Josh Ratcliffe is a great friend of mine and one of the best designers I know. He is the Creative Director for Keypoint Church, a start up in Northwest Arkansas. He recently designed this piece and submitted it to Church Marketing Sucks for feedback. I think it’s a great piece. Probably one of the best mass-mail pieces for churches that I have ever seen.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point (probably one of the best books I read last year) and Blink wrote an article for The New Yorker on Rick Warren and Saddleback Church.

I love Rick Warren’s attitude about the local church:

“There is only one thing big enough to handle the world’s problems, and that is the millions and millions of churches spread out around the world.”

He also talks about the things he has learned from the success of his book, The Purpose Driven Life.  Influence and wealth are to be used to speak up for those who have no voice, for those who have no influence - those who have been marginalized. 

Rick Warren spoke this last year at Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit and said that he has donated all the proceeds from The Purpose Driven Life to organizations fighting AIDS/HIV in Africa.  That’s a pretty significant amount of money considering the book has sold more than 33 million copies.  That puts it as one of the all time best sellers. 

I looked back over my notes this morning from the Catalyst Lab Session with Kyle Lake. I took more notes in this session than any of the other Labs. He said some really good stuff. I hope you enjoy.

The Future Church Without Formulas or Blueprints

Our culture has a love affair with formulas and science. It has come into the church and crippled us.

Formula = a method of treating or doing something that relies on an established/uncontroversial approach.

Webster’s = any fixed or conventional way or doing something; a set form of words for use on some ceremonial occasion.

Examples of Formulas:

Math = Equations
Kitchen = Recipes
Architecture = Blueprint
Chemistry = General make up of a compound
Geometry = Proof

Church = Sermon (insert 3 points and a poem)
God’s Will = “x” on a treasure map; blueprints for a house

The problem with those analogies is that they are riddled with holes. For the 2 points they illustrate well, there are 6 others that communicate things that are not true.

In an interview with Daniel Day Lewis regarding his latest movie “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” he says:

“The people who have turned acting into a formula are spilling all over themselves.”

“The process is unscientific, but it nourishes you.”

We see this in churches all the time. Somebody does some cool stuff with incense, candles and coffee, so we go back and implement it… thinking the whole time that we’ll see the same results. But it’s so detached from who we are that people see it coming a mile away. Like a bad actor in a film. They see us spilling all over ourselves.

There’s a part of us that wants to bypass Jesus and go straight to the methods, processes and formulas for great worship, relevant messages, engaging media (insert whatever you like). We want a franchise church. So we travel to Texas or California to see the latest church and how we can be more like them. We lose sight of the organic nature of the role we’ve been created to play. Churches are not meant to be the same. There is no formula.

Jesus addresses this in Matthew 23.15 speaking to the Pharisees, “You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned.”

Our stage as church leaders is sermons, prayer, humility….

What is our identity apart from the stage?

The number one script that we have to sacrifice daily is the script of religion/spirituality. It comes with formulas, methods and processes. We must give up our good Christian lives and follow Christ.

I can’t believe I just read this…

I just saw this guy speak at Catalyst a few weeks ago. Super cool guy. I have a book of his I’m getting ready to read. He was only 33 years old and had a daughter and twin boys.

From the Associated Baptist Press:

WACO, Texas (ABP) — Kyle Lake, pastor of the innovative University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, was killed by electrocution Oct. 30 while performing a baptism during a worship service.

Lake, whose age was not immediately known, had been pastor of the church for more than four years. The congregation, made up mostly of Baylor University students, is best known as the home church of worship leader and songwriter David Crowder.

Lake and a baptismal candidate reportedly were in the baptistry when the accident occurred, reportedly caused by a microphone. Lake was taken to a nearby hospital by paramedics. He was pronounced dead at 11:30 a.m., according to the church’s website. The baptismal candidate reportedly was not seriously injured.

Lake and his wife, Jen, have a daughter and twin sons. Lake is the author of two books, Understanding God’s Will and [Re]Understanding Prayer.

University Baptist was founded in 1995 by Crowder and Chris Seay, an author and now pastor in Houston. The Waco congregation, which attracts about 600 worshipers each week, is known not only for Crowder’s music but for its emphasis on the arts and multimedia worship.

A special service for prayer and counseling of UBC members was held at nearby First Baptist Church in Waco Sunday night, Oct. 30. Funeral details were not available.

I was in Wilmington, Delaware Wednesday night when I got a call from Neil. His new podcast got picked up by iTunes.

I meant to post this that night or the next day, but I had a crazy 3 days. And yesterday I crashed. I watched the game and had dinner with Jo’s family.

Go to iTunes and search for refugecentral and subscribe. This stuff will make you laugh out loud in your car.

So you want to become a televangelist huh?

It’s easy. Just follow my 3 easy steps and you’ll be on your way to making mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money!

1. Decide on an international ministry name.

Example: J.A. Scott Worldwide International Ministries.

Here’s some tips: Always use your initials and your last name. It makes you look smart.

“Worldwide” and “International” are redundant, but they create the appearance that you are huge. You’re not only on their television set in Lincoln, Nebraska, but you’re in Mongolia too.

Notice, the plural “Ministries.” The viewer assumes that you have many ministries, not just what they’re seeing on tv.

2. Publish a book.

Go to www.getyobookpublished.com and for a low fee of $39.95, you can get a 100 page book published with a picture of you on the cover.

This is very important. Being an author gives you mad credibility.

Make sure you promote your book on your show every 5 minutes. This leads to mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money.

3. Record your show.

The last step is to find a buddy of yours that works at a church. Have him let you in the auditorium when they are not using it. Borrow a video camera and tripod and you’re in business. You don’t even have to have people there. The viewers will never know the difference.

Just make sure you get really excited and sweat a lot. Always have a handkerchief that you pull out and wipe your forehead with. And remind the people every now and then that you are a bishop.

What are you supposed to talk about you ask? Easy.

Learn a few big words and use them a lot. Like propitiation.

Example: “Jesus is the propitiation for our sins.”

All you need is that and a few scriptures and your ready to make mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money.

You’re on your way to becoming the next televangelist.

Neil (this is where I hyperlink his name to his blog, but he doesn’t have a blog anymore because he lives in communist China and had to pull it down because of freedom of speech issues) put together an amazing video for Refuge. I watched it with him in my office last Thursday and I was blown away.

Check it out at the refugecentral web site. Go to the videos section and click “Drowning”.

Check out “Creepy” for some fun. Great camera angles.

Get to it soon. It won’t be up for too long.

Here’s what these guys are using to make that video set up work.

Okay, I got the scoop.

First all their camera are HD and run outside to a semi truck where all the switching is done. They send one signal back into the building where it is fed into the screens.

They use Final Cut on a G5 tower to show all their videos. Apple Keynote on a G4 Powerbook for announcment slides. ProPresenter on a G4 Powerbook strictly for lyrics. And a new software developed by the same guys that did ProPresenter called ProVideoPlayer for all their video loops. It has a very cool interface and is supposed to be coming out this fall. They ran that on a G5 tower.

All the videos loops were HD and ProPresenter will never loose resolution. That’s why everything was so clear.

Here’s the tricky part. They are using a Fulsom Encore Controller to manage all their inputs and run the screens. This is the bad boy that creates a 60′ by 20′ screen using 6 projectors. It can take 64 video inputs and output to 32 different screens.

The price?…. $25,000.00.

I don’t feel well.

Other than that piece of equipment… I could probably put all that together too.

If you want, check it out here.

Here is a shot of the Catalyst stage. That center screen is 60′ by 20′. They are running motion logos and worship lyrics (using ProPresenter) with motion backgrounds. It is so crisp. They are not losing any resolution on anything. It takes 6 projectors to get that screen (2 stacked, 3 wide); front projected. The two side screens are rear projected and mostly run live video and announcements slides (using Powerpoint).

BigStuf Productions is the team running it. I am going to talk to them later about that center screen.

They opened the conference with Coldplay’s “Fix You.” It was out of this world. We also set the Guniness Book of World Records record for most people to simultaneously sit on whoopie cushions.

We heard Andy Stanley, Louie Giglio (who has to be one of the best speakers any where in the world), Donald Miller (who should be doing stand up comedy) and John Maxwell. All four were awesome. Andy and Louie really spoke directly to my heart.

Today is Erwin McManus, Malcolm Gladwell, Andy Stanley and Bill Hybels.

Here’s some fun.

This is Tom Rinks: the founder of Nooma. The title of his lab was “Straight Talk About Sunday And Why We Don’t Want To Come Anymore.”

Here’s Alex McManus. He spoke on “The Emerging Global Mosaic.” He also has a blog.

These really aren’t good pictures. Sorry.

Eric and I arrived in Atlanta last night and had dinner at On The Border (awesome fajitas). We then crashed at the hotel and watched about 2 hours of preachers on Christian tv. Atlanta has to have about 20 christian stations. We laughed so hard making fun of these guys. One guy got so excited and worked up he said,

“We ought to get so full of God that we quit speaking for God and start speaking as God.”

Whoa.

I told Eric that he really didn’t know what he was saying at that point. He was breathing so hard I thought he might collapse. He only got up there with 2 scriptures to begin with. The rest was whatever was coming to his mind.

It was a good laugh.

I heard Andy Stanley put it like this:

We think God is passing judgement on Islam or the French Quarter or so-and-so’s sin.

The bottom line is:

We’ve all been judged.

We’ve all been judged because of sin.

The moment Adam and Eve sinned, judgement came upon this earth and upon humans.

It’s not about God pointing his finger at Muslims or homosexuals. God pointed his finger at all of us.

But… He didn’t leave it at that. He gave us a way out. He provided grace and mercy through His Son.

But… That doesn’t change the fact that we live in a world that has been judged.

Anyone else feel the same?

I actually had a lady tell me this past Sunday that she was praying that hurricane Katrina would destroy the French Quarter in New Orleans and the people in it.

??!!??!!

&^%@$@#$&%*

I really had to walk away and not say anything. Plus I was completely taken off guard.

I think I expect some big shot televangelist to say something stupid like that, but this lady?

The amazing thing is that people actually believe that kind of stuff.

God was passing judgement on the Muslims through the tsunami.

God was passing judgement on the French Quarter through Katrina.

What about Rita? What about the nursing home victims who died? What about people who know Jesus that get caught in it?

Eric Brown and I finished making our reservations for Catalyst.
It was definitely my favorite conference last year and I’m looking forward to the speakers they have booked:

Donald Miller
Malcolm Gladwell
Bill Hybels
Erwin McManus
John Maxwell

“You know, I think I have only ever had one dream - to be part of a movement, alongside real friends, doing something significant for God.”

I think churches need to remember one of the basic phenomena of human attraction: the least likable kid on the playground was always the one trying the hardest to be liked.

The cool kids, on the other hand, were popular partly because they didn’t seem to care if they were liked; they were doing their thing whether or not you were watching. Those were the kids the rest of us openly (or secretly) admired (or envied).

This grade school truism translates very well. The Church will be the most provocative and alluring when it is itself. The Church will be least relevant and attractive and influencing when it is caught in the act of being someone different to gain more friends.

I remember as a teenager in youth group that the easiest way to get me to avoid a Christian event was to promise “cool music and awesome teaching.” That meant that the music definitely wouldn’t be cool and the speaker wouldn’t be awesome.

It’s like Margaret Thatcher said:

“Being a leader is a lot like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you probably aren’t.”

Why does the Church have to tell people that it is “cool” and “relevant” and “awesome?” The Church needs to be strong enough to be itself and be confident that it is “relevant” and “cool” because of the Spirit of God?

I’m off to Detroit today with the rest of our staff for an RMAI (Rhema Ministerial Association International) regional retreat. The guest speaker is Tony Cooke.

As with any ministers conference, there is a round of golf scheduled tomorrow morning. I’m not particularly great at golf, but I do have a Nike bag and clubs that puts off a good image. I usually tell people I played in the Amateur tournaments for a few years before I accepted the call of God on my life. They seemed pretty impressed by that…. until they see me play.

I thought for fun I might pop 2 Vicadin before the round starts… just to get loose.

Neil put together a message for his church last Sunday title “Brand You.” It was inspired by a post from Terry Storch and a series of posts by David V. Lorenzo. Terry Storch even commented on Neil’s message recently in his blog.

I sat down and watched it last Wednesday while I was doing some work. It is completely worth the time and inspiring. I was literally laughing out loud in my office. Some of our staff came in to see what was going on.

This is the dark side of ministry that I hate to see. How would you deal with that?

Check out this post from Tony Morgan on 10 Easy Ways To Keep Me From Visiting Your Church Because I Visited Your Website.

I love the amateur photography point: “And, for the record, it would be helpful to have at least one normal looking person on your site.”