Last night I attended an event in the Anaheim Convention Center called the Calvary Celebration. It was organized by my dad and KWVE 107.9 radio in here in SoCal as a celebration of all that God has done through Pastor Chuck Smith over the years. For the last 18 months my dad and brother have been crisscrossing the globe working on a documentary called RIPTIDE that is examining the effects and impact of the “Jesus Movement” in general and Pastor Chuck’s ministry in specific and at this event a portion of the film was shown. It was a killer night and there was a full house at the venue.

A number of Pastors who were saved during that period spoke and there was music and then Pastor Chuck gave a message looking to the future–which is key–because he isn’t just sitting around remembering the past but pressing on for what is to come because he knows Jesus is still on the move!

The best part was getting to see so many friends who I love and respect–Pedro Garcia, Skip Heitzig, Jon Courson, Mike Macintosh, and Raul Ries to name a few. (In addition to my dad and brother Daniel, who I am super proud of) There was also music by Crystal Lewis, Phil Wickham and others and it was great getting to show Phil how his song, “the time is now” brought our sheep blog vid to life!

And for more info on RIPTIDE click here, you can watch a trailer for the film there on the site–which I recommend you do because it is awesome!!

This week I attended Catalyst West, a leadership conference in Southern California. There were some great speakers like Andy Stanley and Mark Driscoll and some provokative insights on how to better leverage the power of social media in the church. As you would expect from Catalyst, it was very well organized and full of energy and also a little over the top. For example, the Samoan dancers in loin cloths flicking their tongues and flexing their pecs to the war drums was a little disturbing…

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 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!

After a great weekend of ministry at Harvest Christian Fellowship my family and I ran into a mouse wearing a tuxedo while on an excursion to Disneyland. Alivia and I decided to say hello but Lenya, my younger daughter, was a little sketched out and kept her distance.

As much fun as the magic kingdom is I can’t help but think how much better Messiah’s Kingdom will be at worlds end. When Christ rules with a rod of iron the whole earth will be the happiest place! Lions and lambs will be high-fiving, crooked places will be made straight, and I bet churro’s won’t cost 5 bucks either, it’s going to be epic.