When I met with the mayor of Kalispell, before this project began, and asked how she would have us spend the 3,000 hours one of the immediate things she asked for us to focus on was graffiti removal. As a result that has been an area that we have thrown a lot of energy at. We have prayed that people would see our “good works and give glory to our Father in Heaven” (Matthew 5:16) But this past week one of our teams, that was serving in this way, attracted the wrong kind of attention. One of the local newspapers runs a section, called the Law Roundup, where they report all police activity from the day before. (One of the quirky things about living in a small town) It is usually pretty humorous to read. Here is what was written about the RTC team:

Police investigated a complaint that youths were spray-painting the bridge at Underpass Hill. It turned out that the young people were performing a good deed by removing the graffiti Tuesday evening.

You can learn more about Rock this City, watch videos where you can meet some of the RTC stars and even participate and log your hours (no matter where you live) here.

I believe that one of the greatest things you can do to protect your vision is to employ strategic silence until the opportune time. You see this in scripture. When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem with a vision to rebuild the walls he said nothing for three days. He didn’t even tell the people who were going to do the work until the time was right. (Nehemiah 2:11,16) It would have been easy to let it slip, but he didn’t want any neigh-sayers to put their own spin on it as they broadcasted the news. He wouldn’t forfeit the right to be the one to impart the vision to the people himself.

When God revealed to Mary that she was raising the Messiah it would have been easy to respond to that annoying mom who had a “my kid is on the honor roll at Nazareth elementary” bumper sticker with a nonchalant, that’s nice. Oh and did I mention that my kid is ‘destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel?’ But she didn’t. Luke 2:51 specifically says she, “kept all these things in her heart.” She protected the vision of what God was going to do with strategic silence for a period of time.

If you want to know what can happen when you share your dreams too early, look no further than Joseph. Over a bowl of fruit-loops one morning he casually mentioned to his family that they were all going to bow down and worship him one day. Joseph was sharing exactly what God had revealed to him, and it would come to pass exactly as he saw it, but his family wasn’t too keen on the idea at the time. Sharing the dream so early on lead to some rocky days for young Joseph as his brothers took steps to keep it from coming to pass and that is what can happen when you don’t protect the vision with silence early on.

Looking back on my life, I can think of times where I let dreams out of my heart too early or with the wrong people and got discouraged as a result. It’s easy to do. You want affirmation. In fear you desire to hear from others that you aren’t crazy, that they think it will work, that you should ‘totally go for it.’ And because “in the multitude of counselors there is safety” you seek out feedback. Be careful. To all but the eye of faith a God-sized vision looks impossible. The eye of the flesh will see the problems, the reasons why it won’t work, those who have tried it before. And you can easily end up bailing on your calling because some hater told you that there is no way you can kill a goliath with a sling-shot. It just can’t be done. And they are right, you can’t. But God can.

Check this out, Psalm 115:3 says, “Our god is in Heaven, He does as He wishes.” If God wants to do the impossible in your life–that’s exactly what He will do. Nothing is too hard for him. I’m not saying you shouldn’t seek out godly counsel, before you take action, you should. But when you do make sure it’s from those with gutsy faith who won’t just see all the reasons why it won’t work. Seek out advice from people who have taken risks that God has blessed.

To use a coffee illustration, there might be a season where you need to just keep things brewing before you push the plunger down and pour it out. There are dreams in my heart, I believe God is going to do in my life and ministry one day, that only a select group of individuals are privy to and there are other ones that no one knows about but my wife. If I said them out loud in public I would probably scare myself right now. I am protecting them with silence until the time is right. Protect the vision God has given you!

“There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish… it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter.

Rock this City is now here. This past weekend we kicked off a brand new series going, verse-by-verse, through the book of Nehemiah. It will last for the next 4.5 months and during the summer portion, as a church, we will be ‘living the story out’ as we take radical steps to love and help build up the city we live in.

The basic concept is that everyone in the church selects one hour of community service for each month of summer off of the menu of outreach opportunities that we have established. (3 is the minimum but not the maximum–one super hardcore dude picked 30 hours) Once they have made their choices they just take their form to the “Rock this City Center” and get a free RTC shirt that they wear to their three events over the course of the summer.

No big deal right? Wrong. Even though the individual sacrifice is small, (the average american watches 4.5 hours of tv per day–all we are asking for is 3 hours in a period of 3 months) the group yield is huge. If everyone puts their back into it we will have given thousands and thousands of hours to this city in Christ’s name.

As a staff, we have been praying and prepping for this for months, and we believe that God is going to do some straight-up killer stuff in and through this study and initiative. And we were so stoked to see the body respond to the vision enthusiastically. Hundreds of people flocked to the RTC Center at all of our services committing to thousands of hours of service and happily receiving their shirts.

You can read more about Rock this City and be a part of it, even if you live in another part of the country, Rocking your city for Jesus by serving, logging your hours online and sharing your story with us–here.

You can see photos from the launch here.

I believe that there are some very practical steps you can take that will help foster synergy between the worship leader and the pastor and will help you move towards a more seamless flow in services. These are things that work for us at fresh life and every church is different and has more or less complicated needs but hopefully some of what we have learned can be helpful, however much it has to be tweaked to be implemented in your specific situation.

Of great concern, first of all, is the choice of your worship leader. A lion share of the platform time will be occupied by this individual and so you need to choose both prayerfully and carefully for the right fit. It doesn’t matter how great the message may be–if the music is bad that accounts for half of the service so choose wisely (worship leaders the same is true in reverse so u choose carefully too!) For church planters and small churches this can be really difficult because your options are limited, you might even be your own worship leader. That’s tough. In the mean time, keep it SIMPLE. Less is more. Someone who is just cutting their teeth leading worship will have an easier time handling a stripped down setup with just a 2 or 3 piece band than trying to wrangle a full stage of musicians with epic solo’s and 19 backup vocalists and a guy with a cowbell.

Once you have the right fit make sure they get the vision. How can they know if they are succeeding or failing if they don’t know your expectations? Are you frustrated that your worship leader isn’t nailing it? Do you think have any concept of what “nailing it” is to you? Have you ever gone to lunch with them and shared what you like, what you don’t, heard from them, and talked about different styles, approaches and philosophies. You might be surprised by the fact that you are both operating under different definitions of success. Maybe they have been wanting to go more rock and roll but they thought you dug the acoustic stuff. It could be that they don’t really like having dancing leprechauns and videos behind the words on the screen either, but they never thought to say anything about it. It also helps to build and foster the friendship. Spend life and time together, building inside jokes and a good relationship will only add to the dynamic and chemistry that will be evident during times of public ministry. Kevin Guido, our Creative Arts Pastor and head worship leader at Fresh Life, is one of my best friends on the planet and we have a lot of fun together, no matter what we are doing.

By far, what will help build this coherence in the service is to involve them in the sermon building process. For us, this begins months out when series ideas are being developed and brainstormed. The worship leader shouldn’t be blind-sided by what is coming down the pike but right there with you riding the wave of creativity and momentum. The next study should be inspiring them early on as you move towards it and they can be seeking God and preparing their heart as it approaches. Then each week as you gear up for the weekend (for us by Thursday) I email the outline and text and any additional thoughts on and as soon as my rough draft is done I send that out too. Sometimes there will also be a phone call or cup of coffee thrown in the mix as well if my “passion runneth over” I want him to know how the message begins, and ends, see the application and have more than enough info to craft the music around the message. This btw is why it is key that you have someone you trust and respect, and not just someone who has a great voice and can play the guitar. They need to really get it.

Every once in a while there is a special song that I will specifically request but I try to do that sparingly as it can hamper creativity if I am basically choosing the set list each week. Quite honestly, I am often blessed to find them choosing a song that I thought would fit perfectly but didn’t say anything about–those are times I give God a high-5 for having us on the same page. Other times I will be surprised by how a song I never would have thought of will really complement what God is doing in that service. (And occasionally I will feel a particular song is super appropriate for a service but we don’t want to include it in the worship per se so we will pre-roll the service with it or include it as a music bed for a video.)

This all admittedly gets more complicated when you have more than one worship leader. As of right now, we have two campuses and several different worship leaders in the mix. And so I rely on my Creative Arts Pastor to be the funnel that distributes and monitors the vision, song-selection, teams and overall implementation of what happens on the worship front in all aspects of our growing church. This limits the cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. I communicate with him and he communicates it with the others involved at Fresh Life Creative.

Like I said earlier, this is stuff that we have found helpful and if you can grab something, killer–but I’d love to hear what has worked for you at your church as well, leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Without a doubt, the highlight of the conference was the evening with Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio. They didn’t have any laser-shooting robots, or comic sketches or loin-cloths. It was just a simple and powerful night of worship and the Word. It rocked. Jennie and I both experienced God doing eternal things in our hearts as we worshipped and were ministered to by Louie’s talk and we left recharged and refreshed.

I had never heard Louie speak in person before, though I have been impacted and blessed by his ministry for years. One of the biggest things I enjoyed watching was the partnership between Chris and Louie on stage. Though one spoke and the other sang, you could tell that they were working together for the same cause through the whole night. As I watched, I thought of Ira Sankey and DL Moody, Cliff Barrows and Billy Graham–examples of worship leader/speaker teams that were united powerfully. And it clearly makes a big difference when God melds two different hearts together to be used in harmony in this way.

I think I am going to post soon about some things that you can do to try and get and stay in sync with your worship leader.

In all seriousness, the iPad is a great tool, and having preached from it this weekend it fully delivered everything that was lacking from the Kindle DX in the pulpit. (see my previous post on that here) And I love that first thing I ever did with it was preach on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ! I believe that technology exists for the glory of God and we should harness it to make Jesus famous, however we can.

It did take some time to figure out what would be the best way to get message notes onto the device. The best solution would be to utilize the iBooks app that is on the device which allows for a kindle-like experience and has turning digital pages built in. My creative team and I spent several hours a few weeks ago trying to figure out how to make messages into epub’s that iBooks can receive via iTunes. We were able to get my notes into that format but they lacked the color formatting that sets the iPad apart from Kindle so that wasn’t going to work.

The most straight forward solution is just to use the PDF reading capability that is built into the mail client on the iPad. I don’t love that route though because you have to constantly scroll down as you speak (like you are on the web) and it does not allow for page by page turning with one click or swipe. After some research I ended up purchasing a 99 cent app from iTunes called Good Reader that can read PDF’s and will let you swipe your way through your message notes one page at a time where you can finish a page and with one click move on to the next one. That is what I used in the pulpit on Sunday and it worked great.

A few tips:

Turn the Screen Auto-Lock (under Settings-General-Auto-Lock) to 10 minutes. During first service my iPad turned off when I spent more than 5 minutes on a page.
Turn the Wifi/Bluetooth off to save battery.
Under Sounds turn off the sounds for new emails, calendars, lock sounds etc; so that it doesn’t make itself known during your message.
If you are going with good reader like I did make your pdf the exact size of the iPad’s screen so you don’t have to move around left to right and I recommend you disable the “Double-tap for zooming” feature that is under the viewing PDF files settings so that it doesn’t blow up if your palm accidentally hits it.

Not only is the iPad one of the coolest pieces of tech I have ever owned but it is also the ultimate preaching machine. I highly recommend it.

I have been meaning to blog about the pros/cons of the Kindle for public speaking for a while. I regularly get emails from other communicators who have seen me using it and are wondering: whether I like it and is it hard to get used to? and which size they should get? and how to get their word docs onto it et cetera. So here goes…

Let me give a disclaimer–I teach using a manuscript style of notes and although I totally have mad amounts of respect for those who can charge it with one page of handwritten notes (James Macdonald) or commit their messages to memory (Louie Giglio) that isn’t how I roll (but I secretly wish I was skilled enough to try it.) So this concept certainly won’t be for everyone. I am also a big fat nerd and love new technology and finding ways to use it to the glory of God.

Having gotten all that out of the way I will say that I was pretty freaked out by the thought of actually doing it at first–what if it turns off halfway through a message? what if the screen saver engages and I look down to see a picture of Edgar Allen Poe instead of my next point? what if Y2k shows up 10 years late and the robot overlords secretly warp my doctrine? Also there was the loss of color formatting which I used in my paper notes to quickly distinguish a quotation from Jesus (red) to an illustration (blue) with just a glance.

The day I tried it for the first time it was the fall of ‘09 and I was speaking on the East Coast and I had forgotten to bring a mobile printer with me (I used to lug around a small Canon inkjet to print my notes on the go.) I went to the hotel’s business center and the printer was black and white. It hit me that if I was going to be speaking off black and white notes anyway I might as well give the Kindle a try. At that time I had the 2nd generation kindle with the 6″ screen so getting a word doc off my mac involved emailing it to Amazon and having them pipe it to me for a charge of ten cents. The way they stripped my document of formatting in the process wasn’t ideal but it worked.

I was so freaked out that I brought my paper notes up to the platform with me as a backup plan but didn’t ever need to use them as it worked ok, my biggest complaint was that the screen was too small and so I had to change pages way too often. I went back to paper. When they released the Kindle DX in May, in addition to the 9.7″ screen, they added some great features made it a great prospect for preaching. For one thing, the DX could handle PDF’s so I didn’t have to email and pay to send my docs to it. All you have to do is have Word kick out a PDF and after connecting to your computer via USB drag the file to the Documents folder on the Kindle’s hard drive and voila–it shows up as a book.

my Bible and Kindle side by side before a recent message.

Secondly, the DX’s screen is more advanced, while it is still black and white, it can display thousands of shades of grey so you can use that in formatting your notes and it registers it on the screen as dark or lighter text. And because it is not turning your notes into an e-book you can use all the underlining, italicizing, bold type, and even boxes to give your eye key words to grab onto that you want and these rich elements aren’t stripped as they are kindle-ized.

I have been asked a lot about battery life and let me say this, the Kindle battery is a freak of nature that amazes me everyday. It only uses power to change pages and so it lasts forever. The only power guzzling feature is the wireless 3G which if you live in a remote area like Montana it roams while searching for legit service and kills the battery faster, but that can be easily turned off. I also turn off the accelerometer so my notes don’t accidentally switch over to landscape if I am walking around with it and it senses the movement.

I made a Word template that is exactly the size of the screen and found that I have to bump my font up one number from 12 to 13 font for ideal legibility. Since the first message using the DX in June of 2009 I have never looked back. The ability to tweak a message in between services without reprinting is great, on the road it is unbeatable and the type on the screen is so crisp I don’t notice any difference from paper. Not to mention the money I have saved not buying color ink cartridges and the absence of stress that comes from dealing with printers/finding printers on the go.

Some Kindle cons: you can’t handwrite a quick thought in the margin of your notes if something comes to you right before you speak.
you can’t disable the screen-saver.
you can only advance the pages with the one button on the right side–we all know swiping is so much cooler! not to mention that if that button were ever to jam during a message, you would be bummed.
the keyboard is clunky and is wasted space, couldn’t there be a way for it to be an on-screen keyboard that showed up when you needed it then disappeared?
also–grayscale is nice and all, but this is the year 2010, I’d like to see some color, baby!

In short, while I have definitely enjoyed rocking the Kindle, let’s just say I am stoked that April 3rd is only a week away. I think the iPad could be the ultimate preaching machine and I am excited to give it a whirl on Easter Sunday. I’ll let you know how it goes.

the Kindle DX in action at Skull Church

In the midst of this a verse that has been on my heart is Psalm 85:6 which says, Will You not revive us again, That Your people may rejoice in You? And rather than just being content that we are seeing God move, my heart longs for Him to do more. To revive us again. To ignite a blazing passion in our hearts for Him, for holiness, and for those who are lost. (hopefully one even greater than our passion for the other LOST!) We decided to take a night and set it aside to specifically pray for this to happen. A night to celebrate our great God and pray for Him to take us further up and further in. For Him to purify our hearts and rock our worlds. That night is tonight, and I couldn’t be more excited.

Skull Church is an unapologetically evangelistic service. The reason it exists is so people who don’t know Christ can be invited to hear killer music and the gospel message. At every service there is an invitation for people to publicly respond to the gospel and give their lives to Christ. But for tonight, instead of focusing on inviting someone who is unsaved, we told everyone to come asking for God to (re)ignite their heart with a holy passion. We invited everyone to join us in a day of fasting and prayer today leading up to the service. Starting at 7 this morning we have been guiding the days focus through hourly tweets/fb updates (ranging from prayers of thanksgiving to confession to prayers for our city, for Haiti and so on.) And because our love for God should always work it’s way out to love for others we asked everyone to come to the service tonight with either a package of toilet paper or a cleaning product, items requested by a local homeless shelter.

It has been a clarifying and special day so far and I can’t wait to come together at Skull Church tonight with everyone and lift our voices and hearts to God together. We will be asking God to make Jesus famous in our lives, and that people would continue to come to know Christ at Skull Church as they are invited by friends, coworkers, and family members–both in person and on the radio/website. We are praying for Him to do even greater things in this city than we have seen Him do in the past.

Next week, hopefully with our hearts ablaze, our focus returns to evangelism and we are so excited to have Greg Laurie coming to speak at Skull Church, for the first time ever. Stoked!

Please join with us in prayer as we paddle to catch a fresh wave of God’s Holy Spirit.

Living green and doing philanthropic relief work today is mainstream (as it should be) even trendy, but it was extremely countercultural at the time when Paul fired off this old school e-mail to the Christians in Colossae. Commenting on this verse R. Kent Hughes said, “The ancient world, apart from Biblical revelation, was merciless. The maimed and sickly and aged were discarded: the mentally ill were subjected to inhumanities. But Christianity brought compassion, and it still does. The gospel brings with it sympathy and tenderness of heart. That is one of its great glories!”

This truth came to life this past week as the earthquake that devastated Haiti made us sick to our stomachs with God-given compassion. It has been so heartbreaking to see the pictures and stories coming from what is already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. There is no way I can even fathom what they are experiencing. And yet I have been so inspired to see God’s people mobilize and respond to the pain. The next day after the earthquake I felt lead to take up an offering at Skull Church to support the BGEA rapid response teams that were already en route with relief materials and chaplains who would bring the gospel and I was blown away by the generosity that was shown that night.

I have also been super blessed by the way James McDonald and Mark Driscoll have been trying to rally the church in America to specifically help the church in Haiti rebuild. They launched a website called, churcheshelpingchurches.com and the Lord opened doors for them to go down there personally this week (I have been following their trip on twitter here and here and they are on their way home now)  Mark described it as being in hell. They took a film and photography team with them so that they can show us how critical it is that we help our brothers and sisters in Haiti out.  I love what they are doing and encourage you to check it out and pray about supporting this ministry.

Three years later as I type it is quite honestly hard to believe all the Lord has done in that time. The church has expanded into two theaters, and skull church, fresh life groups & fresh life radio have all given the ministry turbo boosts. We have been delighted to watch Christ rock many people’s lives for eternity.

There has been laughter, adrenaline, fear, excitement, criticism, sleepless nights, mistakes, failures and victories. Technology has been utilized in new and exciting ways–I have even mastered the art of being in two places at once (by pre-recording messages when I have to be out of town but dont want to put a series on hold.) Many different books of the Bible have been taught through.And once, while preaching, I fell down and almost hit my head on a water table while pretending to open a rootbeer. A lot of coffee has been consumed. One thing is for sure–there hasn’t been a dull moment. This church plant has felt a lot like skiing in front of an avalanche. Watching Christ keep His promise to build HIS church has been the thrill of my life. I am humbled by and grateful for the opportunity to serve Christ at this church.

I want to congratulate my wife, family and team at this mile-marker and thank them for the blood sweat and tears that have been poured into this work. I get to serve the Lord with the most amazing people on the planet and am so thankful for their love of Christ, passion for the gospel, creativity, loyalty and ingenuity. You guys are killer, and remember, the best is yet to come!

To God be the glory for the great things He has done!