Pastor Coy and I shot out here after Skull Church to attend a one day leadership conference put on by Catalyst featuring Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel. From 9am to 5pm we were (literally) bombarded by an exorbitant amount of practical advice on leading with vision and energetically executing your God-given mission. Andy pastors North Point in Atlanta, Georgia and Craig pastors Lifechurch.tv (the church that produced the killer Youversion Bible app for mobile devices.) Their sessions were salient, sage, and strategically aimed at cranking up momentum in ministry. Phenomenal.

Straight after the conference we headed downtown and met Pastor Mark Driscoll and his executive Pastor Jamie Munson for dinner. They were gracious to spend almost three hours with us as we picked their brains on ministry, church, leadership, and what they have learned in the almost 14 years that Mars Hill Church has been turning Seattle and beyond upside down for Jesus. They opened up the floodgates and, in what I have realized is quintessential Mark Driscoll style, were like machine-guns of advice/encouragement/challenge/inspiration/sarcasm. It was kind of like drinking from a fire hose but it was awesome. There is much I can learn from Mark and I was honored to spend time with him.

Over the course of the day we took in a lot on subjects ranging from: effectively using video teaching, conserving energy in the midst of a full preaching schedule, building systems and structure to keep up with the growth with out smothering the creative chaos that God used to bring the freshness and growth in the first place, etc; One topic of particular interest to me was the ins and outs of having multiple sites. All three men we were listening to do this VERY well. If you take North Point Church, Mars Hill Church, and Lifechurch.tv together there are over 25 campuses! We meet at two locations currently but are praying about more in the future.

Coy and I spent some time, later that evening, ambling around downtown Seattle ruminating on the different things that we had heard, like glutted cows. I’m sure for several days to come we will continue to be processing and sifting through the wealth of knowledge that has been imparted to us.

I try and learn what I can from a broad spectrum of leaders, not just any one source exclusively. (Except Jesus!) An important part of that is having the wisdom to chew the meat and spit out the bones. I think you should have a full “bull-pen” of influencers and coaches, who are each strong in different ways, without ever trying to be a carbon copy of any one person exclusively and you will be much better for it. This means being quick to learn from anyone but slow to implement with thought and prayer. And this coaching doesn’t have to be face-to-face or even at a conference. I learn from pastors, leaders, authors, and people that I have never met on a weekly basis through podcasts, books and websites. I definitely have found that leadership is something that is caught better than it is taught.

This morning (since it was my first time in Seattle) we made the obligatory tourist trip to the Pike Place Market and had a coffee from the very first Starbucks. The Mermaid Mecca. It was surprisingly humble and yet they have a map on the wall showing all the Starbucks in the world, all birthed from that nondescript location. I6,082 was their number of locations at the time the map was printed. Staggering. As I drank my Americano and thought of the evangelistic manner in which Starbucks spread their wings from their “Jerusalem,” (Seattle) to their state, the country and literally to the ends of the earth I was inspired to continue to make Jesus famous, with every breath, ’til He returns.

Though we have heard from many wonderful guest speakers, and it is wonderful to hear from fresh voices and outside perspectives, there is something to be said for maintaining the energy and momentum by not putting a series on hold. In order to do that (until science nails the whole cloning thing) for the past few years we have been using video teachings that I record prior to leaving town.

The hardest part about this, surprisingly, isn’t teaching to an empty room, it’s having to prepare three messages in a week instead of two, with the additional pressure of preparing for the trip. For some reason preaching with no audience isn’t really that different from a normal Sunday, I just think and pray for those who will be listening just like I am also thinking of the web/radio audience that I can’t see every other week.

A definite benefit is that the media team has time to post-produce the video, dialing it in. I especially love the unique Nehemiah themed lower thirds that the team generated for this particular message.

Here is the most recent “virtual levi” (as my staff affectionately refers to this teaching style) rock this city teaching from this past weekend. In it, Sanballat and co. try to assassinate Nehemiah as the wall nears completion.

Art, technology and media are a vital part of how we feel God has called us to minister and I am so grateful for the talented and creative individuals that make up fresh life creative. They are some of the most inspired and aggressive humanoids I have ever met and I love how they use their skills to make Jesus famous.

To read the article click here.

(Having never heard of Kalispell before I came here the first time myself, I got a kick out of the opening paragraph)

Teaching on the iPad from Levi Lusko on Vimeo.

*update* If you are on an iPad or an iPhone here is a link to watch the vid on the vimeo mobile page. HTML-5 for eva!

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

I believe that the first step to take in effectively reaching young people (or any people) is simply having the desire to reach them. You have to have a burden from the Lord for them. It wasn’t until Paul was provoked within His spirit in Acts 17 that he went out and preached Christ in Athens. Similarly, we often read of Jesus being moved with compassion in the gospels and then speaking or ministering. If our actions flow from anywhere other than a genuine burden for lost people that comes from the Holy Spirit we will find the challenges to be too great. If on the other hand we ask the Lord to ignite a fire in our hearts and to give us His love for the lost then it won’t matter how challenging the road and how many obstacles are in our way.  If our hearts are set ablaze from on high, we will be unstoppable!

Once you have a burden for a particular group, audience or people, next you must take radical steps to target them. I am no fishermen but I know that if you have decided you want to fish for trout there are different things you will bring than if you want to fish for salmon, and that is an altogether different equipment list than will be needed if you are fishing for marlin. Companies realize this–that is why they are constantly addressing and readdressing the intangible attributes of their brands. From Cadillac to Nike to Nickelodeon–companies are never satisfied with how their brand is perceived right now, they know that in a few short years (or months) everything can change and they are constantly targeting youth.

Now in saying that, I know that many will immediately wonder, what we should be willing to change exactly? I suggest you tweak the Style not the Substance, your Methods not the Message. To use the fishing analogy–adjust the bait, chum and lures not the hook, the line or the net. We must not try so hard to be just like the world in order to reach the world and in the process give up what we had to offer to the world in the first place. The message is unchanging but the media delivery vehicles employed, graphic design, vibe, feel, sound and expression should be fluid and changing with the culture.

I have heard pastors, leaders, and others complain to me many times that there aren’t young people in their churches, and they ask, why do I think that is? I tell them it is probably because they are catering everything to those who are their age. And that is never a revelation to them, they nod because they already intrinsically knew that. But then they often admit they are reticent to do things differently. Why? The most common fear that I have heard is not wanting to offend those who are already there. They are afraid that the “tithe base” would all leave if they were willing to try “risky” things in order to reach lost young people.

I am constantly asked about the age of those who come to fresh life—given my age, the fact that we have given announcements through auto-tune and have a bible study called skull church, they probably expect to hear me say that there is no one over 30 and that freshlife is a big overgrown youth-group. But that is not the case at all, there are tons of young people, but tons of grownups also, all worshipping together. Visitors to our church and guest speakers are often surprised at the age diversity. The hairstyles say it all, there are mohawks, faux-hawks and no hawks. Sure there are those with gauged ears and tatted arms, but there are also those rocking grey and silver strands as well.

What I have found is 2 things:

1. Many who are advanced in years actually dig the current stuff. They are being exposed to things that they love or learn to love–we have discovered a whole slew of secretly rocked out senior citizens. Often we don’t give people enough credit at adapting.

2. Even if they don’t like the music or style personally, they can put up with it because they love that those who will be living when they are gone are into it. I hear over and over and over again from people, how much they love seeing youth in church and people (of all ages) coming to know Christ. I even had one older gentleman show me that he brought earplugs to church for the music but loved the Bible study. LOL

One of my favorite pictures illustrating this is a shot of an awesome guy in our church named Warren that was taken a while back. He serves wholeheartedly at skull church, counseling the new believers that make decisions for Christ at the service. In the pic he is rocking his skeleton crew shirt and is getting a little tutoring on the use of a blackberry.

Warren might not ever “tweet” questions during the service (as those who attend can) or buy a red bull at the espresso bar, but he does enjoy the vs by vs Bible teaching, he is stoked on all those who have given their lives to Christ, and he is happy to be apart of bringing the uncompromising gospel message to a lost generation in a culturally relevant way.

And to those who are afraid of shaking things up for fear of offending people, I would say that anyone who isn’t thrilled by the prospect of reaching the next generation for Christ, you shouldn’t be too bummed on losing if they do leave. I would rather have a few people leave the church because we aren’t doing things the way they like, or the way their last church did things than for us to depart from the mission that God has called us to. That may sound harsh but my thinking is that if they are a Christian, they are already saved, and there are plenty of churches they can go to that are doing things the way they want them to be done. Those who don’t know Christ are the ones I am concerned about. And I have been so blessed by the sheer volume of support from those who are “advanced in years” as we have unapologetically stated that we want to see those who are stranded in sin find life and liberty in Christ. Because they know that if we don’t focus on the next generation, it will end with us.

Mark 2:17 When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

The body at fresh life engaged in the project in a major way. So many skilled and generous people spent hundreds and hundreds (no exaggeration) of hours pimping the building out for Jesus. (did I really just type that?) The work continued right up until the eleventh hour Saturday night but it was all worth it when both the Strand and the Liberty were filled with people worshipping God and studying His word Sunday morning. And best of all, no one had to shiver through service watching a screen outside the Strand on the sidewalk!

In case you are wondering how it all works (that’s what I would be wondering if I were reading this) both venues have live worship teams, pastors, their own ushers, greeters, security, and new believer’s counselors. In that respect it is very much like a traditional satellite campus except they share a common children’s ministry and, thanks to the fiber-optics, the message is also shared between the venue’s. The building I teach at in person (which will switch from week to week; randomly and unannounced) broadcasts the message in 720p to the other theater’s screen.

By God’s grace and thanks to the hard work of our staff and volunteers everything went great and the worship services were synchronized to within seconds of each other as we approached the teaching. (for any pastors wondering how they stay in sync, we are relying on a variable length meet-and-greet to absorb any latency that accumulates during worship and announcements.)

Even though there were a number of areas where we saw a need for tweaks It was encouraging to hear that several people said they were able to engage in the video teaching better than normal because in person faces on the stage are smaller than they are blown up on the screen. The fact of the matter is we know the power is in God’s Word, no matter how you hear it. We saw that firsthand when people responded to the gospel invitation, making public professions of faith at both buildings this weekend.

It was so exhilirating for Jennie and I to spend half of the worship time in each building before teaching at the Liberty. As far as I am concerned, extreme sports have nothing on ministry when it comes to raw excitement! Jesus said that He would build His church and it is an intense thrill to see Him keep His promise. In this season of ministry God has given us a new way to verbalize our mission as a church and we use it to fuel everything we do: “That those stranded in sin might find life and liberty in Jesus Christ.”

Here is a shot one of our photographers put together showing the message simultaneously occurring on the stage at the Liberty and on the screen at the Strand:

Chris Tomlin, Underoath, The Myriad, Blindside, Phil Wickham, MuteMath, Family Force 5, Matt Redman, Leeland, Lecrae, Skillet and David Crowder Band are just a few of the artists we play. Epic Win.

I have been advised that the safest way to approach the Christian radio market is to not be so edgy because even though we will be playing a ton of modern worship, which has a broad appeal, the more intense songs have a high “tune-out factor” among middle-aged women who represent the biggest percentage of those who listen to Christian radio in this country. And while we have nothing but love for those who are middle aged women, we are willing to take that risk. The way I see it, maybe a different (younger) demographic would tune in to Christian radio more if stations were willing to play the kind of music they listen to!

We are intentionally targeting a lost generation that doesn’t know Christ and that always involves taking risks.

Listening to the station the last few days has been awesome, like a killer iPod on shuffle–solid teaching and rockin’ music–I Love it!

P.S.–For those of you not in Montana, we are working on getting it streaming online and I will post the link here when it is up.

Here is the video of us going on the air for the first time.

Click here to view the embedded video.