Yesterday I had the privilege of attending a gathering of pastors at Hope International University. For the past several years, pastors from the independent Christian Churches and Churches of Christ have met for a day of networking. I was asked to lead a roundtable discussion on how LifePoint is using techology to build our church. It was fun sharing all the different things we've tried ... what has worked and what hasn't.The featured speaker was Leroy Lawson, a pastor and former President of Hope. I first Leroy back in January of 2005 when he and Russ Blowers were guests at the church planting boot camp Tonya and I attended in Northern California. It was a great opportunity to be around two men whom God has used in tremendous ways.Leroy spoke yesterday about the need to fight discouragement by eliminating a pastor's tendency to be competitive -- competitive in the sense…

I'm multitasking -- watching ESPN and working on videos for this Sunday. ESPN just ran a story about how Major League baseball honored those who were hostages in Iran back in the late 70s. It seems that Bud Selig learned that one of the hostages was a lifetime Brewers fan and decided to give him a lifetime pass upon his return. Other owners soon did the same. The ESPN piece chronicled how these passes helped the hostages return to normal lives, even helping restore relationships to children.It was a great story. Go baseball!

It seems that the manufacturers of Head On have finally recognized how annoying their commercials can be ... the most recent commercial has a guy interrupting the narrator to voice his annoyance with the commercial but praise for the product.

Buy a t-shirt and support breast cancer research.

We've been working on a special creative push for October's teaching series. On October 22 @ 10:30 AM we'll be hosting the one and only production of The Not All That Early Early Show. The entire worship service will be designed around a late-night talk show theme. Christian Mann (Eric Piepenbrink) will be our host for the show. A few things we'll have include ...The music of Justin Gramm and the It's Never Too Early band.The premier of Catherine Piepenbrink's new movie, Communion.HeadlinesCommercialsAnd yours truly as a special guest. The "sermon" will be delivered in the form of an interview.We've even created a website just for the show.And now a few promotional pictures ...