Evotional.com - Mark Batterson

I had some interesting meetings yesterday. I hung out with my former roommate from Bible college, Brad Rosenberg. It was fun to connect and catch up. He pastors a church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I met with an NCCer who moved to Florida last July. He is running for congress. It was fun to hear how God was orchestrating things in his life. We hated to see them move, but it'd be fun if he came back as a member of Congress.

And I had lunch with an AP reporter who is writing a book about the way business, politics, and religion are changing. It's an interesting concept. I've always believed that one dimension of being "as shrewd as snakes," means we need to learn from the "best practices" of non-church organizations and individuals. So I'm fascinating by the way the book overlaps those different arenas. I told him that the multi-site movement of churches has learned an awful lot from Starbucks and McDonalds and Wal-Mart. By the way, having just read through the book of Acts, I can't help but think that Paul invented the concept of franchising. It's called missions. I don't mean to denigrate the missional or supernatural nature of the endeavor, but Paul was opening new markets for the gospel. It was a multi-site movement.