out to pasture, but maybe God is developing character and honing skills that will serve you later in life”.

Right after we got to CCDS the senior minister left. It has just been me now for about a month. And right after he left I thought everything was going great and my attitude was right and focused on God but in the last week or two I have let myself get into this slump, rut, pit whatever you want to call it and it has really affected me. But this chapter really but some perspective on where I feel I am and helped me see that maybe God is preparing me for something in the future where I will need the skills and experience I have been put into now. I had forgotten a real encouraging statement from lady in our church a few weeks back when she said to another guy and then to me, “I wonder what God is preparing you for” as we talked about everything going on at church and the minister leaving. I don’t know what God has in store but I do know that my attitude and perspective have not been in the right place for God to use me and teach me and prepare me for whatever lies ahead.

In the beginning of the In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day Mark talks about God’s plan and placing us in His right place even when it does seem like it to us. And I think that God placed this book in my hands at His right time. I tried and tried to get Chris to finish reading it and it took a little longer than he was hoping so I didn’t get it when I wanted it. Anyways now is the right time for me to be reading it and I praise God all the way for it.

[tags]Mark Batterson, In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day, Chasing the Lion[/tags]