Evotional.com - Originality, Authenticity, Creativity

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Theater Church Forum

I'm totally fired up about our theater church forum. Looks like we'll have fifty pastors from theater churches at the forum. That represents approximately one-fifth of theater churches from across the country. Pretty cool to get so many theater churches in the same place at the same time!

I'm going to share ten lessons we've learned about doing church in a theater.

We've got a panel of theater church pastors including Dean Jackson from Rock Canyon Church; Trinity Jordan from Elevation Church; and Gary Lamb from Ridge Stone Church.

We've been asking churches to bring show-n-tell :) We want to resource each other with best practices. It may be an invite card or marketing piece or creative element.

Warren Bird from the Leadership Network will share the initial findings from the first-ever nationwide theater church study.

And we'll top things off with a short tour of the theater and Q & A with some of our team.

Weekend Reflections

We continued our God @ the Box Office series this weekend. Heather Zempel, our Pastor of Discipleship, talked about Revenge of the Sith. Rock-n-Roll message!

Our Saturday Night service was a technological meltdown. Props to the production team for hanging in there and making the service happen. Some of our computer files got corrupted so we sang without words on the screen. We barely pulled off our movie clips. And our high-def camera wasn't working until the very last second. Pretty chaotic!

Because I wasn't preaching I got to bounce between services. It was cool to peek in on our kid's ministries too! I even ate donuts today. I never eat donuts when I'm preaching!

One of the highlights was meeting a guy who came to see a movie at the theater and discovered the church. He went to the 9:30 service and enjoyed it so much he stuck around for the 11:00 too!

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Blog Breakfast @ Buzz

We're going to do a blog breakfast at Ebenezers next Friday, May 5, at 8 AM. Scott Hodge came up with the idea. I think we ought to call it Blogger Anonymous.

"Hi, my name is Mark. And I'm a blogger."

Look forward to meeting in person some of the people I bump into in the blogosphere. It's bring your own breakfast. And I don't think we'll have an agenda. Just an opportunity to make sure we'll all real people with flesh and blood :)

Blog On.

Momentum

What a soccer game this morning. Parker and Summer play on the Purple Panthers and our team was behind 2-0 at halftime. It seemed so hopeless. There was no energy. There was no momentum. There was no flow.

We went on to win the game 7-2. Seven unanswered goals baby! That's what I'm talking about. Talk about a momentum shift.

P = M x V

I asked Parker if he thought they were going to win the game. He very calmly and confidently said, "I never think we're going to lose."

Atta boy :)

Friday, April 28, 2006

Creative Incarnation

Deep breath.

It feels good to be back home. I love driving across the 14th street bridge and through the tunnel back onto Capitol Hill.

I thoroughly enjoyed speaking at the Transforming Culture Conference. It was definitely my sweet spot. C.S. Lewis said, "Every life consists of a few themes." Reaching emerging generations, right-brain preaching, and transforming culture are definitely a few of my themes. I'm so passionate about those topics that I could talk about them all day long. But no one would listen all day long so I was limited to 90 minutes :)

I talked about creative incarnation today. I talked quite a bit about the way we're wired neurologically and the implications for pastors. Creative incarnation is all about redeeming cultural metaphors and using them as trojan horses to communicate the gospel. No one did it better than Jesus!

Why did Jesus use agricultural metaphors to talk about the Kingdom of God? Because he lived in an agrarian society. He translated truth into the cognitive categories that his hearers would understand. That is one of our most important and most challenging tasks as preachers.

Incarnation is hard work. But it is non-negotiable is we're serious about communicating like Christ.

Irrelevance is irreverence.

Transforming Culture Conference

Just got back from the Transforming Culture Conference. Absolutely blew me away. It wasn't a large conference. And it didn't have the "bells and whistles" I've seen at some conferences. But I think it had some of the best communicators I've ever heard.

I tag-teamed with Dr. Mark Chironna this morning. Unbelievable! Holy Cow. I've rarely encountered such an amazing combination of the motivational and prophetic, intellectual and spiritual.

It was so good that I wanted to "yield my time" to him :)

He talked about identifying syncronicities as a key leadership capacity. That comes close to one of my definitions of spiritual maturity. One dimension of spiritual maturity is seeing and seizing God-ordained opportunities.

Dr. Chironna said we either repeat the past or create the future. That is the difference between ministry out of memory and ministry out of imagination.

He talked about the importance of language. He said, "Whoever controls language controls culture and consciousness." One of my driving motivationing is saying old things in new ways. I think we underestimate the importance of semantics. Little nuances communicate very different things. For example, anti-abortion versus pro-life. One frames it in negative terms. The other frames it in positive terms. And they aren't the same.

One of the concepts that really impressed me is the importance of disorientation. Significant changes are often precipitated by disorientation. We typically have an "orienation" at the beginning of a new school year or new job. Maybe we ought to have a "disorientation." Our greatest challenge isn't learning new things. It is unlearning old things. And that typically requires disorientation. Have you ever noticed how disoriented the disciples were much of the time?

I feel like I'm still digesting what he said :)

T-Minus 7 Days

I can't believe we're t-minus seven days till Buzz.

It is like a bee hive around NCC. Serious props to our Buzz Coordinator, Juliet Main. With a little supernatural intervention I think we're going to pull this thing off.

I think everybody will be challenged and encouraged by the conference, but I'm really praying that it is a defining moment for some of the attendees.

Getting buzzed.

Right-Brain Preaching

I just finished an article for Relevant Leader on Right-Brain Preaching. Here is a short excerpt from the article:

C.S. Lewis is the patron saint of whole-brain preachers.

Can you think of anyone in the last century who was more left-brain logical? His theological tombs, from Mere Christianity to The Problem of Pain, are as logical as logic can be. But Lewis combined left-brain logic with right-brain creativity. The Chronicles of Narnia set the right-brain bar!

Lewis once referred to himself as the most reluctant convert in all of Christendom. The night before his conversion, Lewis had a long conversation with J.R.R. Tolkien, the novelist who wrote the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien tried to convince Lewis of the credibility of Christ, but Lewis was full of objections. At one point, Tolkien countered Lewis' objections by saying: Your inability to understand stems from a failure of imagination on your part!

Maybe lack of faith is really a failure of imagination?

In his book, The Celtic Way, Ian Bradley writes about the celebration of the imagination in the Celtic tradition.

Celtic Christianity may offer us a lifeline in the form of an approach to faith which is rooted in imagination. Too many Christians today, brought up on the penny plain prose favoured by Rome and even more by the Reformers, have half-formed imaginations.

God wants to sanctify our imaginations and use them for his purposes! Too many of us do ministry out of memory. God calls us to do ministry out of imagination. We don't have to do church the way it has always been done. There are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Transforming Culture Conference

I hit the road at 5 AM on Thursday to speak at the Transforming Culture Conference in Virginia Beach, VA. Call me crazy :) We're t-minus seven days till Buzz so it's not the ideal timeframe, but I love every opportunity I have to interface with pastors.

The conference organizer, Bobby Hill, was one of my professors in my Doctor of Ministry program a few years ago. In fact, he was one of the pioneers in the multi-site movement. Our conversations were instrumental during the early years of NCC. I'm looking forward to reconnecting with him.

Peace Out.

Catalyst Podcast, Erwin McManus & Interpretive Dance

I just listened to the Catalyst Podcast with Erwin McManus.

Let's just say you never know who is going to show up on any given Sunday. He gave some unexpected props to NCC. I guess his wife and daughter visited NCC in March. I had no idea.

For what it's worth, our team went to the Origins conference a few years ago and did reconaissance at Mosaic. Their gatherings are very interactive and they had three interpretive dances that morning. They asked for a volunteer and our team turned on me.

Long story short, I did an interpretive dance of chaos up on the stage in front of the entire church. For what it's worth, it's a good thing I got "chaos" because that is about the only thing my dancing can interpret. I actually have a video clip one of our mutinous team members captured on their video phone. I would show it to you but then I'd have to shoot you :)

Right at the end of the video Erwin laughs. With me, of course. Not at me.

It ranks as one of my most embarrassing moments.

With the props on the catalyst podcast I guess we'll call it even :)

FYI.

I read everything Erwin McManus writes. I just ordered Stand Against the Wind. Few writers or speakers inspire me the way Erwin does. His wavelength resonates with me! I often workout to his podcast. And they've just launched a video podcast.

Definitely worth subscribing to!

Conferences

Anybody else seen the Catalyst Conference box?

Serious props!

They are ridiculously good at what they do. I'm a huge Catalyst fan. In fact, we take our entire staff to Catalyst every year. It is our "spiritual renewal" retreat. It's like getting an IV that pumps leadership right into your veins.

For what it's worth, I'm taking our team to several other conferences in 2006.

We did C3 in January. I'm speaking at MinistryCom in September. I've wanted to hit the Innovative Church Conference at Granger for years and this is the year. And I'll take some of our team to Drive at Northpoint in November.

We'll also doing a staff play and pray retreat in July. And we'll do our annual planning retreat in early December.

We have a development strategy going into every year. I never want us to become a closed system at NCC so I'm extremely intentional about doing reconaissance at a variety of conferences and churches throughout the year.

Nationals

An NCCer gave us tickets to the Nationals vs. Reds game today. It was my day off and the kid's had a half-day so the timing was perfect.

Josiah had a hard time grasping that the Nationals were the "red" team and the "Reds" were wearing the black uniforms.

Is there anything better that eating salted peanuts in the shell and topping it off with cotton candy?

Union Station

An evotional reader sent me this old picture of Union station. I'm a Union Station buff so I love stuff like this! The main hall used to have benches where travelers would hang out. I'm digging this picture. Nostalgic.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Show-n-Tell

We're gearing up for our theater church forum on the front end of the Buzz Conference. We really want it to be an open-source event so we want churches to bring something for show-n-tell. Pretend it's Kindergarten :)

We've already gotten some cool direct mail pieces and invite cards. You can contact Juliet@theaterchurch.com for more info. You can ship show-n-tell materials or bring them with you. But let us know either way.

Share the goods! It's good stewardship.

Tourist Tips

I thought I'd share a few tourist tips for those of you coming to DC for the Buzz Conference.

I highly recommend a monument tour at night. There are fewer people and the Lincoln Memorial is incredible after sunset. The Vietnam Memorial is right next to it. You definitely need to see the Washington Monument and White House. And the Capitol and Supreme Court are only four blocks from Union Station. Both of them are "must see" places if you've never been to them. I love Ford's Theater. And the changing of the guard and eternal flame at Arlington National Cemetery are amazing.

Just thought I'd throw out a few ideas.

Free Cone Day

It's a national holiday today. If you've got a Ben & Jerry's near you it's free cone day. I'd hate for anyone to miss this once-a-year opportunity!

Here's a post I did on Ben & Jerry's in July 2005. Worth reading before you go get your free cone. I love their story. Two guys pursue their passion: ice cream :)

Monday, April 24, 2006

Ethiopia Team

Our Ethiopia Team just took off.

They are spending the next week with Zeb Mengistu and the church we're helping to plant in the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa.

We're experimenting with a missions blog. It's digital missions. We're not 100% sure the team can get Internet access consistently. But if they get access they'll blog at www.ethiopia06.com.

By the way, can you imagine if David Livingston or Hudson Taylor had blogs? That would have rocked. I guess we have to settle for biographies.

Joggers Paradise

I'm not a "runner" per say. But I love jogging on the National Mall when the weather is nice. And it was nice today--seventies and sunny--so I couldn't resist. Plus all that driving on our trip left me feeling somewhat lethargic.

If you're coming to the Buzz Conference I'd highly recommend a sunrise jog on the National Mall. Pretty cool to see the sun come up behind the Capitol.

Great way to start the day!

FYI. Sunrise on May 4 is 6:07 AM. If you wait till Friday, May 5, you'll have to get up earlier. Sunrise is 6:06 AM :)

Buzz Update

We're T-minus 10 days and the buzz registrations keep rolling in. We passed the 250 mark last week. I think we'll hit 300 attendees for our inaugural Buzz conference which is max capacity.

I'm absolutely thrilled about it. To be perfectly honest, the Buzz Conference was a huge leap of faith for us. I don't think you ever feel "qualified" to host this kind of event. We've got so much learning and growing to do ourselves. But we really felt called to do it. That's the only reason we added Buzz to our already crazy lives!

I would have been happy with 125 attendees at our coffeehouse for our first conference. That was our goal. But Buzz is definitely exceeding all expectations in terms of attendance. Now I hope it exceeds all expectations in terms of content.

I spent some rooftop time "praying through" the conference. A lot of people are investing a lot of time and money to come to Buzz. We're trying to be good stewards of that responsibility.

I feel a mixture of emotions--a combination of nervousness and excitement. It's excitement about Ed Young and Brad Abare's sessions. Nervousness about mine :)

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Ebenezers Sleeves

I've just got to say it.

I love seeing people walk by me holding an Ebenezers cup. I rarely walk from my house to the office without seeing someone sipping a drink from Ebs. I want to stop them and say, "Isn't that place amazing?" But they might get suspicious!

Actually, they probably already are suspicious since I'm squinting my eyes and staring at their cup to see if it had one of our sleeves on it.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Spring Break

Just got back from the longest road trip in Batterson family history. We spent 29 hours and 54 minutes in the van together.

Exactly 58 minutes and 58 seconds into the trip Josiah said, "It's taking too long."

A couple highlights.

We toured the Biltmore Mansion in Asheville, NC. It was the largest private residence in the US when it was built in the 1890's. And it sat on 125,000 acres. The back yard stretched for more than 19 miles. The house itself had 250 rooms including a bowling alley and indoor swimming pool.

Can you imagine a game of hide-and-seek at Biltmore? It could last for years!

By the way, I did what I always do at places like this. I hid a coin in a spot that is very difficult to reach so that I can see if it's there if I ever come back. I hid a penny in my old Junior High. It stayed there untouched for more than a decade. I did the same thing with our vacation cabin in Alexandria, MN. The coin was there every year--evidence of how poorly they cleaned the cabins! And now there is a penny at the Biltmore Mansion. It's one of my idiosyncracies.

We drove through the Smokey Mountains on our way to Nashville. When we got to the top we were literally driving through clouds. It was a-mazing. Josiah asked, "Is this the top of the world?" It sure felt like it.

In case you ever make the trip, there are 13 Cracker Barrels between Gatlinburg and Nashville. Tennessee truly is the Promised Land :)

I don't know who invented the portable DVD player, but let me take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks.

All-in-all, a great trip with lots of family memories!

Right-Brain Preaching

I'm a homebody. I love preaching @ NCC more than anyplace else. But I've got to admit that speaking to pastors is pure joy for me. I'm so passionate about preaching and pastoring that I really enjoy every opportunity I have to interface with pastors.

I spent three hours with some church planters down in Nashville, TN on Friday.

Then I tag-teamed with Dr. Mark Rutland, President of Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida on Saturday. For what it's worth, Southeastern is the fastest growing Christian University in the country. When you hear Dr. Rutland speak you know why. What an amazing leader and communicator!

For what it's worth, my session was on right-brain preaching. It was a great tune-up for one of my Buzz sessions.

I think too many preachers preach with half their brain tied behind their back!

Try writing your name with your weak hand? The writing is illegible isn't it? Why? Because you're using the wrong side.

Our sermons are illegible to many listeners because we're using the wrong side of our brains crafting sermons. Too many sermons are left-brain logical but not right-brain creative. I think our messages need to be both/and. We've got to do our left-brain exegesis. But creatively packaging a sermon is the function of the right-brain.

C.S. Lewis once referred to himself as "the most reluctant convert in all of Christendom." The night before his conversion, Lewis had a long conversation with J.R.R. Tolkein, author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkein was a Christ follower and he tried to convince Lewis of the credibility of Christ. But Lewis was full of objections. At one point, Tolkein said, "Your inability to understand stems from a failure of imagination on your part!"

One of the greatest threats to the future of the church is a failure of our right-brain imaginations.

I think C.S. Lewis modeled whole-brained Christianity. His theological writings are as logical as logic can be. And the Narnia series is as creative as creative can be.

I've said it a thousand times, but there are two ways of doing ministry: ministry out of memory and ministry out of imagination. Ministry out of memory is doing it the way its always been done. Ministry out of imagination is incarnating the gospel in new ways.

We need some more preachers with sanctified imaginations.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Blog Vacation

I'm headed down to Tennessee for a little family vacation and a speaking engagement in Nashville. I'm checking out of the blogosphere for a few days :)

Really excited about our trip! It's the calm before the buzz!

FYI. I'm disabling comments so I don't have to moderate them while I'm gone.

Peace Out.

Thou Shalt Crack the Whip

The blog concludes The Buzz Commandments.

Here is Buzz Commandment X:

Thou Shalt Crack the Whip [1]

What comes to mind when you think of Jesus? I think for some people it's the picture of a lamb draped around his shoulders. Others have flannel graph flashbacks from Sunday School.

I have to admit, the picture in John 2:15 didn't always fit my caricature of Jesus. There is fire in his eyes. There is an intensity in his face. I like to refer to this episode as the temple tantrum. Jesus turns over tables and drives out the money changers. But here is what I love most about this passage. "Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the temple."

Jump back Indiana Jones!

Jesus is the lamb of God. But He is also the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. And the lion roars in John 2.

Maybe our images of Christ are too tame? Maybe our caricatures are too civilized? It makes me think of the line in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. "Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe. But He's good."

I love what Dorothy Sayers said: "To do them justice, the people who crucified Jesus did not do so because he was a bore. Quite the contrary; he was too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have declawed the lion of Judah and made him a housecat for pale priests and pious old ladies."

I'm not sure exactly how to communicate this, so let me say it this way: I think Jesus was competitive. I don't know if he played pee-wee football or t-ball, but I think he was the quintessential competitor.

I see that competitive streak in this story. He is competing for the Temple. The moneychangers have degraded the sacredness of the Temple. Jesus makes a whip so he can condense the nonsense.

I think everything boils down to sanctification and stewardship. But our perspective of those things is far too parochial. For example, I think God wants to sanctify our competitive streaks. He doesn't want to crucify them. He wants to intensify them and redirect them. I honestly believe that we'll be accountable to God some day for how hard we competed for the kingdom!

Did we love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength? Here is my translation of strength: blood, sweat, and tears.

Are we willing to pay the price? The last time I checked, the reward in the parable of the talents wasn't an early retirement or extended vacation. The reward for good work was more work!

Creativity takes so much more effort than predictability. It is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Excellence is hard work. Sermons are hard word. Scripting, shooting, and editing videos are hard work.

Are we willing to pay the price?

I was shooting baskets yesterday at the gym and I started thinking. I used to play basketball two hours a day everyday for the better part of ten years of my life. Why? I wanted to be the best basketball player I could be! Part of what drove me was that competitive streak.

So I felt a little convicted yesterday. I had this thought: am I competing for the kingdom with the same level of intensity as when I played basketball competitively? On my good days the answer is yes! But many days it's no!

I love Matthew 11:12. Something about it riles me up inside! "From the time of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it."

This is not for the faint of heart. But God has not given us a spirit of timidity!

It takes tremendous courage. It takes initiative. It takes determination. It takes tenacity. Maybe those are the adjectives that ought to describe Christ Followers.

Lord, forgive us for competing with each other. Help us to realize that we play different roles on the same team! Help us compete for your kingdom like souls are at stake. Because they are! Help us forcefully advance your kingdom.

[1] John 2:13-17

Avoiding the Irreversible

I talked on Sunday about reversing the irreversible.

I said that I've learned from personal experience that you can undelete documents, unbake cookies, uncut hair, and unrun red lights with surveilance cameras :)

So an NCCer sent me a link today to all the photo enforcement locations in DC :) Now I know where to obey the law :)

Here's a link if you're a Washingtonian or driving in for the Buzz Conference :)

Here to serve!

Monday, April 17, 2006

The Taj Mahal of Coffee Shops

Joel Schmidgall, our Pastor of Outreach, was on a community forum posting info about our upcoming Extreme Home Makeover for a single mom on Mother's Day and he found this editor's comment about Ebenezers. I couldn't resist posting it.

The new Ebenezer's Coffee Shop created by this group is the "taj mahal" of coffee shops. The basement has been outfitted to be used as theater space. It sets a new standard--difficult for those of us that are for-profits to reach. I have been negative about believing that commercial places outside of Station Place could attract Station Place patrons, but I think the quality of the "offer" at Ebenezer's will prove me wrong. I haven't taken photographs yet, but "wow" is the exclamation in order.

All I can say is this: Excellence honors God.

One of our core values is: do big and do it right. If you're going to do something halfway it's not worth doing. FYI. That core value derives from Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation. But that is also one application of Colossians 3:23 isn't it? "Whatever you do, work at it with all of your heart, as working for the Lord not for men."

Last Call

This is the last call for the Buzz Film Festival.

Please mail your submissions so we get them by Friday, April 21. That gives you till Wednesday if you use priority mail.

The Buzz Film Festival is a great opportunity to shareware some of your creativity. These videos don't have to have a Dreamworks budget. Some of the best videos we've received are not just low budget videos. They are no budget videos :)

The Film Festival is less of a competition and more about sharing our creativity with others. It is all about being open-source. I'd estimate that half of our video ideas originated with something someone else had done! I'm hoping the Buzz Film Festival fuels our creativity.

Here's our Buzz Guarantee: everybody will walk away with at least one great video idea.

You call mail your submissions to:

National Community Church
Juliet Main, Buzz Coordinator
205 F Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002

Here's a link with all of the 411.

Why We Go To Movies

I just got an e-letter from Brewing Culture. It's a DC-based non-profit led by Erik Lokkesmoe. Brewing Culture (BC) is a faith-based non-profit dedicated to creating, commissioning, and celebrating transcendent art and media.

I really resonate with BC because I think the church ought to be creating culture not just criticizing it. Michelangelo said, "Criticize by creating."

The church ought to be the most creative place on the planet.

The BC e-letter has a post that resonated with me on why we go to movies:

We go to the movies to enter a new, fascinating world, to inhabit vicariously another human being who at first seems so unlike us and yet at heart is like us, to live in a fictional reality that illuminates our daily reality. We do not wish to escape life but to find life, to use our minds in fresh, experimental ways, to flex our emotions, to enjoy, to learn, to add depth to our days.

Screenwriter Robert McKee

I think that short films will become a preaching genre in the years to come. We need to redeem that medium and use it to communicate transcendent truth!

Part of the reason I'm so passionate about film is that I put my faith in Christ after watching a movie called The Hiding Place. God used that medium to help me understand the message. And it changed the trajectory of my life.

Here's a link to Brewing Culture.

Evotional

We just finished our Neos series and I sent out the evotional.

Every week I turn my message into a written version that gets emailed to a few thousand subscribers. In fact, we have an evotional archive @ www.theaterchurch.com with every message I've preached over the past four years.

If you'd like a free subscription you'll find a sign-up on www.theaterchurch.com.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Weekend Reflections

What a weekend.

Our Good Friday service was a-mazing. The Easter Eggstravaganza was off the hook in the words of our Digital Pastor, David Russell. Looks like 1600+ showed up for the event. We blessed alot of kids and families.

I wasn't sure what to expect on Easter Eve. I thought our attendance would be down on Saturday Night because of the Eggstravaganza and the fact that Easter is a traditional Sunday holiday. And it was. But man am I'm digging the Saturday Night. I love the intimate environment.

Our 9:30 @ Union Station was standing room only today. After the service I made the run over to our 10:30 @ Ballston. I felt great about our services, but I feel terrible about the technological glitch in the 10:30 @ Union Station. In fact, it put me in a funk :) I'm out of it now, but we've got to work on our back-up systems. This transition to high-def has not been without it's challenges. My apologies to everyone in the 10:30!!!

For what it's worth, I wore a suit today. I figured I'd pull it out and dust it off like the good old days :) I had to introduce myself so that people would recognize me.

Back to jeans next week :)

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Popcorn Batterson

We have a new member of the Batterson family. Not sure how this happened, but we adopted a bunny rabbit from the petting zoo.

We took name nominations. I really thought Parker's was ingenious. He wanted to name her Dust Bunny. But Josiah's nomination carried the day. He came up with Popcorn.

My nomination was Dingo. I just like saying that word with an australian accent. My other nomination is her middle name.

Introducing Popcorn Eggstravaganza Batterson

Egg Hunt

Once again I was blown away by our Easter Eggstravaganza.

One person who doesn't attend NCC came up to me and said they skipped a trip to the beach so they could come to the Eggstravaganza. I love it. The games are so much fun. There is free cotton candy and popcorn and Chick-fila. We had an Ebenezers booth this year which was cool. And the egg hunt is pure joy. The concentrated excitement is tangible.

Here's a shot of the CBS camera man taking shots! What a brave soul :) He was about to be stampeded by a bunch of toddlers!

Easter Eggstravaganza

It is Easter Eggstravaganza day!

We're expecting about a thousand people to show up for our annual easter egg hunt on Capitol Hill. This is one of my favorite days of the year. There is so much concentrated happiness in one place. That is the only way I can describe it. There is nothing like showing the love of Christ in practical ways.

Props to our Pastor of Outreach and Children's Coordinator, Joel and Nina Schmidgall. They are really the driving engine. And we'll have 100+ volunteers smiling and serving today!

Time to go lay an egg.

Good Friday Service

We packed out Ebenezers last night.

I think we'll do two Good Friday services next year.

I talked about Colossians 2:14: "God canceled the record that contained the charges against us. He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ's cross."

We set up a cross station and I encouraged people to write out a confession and then nail it to the cross. We had hammers and nails. I had no idea how long that would take for a couple hundred people :) But that is part of what made the experience so powerful.

The sound of hammering and the sight of hundreds of confessions nailed to the cross was such a powerful auditory and visual experience.

We ended by showing a video I picked up at www.worshiphousemedia.com. Here's a link to the video.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Buzz T-Shirts

Just designed our Buzz t-shirts for our volunteers. We were thinking about Buzz U but went with U of Buzz. We decided to go for a college or gym class look.

Hopefully the conference will live up to "university" label :)

Buzz 101. Intro to Buzz. Philosophy of Buzz. Buzzonomics.

Good Friday

Since it's Good Friday I thought I'd share a devotional thought:

Did Peter feel a twinge of guilt every time he heard a rooster crow?

There is a poignant scene right after Peter denied Christ. A rooster crows. And Luke 22:61 says, "At that moment, the Lord turned and looked at Peter." I don't think it was a vindictive look. I think Jesus wanted to establish eye contact to maintain relationship with Peter, but Peter went out and "wept bitterly."

You know how certain sights or sounds or smells can trigger a memory? I've got to think that every time Peter heard a rooster crow he winced. It was a daily reminder of his failure. He was haunted by three denials.

Peter gets a bum rap. He is forever remembered as the disciple who denied Christ three times, but we forget the fact that he is the only one who got close enough to get caught. Peter is the disciple who sinks in the Sea of Galilee, but he is also the only disciple who walks on water! And Peter is the disciple who impulsively cut off Malchus' ear when the religious leaders come to arrest Jesus. But I don't see any of the other disciples coming to Jesus' defense do you?

Lack of Evidence

All four gospels tell the story of Peter cutting off the right ear of Malchus, a servant of the high priest. Luke 22:51 says that Jesus "touched the man's ear and healed him."

Let me state the obvious: you don't cut off someone's ear and get by with it, especially if that someone is the High Priest's servant. Worst case scenario: Peter gets charged with attempted murder. Best case scenario: Peter gets charged with assault and battery with a deadly weapon.

We tend to overlook this subplot, but Peter is in a world of trouble!

Then Jesus intervenes.

Somehow he reverses the irreversible. He reattaches the amputated ear. But he does more than heal this man's ear. I love the way my friend and mentor, Dick Foth, puts it: "Jesus destroys the evidence against us."

Stop and think about it.

Malchus files a civil suit against Peter and takes the witness stand. He says, "Peter cut off my ear." The Judge says, "Which ear?" Malchus says, "My right one." The Judge says, "It looks fine to me." And the case gets thrown out of court for lack of evidence!

This isn't just a story about Jesus and Peter and Malchus. It's a picture of what Christ accomplished on the cross. He destroyed the evidence against us. It's like the Accuser of the Brethren brings charges against us, but the Judge says, "The evidence has been destroyed." And the charges are dropped.

That's why it's called Good Friday.

Endorsements

I got an email yesterday from Multnomah telling me that it's time to line up endorsements for my book. So far everyone on our staff has agreed to endorse the book :)

We also shot a short intro to the book yesterday. Since I'm a first-time author without a track record we're really trying to go the extra mile platforming the book. I'm really enjoying every step of the publishing process. And I'm grateful for a great team to work with.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Walking the Tightrope

I was feeling stressed, but not anymore. Now I'm feeling downright lazy!

I just had a conversation with Bobby Gruenewald at Lifechurch.tv. He told me about their Phoenix and Fort Worth launches. Man, they are going gang busters! And I thought I had a lot on my plate :)

I did have a thought in the midst of my stressful day yesterday. Am I doing what God has called me to do? I don't want to do less and I don't want to do more. And that is a fine line. Ministry is really walking the tightrope isn't it? It is a balancing act.

I think we'll always feel like we can't do what we're called to do if we're really living by faith. There is a question in II Corinthians 2:16 that has always resonated in my spirit: "Who is equal to such a task?" The truth is that none of is equal to the task. But that forces us to pray like it depends on God because it does.

As Bill Hybels has so eloqeuntly said, we've got to make sure that we don't do the work of God at a pace that destroys the work of God in us.

FYI.

LifeChurch is launching an internet campus. I love they way they are pushing the envelope. In fact, they are pushing so many envelopes some of us are getting paper cuts :)

We're getting ready to launch a webcast on theaterchurch.tv so I really appreciate the opportunity follow in the wake of some great webcasters like Lifechurch.tv and Fellowship Church.

Compression Chamber

It feels a little bit like a compression chamber these days :) I'm feeling the pressure today! Did I mention that hosting a conference is alot of work? I'm working on my speaking sessions plus I'm speaking at two conferences between now and then.

If you remember it, I'd appreciate a shout out if you think of me while you're praying :) I don't know what I'd do without our rooftop! It is becoming my prayer closet. I had to get up there to pray for a little bit. Prayer is a great pressure valve.

By the way, when I climbed back down and got back to my office there was a gift certificate for Cheesecake Factory sitting on my desk!

Cheesecake is definitely a stress reliever.

So the moral of the story is this: pray on rooftops and eat cheesecake!

Thou Shalt Touch Lepers

The Buzz Commandments continue. Here is Buzz Commandment IX:

Thou Shalt Touch Lepers [1]

Why did the Pharisees instigate the crucifixion?

Because Jesus didn't fit into their nice, neat religious categories! He was too unpredictable. He was too counter-cultural and counter-intuitive. He was too revolutionary. He healed on the Sabbath. He hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes. He talk with Samaritans.

Jesus wasn't just out of the box. Jesus smashed the box to smithereens.

Here's another out of the box ministry tactic employed by Jesus: Jesus touched lepers. According to Old Testament custom, touching a leper was a no-no. Lepers were the untouchables.

Matthew 8:2 says, "Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached Jesus."

For what it's worth, I think this leper snuck up on Jesus before any one in Jesus' entourage could turn him away. Read the gospels and you'll discover that Jesus' disciples often acted like overzealous go-kart bouncers!

Can I share an overlooked and under-appreciated key to leadership?

Approachability.

Have you ever noticed how comfortable people felt approaching Jesus? It's amazing isn't it? The woman with the issue of blood pushing through the crowd to touch the hem of his garment. Parents bringing little children to be blessed by Jesus. Prostitutes crashing parties. Four friends making a hole in a roof to lower their paralytic friend on a mat. And lepers violating their quarantine!

Jesus didn't intimidate people. He attracked people. His holiness didn't scare people away. Why? Because he wasn't holier-than-thou. His holiness was magnetic. You couldn't keep people away. That is why the word "crowd" is repeated 101 times in the gospels. People wanted to be around Jesus.

We need to bridge the gap between clergy and laity. Everybody is a minister! We need to bridge the gap between secular and sacred. Everything is scared. We need to bridge the gap between church and marketplace. The church belongs in the middle of the marketplace!

Can I share something that I don't know if I'm supposed to share? One of the greatest compliments I can receive is this: you don't seem like a pastor. Please don't take that the wrong way. I honor the pastoral calling. It is a God-ordained office within the church. And people need someone to call pastor.

But I want to be touchable and approachable. That is one reason why I dress normal. I like jeans and a backwards baseball cap. It's not one of the buzz commandments, but Thou Shalt Not Wear Long Tassels made the honorable mention list. Read Matthew 23:5. Again, don't get me wrong. I wear a suit and tie when the occasion calls for it. And there is nothing wrong with dressing up!

Here's the bottom line. I've learned that people identify more with my weaknesses than my strengths. I've learned that people identify more with my failures than my successes. Pastors need to be authentic about their struggles. Too many of us hide behind a pulpit. Our sermons need to have a level of approachability to them. I'm not afraid to let people know I'm a work in progress. And as soon as I'm omniscient you'll be the first know!

So Jesus heals the leper in Matthew 8, but I don't think that is the nut graf. It's how Jesus healed the man. Jesus didn't just say, "Be healed." It says, "Jesus touched him." Who knows how long it had been since this leper had been touched by another human being? Who knows how long it had been since he'd felt the validation of a human touch.

I want NCC to be high-tech. We've got to redeem technology and use it to serve God's purposes! But our primary calling is to be high-touch. We need to reach out to the untouchables. We need to be moved by compassion like Christ.

And the byproduct will be supernatural buzz! Mark's account says, "As a result, such crowds soon surrounded Jesus that he couldn't enter a town anywhere publicly. He had to stay out in the secluded places, and people from everywhere came to him there."

Pure Buzz!

[1] Matthew 8:1-4

Growling Stomachs

Just thought I'd share a Josiahism. Out of the blue yesterday, Josiah said, "It's a good thing God made food." Amen to that. But I love Josiah's rationale. I asked him why. He said, "So our stomachs don't growl." Of course! Silly me!

Out of the mouths of babes.

Blog Review

I'm going to start a new feature on evotional.com. I'm going to do an occasional blog review of a book. I started last week with Chazown by Craig Groeshel.

I've been addicted to books since my senior year of college. It started, believe it or not, with an 800-page biography of Albert Einstein. I picked up the book on one of our basketball roadtrips. And I never put it down!

I read for lots of reasons. I think leaders are readers. Books keep me from becoming a closed-system. I think it's a stewardship issue. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "A mind stretched by a new idea never returns to its original shape."

I've read that it takes the average author approximately two years to write a book. That means if you read 100 books you've gained 200 years of life experience! I used to read 150-200 books per year. That pace has slowed down to about 100 books per year. But I still think I'm one of Amazon.com's best customers :)

Long story short, I want to be a little more intentional about recommending books so I'll occasionally do a blog review of a book that I find particulary helpful or insightful.

Here's my latest read. It's titled elements by Bob Franquiz.

Bob Franquiz pastors Calvary Fellowship in Miami Lakes, Florida. I've never met Bob, but he is the kind of guy you like just by reading what he is writing! Plus he wears his hat backwards. I trust pastors that wear backwards baseball caps!

I've always felt like someone needs to write a book on John the Baptist. He was such an enigma! And talk about buzz agent :)

elements is it! It's a great book about John the Baptist and his revolutionary lifestyle. It gets the adrenaline going!

Here's an amazon link.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Chasing Lions

Just sent off a revised opening chapter to my editors at Multnomah. Writing time is hard to come by these days, but I'm so stoked about this book. There is nothing like writing about something you're passionate about.

I feel like the first chapter is the toughest because you're setting the tone for the rest of the book. I'm already praying for the people who buy it and read it. I have this gut feeling that the book will strike a chord.

I'm debating the title right now. The working title is In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. An alternative title is Chasing Lions. We're still working on a subtitle. I'd welcome comments on the title.

Taxes

I just finished my 2005 taxes. I always feel like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. I've done our taxes since we got married and I really enjoy the challenge. It's sort of like a Sudoku. I'm thinking I might let a professional do the Sudoku next year :)

By the way, I just heard that our former church planter in residence, Scott Aughtmon, is doing a stamp outreach on Monday. Pathway Church in Palo Alto is going to give away free stamps to lessen the tax burden.

I was thinking about standing in front of the post office and taking tax-deductible donations since people can deduct their charitable giving on Schedule A. But I'm not sure it'd have as positive an effect as the stamp give away!

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Buzz Update

Conferences are hard work :) Especially inaugural conferences! Spent a couple hours planning for Buzz today. The nice thing is that it was a beautiful day in DC and we held the meeting on the roof of our coffeehouse!

A couple buzz updates:

1) Keep sending in your videos for the Buzz Film Festival.

2) We're going to add a staff panel to the conference. It'll be an optional session on Thursday evening from 5:30-6:30 at our coffeehouse. The panel will include our Pastor of Discipleship, Pastor of Outreach, Pastor of Media, and Digital Pastor. It'll be a Q & A format.

God @ the Box Office

We're getting ready to kick off our annual God @ the Box Office series.

I honestly think that most churches get B's in biblical exegesis and D's in cultural exegesis. We need to get A's in both/and. The Old Testament talks about the tribe of Isaachar who "understood the times." If we're going to "understand the times" then we've got to be dialed into movies and music. That is why we do God @ the Box Office and God @ the Billboard.

During our God at the Box Office series we talk about spiritual themes in popular movies. We'll show some clips and then juxtapose them with Scripture. It is typically the series where NCCers invite the most friends. We also found that some of our hardest hitting messages are in these two series because movies and music tend to touch on raw issues.

Monday, April 10, 2006

First Communion

Parker celebrated communion for the first time this weekend. I really wanted to mark this milestone in his life. He's keeping the communion bag as an Ebenezer. I also got him a Neos shirt to remember this series. And we went out for a special dinner to celebrate.

We're so intentional about remembering dates like birthdays and anniversaries. I think we need to be as intentional about remembering special dates in our spiritual journey.

One of my greatest desires is for my kids to internalize the faith. I don't just want them to believe because I believe. I want them to believe because they believe.

Indian Ocean Location

Just had coffee with a friend who is an officer in the Navy. His ship doesn't have a chaplain so I was asking him how they did chapel. Long story short, he is going to subscribe the video podcast and we might try to lauch a location in the Indian Ocean :)

Pretty cool to think about what technology makes possible! We are fulfilling the Great Commission in ways that previous generations never dreamed possible. We are "going into all the world" at the speed of light via e-vangelism and digital discipleship.

It's astounding if you stop and think about it. We record our Saturday night messages in high-definition. They get uploaded as an MP3 file. And they can get downloaded via a satellite to a ship in the middle of the ocean.

Carpe Digital.

Communion Bags

Just thought I'd post on how we celebrate communion.

First of all, we utilize communion as a way of people "crossing the line of faith." I can't think of a more appropriate way to symbolize a step of faith than celebrating communion for the first time. In our culture, we sign on the dotted line to formalize a contract. With the new covenant, we eat the bread and drink the cup.

We tend to do communion during messages and series where it really fits the Big Idea. So we did communion during our DTR: Define the Relationship Series. I thought communion was a great fit with defining our relationship with God.

We celebrated communion yesterday and I talked about the aphorism: out with the old and in with the new. That is what communion is all about. It was a tight fit with this Neos series.

We don't celebrate communion the same way every time. We mix it up so it doesn't become too ritualistic. But my favorite form of communion is giving people a communion bag with a tin and a vial. I like for people to hold them in their hand during the service as a way of preparing their hearts for the experience.

We also encourage people to hang on to the tin and vial as a spiritual memento if they celebrated communion for the first time.

One word of warning:

The tins are noisy :) And you've gotta love the sound of suction as a few hundred people drink the vial :)

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Weekend Reflections

Something clicked this weekend. Maybe it was celebrating communion for the first time at Ebenezers. Maybe I'm just getting into the rhythm of Saturday Night. But it really felt like "church." I feel like we're settling into the new space and turning it into a sanctuary where we meet with God.

We continued the Neos series. I talked about new wineskins in Luke 5. I've spent the last two weeks reflecting on it and it really came to life for me. Wineskins were ancient containers made of goat skins that were sown together to form a watertight bag. As the wine fermented the new wineskins would stretch. That is a picture of the Holy Spirit filling these human containers. As the Spirit of God ferments within us we are stretched in a new shape.

FYI. I got a phone call Saturday Night informing me that the theaters at Union Station were flooded--with sewage :) The good news is that they got plumbers and carpet cleaners to work all night so it was cleaned up by the time Sunday morning rolled around. We did add a little febreeze to the mix :) Craziness. Props to our hospitality crew!

It was also cool to hang out with Brek Cockrell and Daryl Largis from The Chapel at Crosspoint </