In the last nine months I have preached approximately one hundred and forty-four times and for all but one of them I spoke using Amazon’s Kindle DX for my message notes. The one time I didn’t was a fluke, the screen on my Kindle broke and Amazon had a new one (for free I might add) to me in 24 hours, but I actually had to speak at Skull Church using paper notes one night. I totally felt like a cave man.

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… (more…)

I am in the Tucson airport headed home from a cactus filled few days in Arizona where I spoke at a pastors conference. The lineup of speakers was great and included: Skip Heitzig, James MacDonald, Pedro Garcia, Gayle Erwin, Don McClure, and Alistair Begg. We all spoke on different segments of the life of David and it was awesome. Not only because of what a privilege it was speak to 1,000 pastors and leaders from all over the country but also because of the opportunity to listen and be ministered to myself.

My favorite was hearing from Alistair Begg last night. He is one awesome Scotsman! His passionate and genuine conviction that the Bible is the actual word of God shows on his face as he speaks and you can’t help but feel like you are almost getting to go back in time and listen to Robert Murray McCheyne who preached, “with eternity stamped upon his brow.” Alistair is also a full on wordsmith and busted out yoda-esque pearls of wisdom like, “even the best of men are men at best.”

Getting to spend time backstage, between sessions, with guys like Alistair is worth more than gold. And you can be sure I worked on getting him to bring his radio show, Truth for life, onto fresh life radio. James MacDonald’s show, Walk in the Word, will be coming on later this year and I hope to hear some sweet scottish preaching soon too.

with Alistair Begg

My message was on David’s time hiding from Saul in the caves (I called it Beverly Caves 90210) and how he had to trust God’s promises even when they seemed super unlikely. I love preaching on David. He was just a punk kid who God used in major ways because he had a special heart. Normally in life having a heart condition disqualifies you from certain things, but it was David’s heart condition that qualified him to be used. Not that he was perfect (far from it) but he was a man after God’s own heart.

I am headed home for skull church and will be prepping my message on the flight–praying for God to move!

While I was in Southern California last week I had the chance to meet Mark Driscoll. Mark pastors Mars Hill Church, a multi-site church in Seattle, Washington that is turning a dark city upside down for Christ. Later this year Seattle will be the location for one of Greg Laurie’s Harvest Crusades and Mark Driscoll is a part of making that happen. I have watched his ministry and preaching for a while and especially enjoy the way he creatively utilizes technology to further the gospel.

with Greg Laurie and Mark Driscoll

Spending time with him was a pleasure and I was especially impressed by his humility, kindness and genuine love for Jesus. No doubt those qualities are a big part of the the reason God has given him such a mega-platform, including press in the New York Times, and several appearances on ABC’s Nightline. (If you didn’t see the debate he did with Deepak Chopra on the existence of Satan–check it out on YouTube here.)

He is certainly not without his critics (those who are innovative and do much for the Kingdom never seem to be in short supply of criticism–see Luther, Nehemiah, Spurgeon, John the Baptist and others.) And even though we don’t have everything in common, I would say that we have a whole lot more in common than we do not. I definitely view him as a kindred spirit. I am stoked to see what God will do in and through his life and ministry as he continues to make Jesus famous and I hope to stay in communication with him in the future.