We have been searching for a new senior minister at our church for about 3 months now. This weekend, 4 people from our search team travel to go check out our top candidate. You could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit as we traveled and the easy with which everything happened. We had a great time meeting our candidate and his family and viewing the culture and and environment he helped shape. We learned a ton about him from a great meeting with the Elders at his church and other staff members. They are sad to see him leave but understand his following God as He is leading their family to a new opportunity to serve Him. We are bringing down the family in a week and a half for an interview and for the congregation to hear him speak and meet him.

On a side note I wished we would have had more time to walk around Chicago and not just see the little part we saw on the way to the airport (Midway). Lots of beautiful buildings with history and stories to tell, not like most of Florida.

Anyways pray for our church and this family as we hope will be a great time and a new chapter in this churches history book. One that will look externally to the lost in our community and do it through creating a culturally relevant environment, through a simple process that make disciples and turns those disciples back into the community to serve and love the people in the greater DeLand area.

I saw a quick note about a new book The Dangerous Book for Boys and so I went and checked out on Amazon. I found one of the coolest ways to advertise a book ever. Watch the video here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5PSdBWvx8s 425 350]

A two different friends of mine told me they are thinking about buying a higher than consumer end video camera to shoot videos like this for the church. We need to be using the video medium in our teaching. Why have I taken so long to get on board with this idea?

Back the book. It looks really good and I want to pick it up. Watch the video. Get inspired and if you have a boy or tomboyish little girl this would be a great way to bond.

[tags]The Dangerous Book For Boys, church, video, using video to teach[/tags]

I was at a Christian Bookstore today and saw the guy behind the counter had a copy of George Barna’s book Revolution. I got to see George Barna in Orlando earlier this year and he talked about the research he had done for the this book and explained his findings. I really interesting on a lot of levels but there is a part of me that that still thinks Barna is being a little one sided with all this.

But is was really cool to hear this guy tell me about the joy he had found in being the church again. How people we coming to know God through what they were doing in their neighborhood and how they were gearing up to reproduce another house church. How they had stripped away all the institution that has become structure that holds up most churches and gotten back to the basics: loving God and loving and serving people.

I know that the house church or simple church appeals to a lot of people who know there is more to being the church or were burned by the church but there can be a great distinction between those two groups. One group is leaving for all the right reasons structure has taken place of the mission of the church, politics rule how things get accomplished and how unbiblical churches can be sometimes. This group leaves the church starts a house church and becomes the community of faith, hope and love to their communities, neighbors and neighborhoods, friends and family. The other group leaves the church jaded against all the things wrong in the church they left swearing to never be like those people. But they close themselves of from the world they have been commissioned to save and become as inward focused as the people they swore never to become. They trust no church group with their money so they don’t give, they become very judgmental and just as unbiblical as the church they left.

I have not given up on the church. I believe God planned for believers to meet together, worship together, partake of the Lord’s Supper together and serve together. I think it is flawed in it current state. It is being dragged down by lack of Godly leadership and people who refuse to become Biblical followers of Christ who want t country club that makes them feel good and they can brag to their friends they belong to.

What are your thoughts on house churches and the “institutional” church (as they like to call it)? Or about the current state of the church vs. the biblical painting we have of Christ’s church?

[tags]house church, simple church, institutional church, George Barna, Revolution[/tags]

Sometime I think we miss small blessing (what follows does not define my whole view of blessings, but only a small part) if we only see what we do as having no bearing on the fact that God works through us even when we do things for ourselves. If that makes any sense to you keep reading.

I performed two weddings a couple of weekends ago and with the money I received for them was able to buy a Nintendo Wii without having to dip into my own bank account to buy it, which was my biggest concern and the reason I hadn’t gotten one yet. The Wii is really cool but my wife already made it into the story books as one of the people who have thrown the Wii remote. It was really funny and the remote made it through ok and still works fine.

I have a favorite coffee cup and a few weeks ago a friend sent me an email to about trying out a new one from the same company with a better leak proof lid but they only had 200 to give away. I sent away an email to the lady and she emailed me back and I’m getting to try out this new mug and its pretty rockin it just needs a handle (my only complaint so far).

Anyways, I don’t always see material blessings as the only way God blesses but I think that it is one way. Plus as you can see I’m a pretty cheap date and easy to impress.

[tags]Wii, Contigo Extreme Mug, Contigo AutoSeal[/tags]

Not in that exact order. Yesterday as I was leaving Ormond Beach I stopped into Volcano’s Coffee Bar to pick up a bag of coffee and to eat lunch. The Volcano’s in Ormond is bigger than the other one I have been to and they have this really cool cement bar that I sat at and ate at while I sent out some emails and caught up on a few blogs I hadn’t gotten to on their free wifi.

They didn’t have the coffee, Guatemala Antigua, I was hoping for. See they roast green coffee beans every 3 days to keep them fresh and amazingly oily (which is where a lot of the flavor is). So I picked up a bag of Costa Rica Tarrazu. So I ground up some coffee this morning in the office and picked back up Simple Church.

Simple Church is a great book so far. I really love the idea of creating a simple process for moving people to being disciples of Christ. There is a lot to take in and process and I’ve actually started taking notes in the front cover to reference back parts I really liked. I hope there is enough space to takes notes through the whole book. I’ll post more when I’m done reading it.

[tags]Volcano’s Coffee Bar, Coffee, Ormond Beach, Simple Church[/tags]

Today I drove over to Ormond Beach to the Beachside Church for an area ministers meeting. It usually is mainly senior ministers but today it was all youth ministers but one. It was great to hear what is going on at all their churches and to listen to the struggles that we all are having and everyone pitching in with helpful ideas. But the best part was praying for each other and the real problems that are going on at each church. We didn’t talk numbers. We didn’t talk trash about other area churches. We were real and you could feel God’s presence as we prayed for each other.

It so amazes me how unbiblical we church leaders can be. Sometimes these meetings turn into church bashing, complaining sessions, and bragging meetings. But not today!