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

The Church is serious business.

Really.

According to the New York Times article, “Christianity, the Brand,” the merchandising of Christian values-infused products is officially huge.  Unless you have been sleeping under a rock the last several years, it’s hard not to notice:

“”The Chronicles of Narnia” took in more than $290 million at the box office domestically…

“The Passion” grossed $370 million…

Christian music now racks up $700 million in sales annually.

In 2004, sales of religious books reached $1.9 billion.

…Christian products will generate $9.5 billion in sales by 2010.”

The real significance of these numbers is that Christianity is a real influence in today’s culture.  Regardless of the debate on if the Church is doing enough to engage Culture, enough attention is being given right now in the stores, theaters and ever so importantly — in the press Read the rest of this entry »

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).

Do you ever go out and do things without thinking about it first?  If this is a consistent way of life, you’ll likely find yourself lost or with no progress after awhile.

Measurement is critical if you want to define success or failure in any circumstance.

So what does your own measuring stick look like?

How do you define and measure the successes of your ministry?

Without being explicit in your objectives and goals, you can easily go into the slippery opportunistic mode for what you are doing with your ministry.  This is when you fall victim to whatever fire needs to be put out or whichever “great deal” or “great opportunity” comes across your way.  Or better yet, being stuck in opportunistic mode keeps you constantly behind the 8-ball or become complacent when you are able to do just enough to keep the status-quo.

The same goes for the mission of a church.  Without strategic vision and a clear set of objectives to measure against, it is easy for a ministry to loose focus and loose ground.

The Wall Street Journal featured a piece, “When the Pastor Says It’s ‘A Time to Sow‘” which touched upon just one factor of measurement worthy of consideration for any church.  Tim Keller’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC takes a suprisingly unique way to measure their own success. Read the rest of this entry »

Once you listen to one of Dr. Tim Keller’s sermons at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC, you’ll be hooked.

There are a lot of reasons why Keller seems so spot-on.  One of them is his approach to how the Church, with a capital C, should approach Culture — with the aim of radical and penetrating transformation.

Dr. Keller recently spoke about Cultural Transformation a couple of weeks ago at the Westminster Chapel in London. Some of the points he makes are piercing and so full of truth, that you’ll find your head nodding in agreement many times during the videos.

The observation of how culture has robbed Christianity / religion of most of its assets is an interesting one. He certainly frames the path well which our world has taken to get to our now post-Christian world in this video. . . Read the rest of this entry »

WARNING:

THERE WILL BE A QUIZ ABOUT THIS

SUPER-DUPER IMPORTANT MISSIONAL CONCEPT.

READ & THINK CAREFULLY!

Liquid Church of Morristown & New Brusnswick, NJ features a weekly “411″ video previewing the next week’s sermon message or events.  They usually close the promo vid by giving a call to action for viewers to invite a friend next week to church…“just don’t be weird” about it they always say.

Isn’t that great advice for sharing the Gospel or inviting friends /associates to a church worship experience?

Got it? Continue on only if you think you have completely understood this concept. . . Read the rest of this entry »

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. . .

Read the rest of this entry »

Doesn’t it feel like January and February just flew in a wink?!  Spring should be here soon….I hope.

I guess I’m ignoring the truth that Punxsutawney Phil already determined weeks ago that it ain’t going to warm up anytime soon.  So it was no suprise that I did not want to get up out from safety of our warm cozy bed for church on Sunday morning just yet.

Alas, the oasis of that early Sunday morning was invaded by our two kids barreling into our room and joining us under the covers.  It is one of the few times during the week when we have some breathing room at the start of the day together (church is at 9:30am vs. 7:55am drop off at school on weekdays!).

The one thing that surprises me every time about my kids are just how astute they are at noticing things.

Of course, my daughter immediately urged me, “DAD!  Move over! Move over!”  Standing my ground, I didn’t budge.  It was time to try harder and burrow deeper to make a big burrito with myself and any scrap of the blankets I could snag.

But that’s when she insisted: “Move over! You’re on top of something!”

And sure enough, there it was. . . Read the rest of this entry »

I recently had a conversation about the importance of building rock-solid dynamics and culture for a new (or any church for that matter) church plant with Dave Ingland  — he’s on the frontlines doing kingdomwork on the “left coast”. As a church planter, he can identify with Craig Groeshel of LifeChurch.tv who has undoubtedly encountered this very same issue in his growing multi-site multi-state network of physical church sites (13 and counting?).

Groeshel’s recent book “IT” addresses the “IT” factor which determines whether a particular ministry is set for growth and vibrancy….or not.  So I asked Pastor Dave for his review of the “IT” book.  Enjoy!

---

It: How Churches And Leaders Can Get It and Keep It is the first book from Craig Groeschel that I have read. If his other books are anything like It, then it is safe to say that if you appreciate Pastor Craig’s gift of preaching, you’ll appreciate his writing style as well—they are both very similar.

It is this essence of Groeschel’s delivery that really helps to connect people to his messages. It’s a very natural, humorous, and engaging form of communication.

The title suggests that a definition and answer of just what It is will be given. Forget about that happening!

Craig Groeschel shares something tangible in his description of what It is, yet never comes out and declares a definition. We learn what is not It, but have to find out for ourselves just what It is.  That is the beauty of the book!

The “ah-ha!” Moments come when Groeschel’s words connect with your own thoughts and cause sparks to fly and change to happen.

Not only does Pastor Craig share his experiences in his search for It, he also Read the rest of this entry »

As a parent, I’m always on the lookout for tips and reminders to help me be “on my toes” as a parent and work toward being the Super-Dad I want to be.

Today I received an email from Tumblon.com regarding developmental milestones of my 4 year old son.

The email from the parenting website that focuses on the 0-5 year old set shared some advice about the emotional development my son may be experiencing these days.

Here’s one segment of the email I received regarding moodiness of a 4 year old:

MOODINESS

Part of your child’s personality is moodiness. Even the most even-tempered child will experience moodiness at some time. Helping your child recognize what triggers his moodiness, learning how to control moodiness, and finding ways to overcome moodiness are essential to his development.

Part of managing moodiness is understanding the factors that trigger moodiness in your child. Some of the common factors are sleepiness, hunger, and frustration. Knowing what commonly triggers moodiness in your child and having him take ownership in avoiding situations that trigger it will help. For example, if hunger triggers it, remember to take a healthy snack when going out. Sometimes the type of diet your child has can affect his emotions. Paying attention to the way he reacts to different kinds of foods may help with some moodiness. . .

[exceprt from tumblon.com article]

In order to help my little guy in figuring out how to initiate, build, and manage his relationships over the next several months in particular I realize that the first step is to help him to self-inventory his own feelings at any given moment.

Being able to put a finger on how he feels right now will help him interact with his friends and sister (& mom and dad!) with much better results. Of course this is a classic win-win situation.

But then while I reflected upon this advice, it hit me Read the rest of this entry »