Ken

We've been preparing for LifePoint's booth at CityFest for about three weeks. Our creative team has done a great job of designing a low-cost booth that is still very attractive. We are displaying various posters with scenes from around LifePoint. These include our worship gatherings, teaching times, KidPoint, and our LifePoint Cafe. I'm especially pleased that several of our featured artists are allowing us to have their CD's for sale at our booth.Having a booth at CityFest is part of an intentional strategy of interacting face-to-face with our neighbors. We'll see how this one goes ... and then maybe we'll tackle Octoberfest in La Mesa!

I met this afternoon with one of the musicians who has played at our LifePoint Cafe. She was bringing me a stack of CD's for us to put out at our CityFest booth on August 13. We had a wonderful little visit, catching up on how things are going with her career.After she left, I reflected on something that has long been a passion of mine -- creating an artist-friendly environment at LifePoint. I would love to see LifePoint become a place where artists are not only welcomed but where they take up residence. A place where they return to draw spiritual strength and support. A place where their creativity is encouraged and challenged to have redemptive value.I think of what the Belmont Church was in the 1970s and 1980s as artists from the Nashville area began attending. A more recent example would be Mosaic in Los Angeles. Both seemed…

Life has returned to normal around the Hensley household. Tonya and the girls flew back into town last Wednesday night and we're are slowly getting readjusted to each other :-) Honestly, it's really good to have the girls (all three) back around. By the time I arrived to pick them up at the airport, they were already in the baggage claim area. I inched my way forward trying to hide from them. Hope was the first one to spot me and I tried to duck behind a column. She came running at full-speed and jumped right into my arms. We both stood there for about 30 seconds as Tonya and Hannah began looking frantically for Hope. When they finally spotted us, Hannah took off at full speed as well. Fortunately, I was able to brace myself for the collission.So ... life has resumed a certain pace and little piles are…

For the past six weeks we have been planning for an upcoming direct mail campaign. We were blessed with a donor who offered us matching funds and a friend who provided deep discounts on the postcards themselves. As part of the fundraising process, we solicited money from outside sources and planned for a special contribution at LifePoint. Yesterday was the day for our special contribution. For the uninitiated, a special contribution is simply a second offering. This would be our first special offering since starting LifePoint last year. Doing a special offering during summer is a bit risky because of the unpredictability of attendance patterns. Yet, in order to do the campaign this fall we needed to have this offering in July.So ... we began promoting it and encouraging people to make plans on how they could help. The Lord smiled down upon us. We had our largest crowd of…

I'm teaching this weekend from Acts 26 about the implications surrounding how we answer the question "What do you I believe about Jesus?" The chapter is essentially Paul retelling the story of his conversion before Festus and King Agrippa. As I was reading through it I was struck by this section:"I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them" (Acts 26:9-11).What struck me about it…