My Burden is Light

Last week, I attended EXPONENTIAL.  This is the largest gathering of church planters (over 4,000!!!) where there are over 100 national speakers and 100+ workshops to inspire and share "best practices" for connecting the church to the community.


In the days ahead, I'll post my notes and thoughts about my experience.  The first one is below...

The first experience I had was to listen to Francis Chan talk about the transitions in his life.  


* Francis Chan talked about the weight and pressure pastors have to "bring it" every day.  He summarized the pressure pastors have in this one sentence: 

"There is never not a time when you have an answer."

That's a lot of pressure to have all the answers all the time!  He freed me up by reminding me that the pressure doesn't come from other people: we put it on ourselves.  To put everything in the right perspective, Chan reminded me to "Be real" and continually pray: "Give me a love for these people."


PS. - I was challenged by the fact that 40% of the earth's population (India and China) laughs at our version of Christianity.


After hearing Chan's struggles and ponderings, I was off to hear Kem Meyer, author of Less Clutter, Less Noise to find out better ways to communicate...

Birmingham AL area recovery efforts

Many people were affected by the destruction from last week's storms. We can do our part and help make a difference in peoples' lives by helping meet basic needs.


Our church will collect the items below and send them to our sister church Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Gardendale, AL


Drop off these items at Trinity Lutheran Church, Columbia TN (google map)


* Hand Sanitizer
* Wet Naps
* Gallon-sized Zip Loc Bags
* Aluminum foil
* Batteries (AA, C, D)
* non-perishable food
* paper products (towels, toilet paper, paper plates)
* plastic silverware
* large cardboard boxes to ship these items.


If you have any questions call 931-388-0790.
Thanks for making a difference!

Church Unique Visual Summary

Will Mancini's team Auxano changes everything about church vision and strategy.  The book "Church Unique", their coaching network "Co:Lab" and the willmancini.com blog are great tools to live out a stunningly unique movement-oriented church.

Our church has a concise, clear and compelling vision statement as well as values, strategy and measures.  All of this was developed in a collaborative way (more than 30 different and unique people spoke into the process in some significant way!).  We discovered our unique God-given imprint for the Columbia, TN community and now we are working on living out our church-unique in a better way!

Mancini just released a Visual Summary of the Church Unique content and process. Check it out: (Part 4 is my fav section)

New Thru 40

What if you could take 40 days and experience God working in you?

Beginning next week on Ash Wednesday, our church is taking a journey to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (the 4 Gospels that talk about Jesus' life and ministry).

Below is a bookmark you can download to track your progress. If you're in the neighborhood, join us on Wednesday nights for a meal at 6pm and meditation at 7pm about different topics about the Bible like "How did we get the Bible?"  "How do I choose the right translation?" "Are there errors in the Bible?"

I pray that this journey will build your appreciation for the Bible!

Click here for the: New Thru 40 Reading Plan

What If You Could Map Out Tweets Around the World?

A World of Tweets creates a map of where people are tweeting.  The more tweets that one region sends, the redder that region becomes.  There's a 3D view, heat map visualization, clouds, satellite view and more.