I have a personal mantra that I repeat pretty frequently: one of the greatest dangers we face is learning how and forgetting why.

That is a supreme danger in ministry. It's so easy to do ministry from memory. You just do what you've always done. I think we need to do ministry out of imagination.

Here's the challenge: ministry can become monotonous. It's so easy to fall into a routine and never re-examine it. It's so easy to keep doing what you've always done. It's so easy to go through the motions.

So how do you avoid the monotony of ministry? How do you stay on the creative edge?

Here are five keys to creativity:

1) Prayer is the key to doing ministry out of imagination. I love prayer walks. It helps me think God thoughts. I think one God idea is worth more than a thousand good ideas. And God ideas always trace back to prayer! Spend extended time in prayer!

2) Reconaissance. I never want NCC to become a closed-system. I want us to be an open-source church. We don't copy other churches. But we're always trying to learn from others. We try to do a couple reconaissance trips every year where we immerse ourselves in what someone else is doing. We're also conference fanatics :) I always try to walk away with three ideas. That's it. And they don't always come from the speakers. One of the best things we do is an annual ministry report that doubles as our "welcome packet." I got that idea from a exhibitor's booth at a conference four years ago.

3) Focus Days. I have meeting days where I'll schedule back-to-back meetings all day. But I try to reserve Mondays and Fridays as "focus days." I need days where I have the freedom to think! I generally spend the better part of my focus days running down rabbit trails and drinking vanilla chai at a coffeehouse.

4) Leaders are readers. The more you read the more ideas you'll come up with. Last night I read Fast Company, Business Week, and Scientific American Mind. I love to cross-polinate with other disciplines! I am also a strategic reader. We try to plot our our sermon series months in advance and I strategically buy books on Amazon.com that help me prepare for that series. Read like a maniac.

5) Big Idea Meetings. Every week we brainstorm our upcoming weekends. Sometimes they are routine and we simply nail down run sheets. But other weeks we'll come up with amazing creative elements to supplement the big idea. You can't "schedule creativity." Most ideas are sudden flashes of insight in wierd places when you least expect them. But I do think you need to schedule creativity. You need a rythym to your week that accomodates creativity!

We explore these ideas further at the Buzz conference. Check out www.buzzconference.com.

Permission to speak frankly?

One of the things that drives me crazy is people who criticize by criticizing :) Don't point out a problem unless you're willing to be part of the solution! You know what I'm saying? The Pharisees criticized by criticizing! There was nothing redemptive or constructive about it. Jesus was a truth-teller and grace-giver.

I'm just not into boycotting--a form of criticizing by criticizing. Paul could have boycotted the aeropagus because they were worshipping false gods. But he decided to compete for the truth. I'm not saying there isn't a time and place to boycott things, but I think the church is called to present better alternatives across the board.

I can't believe I've never read this before as much as I read, but I just came across a Michelangelo quote. But it's more than a quote. It was Michelangelo's modus operandi. He said, "Criticize by creating." I love that. Alot.

That gets so close to the heart of what I believe. I think God wants to redeem and sanctify our competitive streak just like he wants to redeem and sanctify every other part of us. We're called to compete for the truth! The church ought to be the most creative place on the planet.

Let's not just curse the darkness. Let's light a candle.

Let's not just criticize. Let's create.

Just finised reading The Big Moo by Seth Godin. Godin makes an observation that is so profound at the outset it's worth reading a few times: "Good enough isn't good enough ."

That's especially true for churches! Here's why. The people we're trying to minister to are being blown away by the retailers they shop at, the shows they watch, and the restaurants they eat at. Our competition has upped the ante!

If the church stays the same we lose ground via creative inflation.

One of my core convictions is that the church ought to be the most creative place on the planet. Good isn't good enough. We've got to practice creative incarnation. We're got to be innovating and changing all the time!

Jack Welch said, "When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight."

Let me take it one step further: when the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside the byproduct is irrelevance. We get further and further out of touch with reality.

I think most of us spend most of our time in left-brain reactive mode. We're reacting to the urgent instead of doing ministry out of our right-brain imagination.

Prayer is the key to right-brain leadership. It's the only way to stay proactive.

The right-brain is unorthodox and unconventional. It's resourceful. It's not the world of formulas. It's the realm of dreams, mystery, creativity, and originality. It is the world of make believe. And isn't that what we're trying to do?

Good isn't good enough! We've got to do better than good.

I'd rather have one God idea than a thousand good ideas!

I continue to hear cool reports about our theaterchurch.com podcast. I think we've had about 10,000 people tune in month-to-date. But it's cool to hear stories and put faces with the numbers.

Just today someone told me they tuned in while they were in London last week. Someone else told me about an NCCer who moved away, but listens to our podcast each week. And another NCCer listened to last week's message at about 30,000 feet flying home this weekend.

The podcast is such a great way for NCCers to stay in the loop when they're out of town.

I have a mantra: if it's worth preaching it's worth podcasting!

For a free subscription, click on the podcast link on the right menu.

One of our Batterson traditions is cutting down a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. It was actually two days after this year :) There's nothing like hunting for that perfect tree!

By the way, our tree is too big for the stand so it fell over last night. It looks like the leaning tower of Pisa.

Here are "before" and "after" pictures.





P.S. I think the only time I ever drive in the right lane is when I have a Christmas that is wobbling on top of our mini-van :)

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Thought this would be a fun Friday feature and a good way of kicking off the holiday season! Enjoy the Christmas light show!

Here are ten things I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving:

#10--Amazing Grace
#9--A wife and kids who love me for the goofball I am
#8--I'm doing what I'd do even if I didn't get paid to do it
#7--Life and Health. I don't take them for granted.
#6--I love living in Washington, DC
#5--An amazing staff that I love working with
#4--God-sized dreams
#3--Answered prayers
#2--An amazing network of friends and colleagues
#1--The favor of God. Without it I'm Jack Squat.

I hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving. May your heart be as full of gratitude as your stomach is of turkey!

This post is for pastors. Especially discouraged pastors :)

In his book, The Big Moo, Seth Godin says, "Take any population anywhere on the planet and measure just about anything and the distribution of the population almost always comes out as a perfect bell curve."

There is a bell curve within every church.

There are innovators and resisters. There are adopters and laggards. Honestly, I think that can be very healthy for a church. It can also be very frustrating :)

I don't care how big your vision is or how good your idea is. You will always find someone who supports a bad idea and someone who opposes a good idea. It's inevitable. Why? Because there is always a bell curve. In other words, don't expect 100% endorsement of your vision. Expect some resisters along the way!

Even Jesus lost one of his disciples who sold out for 30 pieces of silver. Maybe 11 out of 12 isn't a bad batting average for leaders?

I think sometimes we get too discouraged by the one out of twelve who betray our vision and we forget about the eleven out of twelve who would die for us! That's what the other disciples did.

Don't let a Judas keep you from doing what God has called you to do. The key phrase in that last sentence is "what God has called you to do." If it's not God-ordained then no one is betraying you. You're betraying God. But if you're doing what God has called you to do then don't let a Judas stop you.

I don't care how charismatic you are. I don't care how God-ordained the idea is. I don't care how much sense you make. There will always be resisters and laggards.

It's the bell curve :)

God @ the Billboards:
I Don't Wanna Be
11.23.05
Pastor Mark Batterson







All of us start out as one-of-a-kind originals. Too many of us end up carbon copies of someone else.

In his essay, Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "There is a time in every man's education that he arrives at the conviction that imitation is suicide. He must take himself for better or for worse."

That is precisely what David did in I Samuel 17:38.

"Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor and on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them."

Arming a warrior for battle was a major ritual in David's day. Armor was an extension of the warrior's character. David could have gone into Battle dressed like a king. But David said, "I cannot go in these because I am not used to them. So he took them off."

What if David had gone out to meet Goliath on Goliath's terms-fully armored, fully armed? I think David would have lost because David wasn't a swordsman. In fact, he'd probably never touched a sword in his life. According to I Samuel 13:19, the only two people with a sword in all of Israel were Saul and Jonathan.

For better or for worse, David was a shepherd. The sword would have posed a greater threat to David, through self-inflicted wounds, than it did to Goliath. But David was deadly with a slingshot.

David came to a crossroads. He had a choice to make. He could go into battle as Saul-wear Saul's armor, wield Saul's sword, hold Saul's shield. Or he could go into battle as himself-a shepherd with a slingshot. David decided not to don Saul's armor or brandish Saul's sword for one very good reason. He wasn't Saul.

David decided to be David.

There comes a point in all of our lives where we have to take off Saul's armor and have the courage to be ourselves!

Pink Shirts

When I was in the sixth grade I experienced one of my most embarrassing moments. I have a handful of memories from Junior High that are framed in my memory and hanging on the wall of my brain. Most of them are really good memories. This one was painful.

I'm not sure what possessed me, but one day I wore a pink shirt to school. I thought the shirt was kind of cool. I actually liked the neon pink color. And it was Ocean Pacific. Come on!

Little did I know when I got dressed that morning how much I would get teased that fateful day. I was one of the biggest kids and one of the most popular kids in my class so I didn't get teased very often. But I overdosed that day. The kids laid into me! I pretended that it didn't bother me, but I never wore that shirt again. Why? Because when you're in Junior High you want to "fit in." You want to be like everyone else! Call it peer pressure. Call it the herd mentality. Call it whatever you want. At some point in our lives, all of us try to fit in. So we go into hiding-we hide our idiosyncrasies and insecurities and injuries. We hide anything that would differentiate us. We try to look like everyone else. We try to dress like everyone else. We try to talk like everyone else. So what happens? We become like everyone else!

Most of us spend most of our lives trying to fit in. But something is lost in that process. We lose our personality. We lose our originality. And at some point we lose our soul. We stop being ourselves and we start being who we think everyone wants us to be.

Maybe it's time to pull out the pink shirt?

Dual-Destiny

There never has been and never will be anyone like you. That isn't a testament to you. It's a testament to the God who created you. Why did God go to all the trouble to insure the absolute uniqueness of each one of us? It's the nature of God.

Here's a cool thought: no one else can worship God like you can. When we gather together to worship God corporately we may all be singing the same words but God hears a unique song from each of. You are invaluable and irreplaceable. And God wants you to be you!

Each of us has what I call a dual-destiny. One destiny is universal-to become like Christ. Everybody is somebody's disciple. In other words, all of us pattern our lives after someone consciously or subconsciously. A Christian is someone who has made the conscious decision to become like Christ. All of us who are followers of Christ have a universal destiny-to become like Christ.

But we also have a unique destiny. God doesn't want you to become more like Mother Teresa or Billy Graham. God wants you to become more like you!

We have a core value: conformity doesn't equal maturity. One of the mistakes we make is thinking that spiritual maturity is measured by our conformity to some external standard. That's called legalism. We confuse cultural conformity with spiritual maturity. People dress the same way, talk the same way, act the same way and that's the measuring stick of maturity. That's not maturity. That's superficiality. No one was better at conformity than the Pharisees. Jesus didn't come down on anyone harder!

Conformity to Christ will result in originality.

Creative Genius

In our attempt to fit in our true self gets buried. We bury our feelings, our dreams, our convictions. We trade them in for conformity.

I read about a fascinating study in Get Weird by John Putzier. It found that 98% of children between the ages of three and five score in the genius category for divergent thinking-thinking outside the box. Between the ages of eight to ten, that number drops to 32%. By the time the kids become teenagers it drops down to 10%. And only 2% over 25 scored in the genius category for divergent thinking! For what it's worth, Putzier says we need to "tap our natural weirdness."

A few years ago Gordon MacKenzie wrote a great book titled Orbiting the Giant Hairball. He worked for Hallmark for thirty years as their creative guru. He used to do workshops on creativity for elementary schools and he made a fascinating observation.

He would ask the kids, "How many artists are there in the room?" He said the pattern of responses never varied. In the First Grade the entire class waved their arms like maniacs. Every child was an artist. In the Second Grade about half the kids raised their hands. In the Third Grade he'd get about 10 out of 30 kids. By the time he got to Sixth Grade only one of two kids would raise their hands and they'd do it tentatively and self-consciously.

MacKenzie makes a profound observation: "Every school I visited was participating in the suppression of creative genius. Why? Well, it's not intentional. It is not a plot. Genius is the innocent casualty in society's efforts to train children away from their natural-born foolishness."

"From the cradle to grave, the pressure is on: Be Normal."

MacKenzie says, "My guess is that there was a time-perhaps when you were very young-when you had at least a fleeting notion of your own genius and were just waiting for some authority figure to come along and validate it for you. But none ever came."

Enter Jesus.

I think Jesus came to unearth those gifts and dreams and passions that have been buried when you decided to cave in and become like everyone else. He came to get you out of the psychological straightjacket you got yourself into. He came to help you become the person you were destined to be.

Jesus said something interesting in Matthew 18:3. "Unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

I think God wants to turn us back into the person we were before we started burying our dreams and passions and gifts. The word "convert" means "to reverse." God wants to do some reverse engineering.

Some of you are buried beneath hurts. Some of you are buried beneath mistakes. Some of you are buried beneath the expectations of others. But you're in there. God is in the excavation business. We have a core value: it's never too late to become who you might have been.

MacKenzie says, "There is a fool in each of us, you know." But that "daredevil fool" was "hog-tied" and "locked in the basement." Jesus came to get us out.

Different Drummer

Henry David Thoreau said, "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

Jesus walked to the beat of a different drummer. I flipped through the gospels this week and here's the observation I made: Jesus was good at being Jesus.

He didn't try to fit in. He didn't cave in.

Jesus was counter-intuitive and counter-cultural.

Jesus touched lepers. Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Jesus hung out with prostitutes. Jesus talked to Samaritans. Jesus washed feet. Jesus rebuked the self-righteousness Pharisees. Jesus made a whip and turned the Temple upside down. Jesus cried in public.

Have you ever known someone who is really good at being themselves? They don't really care what other people think about them? They aren't addicted to the opinions of others. They are themselves!

Jesus was good at being Jesus.

How did he do it?

He cared more about what God thought than what people thought.

Jesus came to a conclusion in Matthew 11:18: "John the Baptist didn't drink wine and he often fasted, and you say, 'He's demon possessed.' And I, the Son of Man, feast and drink, and you say, 'He's a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of the worst sort of sinners!' But wisdom is shown to be right by what results from it."
Here's what Jesus was saying in this passage: you can't please all the people all the time. That's reality.

Years ago I memorized something Abraham Lincoln said. Lincoln was the most vilified President in United States history. We honor him with a memorial. But he endured the most difficult presidency in the history of our country. And it ended with an assassination.

How did Lincoln endure it?

He said, "You can please some of the people all of the time. You can please all of the people some of the time. But you can't please all of the people all of the time."

You can't please all the people all the time!

When I was in Seminary I came across back-to-back Proverbs and they really bothered me because they seemed contradictory. Proverbs 26:4 says, "When arguing with fools, don't answer their foolish arguments, or you will become as foolish as they are." Next verse. "When arguing with fools, be sure to answer their foolish arguments, or they will become wise in their own estimation."

What? Back-to-back verses that seem to say the exact opposite? One of them says "don't answer a fool" and the other one says "answer a fool."

Here's the conclusion I came to: when you're arguing with a fool it's a no win situation. You can't win for losing! Why? Because they are foolish.

Second Temptation

Remember the three temptations in the desert? The second temptation is fascinating to me. The devil takes Jesus to the highest point of the Temple and tells Hm to jump off. He even quotes Scripture: "He orders His angels to protect You. And they will hold You with their hands to keep You from striking Your foot on a stone."

Permission to speak frankly?

This sounds like an amazing idea. What a way to launch your ministry. Gather a crowd. Jump off the temple. And the people can watch angels sweep you up and keep you from falling. Not a bad way to launch your ministry. Not a bad way to kick things off.

But it would have proved his identity in the wrong way!

He needed to prove his identity by dying on a cross. Jumping off the Temple would have proved his power. Dying on the cross proved His love. And if I don't know God loves me then I don't care how powerful He is. It would have short-circuited God's game plan. It would have been a selfish miracle. Jesus refused to prove His identity in the wrong way.

That's the challenge all of us face: trying to prove our identity the wrong way!

The greatest freedom is having nothing to prove.

Don't try to find your identity in what you can do. Find your identity in what God has done for you!

Here are a few links I'm adding this week:

Trinity Jordan is a good friend, great church planter, and cool dude :) They just launched Elevation church and added a blog. Check it out.

I'm also linking to Brenton Balvin. Great content. And content is king of the blogosphere :)

And Margaret Feinberg is a great author. She has also been a huge encouragement to me as I've launched into the world of publishing!

If you want to link to evotional.com here's a link:



<a href="<a href="http://www.evotional.com">http://www.evotional.com"><img</a> border="0" alt="Evotional.com" title="Evotional.com" src="<a href="http://www.blog.theaterchurch.com/evotionallinksmall.bmp">http://www.blog.theaterchurch.com/evotionallinksmall.bmp"/><a></a>;

Note to self.

If you go to get your haircut from a barber you've never had before and they have a confused look on their face after explaining what you want, you probably aren't going to like the way the haircut looks.

I just got one of the worst haircuts I've ever had :)

That's one of the most helpless feelings in the world. I'm sitting in the chair and I could tell by the way he was cutting my hair that it wasn't going to turn out ok. But I didn't have the guts to stop him in the middle of the cut!

Can you ask for a haircut refund? Not sure about the barber etiquette on that.

The Washington Post did an article on real estate development in today's business section. The story leads with our coffeehouse project. Here's a link to the entire article. I've posted an excerpt below.



Long-Awaited Revival for H Street Corridor

By Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 21, 2005; Page D03

Just east of Union Station, a church is turning what was a rundown, boarded-up building at the corner of F and Second Streets NE into what is intended to be a hip, neighborhood coffeehouse.

National Community Church, which has a largely young flock and holds its services in a movie theater at Union Station, bought the building that was once a diner for $325,000 in 2002 and is spending $2.2 million to fix it. Pastor Mark Batterson said the goal is to raise money for charitable projects and provide a gathering spot in a changing neighborhood.

Pastor Mark Batterson and National Community Church see potential in the building at F and Second streets NE. "We're seeing people who have little kids moving in," said Christina Borja, who lives in the neighborhood and is overseeing the coffeehouse project for the church. "With all the development, it's starting to feel different."

A few blocks away, along the H Street corridor that runs from North Capitol to Bladensburg Road and 17th Street NE, office, housing and retail development costing more than $1.5 billion was recently completed, is under construction or is planned for the next few years.

The H Street corridor, once a popular shopping district, never fully recovered after the 1968 riots. The area became a hodgepodge of closed storefronts, empty lots and small shops. Change came slowly.

Local business owners and community leaders said they have attracted more than 30 new shops, most of them mom-and-pop businesses, to H Street in the past few years. The H Street Community Development Corp. and the District put up about $1 million about two years ago to redo a rundown corner at H and Eighth streets NE, according to D.C. officials.

New development has been spurred by the District's strategic development plan for the area. It envisions an upscale strip of shops, sit-down restaurants and entertainment. Developers are following the lead of projects such as the Security and Exchange Commission's new 1.5 million-square-foot headquarters at Second and H streets NE and a $250 million project across the street from it by local developer Jim Abdo.

What a whirlwind of a weekend.

I took Lora to see Bill Cosby up in Baltimore as a birthday gift. What a blast. We were 5 rows from the front. He's a comedic genius. Half the routine was totally impromptu using people from the the audience.

We had great services on Sunday. The bands nailed I Don't Wanna Be by Gavin DeGraw. And I love talking about identity issues. Most of the message came from themes I wrote about in ID: The True You.

And we had an awesome Catacombs at Eastern Market on Capitol Hill. Steve Andres and his band from Naperville, Illinois were incredible. At one point I walked outside and I'm guessing you could hear the music for about a five block radius!

The "glory cloud" passed over last night :)

Thought I'd kick off the week with a top ten list. Here are ten tips for church planters.

1) Do something different--don't try to be someone else! Be yourself. We need lots of different kinds of churches because there are lots of different kinds of people. Differentiate! If you're going to do what someone else is already doing don't even bother!

2) Pick the right place--you've heard of word association. There is something I call place association. You want to meet someplace that conjurs up good feelings! That's one reason we meet in movie theaters. Most people have good memories from good movies. And meet somewhere that has high visibility and high accessibility. 25 million people pass through Union Station every year! And it's got a metro stop, bus stop, train stop, and parking garage. It's in the middle of the marketplace.

3) Make mistakes--You've got to make mistakes early on. It creates a culture of experimentation. Don't keep making the same mistakes! But keep making mistakes. Mistakes are painful now, but you'll laugh about them later. Trust me!

4) Take the Long View--whenever I get discouraged it's usually because I've zoomed in on some situation that is frustrating. Zoom out. Take the long view. You overestimate what you can accomplish in two years. You underestimate what you can accomplish in ten years.

5) Enjoy the Journey--be the best pastor you can be at every stage. Have fun with it. There is a developmental process. If you're church is five years old you should know the alphabet song and be able to tie your shoes. That's about it. You haven't hit puberty yet! And don't take yourself too seriously. The holiest and happiest people in the world laugh at themselves the most. Take two things seriously: God and fun.

6) Think like a guest--you've got to put yourself in the shoes of the average visitor. How are they experiencing everything? You have one chance to make a first impression. Make sure you greeters are nice! Make sure your welcome packet packs a punch! And give them a virtual tour of your church via your website.

7) Do Reconaissance--always have your antenna up and radar on. Don't copy other churches. But be a student of other churches. Never become a closed-system. Never stop learning! There are ways of doing church no one has thought of yet!

8) Do ministry out of imagination--don't do ministry out of memory. Don't do it the way it's always been done. That's boring and predictable! Creativity is hard work, but it's the thing that will set you apart. Dare to be different! Normality is overrated. God ideas usually start out as crazy ideas!

9) Content is King. If you don't preach a powerful message it's all for naught. Don't water-down or dumb-down the gospel. Find new ways to communicate ancient truths! Use every means at your disposal to get the message across. Blog every day. And if it's worth preaching it's worth podcasting!

10) Hang in There--the key to church planting is emotional fortitude. It is an emotional roller coaster full of highs and lows. There are high levels of excitement and discouragement. If you're called to be where you are and do what you do then don't give up! View everything as a learning opportunity!

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Here's the Friday feature. We captured the video from the CBS story this week. Still can't believe the amazing coverage. Props to CBS!

I have a conviction: the good news ought to make news!

A few weeks ago our coffeehouse manager, Christina Borja, had a great idea. Serve lunch to our construction crew at Ebenezers as a way of saying "thank you."

We just grilled burgers and dogs for our entire construction crew. It was cool to be able to express our thanks and to pray a prayer of blessing over them.

Our site superintendent said that nobody had ever done that for them. Ever.

Yesterday was one of those days where I was totally exhausted at the end of the day, but I felt like I had "loved God with all of my strength." It's amazing how high the RPMs are right now with the coffeehouse. And then I spoke at the Next Conference. I did a 45 minute main session and then a 2 hour breakout. I was exhausted and energized at the same time! I love speaking to pastors and church planters!

Lee McFarland spoke last night. He pastors Radiant Church in Surprise, Arizona--one of the fastest growing churches in America. They've grown by 2,0000 people in the last six months. Lee and I tag-teamed at a conference last year and totally clicked. He's one of those down-to-earth dreamers that I love to hang out with.

Lee gave up an executive position at Microsoft to plant Radiant Church. For what it's worth, he had to forfeit 16,000 Microsoft stock options when he quit. Microsoft was trading at $180 and they've split three times since then! You can do the math :) He took a church planter position paying $24,000! Here's the cool thing: he prayed that God would give him a soul for every stock option he gave up! He's well on his way to cashing in those soul options :) I'm thrilled about the way God is using Lee!

He said one thing that night that totally resonated with me: "I'm shamelessly addicted to finding creative ways of getting people to come to church."

Amen to that :)

Headed out to the Next Conference today and tomorrow. I'm speaking in one of the main sessions and doing a couple break out sessions for multi-site churches. I'm super-busy right now, but I love every opportunity I have to talk with pastors and church planters. It's right at the heart of my circle of passion.

We're in decision mode for our coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. The sheer volume of decisions to be made is unbelievable at this point. Decision overload. But I'm trying trying to creatively suck it up because the finishes are 1% of the work but 50% of the feel. Colors and furniture and decor are huge!

One of the things I really want is signature. Lora and Summer had a cool idea today. I haven't really liked any of the tables I've seen. Too normal :) And I don't want coffeebeans in the tabletop. Too predictable :) Lora and Summer came up with the idea of doing unique DC pictures or maybe an old DC map and making that the surface of the table. There is an artistic phrase for it, but I'm not sure what it is :) But it's a cool way of celebrating the history of DC which is one of our aesthetic goals.

Our local CBS affiliate ran a story on NCC and podcasting last night. Here's a link.

They really did a great job on the story!

I love making up words. Always have.

If I had to summarize my writing and preaching in a sentence it'd probably be this: I try to say old things in new ways.

Words get old. They get stale. They lose meaning over time.

We need new ways of talking about old experiences.

Seth Godin says, "Organizations change when you give something a name."

Here are some of the words we've made up.

I think we coined the word "dechurched." We did it to describe the 50% of NCCers who grew up in church but checked out for a while and end up finding NCC on the rebound. That word adds an important category to our thinking. It helps define our mission.

Evotional is devotional minus the "d." It's a devotional via email.

A few years ago I did my dissertation on a concept I call "soulprint." It's a play off of fingerprint, eye print, and voice print. It is our unique spiritual DNA. It is the place where our gifts, passions, history, and destiny intersect.

Churchprint is a similar concept.

I'm not sure who coined the phrase "Godcasting." But I love it. It redeems podcasting and puts it in spiritual terms.

I love new words. They give new meaning.

By the way, one of the greatest responsibilities given to humankind was the invitation to name the animals. Genesis 1:19 says, "So the Lord God formed from the soil every kind of animal and bird. He brought them to Adam to see what he would call them and Adam chose a name for each one."

It's almost like God is bursting with anticipation to see what Adam would name these animals. I'm sure God laughed and smiled and raised His "eyebrows" at some of the names. Rhinoceros? Hippopatomus? Porcupine? Those are hilarious names!

One of the most precious responsibilities of parents is to name their children. The Jewish people took naming seriously. Naming was prophesying. It was a sacred responsibility.

The ability to name and rename is a gift from God.

Is there something you need to name or rename?

Mark Miller, pastor of New Song Church in Ohio, sent me a fascinating article titled Priest Idol from Christianity Today online. It's a reality TV show about a Wheaton Grad who took a position in a small parish church that has dwindled in attendance to a handful of people. The show chronicles his experience trying to bring life to the dying church.

Here are a few excerpts I found interesting:

The filmmakers brought in a marketing firm to help you sell the church to the town. Was this a positive experience?

It really was. The marketers-a firm called Propaganda-were very respectful and sensitive. They brought a fresh perspective from the world. I don't think it was selling out to the world. I think it was a way of learning what is going on in the culture, what does the immediate society want, how do they view church? I don't know the story very well, but I wonder if Bill Hybels used a similar approach when he went knocking on the doors around Willow Creek, asking what folks would like to see in a church. The most positive thing this did was to raise the profile of the parish in the community, to say, "We're here and open and alive."

What would you say to those who argue that the church does not need to market itself?

I would say that we did not take a secular approach and put the label 'Christian' on it and therefore redeem it. What I would say is that we used a tool available in Western society and used it in such a way to produce something that is worthy of the church. For instance, the marketers challenged us to say, "What is special about the Christian faith?" It was a challenge for us to articulate it; in fact, the congregation was not able to articulate it. By taking a sales point of view and asking, "How are you are you going sell this place, if you can't tell people what's great about it?" the marketers weren't asking us to make things up; they were asking us to genuinely examine ourselves. It sounds pathetic that the congregation was not able to articulate those things already-this is our faith we're talking about, after all-but obviously it wasn't happening.

What do you think the airing of Priest Idol can accomplish?

It tells a really positive story about our particular church and about the church in general. That was one of the concerns of the bishop. He thought that if this was a success, it would be a success not just for Lundwood, but for the Christian church in the UK. It shows hope, it shows excitement, it shows people rallying around a church. It shows a church willing to take risks. It raises a lot of issues for churches to think about how, why, and to what extent they can reconnect with their communities.

As we get ready to launch our coffeehouse on Capitol Hill I continue to do research. Came across something interesting this week: in 1990 there were only 200 freestanding coffeehouses in the U.S. That's hard to believe isn't it? There are now more than 14,000 and Starbucks owns 30% of them!

Once we open Ebenezers we'll own .007% of them :)

We continue to pull together our game plan for the Buzz Conference next May 4-5, 2006 in Washington, DC.

One of our goals for Buzz was to get speakers who don't just talk buzz. They live, eat, and breathe buzz.

Not even sure how this happened, but Ed Young will be one of our speakers at the Buzz Conference next May. He pastors Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas. Not only is Fellowship reaching more than 20,000 people each weekend, they are one of the most innovative and creative churches in the country.

I'm totally buzzed about Ed Young speaking at Buzz. By the way, we're not raising the cost of the conference :) But the value just went way up :)

Here are some of the links I'm adding this week:

Just came across Jonathan Herron and Tadd Grandstaff's blog last week. Check them out.

I keep bumping into Brad Leach in the blogosphere. Brad is pretty new to the blogosphere, but his blog has got it going on.

And I love Gary Lamb's blog.

Blog on!

Here's an evotional link. Let me know if you want to trade links.



<a href="http://www.evotional.com"><img border="0" alt="Evotional.com" title="Evotional.com" src="http://www.blog.theaterchurch.com/evotionallinksmall.bmp"/><a>

Yes. I'm blogging about our Sunday services before our services are over. That's because I'm not there :) Summer woke up sick last night. That's when it really stinks to have a mom who leads worship and a dad who preaches. But I didn't preach today :) So we hit the 9:30 service and came home. I just finished making her some chicken noodle soup :)

We continued the God @ the Billboards series with We Believe by Good Charlotte. Rock 'n Roll. I love this series more with every song we do. These lyrics resonate with so many people. It's like these songs are singing out to God and don't even know it! The band was amazing today. And Pastor Joel had Erin Nedland share part of her story during the message. Powerful stuff. I was so encouraged and challenged today!

Nothing is more gratifying to me than when I'm not playing an active role in our services and we don't skip a beat. Or in the words of Gloria Estefan--the beat goes on :)

Two footnotes.

We almost sold out of Narnia tickets after our first service! Wow. We're doing a sneak preview on December 8 @ 6:45. Then we're following it up with a two-part series on Narnia December 11 & 18. I underestimated the level of interest.

We had a snorer today :) We have a lot of homeless folks who are part of NCC. We love ministering to them. But one of them fell asleep and sawed logs like a lumber jack today! We had to give him a little wake up call :) I love the diversity of people who attend NCC. Never a dull moment :)

I'm beginning a new feature on evotional.com. I want to begin blogging on buzz. We'll host our first Buzz Conference next May 4-5, 2006. These buzz blogs are pre-game warm-ups. I'm totally buzzed about buzz. I can't wait :)




A Word of Mouth Revolution

It's the mid 1980's and I ask you this question: what would it take to bring the Berlin Wall down? I think most of us would have thought in political or military or financial terms. It might take decades of negotiation, a world war, or billions of dollars.

All it took was buzz.

Before the wall came down, the CIA, Pentagon, and State Department thought it would take decades to break up the Soviet Bloc. Experts on Eastern Europe could have never predicted what was about to happen.

In September of 1989, a small group of dissidents in Leipzig, East Germany held a protest rally and the local police didn't shut it down. It created a buzz genesis--the beginning of a word of mouth revolution. The next day in the next town over, another group of dissidents held a protest of their own. For some strange reason, the police didn't do anything about it once again. It created buzz momentum. The next day there was another protest in the next town over. The protests got bigger and bigger. The police got more and more passive until a million people gathered in the streets of East Berlin in October of 1989 and tore down the wall.

How did the wall come down? Buzz. A buzz began a month before in a small group of dissidents who decided to take a risk and raise their voice. In less than a month, the buzz built until the buzz brought the wall down.

It was a word of mouth revolution.

No money. No weapons. No power.

Just buzz.

2,000 years ago, Jesus started a word of mouth revolution! All the disciples had was literally the Word. But the Word never returns void. It created a supernatural buzz that changed the world.

I think we make way too many excuses as to why we're not reaching more people for Christ. A little supernatural buzz can bring down spiritual walls you never imagined possible! All it takes is some Spirit-inspired creativity.

Get Buzzed.

I'm coaching Parker's basketball team this year and we had our first practice today. I have one primary goal for the kids: fun.

I want them to learn some fundamentals and win some games and build some confidence. But my top priority is helping these kids fall in love with the game.

I think everything comes back to motivation--why we do what we do. You can try to coach from the outside-in. But you can't teach the drive to win or court instrinct or love of the game. I want these kids to play the game from the inside-out.

I remember going through stages when I played in high school and college where it wasn't a game anymore. I lost the joy. It wasn't fun. I was playing outside-in. I usually needed to step back and realize that it was a game first and foremost.

For what it's worth, I try to approach pastoring the way I approach coaching. I think it comes back to inside-out discipleship. Religion is outside-in. The pharisees had 613 laws designed to exert "behavior modification." Love is inside-out. It's motivation modification. It's doing the right things for the right reasons.

I got a note and newspaper from Dean Jackson today. Dean pastors Rock Canyon Church in Provo, Utah. Dean brought an entire team out to do reconaissance at NCC two years ago. They ended up selling their church building and moving into a movie theater.
The Salt Lake Tribune just did an article on them:

Far from the confines of their now empty chapel in northeast Provo, amid stadium seating, dim lights and popcorn popping out in the lobby, they have found religion at the Provo Towne Center Mall. Welcome to Provo's "Movie Church" modeled after the "Theater Church" the National Community Church in Washington, DC.

Here's the coolest part to me. Dean said, "We've had more visitors in the last six months than we had the previous six years combined."

This is so simple, but here is something I say to church planters all the time when they are trying to figure out where to meet. Meet someplace people feel comfortable going. Movie theaters fit the bill perfectly! It's a place people like to go. And that positive feeling translates to church!

By the way, we're having a forum for churches meeting in movie theaters on May 4, 2006. It's the first forum of it's kind. If your church meets in a theater or you're thinking about launching another location in a theater, plan on attending the forum. And bring your best ideas. I can't wait to see what kind of creative ideas come out of a bunch of theater churches meeting together for half a day. It's an open-source forum so we want everybody to be a contributor. But we'll take part of the forum to share some of the ideas and resources we've developed over the past several years.

There are about 125 theater churches meeting across the country. One of my personal dreams is seeing 1,000 theater churches!

For more info, visit www.buzzconference.com.

Just thought I'd process a few retreat thoughts.

It'd be so much easier to stop growing and stay the same :) Growth = Complication. But it's a good complication. The reward in the parable of the talents wasn't an early retirement or extended vacation. The reward for good work was more work :) The faithful servant had more to manage.

The coffeehouse complicates our lives. Adding new locations complicates our lives. Adding new staff and new retreats and new outreaches and new leaders complicates our lives.

So thank God for complications :)

I definitely felt a little overwhelmed on our retreat. But Nina Schmidgall, our children's coordinator, helped me get a handle on it. She likened it to the first day of school when you get all of your class syllabi :) You feel the cumulative pressure of everything you have to do :) That analogy really helped me process the way I'm feeling. It's normal to feel overwhelmed when you thinking about everything you want to happen in the next year. When you add up the decisions to be made and things to be done it equals overwhelmed! It reminds me of the passage in I Corinthians where Paul asks the question: "Who is equal to such a task?" I know I'm nothing without God's anointing. And I'm grateful for an incredibly talented and committed team.

As the Lead Pastor of National Community Church, I feel the cumulative responsibility for everyone and everything that happens at NCC. Sometimes it feels like an awfully big load. I honestly wouldn't want it any other way :) But I think I'm a little low on margin and high on dreams right now :)

Having said that, I'm totally excited about next year. John 1:50 is one of my theme verses. Jesus said, "You will see greater things than this." Jesus was talking to Nathanael, but I think that is true for every follower of Christ.

The best is yet to come.
We haven't see anything yet.
God has bigger and better things in store for us!

A little overwhelmed, but looking forward to 2006 :)

In case you haven't noticed, I vlog with castpost. I was watching some of their featured videos. Here's my Friday Feature. I'm not sure what it is about amateur dance videos but I like them. This one is worth the watch.

Enjoy :)

One of our retreat traditions is hitting the ESPN Zone during our staff retreat. We usually need a little play time to decompress after a long day of planning! This is my favorite game--the football toss. It's addictive!

This is my favorite bookstore in the world--the Barnes and Noble in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. It's the retrofitted power plant. It's a huge two level bookstore that is too cool. And it's a great place to think! Where your butt is sitting effects the way your brain is thinking! My brain thinks better at this Barnes and Noble! I could literally hang out there for a week. The pictures don't really do it justice. It's worth a trip to Baltimore.

Every year our team heads up to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore for a staff planning retreat. We analyze survey data, dream about the future, and walk away with a strategy for the next year.

I'm going to take a short blog hiatus :) I'd covet your prayers for our team!

Every year we do two series that play off of popular culture: God @ the Box Office and God @ the Billboards. We do those series because the 60% of Americans who don't go to church get their theology from movies and music. Whether we like it or not, musicians and movie makers are theologians that shape the soul and psyche of America. We try do juxtapose Scripture with the lyrics of popular songs. We kicked off the series with Fix You by Coldplay.

Instead of a written evotional this week, here's a short video version. It's a five minute mini-message shot "offsite."

I've just added a few more links to my blog:

Our pastor of media, Dave Clark, just launched The Digital Reformation.
And my assistant, Tim Elzea, has caught the blogging bug :)

I'm going to continue adding blog links in the coming weeks. Let me know if you want to link or if you know of a great link.

If you'd like to link to evotional.com here's an icon:



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Seth Godin makes a fascinating distinction in The Big Moo between market share and market creation.

Too many churches are only going after market share. In other words, they're only reaching those who would already consider themselves Christian. I think we're called to create markets. Isn't that what Paul did? He opened up new markets to the gospel. The way you create a market is by going after the unchurched and dechurched.

If we were going to be brutally honest, most churches do church for the churched. But when you do church for the churched all you get is market share. You don't create any new markets for the gospel.

So how do you create markets?

I think there are a thousand ways to do it, but here are a few thoughts:

1) Meet felt needs like Jesus
2) Show the love of Christ in practical ways
3) Answer the questions people are really asking
4) Meet in the marketplace
5) Get creative with your marketing
6) Say old things in new ways
7) Brand your sermon series in a way that appeals to the unchurched

Part of the reason this "market share vs. creating markets" analogy is meaningful to me is that GodiPod.com is creating a market. We're the first company of its kind preloading iPods with Bibles, sermons, and worship. It's difficult creating a market because you have to explain your product. People need to get the concept before they buy the product. For example, most people don't even know what "ripping" is. In fact, it almost sounds illegal :) It's not! We'll rip an entire CD collection and turn it into MP3 format and load it onto an iPod. We have to explain the concept before we sell the concept.

The church is in a similar place. We live in a post-Christian culture. Most people don't know christianese. We're offering a "foreign product" people don't think they want or need. We've got to explain the concept before they want the product. There is nothing easy about opening new markets. But that's our callling.

Let's not go after market share. Let's create new markets for the gospel.

Dave Ferguson, Lead Pastor of Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois is writing a book for Zondervan titled What's the Big Idea? It's a book about the way they plan and design their worship gatherings. He asked me to write a short "case study" for the book. Here are some of my initial thoughts.

By the way, Dave is one of the nicest guys I know. I love CCC! And they were a huge help as we launched our second location two years ago! We are indebted to them! I also love their mission: helping people find their way back to God.

Big Idea

Two years ago, our team visited Community Christian Church in Naperville, Illinois. We sat in on their Big Idea meeting and walked away with a new paradigm to help us harness our creative energies. We've always been hyper-creative. We have more creative ideas than we know what to do with. But we didn't have a system that allowed us the lead-time necessary to really brand sermon series and supplement them with creative elements.

Since our visit to Community Christian we've implemented a weekly "Big Idea" meeting where we brainstorm upcoming sermon series and put together weekly run sheets. We meet together every Tuesday morning at 10 AM and typically meet for about ninety minutes. We have a "last minute" culture at NCC. But we've tried to counterbalance that by planning weekends about 4-6 weeks out. In fact, we put together an annual preaching strategy each year so we have a "rough idea" of where we're headed each calendar year. Then we make mid-course corrections as necessary.

Every weekend we revolve our services around one big idea. We try to come up with something catchy, something memorable. Our worship and videos and messages all try to come at the big idea from a different angle. We want to hammer the big idea home!

This approach to services really complemented my philosophy of preaching. I've never been a three-point preacher. I've always tried to make one point and reinforce it. The best messages have one organizing metaphor! Too many sermons fail because they try to do too much. The Big Idea concept has forced us to do less. And in doing less we accomplish more! The parables are Exhibit A! Jesus was the master of saying so much by saying so little!
Big Idea meetings have become part of our weekly rhythm. And they help us maintain momentum. We're more conscientious about why we're doing what we're doing and how we're doing what we're doing. Planning the spiritual diet of the church is a huge responsibility. Big Idea meetings are one way of taking that responsibility seriously.

The Big Idea meetings also allow for creative synergy. It's amazing how often we come up with a third option that is really a new combination of ideas contributed by team members.
In the Big Idea meetings, one plus one usually equals three!

The Big Idea meetings not only help us brand sermon series. They help us turn attenders into inviters. NCC is 75% unchurched and dechurched because we've got a buzz culture. NCCers are using word of mouth and word of mouse to tell their friends about the church. We try to empower our attenders by giving them invite cards and send out evites. We try to package our series in ways that are appealing because we believe the greatest message deserves the greatest marketing.

At the end of the day, the goal of Big Idea is to help people find their way back to God. All of the brainstorming and planning and designed to help people take one small step, one giant leap towards God.

Our local CBS affiliate, WUSA 9, sent a crew to film our services @ Union Station yesterday. Then one of their anchors, Derek McGinty, came by to do an interview this morning. They also got some footage of us uploading our podcast.

I'll try to post a vlog when the story airs.

Nicole Kidman was @ NCC yesterday. Sort of. Alright, she didn't make it into the theater where we have church. But she was in Union Station. Every once in a while there is a movie shoot @ Union Station. And they always do it on Sunday mornings. I have no idea what movie they were filming, but they set up in the main hall of the Station. Maybe I'll show up as an extra :)

Lora got me tickets to the Redskins vs. Eagles game last night. Section 103. Row 12. What a blast. The funny thing is that we stood 80% of the time because the people in front of us were standing 80% of the time! It was a playoff atmosphere! I lost my voice :)

Got a Napoleon Dynamite keychain from Steph Modder for my birthday. I'm lucky as a liger! It comes with six recorded sayings! Now all I need is some moon boots. I have a feeling I'm going to be driving people crazy for a few weeks :)

What an amazing trip around the sun this past year. Thought I'd pause and share a few birthday reflections.

How do I describe this past year?

Galatians 5:25 says, "Let us keep in step with the Spirit." I feel like the Holy Spirit is taking full-length, full-speed strides right now and I feel like a little kid hanging on for dear life. What a wild ride this year!

I've experienced a dream convergence this past year. It just seems like so many dreams have aligned and become reality before my eyes. And it's causing me to dream bigger dreams :)

Our coffeehouse on Capitol Hill is about a month from completion! I self-published my first book this year and got a multi-book deal from Multnomah to write four more! I'v