My little angel turned four today. She is an absolute joy to Bethza and me. I can’t wait to see how her future unfolds. She came as a miracle to our lives and we know she is destined for greatness. Thank you God for the privilege of helping to shape her life. Arielle, I will live my life showing you how to follow Jesus.

OK– I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or get ticked off about this. You can know send messages to your loved ones via email after the rapture. That is if you are a pre-trib rapture adherent. You’ve Been Left Behind, a site inspired by the Left Behind series no doubt, enables you to send an email message after the rapture. This from their site “You’ve Been Left Behind gives you one last opportunity to reach your lost family and friends For Christ. Imagine being in the presence of the Lord and hearing all of heaven rejoice over the salvation of your loved ones. It is our prayer that this site makes it happen.”

Apparently, you pay an annual fee, and you can upload documents and send a customized email to up to 62 email addresses. The emails will go out after some type of a dead-man’s switch process happens and will send the emails six days after the “rapture.” I am not doubting the sincerity of the website creators, but it’s just another way to monetize from the rapture-frenzied crowd.

I wonder, what happens if/when the rapture doesn’t happen as they think? I guess it’s a good way to make a living, ad-infinitum on a product that won’t deliver.

Came across this picture on the web of the closing session with Rick Warren where he was praying for everyone that responded to the call. I think I have located where I was standing in that catalyzing moment when I accepted and embraced God’s call upon me to create a missional community through church planting.

Picked up The Tangible Kingdom at the Exponential conference. I didn’t recognize the authors, Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, but the title attracted me. Hugh and Matt lead Adullam, a missional community in Denver. Let me just say that I can’t put this book down. It articulates how I feel right now on my spiritual journey and how I feel about the western church. I really appreciate their tone in writing about the pitfalls of the western church, they don’t bash it but present a better way. I’ll be posting more about this later.

What a way to close the Exponential Conference with Rick Warren. I have always respected Rick but that has grown over the years. There is such a genuine love and authenticity to his faith and the way he communicates, especially with leaders and pastors. His message could best be titled “Life-lessons for Longevity.”

Some points he shared:
- Never stop growing personally. Growing churches require growing pastors. You can’t delegate your faith and personal growth.
- Pay attention to your family. Obey the sabbath. Build your family before you build the church.
- Develop a Kingdom mindset. Be about God’s agenda not your personal agenda.
- Focus on building people, not the church.

What a great closing blessing and prayer. Rick had us read the Saddleback 25th Anniversary Declaration which you can read here.

I really sensed God confirming my call to church planting. I crossed the line in my heart and in my Spirit. No turning back. I am moving ahead in the purposes and call of God.

Tim Keller - take 2! How would you like to listen to him in back to back sessions? phew!

What a compelling talk on sharing the Gospel of Jesus but not in the condensed, insufficient, leave out the good stuff, methods of the past (i.e. Romans Road, 4 Spiritual Laws, etc.)

Tim makes the case that a clear presentation of the Gospel would include the following:
1) In Jesus Christ, God emptied himself and became a servant (Incarnation)
2) Jesus atoned for our sins by his death, was buried and rose from the dead. (Justification)
3) At the end of time, Christ will restore creation, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. (Consummation-Restoration)

Most Gospel presentations focus solely on Point 2, the atonement, but don’t make much emphasis as to why God came to earth (humanity) or the restoration of all things.

The Gospel is about God emptying himself, substituting himself in our place, and redeeming and restoring all things.

It was great listening to Tim Keller in this setting. I greatly respect him and what he does for the kingdom. He shared 16 Factors of Biblical Revival Dynamics.

3 Instruments
1) Recovery of the difference between the Gospel and religion
2) Extraordinary prayer
3) Radical creativity

“The default mode of the human heart is the self-salvation project.” - Tim Keller

3 Aspects
4) Nominal church members get converted
5) Sleepy christians awake to the reality of the Gospel
6) Non-believers are attracted to the church in great numbers

6 Balances
7) Edifying worship that engages non-beleivers while edifying believers
Great teaching and preaching that is Gospel oriented
9) Life changing communities
10) Passion for justice and the poor
11) Evangelism - church becomes outward focused
12) Cultural engagement and integration of faith

4 Results
13) An excessive, critical fringe will emerge
14) Backlash - primarily from culture and leadership
15 New church plants will be birthed
16) Social Healing

Talk about drinking from a fire hydrant!

Alan Hirsch is brilliant ok! Hands down he has a clear prophetic message for the Church.

His talk was on 4 areas in which we must recover the ancient ethos, our primal stories

1) Recovery of the Centrality of Jesus in His own movement. Ecclesiology must flow out of Missiology which flows out of our Christology. Jesus as the founder sets the template for the church.

2) Recovery of Disciple making as our core task. Movements can only grow to the capacity in which they reproduce disciples.

3) Recovering the ethos of Apostolic Movement. Movements mobilize the whole people of God.

“Every believer a church planter, every church a church planting church.” - Chinese church slogan

4) Recovery of an incarnational mission impulse. Christ as our example of a missional God who incarnates himself into humanity and the church is to follow that example.

Information Overload! I was part of the Reproducing Church track sessions and Randy Pope of Perimeter delivered a great message on disciple making and what the Lord showed him.
Two points he made were:

-The present day church has embraced an ineffective plan for making disciples.
-Life-on-Life, laboring with a few, is God’s master plan for making mature and equipped followers of Christ.

5 Elements for effective disciple making:
T - Truth - not spoon feeding but teaching people to be self-feeders.
E - Equip - massaging the truth until it becomes understandable and useable
A - Accountability
M - Missional Life
S - Supplication - prayer

Of course the context for all of this was a small group setting but it seems that though what they offer is systematic, there was a loose and organic element as to how their groups form and accomplish this. very enlightening.

Great kickoff yesterday to the Exponential Conference. Andy Stanley hit it out of the park — as usual. One comment that stuck with me as he shared on Apostolic Vision and making vision stick was that what is “memorable is portable.” He spent some time unpacking how to make vision portable. If vision is to stick and be reproducible it has to be something that people can take with them. Awesome stuff - Ed Stetzer was brilliant as usual and BoB Roberts unloaded a lot of powerful principles that are sure to shake things up.

Great pre-conference intensive with Dave Ferguson and his team from CCC. They also lead the The NewThing Network. They are teaching on the Seven Moves to Multi-site. Not seven steps — but seven moves. I think they are important principles and not steps, which people mistakingly run with instead of laying the foundational ground work.

The Seven Moves are:
1. The God-Thing– find out where God is moving and is at work
2. Vision - this will come as the solution to where you discover God at work
3. Leader — This had to do with the campus pastor and his role. Great discussion on how they hire from within.
4. Team — distinction between launch team vs. core team. They suggest starting with a bang.
5. Finances — it takes lots of money to launch a new campus. Plan, pray and go for the ASK.
6. Alignment — this is clearly a key to their success. How they intentionally drive the community into alignment with the vision. Learned a lot from this discussion.
7. Unstoppable — this was finding the right people on your team that possess “Level 5″ leadership ability.

Good stuff. Looking forward to today and the start of the conference.

Love what LifeChurch.tv is spearheading with the One Prayer initiative. Got to love the technological age that we live in that enables us to bring the body of Christ together in a way that could never have been done before. LifeChurch is one of those unique churches that keeps pushing the boundaries and leveraging technology in a way that I think makes Jesus smile. I registered our church and I hope that we have a chance to participate. Now, what speakers should we select for that series?

Off to the Exponential Conference here in Orlando. This is possibly the greatest gathering of church planters and church planting organizations. This is my third year attending and looking forward to hearing from some great leaders and networking with church planters. Each year I have attended God has further clarified my call and I am anticipating some great things this week. I hope to post throughout the event.

This book is rocking my world. It is a must read for every church leader, every church member and everyone who wants to make an impact and advance the Kingdom of God. Sunday Adelaja unpacks kingdom principles in Church Shift that demonstrate that our impact has to be far more reaching than what takes place on any given Sunday in churches across the world. Two things have really grabbed me thus far.

1. Ministry as he re-defines it is "what I do to bring my life and my sphere of influence under kingdom rule.
2. We are called to disciple nations not just individuals. That’s right nations! How’s that for expanding your vision.

What I appreciate is that Sunday is not just sharing theoretical principles, their church in the Ukraine has had far reaching influence and is probably the largest evangelical church in all of Europe. You can not read this and remain the same!

I am still flying high after the privilege of having lunch yesterday with one of my heroes, Granger’s very own, Mark Beeson. Through what I’ll call divine providence, I was able to introduce Mark to our lead pastor. We ran into Mark at the Call2All conference here in Orlando. Needless to say, to hear from the Founding Pastor of one of the most innovative churches in the country was a highlight for me in ministry. Mark’s stories of perseverance in planting Granger, against all odds, was a true inspiration. I was able to express to Mark my gratitude for how his leadership team has blessed my life through their books and blogs. Granger is definitely one of the best teaching churches out there.

Heading off to Atlanta today to Catalyst - one of the best leadership conferences. I am excited to be able to take some of our young leaders on this trip. This is one of those events that you cannot go to alone because it is hard to explain to others. Can’t wait to unplug and be refreshed. Anticipating this to be one of the highlights of this year - and best of all, my wife is going with me.

I am really excited about this weekend. I’ll be in Dallas visiting two world class churches, Gateway Church and Fellowship Church. These are two of my favorite churches and they excel at creating and maintaining a culture of innovation, creativity and taking care of people. I’ll be posting photos of my visit. Can’t wait for the vision boost!

The innovation gods smiled down on this audacious fellow. In this world of information and advertising clutter, the way we communicate our message needs to change to get attention. I’d probably give him money just for being creative and different.