Greg Atkinson

Renee Johnson is a spirited speaker and writer to twenty-somethings. She graduated from Biola University and has had the pleasure of working with the top nationally-known Christian speakers and writers at Outreach Events. Her devotional blog reaches hundreds of readers.

Renee’s mission in life is to “spur others forward” (Hebrews 10:24) using the lessons learned from her own trials to encourage others in their walk with God. Sign up for weekly devotionals at http://www.devodiva.com. Learn more about Renee and her ministry at www.devotionaldiva.com. For more information on her book, go to the book website: http://www.faithbookofjesus.com.

I had a chance to ask Renee some questions. Take a look:

1. GREG: What led you to write this book? RENEE: When I read through new devotional books year after year I eventually ran out of relevant devotionals. There were the classics such as “My Utmost For His Highest” and “Streams in the Desert” and then the fluffy ones for teenagers or women (or men) only. I decided I had had enough and started to write my own. That was seven years ago and it took me that long to learn the publishing world and to find my voice as a writer!
2. GREG: Why do you think 20-somethings in particular will benefit from reading this? RENEE: 20-somethings will especially benefit from reading “Faithbook of Jesus.” I surveyed over 300 plus 20-somethings and young adults and picked the best quotes for each daily devotional.
3. GREG: Do you think this book is good for people of all ages? RENEE: “Faithbook of Jesus” can be read by people of all ages. However, it is the first devotional book written for men and women, ages 18-35! GREG: I’m in that target age group so I look forward to using it daily!
4. GREG: Tell us a little more about your background in ministry. RENEE: I had the pleasure of working at Outreach for the past two years. I helped pastor’s plan Events and was able to represent amazing speakers such as Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, and Kirk Cameron. For me to work at Outreach was a dream come true.
5. FUN FACT FROM RENEE: My Literary Agency and NavPress found and discovered me on Twitter! For any individuals, pastor’s, or faith-based ministries wondering how to impact young people, social networking is definitely the way to go!

*** I encourage you to pick up your copy HERE.

So – BAM – yesterday Google Buzz dropped. There’s been a lot of talk about whether or not people like it. I’m still not sure myself. I’m such a huge fan of Twitter. I did just do my first “buzz” though. So, what do you think about it? Will it survive?

This weekend I saw Clint Eastwood’s new movie Invitus (twice). “Invictus tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team (Matt Damon) to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa’s underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match.”

I blog about movies that move and inspire me. I’m a movie-guy and God speaks to me through movies. I saw Crash and instantly knew it would win an Academy Award. I saw Slumdog Millionaire and instantly knew it would win an Academy Award and blogged about it on here.

Earlier this year, I blogged about Jamie Foxx and his performance in The Soloist. I think it’s an amazing movie, so I’m currently torn. I think Clint Eastwood should win Best Director for Invictus. I think Morgan Freeman will be fighting hard against Jamie Foxx for Best Actor and it will come down to these 2 movies for Best Picture. Matt Damon also ought to be up for an Oscar.

You heard it here first. Now go see the movie. It’s a powerful story of forgiveness and reconciliation.

My friend, DJ Chuang, posted an article entitled “Can the online church really be the church?” Here it is:

This new book by Douglas Estes, SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World, tackles the brewing questions surrounding the legitimacy of an online church. Many church leaders are discerning and discussing the “what is the church?” question that’s been going for years, and now, growing numbers of church leaders are asking it in the context of online worship experiences and forming relationships and communities virtually.

The book’s official website poses the question as: “Church on the Internet? Seriously?” This is the question many people are asking as more and more people chose to congregate online, and more and more churches look to launch internet campuses. But are these internet churches real? Are they healthy? Are they productive for faith? This is a conversation you can’t afford to miss as together we ask, “What does it mean to be the church in the virtual world?”

The official website links to a number of commentaries, including these positive ones: Internet Campuses from A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip, Responses to concerns about online church by Tony Steward, and A lesson from history for doubters by John Saddington; and negative ones:There is no virtual church by Bob Hyatt, Is Online Community real Community? Questions about the Virtual Church by Drew Goodmanson, Limitations of online church by Bobby Gruenewald.

As I’ve started reading through the book, I appreciated the author not taking a cautionary posture, throwing up warnings and fears of how technology could be misused. Estes digs behind the assumptions and cultural lens we have about being present with one another in inter-personal relationships. This is excerpted from page 60-61,

“If we want community to flourish in the virtual world, we’ll need to scrutinize our learned understanding of presence. Most people raised and educated in the Western world think of presence or being present as a physical act… Though defining presence simply as the location of our bodies is one of the foundational bricks of modern Western understanding of the world, itis not a God-given or biblical idea.” [emphasis added]

I think the book makes a compelling case for how relationships can occur through telepresence, and that a biblical community and a biblical church is not limited by the geography of a physical location.

And, last week, a SimChurch blog tour connected bloggers with reviews, commentaries, and interviews:

• Theology and the SimChurch [a chat with Douglas Estes] at Dan King’s blog,BibleDude
• SimChurch Blog Tour Discussion and Can a Church Exist in Cyberspace? at Chad Estes’ blog, Captain’s Blog
• Book Review of SimChurch, plus questions about WikiWorship at Eric Nygren’s blog, Returned Sheep
• SimChurch and Typical Churches at Mark Robert’s blog, MarkDRoberts.com
• Intro to Online Churches at Cynthia Ware’s blog, The Digital Sanctuary
• Discussion on the Advantages of Virtual Churches at Kent Shaffer’s blog, Church Relevance
• Book Review of SimChurch at Dave Bourgeois’ blog, Lessons from Babel
• Plus an unofficial post on the blog tour, my myth-busting In Defense of Virtual Church over at Christianity Today’s blog, Out of Ur

While I’m not so sure the discussions and reviews will change a lot of minds at this stage of the dialogue, I do think this book is one to be reckoned with. Where are you at with your thinking about the church in the virtual world?

Today  I’m a stop on the Whole Church Blog Tour. I asked author Mel Lawrenz 3 questions and he answered them below. I read this book on two flights a week ago. It’s worth your time to check it out.

1) In chapter 10, you talk about the struggles we all face when it comes to change. In your experience, what’s the first hurdle leaders need to overcome to change their culture from fragmentation to engagement?

MEL: Our biggest hurdle to overcome is our obsession with ourselves. All churches (and especially their leaders) tend to be focussed on themselves. We do that because we’re human; and we have fragmentation in our churches because we human beings are fragmented. We should come back to the question: what really constitutes success in a church? What are we really aiming at accomplishing? Whole Church contains 350 practical ideas on promoting cohesion in a church.

2) Is there a linear path from fragmentation to engagement? Or does each church’s individual context influence the steps leaders need to take?

MEL: Churches, like families, grow and improve in an organic way, not in a linear path, in my opinion (at least, with regard to the spiritual dynamics of a church). Engagement (as God’s resources being brought into contact with human need) happens when, in dozens of different ways, we close the God-gap. For instance, re-tooling worship so that it is a true encounter with God in every element of worship, or shaping small groups so that they produce true koinonia (not just gatherings), or getting a congregation really engaged with global needs by connecting with a school in southern Sudan. These are not a few steps along a linear path, but a pattern of a multitude of cohesive experiences.

3) You end the book with a chapter called “Choosing Wise Leaders” – why did you choose to finish with this?

MEL:Wisdom is a neglected theme of church leadership. Get leaders who are wise (in the James 3 sense), and they will know that engagement with God is where the real power of ministry comes from and they will raise the church above small-mindedness.

Mel Lawrenz 
http://www.wholechurch.org/

Mind mapping is something that I learned and began to truly appreciate through my friend, Tony Steward (Online Community Pastor at LifeChurch.tv). Up until recently it was always done on paper (Moleskin). Yesterday he sent me an email introduction to MindMeister. I was instantly interested! I signed up and watched their helpful tutorial video (it’s brief).

There are a number of ways that you as a Church leader could use this new tool. Whether it be as a Senior Pastor, Executive Pastor, Worship Pastor (leading a creative team), Small Groups – you name it – there’s a way that this can be a great tool and resource for your ministry.

You can share your mind map with friends. Share instantly any mind map with friends and colleagues. Invitees will receive an email with a link and – depending on what access you give them – will be able to contribute or just read.

Real-time collaboration. When two or more users open the same mind map at the same time you are in brainstorming mode. Every change you make will be replicated instantly to your fellow editors’ screens via our server. Through colour-coded effects they will see what you did and vice versa, no reload necessary.

Summary: MindMeister brings the concept of mind mapping to the web, using its facilities for real-time collaboration to allow truly global brainstorming sessions. Users can create, manage and share mind maps online and access them anytime, from anywhere. In brainstorming mode, fellow MindMeisters from around the world (or just in different rooms) can simultaneously work on the same mind map and see each other’s changes as they happen.

There’s a free version and a premium version that only costs $4 a month. $4 bucks a month! Check it out and let me know if you have something you’d like to share. I may have something I’ll share soon with you.

PERSONAL:
Today is 9/11. We pause to remember what happen on that tragic day. 9/11 is also my mom’s birthday. Mom: Happy Birthday!

As you know I spoke at the BUG Conference on Monday. I arrived Sunday evening so I could attend Church of the Highland’s 6pm service. With 12 Sunday services across 5 campuses, Church of the Highlands is the fastest growing church in the US.

I visit a lot of churches and have been to all of the “big boys”. I must say, Church of the Highlands and pastor Chris Hodges lived up to the hype. The worship experience truly was a celebration. I (as a former worship pastor) truly appreciated Chris Hodges’ heart for worship and how he led by example and through exhortation to the attendees.

Their music was solid and well done. Their tech (sound, video and lights) was great and reminded me a lot of what we did at Bent Tree. And Chris Hodges is a terrific communicator. I appreciate his spirit, his humor, his liveliness and all around excitement that he brings to the stage.

All this and you’d never know that there was a thunderstorm that knocked all the power out twice! We literally sat in the dark and then when the lights came back on there was no video, no sound, nothing – and God still moved. I still think it was a wonderful experience and can’t wait to go back this coming Sunday night again. I’m going on a church planter assessment with the good folks of ARC on Monday and Tuesday and since I’m flying back to Birmingham Sunday night, I hope to catch their 6pm service again!

The BUG Conference was  a total success. For a first year, I think ARC and specifically, Guy Walker, did an amazing job putting it together. The main sessions were solid and informative. The workshops were all great and well taught. The community and relational side of the conference was great, too.

As you know, I’m at a lot of conferences, but again, there was something special about this one. Maybe it was the topic of social media/social networking and seeing how relevant and educational it was for the attendees. Maybe it was the smoothness of the conference experience and how it seemed they’d done this before. I don’t know exactly what it was, but I wholeheartedly endorse it and encourage you to go if there is another one in the future.

I’m a white American and I have a ton to learn. Did I say that out loud? I can’t tell you how refreshing The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church by Dave Gibbons has been for me to read. I read a lot of books, but few with such timely insight and exhortations like this. The entire time I was reading this, I felt my spirit resonating with the spirit of the book and inside I was shouting “Yes! Yes!” I thank Dave for his humility and hard work to put this treasure together for the Church, capital “C”.

Dave tells us in the book that his definition of third culture emerges from a look at Genesis 12 and from the second greatest commandment: Third culture is the mindset and will to love, learn, and serve in any culture, even in the midst of pain and discomfort (I just typed that from memory because it’s ingrained in my heart now).

I especially like Dave’s insight into the second greatest commandment (“Love your neighbor as yourself”). My heart for the poor and homeless connected with his vision as he described our neighbor as “instead of being someone like him, was someone not like him at all, someone he would be uncomfortable with or even hate.” He goes on to say that the second most important commandment “is all about loving people we don’t understand… People who are misfits. People who are marginalized. People who are outsiders… Instead, it’s about people I would not normally choose to befriend, people who might make me feel uncomfortable to be around.”

Another truth that God has been teaching me lately and this book confirms is that ministry and leadership is not so much about having the answers, but rather about asking questions. As Dave writes, “Questions should lead us.” Dave points to how Christ’s MO was to answer a question with a question or a story. His example was a very Eastern thing to do and one that we as Western Christians should really wrestle with and try to put in practice.

As a young leader and one who God has been teaching what it truly means to live by the Spirit, I especially appreciated his candidness and honesty about his early years of going to conferences and watching people like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. He wrote that they “warned us not to imitate them, but when you’re young and feel the need to make it happen, you tend to plug and play rather than innovate and pray.” I’m traveling the country a lot these days meeting with Church leaders and I’m urging people to let their innovation come out of prayer. This book and Dave’s own testimony and confession affirmed that conviction.

Last week at The Idea Camp’s pre-conference meet-up I said on video that I believe “the future of the Church is going to be messy”. Then on the flight home I read where Dave writes that “loving the other can be messy, ugly, unnatural, and perhaps not fun…” He also talked about the specialness and bonding that happens with people over food. As one who loves to eat and fellowship with others, this is something I definitely can testify to and resonate with. He teaches that the metric for this type of ministry is relational. I think we, as Church leaders, need to hear that and need someone to get in our face and ask when the last time we ate and drank with people different from us and people that don’t believe the same way we do.

I’ll close with more praise for how Dave addresses bottlenecks in the Church. This is something that I, too, see and am praying through how we can remove these bottlenecks. Dave asks a hard question: “What squeezes the life out of what is intended to be a sanctuary of strength and a source of life, hope, and intimacy?” He questions how many churches are about a place and not nearly enough about the people. I encourage you to read this book and ask yourself how many in your own church or organization feel “like the third-string team that plays only if the game is well in hand.” I’ll let him set that quote up for you in his book and let you chew on it.

The good news is that this is a tremendous and challenging book. The bad news (not really bad) is that you must wrestle through it and in a third culture way ask yourself, your leadership and your local church some very tough and thought provoking questions. If you’re up for a book that will read you, I encourage you to get a copy and devour it.

Does my life matter? What is my purpose? Is it really possible that my life was meant for something bigger? – Something Greater?

Anthem Trailer from Broken Voices on Vimeo.

Six friends travel the United States in search of answers to these questions. Living on the road for a month in a borrowed (and crowded) RV, they encounter seven stories of normal people doing extraordinary things with their lives.

This week Broken Voices releases there first full length documentary film entitled “Anthem”. To pick up your copy today click here.

It’s been LONG overdue. I have been meaning to blog about LifeChurch.tv’s Digerati team for quite a while. I’ve blogged about LifeChurch.tv many times, but in this blog I’d like to spotlight the Digerati team and their projects. 

You might be wondering: “What in the world does “digerati” mean?” To get to the bottom of something, I go to Wikipedia. Wikipedia reads:”The digerati are the elite of the computer industry and online communities.” From what I know of my friends Terry Storch and Tony Steward (and the rest of the Digerati Team) this fits them very well. 

Maybe you don’t recognize the team, but you may recognize their work. Here is what the Digerati team has been up to and is responsible for:

• YouVersion (Web, Mobile, and iPhone)
• OPEN
• ChurchMetrics
• Internet Campus 
• LifeGroups
• LifeShare
• OnePrayer