Twitter and church

I wrote this in response to a blog post at The Digital Sanctuary, thought I’d share here.

I was definitely following your Twitter feed that day, mostly cause I was glad I don’t deal with SoCal earthquakes anymore (although I miss a lot of other aspects of Cali…). Anyway, more to your point on the connectivity of Twitter, I’m seeing it take off in my church as we get folks on the Twitter bandwagon. I was hearing exactly the complaints you mention, “Who cares what I’m doing?” But in community, we all care. Not that you just went #2, but where you’re traveling, how work is going, what interesting things you’re reading or discovering online. In just a few weeks I’ve gotten to know several people much better through Twitter. And when we’re talking face to face it’s a stimulus for conversation so the relationships expand beyond 140 characters! On a professional level, I’ve made connections through Twitter that are allowing me to take trips and get insider access to churches and leaders that would have never happened any other way. Because of email and Twitter I’ve gained an incredibly valuable mentoring relationship and been able to create a mini-conference for me and my team at one of the most dynamic churches in the country; all of these happening face-to-face. Twitter has opened the door for face-to-face relationships across the country. Anyway, good stuff.

@BenEige

Great series on design in ministry

Check out Cynthia Ware’s series on design as she interviews a designer right in the thick of things.

Venue sagas continue

It is looking like we will be at the 24-7 Prayer Room again this week, but I haven’t yet confirmed that with the director (as of 4:29pm on Friday April 4th). I was watching The Pursuit of Happyness today with Will Smith and watching him go through the struggles of being homeless and taking care of his son and believing that an incredible future was ahead. Yesterday I was rereading some portions of Confessions of a Reformission Rev and Mark Driscoll was relating the early days of Mars Hill when it was struggling to survive and wasn’t really what he had thought the church would look like, but he had a vision of something bigger, a vision God had given him and his role was to do whatever he could to set the foundation for this huge vision of reaching the city God had place him in. Chris Gardner (the real person Will Smith portrays in Pursuit) and Mark Driscoll both saw the dream come about. I’m holding on to that right now. God is faithful. He’s bigger than any of this, and I have a vision of a church impacting the city of Charlotte in personal lives and cultural influence. It’s bigger than anything I can do, it’s a dream God has birthed and no venue issues are going to stop it. So get on board the ride we’re on cause the trip is going to be a good one.

BTW, just got off the phone with Lisa at 24-7. Ephesus will once again meet there this Sunday. If you haven’t been to 24-7 yet, you need to go. It’s a place of peace to get close to God, pray for what’s going on in your life, pray for what’s going on in Charlotte, and pray for the what’s going on in the world. And while you’re there, consider a little financial contribution because what they provide doesn’t happen for free.

See you this Sunday at Ephesus where we’ll continue to dig into the true nature of the church!

Okay, so I finally saw 300…

I finally completed my journey into manhood last night and watched the movie “300″. I enjoyed the graphic novel approach to the visual look of the film. It gave it a fresh perspective and allowed you to suspend disbelief the way you need to to get into a movie like this. Overall, it was a good movie, lots of blood, but heck look at the title graphic. And anytime you throw a LOTR guy in there, I have this strange loyalty that kicks in (for sake of full disclosure, I’m listening to the Return of the King soundtrack right now). Right at the beginning though, something jumped out at me. The way Leonidas, and apparently every Spartan warrior, is trained as a lethal killing machine. As a boy he is taught to fight and battle and not show fear or be intimidated no matter what. He becomes a warrior who earns his stripes by killing a massive wolf in the snow while in his underwear. He is portrayed as a warrior who feels no emotion, the perfect soldier, the perfect Spartan. Now, later in the movie we see he is passionate about his wife (I always dig movies that show married couples can be passionately in love, often it’s just people who aren’t married who really love each other and marriage is portrayed as where relationships go to die, not true!!), loves his son and loves his people (he becomes the Spartan king). Really the whole lead up to his initiation as a warrior doesn’t couple with the Leonidas we see later; he becomes a warrior surely, but he loves and cares for those around him too, a little out of character from what we’re told Spartans are trained to become.

Anyway, while watching this whole scene of a young Leonidas and the wolf, coupled with the narration explaining his lack of fear and emotion, only focused on killing led me to think of David of the bible. Here’s a guy who took down lions and bears. He then went on to single handedly battle a giant who had been striking fear into the entire army of Israel. Then of course went on to become one of the greatest kings in history….The point is, he loved the Lord. He sang songs, played instruments, danced! He wrote poetry and cared for people. And within the heart of this artist and compassionate guy was someone who could bare-handedly kill lions, bears and giants. That’s hardcore. He wasn’t raised in a culture of pain and hardship. He’s a man’s man who loved the Lord with all his heart, yet when the battle came he faced it. There’s a hero to look to…

Remake of Karate Kid

Check out this great video from No More Kings. This is the Youtube version, there’s a higher res version on relevant.tv.

It has all the original cast, freakin awesom!

Adam Sandler, Reign Over Me vs. Billy Madison

I just recently watched Reign Over Me with Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle. It’s amazing how far Sandler has come since Billy Madison. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Billy Madison fan, often accused of mimicking him when I make my sarcastic mocking voice. I mean “flaming bags of poop” is a line that will live on in movie lore for ages, but Sandler continues to expand his acting range as many comedians do. This movie in particular brings such depth and thought. It’s real and authentic. The dichotomy between Sandler’s struggles from the loss of his family and Cheadle’s struggles from the seeming monotony of it all. He has everything, Sandler has lost it all, yet both are deeply struggling. Sandler’s character seemingly has all the freedom that Cheadle desires, but it is not all that it seems. Sandler has all but lost the ability to care and remember his family. Cheadle feels trapped by his work and by his family. So together they struggle through their pain and their chains. Anyway, I’m not a movie reviewer but I do appreciate a good movie where men are challenged in what it means to be a man. I don’t want to give up the ending, but this movie is so worth the watch. Someday I’ll take a group of men through this movie and we’ll dig in. A little warning, a lot of f-bombs, but overall a great great movie.

Rough Draft of the Ephesus Church promo video

Here’s the rough draft of our church plant promo video. It’s been compressed so a little grainy, but it’s still smokin.

Thanks to Jason for the hard work getting it together in the middle of moving and preparing for a wedding. I still think you should move to NC. And thanks to Doug for letting me rip off the idea!

This new church in Charlotte is moving forward. We’re needing prayer for the right team to continue to come together and for the right place to meet to become available for a very cheap price. So keep praying and send the comments! Once the full version is ready you’ll hear it here first.

Old school techno with a message

I was listening to a favorite of mine today, Raving Lunatics, fronted by Scott Blackwell and unfortunately gone to obscurity I think after one album. But this album is on iTunes and I hadn’t heard it in a while (thanks Mike B. for the intro it several years back), so I got it a few weeks ago and was listening this morning. As a Foursquare guy it’s the greatest because it drops smooth grooves over the top of preaching from Scott Bauer and Aimee Semple McPherson so I feel holier just listening to it…. Anyway, track 3 is a song called Bound and it is Scott Bauer preaching on Lazarus coming out of the grave. What we don’t often realize is Lazarus would have been nasty when he came out. Wrapped in linen strips that have been absorbing the stink of his death for 3 days, bodily fluids that would have been released…you get the idea. But it was still Jesus working a miracle. Lazarus was alive again, new birth, but there was still some stink around. Jesus’ miracle wasn’t surrounded by clean, sterile faith in a nice package. Jesus’ miracle was earth-shattering and enormous but it was done in a messy place with a messy guy who had been dead for 3 days. Why do we expect everyone to come to the cross clean and looking clean shaven? Can Jesus not do a miracle in messy people with filth still clinging to them? Should Mary and Martha told Lazarus to go back into the tomb until he could get himself cleaned up? Powerful stuff, I haven’t responded to a sermon like that in a long time. Am I truly ready to accept the messy people Jesus is doing miracles in? I’ve got to search my heart…now where’s my glow stick and lollipop I’ve got some more techno to listen to!

Trying not to covet

I’m writing this entry from Brittani Roberts’ sweet MacBook Pro and trying so hard not to covet. What is it about mac’s? Someday I will have my own…here’s my latest thought…I was reading George Barna’s book Revolution this morning and he says that the two fastest growing types of Christian gatherings is home churces and cyberchurches. I’ve known about the internet campus for a little while now. LifeChurch.tv out of Oklahoma has had one for a little while as well as Seacoast Church in South Carolina. A very cool concept that a few years ago seemed “weird” but is becoming a much more accepted and exciting venue for bringing people to learn and grow and worship. So as I’ve been spending time over the last few days really seeking God about our new church here in Charlotte, and this seems like it might be a direction for us to go.

What if we started an internet campus right from the start? Is that crazy? Maybe so, but it is certainly emerging as a very viable church venue. A place for people to gather and grow and ultimately be released to serve Jesus. This would take a lot of resources right from the beginning. Our services would have to be recorded to high quality video and then transferred to a very nice internet “lobby” that is beyond the do-it-yourself home website. Hmmm…Thoughts?? Is this crazy?? I’d love to hear what you think.

Pick up this book

Confessions of a Reformission Rev. by Mark Driscoll. I’ve only read the first chapter, but it’s worth the price of the book just for that. It’s Chapter 0, which an administrative friend of mine has trouble with, but yes it’s the first chapter of the book. I’ve been a fan of Mark Driscoll for a few years now. I first ran across him in a book from Relevant Media called the Relevant Church. I was at a point in my youth ministry where I saw things changing and couldn’t put my finger on it. I began to explore the postmodern church movement and was intrigued. It seemed to answer some questions that I had, and gave me insight into some of the directions I saw young people, and ultimately the church, traveling in. But it was missing something. There was a check that I had, I was reading Brian McLaren and others of that ilk but I wasn’t convinced they were totally on track. The more I searched the more I became uncomfortable with their theology. It seemed at the end of the day the full, unblemished truth of Jesus, our sin, His death, our complete need for Him, and the unquestioned validity of all the bible had to say was missing. It had become more of a philosophical movement rather than a bible-based faith movement. At this same time I began feeling the call to plant a church and was looking for a basis for this struggle I was experiencing and how it would relate to a future church. I knew culture and the views of people toward Jesus and faith were changing, but I was struggling to bring it all to a coherent whole as I explored my fundamental values of what church should be. Then I read Mark Driscoll’s chapter in the Relevant Church. He nailed it. He was reaching the current generations and cultural expressions effectively, and Jesus was at the core of it all. I remember telling Casey, “he nailed it!” So, I began listening to his podcasts. Devoured his first book. And am finally diving into his latest. He’s not for everyone. He’s brash. Sometimes he says things that maybe he shouldn’t, but you know people are getting saved at his church like crazy. He’s impacting the ENTIRE culture of Seattle. An entire city is being affected by this church. How many other churches can truly claim that?

We have to get outside of our traditions. Not in a crazy, tattoo-everything-and-pierce-what’s-left-over kind of way, but in a way that engages culture where it is now. Not where it was before, not where it was when we saw our greatest successes, not where we think it should be, not in a way that glosses over the “sticky” parts, but where it is NOW. People want real. Our culture is real. It’s right there in your face. Jesus was right there in the faces of the cultural giants of the time He walked the earth. Revelation presents a Jesus who will return and get right in the face of the world, riding a giant horse, carrying a giant sword ready to kick some tail. Why shouldn’t we follow that example?

You know I started this entry to be quick, just a short recommendation of the book, but it stirred something. I’m fired up, I’m ready to go preach!