If you have not heard of the ARC you are  mssing out on an amzing movement of God.

The ARC is starting churches faster than new plot lines can be thrown out on LOST, and those churches are life-giving, growing and reaching people for Jesus.

It all started in the fall of 2000 when a vision was born.   When Billy Hornsby discovered that “more than eighty percent of new churches failed within the first five years and that many of the new church planters that began with excitement and vision abandoned ministry along with their churches, he knew something had to change.” That is when the ARC was created.

Now, eight years later, the ARC has planted more than 110 life-giving local churches in America in 29 states. Additionally, over 120 (and counting!) churches have teamed up with the ARC to share resources, develop lifelong ministry relationships and help plant more churches. The ARC has become a powerful resource for local pastors wanting to break inertia and get new ideas, as well as new pastors wanting to get the best strategies for planting their churches.

I am so proud that Seacoast Church was a part of starting the ARC and that some pretty cool churches are being birthed because of this organization.

I was reading Proverbs 28:1 the other day in my youversion reading plan and it really reminded me of something: 

The blameless (a.k.a. “righteous”) don’t have to look over their shoulder, constantly running just in case someone finds out what they have done.

When I am far from God in an area of my life, I am always waiting for it to catch up with me – always being pursued by guilt or fear.

When I am in the center of God’s will, however, I am able to walk boldly, courageously, and with absolute certainty that though sometimes I may not be able to move at the pace I would like to, I am looking straight ahead as bold as a lion.

Isabelle and I getting some air at the Strawberry Festival last week.

I hope so.

On Friday, April 17th, I had an idea.  I would later find out it was not a new idea, but is was an idea none-the-less.

Here was the deal.  Lately God has just been absolutely rocking my world with the fact that there is a three-year old (the age of my Isabelle) somewhere in the world right now dipping a container into a ditch to get her drinking water.

That sucks.

Then I started thinking about all of the non-water beverages that would be consumed on May 5 (Cinco de Mayo) and the fact that the total amount spent on said non-water beverages could help eradicate much of this global crisis…in one day.  Then God reminded me that this was not about “them;” it was about me.

That sucks.

I hate when God makes it about me.  You see, God reminded me that I drink a lot of non-water beverages too…they just happen to start with “Diet” and end in “Dew”.  So, I decided that I needed to do something.

But then God reminded me that it is not totally about me afterall – it was about changing the world. And I could not do that alone.

So on Friday afternoon I e-mailed some of my blogging buddies, threw a couple of tweets out to see if anyone would bite, and a movement was born.

www.5daysinmay.com
Drink water to give water.

It’s now out of my control.  In fact, I went and made my donation today and have done my personal part.  Now it is up to you.  Will this be just another “buzz” on the web or will it really change the world? 

How about you? Will you be a part of changing the world or will you sit out again?

I just can’t get that three-year-old little girl out of my mind.  I hope you can’t either.

My wife, my daughter, my son and my sister and I were eating at a local restaurant the other day.  The waitress was in the weeds.  She was a sweet girl and was doing her best, but it was very difficult for her to keep up with the amount of people in the restaurant.

During this chaos, a table of three guys were seated in her section, and it was obvious that they knew her.  My assumption was that they went to the same local college and knew each other.  I am pretty sure one of the dudes was her boyfriend…or at least they were clearly ”into” each other.

She came over to take their order and, almost as if they sensed that she was stressed, they started giving her a hard time, asking questions about the menu and making her very uncomfortable as the manager walked past.  She politely said, “I will be back and get your order in a minute,” obviously torn between disappointing these guys she was interested in impressing and wanting to do a good job with her other tables.

As she walked away the guys laughed, gave each other high fives, and then stared at her butt, remarking to each other about it as she walked away.

Cavemen.

When did it become acceptable for men to treat women like they were a prize (and obviously not even a valuable one)? When did it become okay to act like cavemen rather than men of respect?

Respect is something that is deserved  – not earned  – and God’s daughters deserve it from you guys.

They are not butts to be stared at, breasts to be remarked about or Barbie Dolls for you to be Ken with.

As a man with a daughter, I’m tell you young men - You better shape up.  

And a word to the ladies - You deserve better.  If your dude acts like a caveman, show him the door.   Seriously. Break up with him now.

If you are a married man, ask your wife a tough question.  “In what ways do I act like a caveman?”  Be prepared for some tough love, and then do something about it.  (I just did and now I have some stuff to work on…)

(video via Tim Ferriss)

I publish my books with a traditional publisher.
I have heard a lot of folks say that publishers don’t “do” anything for authors anymore (and that is unfortunately partially true when it comes to marketing, which I think is a shame) but I think there are some very important assets that traditional publishers bring to the table over self-publishing.

1. Credibility.  Anyone can self-publish a book.  It may be great, it may be awful – but there are no real filters.  The truth is, even with all our talk about how self-publishing is “the wave of the future,”  most of us still put a lot of stock into a publishers logo and seal of approval being on a book.  When is the last time you bought a truly self-published book?

2. Editing.  I am not a strong spellar.  And although I know I could hire an editor, the truth is that almost no one who self-publishes does.  It ends up being too much of a risk economically and so everyone thinks, “Let me make some money off of my first book and then I will hire help.”   But they don’t, because the book stinks.  I also just prefer the publisher to pay that bill.

3.  Coaching.  I have learned so much from my editor.  She has helped me write a better book the second time around and I believe that it will only get better.  Again, yes, I could hire a writing coach.  But how many self-publishers do?

4. Distribution.  This is the big one.  As a first time author of a little known book, I would have never gotten into some of the brick and mortar bookstores that my publisher has gotten me into.

Tim Ferriss has some great wisdom on this very subject in the video below.  He is a great example of someone who could make a ton more money per book in royalty if he self-published, but still finds value in the publisher.

Note: I somehow got off my correct schedule this week…sorry.

I have always been a big fan of promoting what is next. However, I have to admit that we have really struggled with how to use “teaser videos” at Seacoast.  We have produced some fantastic videos in the past that were just hard to use in the service.  Recently, though, we have found two methods that have seemed to work well.  We are definetly still learning and would love to learn what you do to promote series at your church as well. 

Here are three examples of teasers that have worked well for us:

1.  Using Pastor Greg in the video and letting him actually promote the series.

Questions Series teaser #1 from Seacoast Church on Vimeo.

2. Using a familiar song in a unique way. Our promos are usually high energy, so we threw a curve ball with this one to change it up.

Found: Series Promo from Seacoast Church on Vimeo.

3.  Good ole’ fashion humor.  We also wrote a script to get into this that said, “A little birdy told me about this series…” and coming out we said, “Hey, we want all of you to help us create some buzzz“.   Corny? Yes.  But effective, and that’s what we’re going for.

Series Tease – He Said/She Said from Seacoast Church on Vimeo.

Please spread the word about #5daysinmay by sending all of your media contacts this press release:

5_days_in_may_press_release_rev

I have been trying out a new method of connecting with God through prayer and reading scripture called Examen.me that is a fresh fire to my time with God.
They explain themselves best….

“EXAMEN.me is a simple-to-use web site that fosters your personal interaction with God. This modern approach to ancient devotional practices guides you to examen your life as you meditate on scripture, pray, and journal all of your reflections. No matter where you are in your pilgrimage with Christ, EXAMEN.me will help you interact with God.”

Definitely something worth you looking at.  Great job @brentminter

Pastor Steven Furtick delivered an awesome word from God at Seacoast Church in April 2009.  You can watch the entire message at www.seacoast.org and you should.

One of the many very stirring statements that Pastor Furtick made was that sometimes very small things can result in very large payoffs when they come from the promises of God.

Santee Circle Community is one of those seemingly small things.

In January 1991, Santee Circle Baptist Mission started with about 35 core members and another 50 or so people that would come for a season from First Baptist Church of Moncks Corner, SC.

I was seventeen years old.  Jesus had saved me just 338 days earlier, and I was a part of that church-plant team.  The planting pastor, Troy Peterson,  had been discipling me at the time and asked me to be a part.  I could not wait.  At the same time I was being mentored by a firey man named Mickey White who owned a local auto-parts store and led the FCA at my high school.

Fast forward four years, and Mickey White would be the pastor of that church (I was away in seminary by now) and a young man named Steven Furtick (who was also being discipled by Mickey White) starting leading the hymns at Santee Circle Community Church.

By the grace of God in my life, I have been honored to be a very small part of amazing things that God is doing at Seacoast Church.
By the grace of God in his life, Pastor Steven has been used by God to start Elevation Church.

Between the two churches, 23,000 people worshiped on Easter Weekend 2009, and thousands of lives have been changed.

I have to be honest.  Over the last decade I have not really kept up with Santee Circle Community Church very well.  In fact, to be very honest, I have not honored them the way they should have been honored.

So today I do.
Hundreds of lives changed within their church walls.
Thousands and thousands are now being changed because of the influence of two men who believed in church planting.

So thank you, Mickey White and Troy Peterson.  Your vision for Santee Circle Community Church changed my life.