Ken

Yesterday, I broke down and entered the world of iPods. It's the first money I've ever spent on anything made by Apple ... a sure sign of end times if there ever was one. As I age, I have started to become more intrigued by the Mac and Apple in general. So ... I bought this iPod (along with another iPod for Tonya) and have started putting my cd's on there. Actually, I first bought a few songs on iTunes (Lyle Lovett and Michael Tiernan) and have just now started importing songs. I can't see how these guys get 15,000 songs on there unless there's a way to batch load all 15,000. Which raises another question: who needs 15,000 songs?

The web is a wonderful thing. There's a site called Multisensory Worship, which is dedicated to helping new emerging churches explore ways of communicating truth in creative ways.From this site I found my way to Emerging Minister. It's a site that combines blogs with resources for people who are involved in the emerging church conversation. You have to check out the video archive section. TRUST ME: YOU HAVE TO CHECK OUT THE VIDEO ARCHIVE SECTION.More specifically, you have to download the nine-part Bobble Head Theater series. It's not a 56K modem download! But it's worth the wait. I laughed out loud several times -- no, multiple times.For those of you who live in San Diego, it's likely you'll see a few of them at LifePoint :-)

A long time ago I signed up for Google alerts, a service of Google News that grabs news stories that match a profile you create and emails the link to you. It's wonderful. Especially if having 100 + emails in your inbox makes you feel like more of a man. Seriously, I love it.OK, so today I get this headline that reads, "Is Normal Now A Mental Illness?" What a great title ... and an interesting question. In a world that celebrates abnormality and weirdoes, what is normal any more? Are you normal? Am I normal? What is normal?It made me think that Jesus himself was not normal. He didn't operate the way the "normal" leaders of his day did. He didn't manipulate. He didn't coerce people into following him. He didn't sit back and demand that people bring him a drink. He didn't berate those that fumbled and stumbled…

LifePoint is now three weeks old and getting older all the time. As a new church community, there are growing fits and learning experiences. Technology continues to be a blessing and a curse. The same program that allows you to feed text over video and jump slides on the fly is the same program that decides to lock up five minutes before worship is to start. Personally, I believe it's the spirit of Bill Gates manifesting itself in our PC. At least XP got rid of the blue screen of death.Our LifePoint team continues to serve cheerfully and enthusiastically. Many of them are serving dual roles at both gatherings -- some arrive as early as 7:00 AM. Building a new church community is definitely a team adventure. And I do mean adventure.One very encouraging sign is the number of new faces who have offered to help. This is the lifeblood…

One of my desires for LifePoint's worship gatherings is for them to reflect the creative diversity that exists both within our church community and the community at large. Our God is a creative God and didn't finish his creative work after six days and retire. He's still creating and has put his creative impulses within us.We had our first large-scale creative arts gathering last night at our house. It was great! The best way I like to describe our approach is to use the analogy of an artist's palette. Each of us brings a certain perspective, background, training, and passion to the creative process. Last night we had musicians, artists, actors, teachers, and nerds like me. If a pastor isn't intentional about using the gifts of others, he will create a worship experience that reflects the heart and head of one or two people. He will probably teach in the…