Saturn Project on South Beach Tonight

Jesse and Alex Santoyo, Brent Maloney, and their bass player in The Saturn Project are playing on South Beach tonight late. If you want to head out with a couple of us to catch their show, drop me a note. I’ll be online for a bit. I’m not positive I’m going yet. But, I know my brother Phil is.

Keys to a New Office in Hand!

We’ve gone through a ton of flux over office space. That’s a big deal when our move out day is May 7th.

First, we lost a deal for prime office space because our representation didn’t close a done deal.  Then, we got a verbal agreement which was also sent to us via email on a downtown venue only to have them decide that they wanted to renegotiate an already agreed to price at contracting.  That pretty much hammered our concert venue.

Finally, we got our new offices today.  The space is exceptional and the key is in hand!  We’ll be rolling out a sign-up for painters, people who are handy to help assemble equipment, hang TVs, and move in soon.  It’ll be a big bash where all the knuckleheads come out and create a ruckus.

DSL in the Theater

Cool news.  We just got our own DSL installed in the theater.  Among other things, it means in the near future, we’ll be live streaming our services on Sunday mornings from beginning to end.

Are there masses of people banging on the door to watch our services on line?  I doubt it.  But, we do have some really wonderful people that because of health and work issues cannot be in church on Sunday morning.  But, they can be in front of their computer.  Love it.

Virtual Stalkers and Oil Painted Boobies

I have a lovable, fluffy, warm hearted, pseudo-anonymous virtual stalker who has known me since I was 13 that’s taken umbrage with my use of Cold Play’s new album cover which is in actuality “Liberty Leading the People” by Eugene Delacroix.  What’s his beef?  Well, aside from the multitudinous links to “Rick Warren is the Anti-Christ” blogs and websites, the issue is summed up that he’s offended by oil painted boobies and a “foreign country’s flag.”

There are other issues he has with me apparently that is fueling the banter.  Perhaps, he’s generally dissatisfied in life and is only happy when others are miserable…not sure.  But, for his sake, would you mind giving a vote on whether I should ditch what he feels is anti-American pornography or go with the improved American flag waving, more modest version of artwork as seen here?  What say you?

Cold Play – Violet Hill (free download)

Check it out. Cold Play just released a new single, “Violet Hill” as a spiff to you, a freebie. Its a great tune. If you’re in London or NYC, there’s a free concert.

Linkfest

• 7 Signs You’re Not a Leader by David Foster
• Jeff Kaputska shares a video on why Twitter. (sign up and follow me)
• Jesse got a pedicure.
• Craig Groeschel gives pastors advice on message preparation.
• Chris Elrod shares his thoughts on Exponential Conference.
• Kent Schaffer shares a bit about church technology trends.
• Leonce asks why we’re focused on cultural relevance and not cultural shaping.

Website Unvelied

The new church website will be unveiled this week.  I’m excited.  It will be a central hub.  It will have a great warm feeling…can’t wait for you to see it.

Sunday Wrap-up: speed edition

I’m sitting here waiting for staff meeting to start.  So, this is quick:

• We ended our series, “Simply Jesus.”  I really enjoyed this focus a lot.  I feel like we gained some depth.
• Chris and Phil have some good insights into yesterday.
• We’re asking more people to move from the 10:30 to the 9 AM.  We really need the help freeing up some seats.  There were about 5 available seats in the upper section.
• That means some families don’t get to sit together and it can be awkward for guests on their first visit.
• Dan Bard made the mother of all storage boxes.  Our hospitality gear is rollin’ in luxury.
• After sharing about a family in our church who had a significant need, tons of people responded with offers to help.  Thank you for being the church.
• The fill in the blank notes from Sunday are:

Seattle through My Lense

Panoramic view of Seattle, WA from atop the Space Needle. I’ve got to get a better camera…still a great perspective.

Tim Keller Intro Songs at Exponential Conference

The introduction songs for each of the auditorium speakers were hilarious. I’m going to see if I can track down the lyrics to More Than a Feeling” Tim Keller/Eric Bramlett style. It was a sick, twisted piece played out to introduce one heck of an stodgy, intellectual, Manhattanite Presbyterian pastor. Enjoy.

(thanks to Elrod for the vid)

Crowd Status

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve really started messing around with Twitter.  I dig it.  Along with Twitter, I also dig my blog.  They collide on my Crowd Status.  Check out what some of my Twitter friends that also participate on my blog are doing all at the same time on my Crowd Status.

Are you missing from the crowd?  Let me know and I’ll add you.

The Danger of Conferences and Hanging out with Christians

Coming home from Exponential has left me encouraged, excited, and a bit more focused. On top of that, It’s left me enjoying the team at Life Pointe a bit more. But, there is a downside to conferences and other venues where Christians sit down and talk about how to do ministry.

PITFALL?

The pitfall that we all face is listening to a speaker, seeing what God has done in his context and believing that God wants to do that same thing in your town. As much as I’d like to have an Australian accent and be as infectious as the renegade Alan Hirsch,

Rick Warren on Building a Reproducing Church Plant

• Rick Warren’s wife at age 25 when they were thinking about planting: “I believe in God and I believe in you. So, let’s go.”
• Pastor listen to your wife.  Often she is the Holy Spirit.
• Before you’re married, opposites attract.  After marriage, opposites attack.

Tim Keller on the Gospel

• the DNA of a reproducing church has to be the Gospel.
• “the Gospel is the power of God.”
• every form of the Gospel is always a verbal proclamation of the Gospel.
• Christian world is unsure of what the Gospel is anymore.

Tim Keller on the Methodology of Reproducing Churches & Revival

THE APPLICATION AND FACILITATION OF BIBLICAL REVIVAL DYNAMICS IN YOUR MOVEMENT

• I do not like the term renewal.  We’re talking about revival.
• Revival speaks to spiritual deadness.
• The idea that if you’re not a reproducing church is that you’re not smart…this is incorrect because it speaks to skill instead of revival.
• It is the difference between being and doing.

Ideas about Revival Dynamics

• explosive reproduction happens only with revival
• reproduction can happen without revival and does

Dave Ferguson on Genuine Community

Dave Fergurson of Community Christian Church and New Thing Network

• We were all born with the need for genuine community
• Genuine Community = when people grow in your love for God, His people, and His world.
• Gen 1:26 (community of the Godhead) -> created man (Gen. 2:18 – not good for man to be alone) -> the fall (Gen 3), a breakdown in community, distance from God and man-> Jesus comes (John 1) ->the coming of the Church (2 Corinthians 5:19)
• God has always been about creating community.

Steve Andrews on Radical Disciple Making

Steve Andrews of Kensington Community Church – Vision 20/20

• “I believe Alan Hirsch is a prophet to our generation.”
• the best thing about this conference is the word, “exponential.”  We must think about this word for the rest of our lives.
• “It will be on our watch that the Church of Jesus Christ fades into obscurity, if we don’t get our stuff together.”
• We are the wave that God has called.
• There is a fresh wave of the Holy Spirit that is happening in our generation.
• We are rejecting the protectionism and isolationism of our fathers and mothers.

ON DISCIPLESHIP – What do we want to be giving our emeerging leaders as we build into them that they weren’t being given in the past?

• PERMISSION TO SAY NO.

Greg Surratt on Developing a Reproducing Farm System

2 Timothy 2:1-2 “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.”

The church needs a farm system for reproduction.

AT SEACOAST CHURCH:

• in 2001, they planted their first church through an arm of their church, ARC. They’re planting 30 churches this year. They have the money to do it. The challenges is always to build a farm team.
• In 2001, they had about 3,500 people (now 10,000 without the big building) and were denied a building permit.
• Now they have 13 campuses.
• Every week, they now have 20 bands.

Dave Ferguson and Alan Hirsch on Organizing for Reproduction

DAVE FERGUSON

3 significant advances that are taking place in the church

1. church planting
2. multisite movement
3. missional/incarnational church

Observations

• new churches grow 23 times faster than established churches
• new churches grow 10 times as many conversions as established church
• only category of churches growing are churches that have been around for less than 20 years
• 1990 – 10 multisite churches
• 1998 – 100 multisite churches
• 2004 – 1500 multisite churches

Jon Ferguson & Dave Dummit on Creating a Reproducing Church Culture

Dave Dummit and John Ferguson of the New Thing Network

• Parable of the seed and sowers (30, 60, 100 fold)
• seed did not just reproduce a church but a crop of churches

PDF copy of the notes available here. Also, check out other notes at the New Thing website, including 7 Moves to MultiSite.

a session during Exponential Conference (National New Church Conference)

Alan Hirsch: Missional Movement

• Organizations exert pressure on you to conform. (tells story about mesmerizing chickens)
• Christians need a boot up the @$$ to be woken up from being mesmerized.
• When you look at the church in the West, we are in decline in every setting. Visit Europe to get a sense of that. Try to find a viable witness in your Europe, the home of the Reformation. It’s pretty bleak.
• We have to rediscover something that is primal.
• The answer is not found in a newish thing. It’s found in going back, down, or deep. We need to recover our ethos.
• Chinese have grown from 2 million to 120 million with none of the clutter of the western church.

Areas we have to recover in order to grab this latent ethos within us.

Randy Pope on Spiritual Disciplines in a Reproducing Church

Randy Pope

T- Truth
E- Equipping – massaging the truth until it becomes personally understandable and usable.
A- Accountability
M- Mission- you can’t keep it unless you give it away.
S- Supplication- praying with each other and for each other

Directing –> Coaching -> Supporting -> Delegating

• Skipping from directing to delegating will create disillusioned learners
• There is no more notorious institution for creating disillusioned learners than the church.

a session during Exponential Conference (National New Church Conference)

Multi-site Roundtable Video with Driscoll, Bishop, and Browning

Video of Mark Driscoll, John Bishop, and Dave Browning from last week’s multisite exposed conference at Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

Move Too Slow vs. Move Too Fast

The back-to-back conferences in Seattle and Orlando have almost killed me physically.  But, they’ve been worth it to help me focus on some of the things that are most important as a leader…guts.

I’ve come to the conclusion that in considering some of the ministry opportunities in our community, I’ve been too focused on launching with excellence and not focused enough on launching with an excellent heart.  John Bishop said something in Seattle that grabbed a hold of my conscience and gave it a good beating.  He said:

I’d rather launch 5 campuses at $18,000 each than 1 campus at $80,000.

I think in an effort to start things right, I have been staring at the temptation to over-invest in stuff.  Our church is without a doubt, a multiplying church.  But, as we step that heartbeat up, I promise to make sure we spend more passion than money, sweat than cash, leaders than technology, and heart than worry.

When it comes to the mission of Jesus in Miami, we’re going to go for it as often as is possible, with an attitude of innovation, working like dogs, and impassioned for the most revolutionary man and His creation.  If I have to choose between moving too slow or moving too fast, we’re going to err on the side of being too fast.  Afterall, its not a matter of the big beating the small.  It’s the fast beating the slow.  We’re going to stay fast.

Exponential Updates on Twitter

The internet is really spotty at 1st Baptist in Orlando where the Exponential Conference is. I give up trying to post my notes for now here. But, I will be twittering bullets/highlights.

Ed Stetzer – Session 1 – TRENDS AMONG MULTIPLYING CHURCHES (churches planting churches)

TRENDS AMONG MULTIPLYING CHURCHES:

-Activity transition to local churches from denominations.

-Looking at issues of evangelistic effectiveness of church plants.

-Taking responsibility for church planting systems (ie assessments)

-Churches that grow more rapidly are more heavily funded.

-Funding shifting from denominational to local church.

-Trending of amount of money from local churches goes up, multiplication goes up.

Rock Shows

I was searching for one of our new Flickr pages and came across a photo set by one of the bands that has played in our shows. The pictures were all pretty cool…worth a look.

The pics also made me a little sad that we don’t have a venue to do shows. Hopefully, something will work out soon. In the meantime, I’m pretty excited for Jesse, our worship pastor since The Saturn Project has broken into the South Beach scene and we’re using other people’s venues to slam home some seriously good music.

Bible Reading Plans

Over the past 2 months, we’ve been giving away Bibles (NLT) to people that need a one or know someone that needs one.  We have a table setup by the entrance to the auditorium.  You don’t have to ask, just pick it up and keep walking.  We’ve given away cases and cases of some really great Bibles.

One of my favorite sounds on Sunday morning is the sound of people turning pages in the Scriptures during my message.  And, one of the questions I’ve been getting quite a bit lately is “Where do you start?”  Yesterday, I recommended that someone read the Bible through in chronological order so they could get a good historical picture of how it all went down.  If so, you can do it in 61 days on a reasonable pace.

OTHER READING PLANS:

• Chronological Order in 61 Days
• Biographical Highlight Plan in 61 Days
• A Survey of key Passages in Each Book in 61 Days
• Historical (as it was written, not as it happened) in 365 days
• Old Testament and New Testament Together in 365 days
• Comprehensive, cover-to-cover style in 365 days

Autographed Copy of The Dalai Lama’s Book

One of our guys at Life Pointe is a special agent for the State Department, our resident Jack Bauer.  A couple weeks ago, he was doing detail for Tony Blair.  This week, he was doing detail for the Dalai Lama.  He hooked me up with an autographed copy of the Tibetan Leader in Exile’s book…pretty cool.

Had someone gotten me an autographed copy of the Olympic flame, that would have been a little more impressive.  Alas, I’ve got a cool piece of memorabilia to wedge in between my Dr. J basketball and my 2005 Miami Hurricanes autographed team football helmet.

Sunday Wrap-Up

• Other Life Pointe Sunday run-downs: Chris and Phil and Phil 2.0.
• After being away from Life Pointe for a Sunday, it always feels good to get back in the saddle. Today was no exception.
• I came as the only representative from my family. McKenna threw up on me first thing this AM. Kourtney had a high fever too. So, the crew stayed home.
• Before we got into the message, I shared off the record, off podcast, off video some possible scenarios on how the baptism situation with the County could work out. I felt a significant sense of unity. I feel as though we’ve been prepared for this moment. The people at the park are good people. But, we need to fix a situation that we weren’t looking to be involved in.