Beyond the first secret weapon that should be employed while doing ministry, there are a couple of other important things to bring to your work IMHO. . .

The second one is a direct assault against the notion that church is plain boring, predictable and outdated.

Church does haven’t to be.  Nope, not at all if you care about it.

God is creator and creative.  So should you.

Our world has changed enough where the “normal” isn’t normal anymore.  You have freedom to change the rules in almost every corner of life these days.  You just have to decide to do it yourself.

And the only way to do it is to embrace creativity.

Are you thinking outside the box?  Are you taking what’s black and white and flipping it, turning it upside down?

I love how this video captures something that is a mundane as black and white line drawings and escalating it to something moving, beautiful, imaginative, and inspiring.

QUESTION: If you’re as reckless as you can be with your imagination, what’s the one area in your ministry that could use some creative injection? Take the risk and leave a comment below!

So many people view church as strict, boring, hard, perfectionist, etc.

Sometimes the best tactic for effective ministry is a smile and learning (yes, learning!) how to laugh.

Are you enjoying what you’re doing?  Are you enjoying the time you spend with others?

Church can be fun.

Church should be fun.

Church is fun — if you let it be.

One of my long time axioms is: Take your work seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously!

QUESTION: When was the last time you have a serious bout of laughter in church or while doing a ministry activity with others?

[I don't know about you, but at about 1:00 min and 2:10 into the video are some really "different" approaches to laughing I've never heard of before!]

Are you a liar?

NO!  Of course not…not at least to others!

But what about to yourself?   According to Dave Ramsey, most people are being dishonest. . . with themselves — about money and finances.

Financial honesty is something that many people — including Christians — need to face up to.   The good news is that the transformation to a life of integrity regarding money is something that can be learned. 10% knowledge, 90% behavior!

This past year, I had the chance to experience the Dave Ramsey in-your-face-no-holds-barred approach to bringing financial peace back into the picture for upright Christian living.  I led about 50 people through his 3-month Financial Peace University program locally.  For anyone that is struggling financially, hiding from their own debt, or just plainly confused about how to manage their finances, Dave Ramsey’s message is pretty solid.  After going through it all, it really was amazing to see that the life changes are real and for some, completely transformational.

The key to Ramsey’s teaching is a very concrete simplified system - that doesn’t assume you are debt free.  It is very practical and fully of direct commands for participants to do or not do.  Follow the formula, and you will become debt free. Seriously.

One of the tools I wish I had available when teaching the Ramsey system would have been a big fat compilation of FAQ’s regarding the various topics covered.

Voila.  It exists!  And this year, an updated version of the same title book has been released.  Dave Ramsey’s The Money Answer Book offers quick 1-page answers to the most common questions he gets from  participants and followers on his TV, Radio and FPU programs.

It is organized into the various categories Dave Ramsey focuses on in his overall teaching, including budget planning, saving for retirement or student tuition, or personal buying matters — even building wealth and charitable giving.  Each section has dozens of specific questions that are answered in a simple, succinct manner.

You won’t get the full picture reading this book cover to cover, but you will gain a better understanding of his view of personal finance management.  It’s an easy read because you can pick up the book and start at any chapter, any question.

Anyone that has been exposed to Ramsey’s mantras, whether in person at an FPU event, or through his various multimedia offerings, will immediately like this book.  It is easy to read and easy to understand.

If you are currently going through Ramsey’s envelope system or any other part of his money model, or need a quick refresher as a form of encouragement, I recommend The Money Answer Book for you.

QUESTION: Do you believe the Church should be teaching people how to manage their money?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as a review copy. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

If you’re in the midst of planting a church you’re probably:

A) in need of sleep

B) in need of funds

C) in need of a website to tell the world

Sorry pastors, I can’t do anything about your dreams for being able to actually find time to have dream aren’t real just yet! haha!

But here’s a generous offer to help you with the the last item on this list above — a free website to spread the word about your new ministry in town. . .

One of the better known church website companies is Site Organic, which offers a very dynamic content management system for church websites.  They ain’t super cheap if you are looking at absolute dollar figures, so most church plants can’t benefit from services from companies like SiteOrganic.  For example, their pricing ranges from $1,200 — $3,000 per year on a recurring basis.  That’s A BIG CHECK to write for most new church plants.

But what you do get is a very rich content management system that is capable of all the bells and whistles you see on the largest church and ministry websites on the web today.  Even their most affordable packages provide aesthetically pleasing designs — ones where you certainly won’t be embarrassed about in representing your church to the community you are investing in.

The GOOD NEWS here is that Site Oragnic is giving away their services for free to church planters.

As long as you have less than 300 people adults attending your church to date, and it’s been less than a year (or even before you launch your official first worship gathering), you’re all set to benefit from the free offer.

The fine print is that it’s technically not completely free.  You do have to pay a $99 start-up fee, which is basically aimed to weed out the freewheelers and anyone that isn’t seriously planting a church right now.  But the rest is really free.  You’ll get over $2,500 in free services with no obligation to continue at that package rate, nor at all period after the first year.

If you’re planting a church, this gives you some breathing room to establish your core community.

Assumably, if you’re church plant is even semi-successful, you will have gotten some sort of financial stability after another year of existence — at least enough to to have the beginnings of financial options so that you can decide what to do about your web presence.  If you’re church plant’s time is not meant to be in the here and now, you’ll know that too after another year from now and you won’t be in need of web services much longer at that point.

Having personally seen SiteOrganic being used live in the church website setting, I can say that you won’t be disappointed by this offer.  It’s one less thing to think about so you can focus on the more important tasks at hand in launching your ministry.  Enjoy!

QUESTION: Does your church currently use a 3rd party website service like Site Organic, or do an internally owned and managed website?

Please share your experience with other ministry leaders and leave a comment below!

This past week, a large group of Christian entrepreneurs gathered again to discuss what Gospel Entrepreneurship looks like.

The Entrepreneurship Initiative, a part of Redeemer’s Center for Faith and Work hosted the event up high above NYC at the new 7 World Trade Center.  It was the perfect site to engage in discussions about new creation, especially as we could see Ground Zero coming to life on one side of the building while the hustle and bustle of the city was alive and well on the other side.

The best part was hearing Tim Keller speak about “God’s Brand” .  . .

God’s brand is weakness and humility, and nothing can go up against it.

Dr. Keller has been a long time pillar for me in my own faith development and it is always good to be able to struggle with issues such as Gospel Entrepreneurship with Tim Keller in the same room.

I love the way in which Dr. Keller sees the identity of Redeemer must avoid the selfishness of secular culture but at the same time, the tribal nature of mainline denominational churches which can dominate any church’s DNA.

Check out this short video interview clip of Dr. Keller:

QUESTION: Are the stories and images your church projects trying to promote its own brand or God’s brand?

It seems like it has been awhile, yet it happened just months ago.

For those of us that have forgotten, the Haiti earthquake struck on January 12, 2010 at about 5pm.

While our memories and the news media have taken Haiti off the front burners, Hell sill exists in Haiti for millions of survivors.

Perhaps the next time you pay $1.85 for your Starbucks Grande Pike Peak Light and Sweet, you’ll remember that the average Haiti lives on less then $2 a day.

Do you remember Haiti?

A brother in Christ that I am privileged to know has not forgotten . . . Here’s a video from his mission team that just returned in April 2010. . .

Here’s 3 ways you can help Haiti right now, from right where you’re sitting:

The following organizations are accepting SMS donations in the US only. You text now, and it will be added to your cell phone bill the next month — almost all major carriers in the US support these one-time donations as of now:

• Send the text message “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts
• SMS text “YELE” to 501501 to Donate $5 to Yele Haiti’s Earthquake Relief efforts
• SMS text “GIVE10″ to 20222 to donate $10 to Direct Relief

Some other ways to help Haiti are available online as well.

QUESTION: Would you be willing to lift up a 30 second prayer for the people in Haiti, RIGHT NOW?

I changed my Twitter profile background graphic the other day again.

I have two dozen or so Christian themed Twitter backgrounds that I’m preparing to release via the Tweeteratti Tuesday Free Christian Background Series here on Godvertiser.com.

It got me thinking about how more Xtians are starting to witness their faith to the Twitterverse and beyond with the simple effort of putting up Christ’s name out there for everyone to see via Twitter backgrounds.

King of Kings.

The One & Only.

Peacemaker.

Prince of Peace.

There are so many names for Jesus Christ.

What is the proper way to introduce Him to the world?

Here’s one suggestion that I have fallen in love with since Leonard Sweet put me onto it a couple of years ago.  Hope you are inspired too by it (and the response of the crowd is equally inspiring) - turn up the volume, play the video full screen . . . sit back and enjoy, unless you want to stand up and cheer:

QUESTION: THUMBS UP or THUMBS DOWN?

Whenever I am doing exegetical work on Scripture passages, it becomes painfully aware how short my bookshelves are in length.  It makes you want to go to one of those massive theological book sales and buy out the whole place - especially when books are only $5/all you can fit into a box.  But I wouldn’t even have a place for all those books to live in my home library.

The other alternative is to repeat the back and forth and back and forth to the library where they house complete collections of commentary series, Bible encyclopedias and dictionaries.   But sometimes you find yourself playing hide and seek when you find that the one volume you need is missing from the shelf - either being used by someone, or waiting in a lonely corner of the library, waiting to be picked up and re-shelved.

I recently decided to take the Google-generation approach to initial research and have tried out the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary on CD-ROM (yes people, software is still published on CD-ROMs in some parts of this world).

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. . . Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been awhile since we posted a freebie twitter background. . .since Valentine’s Day.

If you’ve been on Twitter for a bit, you’re background probably hasn’t been changed recently.

Here’s your chance to throw up a fresh look for your Twitter backgdrop.

Just download the free Tweetback image and follow the instructions below to install it on your profile.

If you don’t like this one, there’s plenty of other free Christian Twitter Backgrounds available in our Twitteratti Tuesday Series. . .

RIGHT-CLICK>SAVE LINK AS… to DOWNLOAD this free background image

How to upload a custom background to your Twitter account:

1. Log in
2. In top navigation bar, click Settings (or go to http://twitter.com/account/settings)
3. Click the last settings tab, Design
4. Select a template, change your text and background colors, or upload your new background image
5. Save your changes!

QUESTION: HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR TWITTER BACKGROUND MORE THAN ONCE IN THE PAST YEAR?

Raymond Hundley is a a PH.D, former youth pastor, seminary professor, missionary and more.  His bio lists Asbury Theological Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Hundley has written Will The World End in 2012 published by Thomas Nelson Publishers.  It’s a quick read at 154 pages, plus supplemental content like a study guide for groups reading this book together.  So when someone with these credentials and puts out a book about the coming Rapture in 2012, it peaks your attention.

At least it did mine.

The 2012 book turned out not what I expected it to be. . .

Read the rest of this entry »