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!

I had to exercise some serious self-control when I came out of my office on Saturday, the day before Easter, and found that my iPad had been delivered. My message was no where near finished and I knew that if I opened the box it would probably stay that way. So, for the rest of the day it sat next to my espresso machine, casting longing eyes at me whenever I made a coffee. It wasn’t easy, but I did not give in to the siren call of technology until I had wrestled my message to the ground and then I was able to enjoy opening it up.

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. (more…)

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…)

Last week I wrote about fragile nature of movements, even powerful ones. Every vibrant work of God has an ever nearing expiration date, that date is the day the humans that make up the movement will expire themselves. We move closer to that “best by” date every day. That is why we must must always have the mindset of our need to pass the baton on to those who will be running when we have “spoiled.”  This mentality is a feature that can be found in some of the most prolific stories in scripture. What do Moses, Elijah, Mordechai, Naomi, Barnabas and Paul have in common? Besides a passion for the Lord they all focused time and attention on reaching and raising up young people. As a result, Joshua, Elisha, Esther, Ruth, John Mark and Timothy knew that they shouldn’t let anyone look down on their youth and so the movements continued. If we want what God has done in our lives and churches to continue we must have a similar focus.

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.
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This weekend at fresh life we had our first service in our siamese-sanctuary, the Liberty theater! We are calling it our siamese-sanctuary because it is not really a satellite campus, and it isn’t just an overflow venue either. It is a 90+ year old movie theater about a block away from the Strand, which is our current 90+ year old theater, that we have been meeting in for almost two years now. We closed on the Liberty on September 11th of this year and have spent the last two months cleaning, painting, building out the stage, connecting the two theaters with state of the art fiber-optics, installing an HD projector & killer sound system and converting the concessions stand into a fully functioning espresso bar.

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!

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