Tim Keller was recently featured as one of the headliners at this year’s Leadership Summit put on by Willow Creek.

Some of the other speakers on the list are favorites of mine too including Jessica Jackley (the best $25 you’ll spend this year if you try out Kiva.org), Dave Gibbons (Monkey and the Fish and if you’re ever in southern CA, you must visit New Song Church) and Chip and Dan Heath (awesome book! Made to Stick from the moment you see the book cover jacket in person you’ll understand why).

But back to Dr. Keller. . . (more…)

I recently had a chance to connect again with Mike Kim of Generation Holy Ministries.  Mike is one of those guys that take the stage and just exudes worship.  He loves God and you really see it when you are with him live.   He just released a new album on iTunes which is a project that always calls for digging deep into the creative center that drives you.

Whether you are leading a worship band, facilitating a Bible Study group or a working in any other ministry for the church, you need continuous inspiration.  I asked Mike to share with us some of his current sources for renewal and refreshment in creativity. . . .

---

One of the things I’ve always wrestled with as a worship leader is marketing and promotion. There’s just something about it that seems paradoxical when the whole point of leading worship is to draw attention to God instead of myself.

On the other hand, I am also a songwriter and recording artist; the whole point of these things is to draw attention to my songs and myself. This is an even tougher issue for me personally because I really don’t like attention!

Despite that tension I still want to do what I’m called to with excellence and inspiration. Inspiration channeled through creativity, skill, and excellence glorifies God. I try to draw my main inspiration from the Holy Spirit, the place of prayer, the place of His presence. It’s cliché but true; if I want what I do to give true life to people, it needs to come by the spirit. Any song or sermon I’ve written that “worked” was birthed in the place of prayer and worship.

I also try to be very honest about my strengths and weaknesses. It’s not an arrogant thing to know what we’re gifted in. If we know our strengths, we can hone them and offer them in humility. Conversely, knowing our weaknesses forces us to stay small in our own eyes (check my blog on the Praise of Man) and get others involved in kingdom work. Majoring on the minors will cause me to run thin on doing the things I’m gifted at and prevent others from contributing.

My primary assignment right now is to help pastor a church by developing its worship ministry. I try not to be creative outside of what I’m called to; that just burns time and energy. Jealously keeping the main thing the main thing keeps me focused and allows me to soak up inspiration from other streams of ministry that apply to what I’m doing.

Here’s a quick rundown of some current sources of inspiration to me for what I do:

• Bethel Church in Redding, CA - my wife and I got to attend Bethel last summer for one of their conferences. My understanding of what is possible in a local church in terms of pursuing and hosting the presence of God was changed here. It inspired me to stay hungry for God and to see worship as a by-product of that pursuit. Jesus Culture is Bethel’s youth ministry; their worship band is quickly gaining mainstream recognition. I love how they press and stretch people in worship. Their songs are uncomfortably long, in a good way.

• Kent Henry in St. Louis, MO - not many know Kent by name but they know the songs he introduced to the body of Christ. Kent was the worship leader on many of Hosanna! Integrity’s early works and has recorded numerous independent albums. I grew up listening to his tapes (!) and CD’s and my style of leading worship was defined because of him. You can imagine how cool it was for me to get to know Kent personally…we’ve known each other several years now and he is a regular guest at my church. Kent always inspires me because he stays youthful and relevant (it’s pretty fun rockin’ out with a 50+ year old to Hillsong United tunes) and he continually challenges me to intermingle praise with prayer and worship with intercession. That’s had a direct influence on my songwriting as I want my songs to be launching pads for people to pray off of.

• Ross Parsley/New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO - Pastor Ross has given me a model of what a worship pastor is. I know a lot of worship leaders and even worship pastors by title, but I had a hard time finding people who took the aspects of pastoral ministry into the worship department. The title of “worship pastor” in some churches is merely another way of saying “primary worship leader.” I knew there had to be more. I got a chance to sit down with Pastor Ross recently and he shared about building a culture in my team and helped me see what ministry in a megachurch looks like-I wanted to know in case mine becomes one! He’s also been at New Life for almost 20 years, which speaks to me of consistency and longevity.

All this inspiration wouldn’t be worth much if I didn’t have an outlet for it. I gear my endeavors towards the needs of my circle of influence. Being honest with myself involves being honest about what field God has me working in. I write songs based on what we’re going through as a community of believers and try to write and record our albums with excellence so other churches can adopt them if so led. I ask God regularly to give me insight and skill to build our people and ministry like a master-builder. If what we’re doing is good enough to “grow wings” and be used elsewhere, that is great. If not, that’s fine.

What’s really important is that I tend to the field I’m in. It’s easy to focus on touching the world that we fail to touch home. God wants to use us to reach the world, but the road that bears the most fruit goes from the inside out.

I encourage you to pray, worship, stay honest about your assignment and field, staff to your weaknesses, and stay teachable. If you do you’ll be bound to be inspired along the way.

###

Mike Kim is a worship leader, pastor, and songwriter.  He currently serves at Church of the Living God and is president of Generation Holy Ministries with the vision to empower and equip all generations through worship and life-transforming truth. Spirit-led and highly congregational, many of Mike’s songs are being sung around the world.

What if I said, I can give you front row access to the following ministry leaders’ and pastors’ teaching:

• Scott Williams (www.LifeChurch.tv)
• Perry Noble (New Spring Church)
• Dan Kimball (Vintage Faith Church)
• Nancy Beach (Willow Creek Church)
• Leonard Sweet (Author/Futurist)
• Mark Batterson (National Community Church)
• Reggie McNeal (Leadership Network)
• Ed Stetzer (Lifeway Research)
  
• Dave Ferguson (Community Christian Church)
• Alan Hirsch (Forge Mission Training Network)

Well, the truth is, you can have access to their priceless content and much more actually.

At what price?  How about: $FREE?

I just registered and you should too .  .  . (more…)

How many times have you visited websites (not just limited to church websites) where it is just a brochure put up on the web?

We all know this is NOT the best use of websites.

Although websites can be static and linear, it doesn’t mean they can’t also be dynamic and tell a story.

Here’s one of the best Christian websites I have seen that tells the gospel story on the web.

Read this before you die. . .

No really, that’s the website address: ReadThisBeforeYouDie.com

Immediately from just the website URL, you can tell this site is different.  From the time you are typing in the URL, you are brought into the story.

Check it out for yourself and let me know why this site is so “alive” and forwardworthy?

What other Christian websites out there are worthy to be included in this category?

Speaking of faith-related mashups, Sim Young reminded me today that there are already many voices in the church + tech + web conversation today.

It’s evolving so fast, it feels like dog years!  The Church is achangin’ . . . Take notice!

Here’s 7 church tech blogs you should check out (via digital.leadnet.org)

• ChurchCrunch - exploring the intersection of technology and the church
• Church Tech Matters - a site for tech volunteers
• BetaChurch -design and technology for the church’s mission
• Church Technology Review -church meets Internet, websites, technology and web 2.0
• Church Tech Today - technology for today’s church
• Geeks & God podcast - encouraging ministries to use technology more effectively
• Mobile Ministry Magazine -the intersection of faith and mobile technology

Any that should be voted off the island?

These days, we now know that the front door to any church isn’t located at the front of the building.

Another door to the church is located on the world wide web.

When people are first considering to visit a church, they’ll google the church name or generic searches for churches with town names, denominations, or other features they desire in a church.

Then there’s another entire group of web surfers that are not local to your church building and they might be looking for more information to help them on their own faith journey - weather they are seekers or already committed disciples of Christ. It is just as important for your site to be accessible and offer content which will encourage and move them further along on their own spiritual walk.

If your church website isn’t doing it’s best to be outward facing, it’s time to wake up and start paying attention.

Here are 55+ tips every church website should consider in being evangelistic on the web: (more…)

There’s been a flurry of interest in Christian Social Media sites, web 2.0 and church websites.  The conversations are all very buzz-word heavy.

And at least one survey’s results have been published which draws upon data gathered in Jan / Feb of this year.

But what it all boils down to is very simple.  Does your website do what your visitors and congregation members want out of it?  How do you know what Christians want when they go searching for new sites on the web?

The answer is to ask.  That’s what the Churches, Christians, and Social Networking Study did.  They asked - what were the top things you wanted/needed in your church’s website?   How many of these needs is your current website ready to address if a visitor lands on your site today?

---

The Top 4 requested features & functionality sought by congregational memebers: (more…)

With the Amazon Kindle and Kindle2 blazing a trail amongst the digirati, it’s slowing becoming a standard device to carry just like the “holy grail of cell phones.”

Now Apple enthusiasts have added to their tool belt another super power - transforming the iPhone and iPod Touch into a mini Kindle device.

Amazon recently released a free Kindle-for-iPhone app or Kindle-for-iPod Toch app.  Download it and you can instantly begin to read e-books made for Kindle, but on your iPhone!

If you have the iPhone, you should get the Kindle for iPhone.  If you have the Kindle for iPhone app, you should get this (it doesn’t hurt that it’s completely free…kind of like something else that’s offered completely free to us which this book is all about, right? ):

LINK: Free ESV HOLY BIBLE For:

• KINDLE for iPhone
  

• or Apple iPod Touch KINDLE

• or AMAZON KINDLE DEVICE
  

• or AMAZON KINDLE 2 DEVICES

It does seem like a dream, but www.Godvertiser.com just got picked up by Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop aggregation site under their http://christianity.alltop.com page.  Thanks to the hundreds of readers in the last months for finding my blog on church marketing + tech + an optimistic Gospel.

What other faith-related blogs are you reading?  Any recommendations?  Please leave them in the comments below.  (I know I’m probably going to regret this, but please don’t blatantly spam the comments, or we’ll have to kindly escort you out the back door.  If you do own your own faith-related blog, please disclose it, introduce yourself and give us a 1 line summary of the topical interest/focus of your blog).

One look at the newsstand racks these days and you’re eyes risk glazing over right then and there.

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of magazines exist for every conceivebale niche.  Amazon.com lists over 43,000 different magazine subscription offers in existence today!

There are over 400 religion & faith related magazines alone being published these days.  That’s a lot of religion!

There are so many magazines that it’s hard to know about them all or even remember a small selection of the titles being published.

But one faith-related magazine title will surely be in the headlines over the next few months as Saddleback launches the Purpose Driven Connection Magazine with Pastor Rick Warren as it’s Editor-in-Chief.  The 150+ page 1st issue and the included 50+ page Bible Study DVD doesn’t seem to be an afterthought of shallow brand extension, but a real effort to embrace mainstream media and offer a practical resource for daily living.

Before everyone launches into their diatribes against or in support of what Rick Warren is doing with his Purpose Driven Liven platform, I wanted to see for myself what the magazine is all about.  There has been a fair amount of press and buzz about this new magazine launch since the first announcement — even before people have seen the actual pages themselves.  I wonder just how fair their judgments can be if they are all based on pure assumptions without seeing the actual periodical first?

One way to see the real deal is to check out the free preview edition of the magazine. . .

(more…)