I like reading Ed Stetzer. I first came across Ed's stuff when I was in the beginning stages of planting a church. My wife and I had just been hired by Stadia and were sent back home with a stack of books to read. One of those was a book on church planting by Ed Stetzer. Ever since then, I have tracked Ed via his blog and Twitter (@edstetzer). Here are excerpts of a recent post entitled, "Church Birth Control." Seems to be that churches must be on some powerful birth control. They are not reproducing. And I don't get why. It's natural. It's normal. It's essential. And we all know how to do it. But somewhere along the way, church reproduction and multiplication became unusual or strange in North America. And I am not happy about it. What's the most effective? Church multiplication movements. When churches plant lots of…
Read More
We kicked off a new series this weekend at Mountainview called "Chase the Lion." It's based on a book by Mark Batterson that features an obscure character from the Old Testament - Benaiah. I had the privilege of kicking off the series with a message entitled, "Defying the Odds." The basic premise was this: your view of God will determine the size of the challenges you tackle. Our creative arts team did a fantastic job of designing the stage. Our music was good, as it always is. At our second service I had the opportunity to baptize a young lady into Christ as her mom stood near by. Tonight we hosted "Laugh All Night," a Christian comedy concert to benefit mission efforts in Haiti. It was very well attended and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I was a bit disappointed that there was no open mic ... but that's probably…
Read More
How many things might we improve if we learned to ask the right questions? Here's an example of one powerful question we ought to ask when considering the tasks, jobs, and dreams we're trying to accomplish: "Is there a better way?"
Read More
I enjoy being around church planters. This morning at Mountainview our guest speaker was Todd Sinclair, a church planter who started Life Church in Aurora, CO. Todd challenged us to think of our journey with Jesus as participating in God's story. He also challenged us to think relationally. After starting a new church in San Diego (LifePoint!), I can honestly say that starting new churches is the single most effective way to reach people disconnected from God. Those four and a half years with LifePoint were wonderfully challenging but wonderful nonetheless. We saw people discover God for the first time sitting while sitting on one of our couches. That's a thrill that's hard to describe but it's addicting. If you are a pastor of a medium to large church, I want to encourage you to begin praying about how God might use your church to start new churches. It may…
Read More
I love great titles (and subtitles, for that matter). Blogger Scott Ginsberg comes up with some of the best blog post titles. Here are a few samples: 8 Ways to be More Sought-After Than The Jonas Brothers at a Middle School Sleepover Now You Can Become as Trusted as Oprah without Resorting to Brainwashing or Jedi Mind Tricks 8 Ways to become More Buyable than a Bottle of Viagra at a Boca Raton Bingo Hall
Read More