Josiah is following in my footsteps.

I love making up words. But I think my son is outdoing me. Over the years we've accumulated lots of Josiahisms. One of my favorites is packpack for backpack. He says, "Isn't that so happy?" It makes you happy just hearing it.

But here is one of my recent favorites. I want to start an official campaign to change "yesterday" to "lasterday." It just sounds right doesn't it? It was the "last" day.

Here's to lasterday!

Here is an excerpt from an article I did recently on cultural exegesis. It longer than most of my blogs posts, but it could have been longer :)

The Lost Art of Cultural Exegesis

I love field trips. Always have and always will.

I remember next to nothing from my Elementary school education. All my classroom memories have long since faded like an old photograph, but I still have vivid memories of our field trips. I remember the bus ride to the Octagon House in Watertown, Wisconsin. I remember the smell of the sauerkraut factory downtown Milwaukee. And how could I forget our class trip to Great America. I learned so much that day. What an education!

But field trips aren't just fun. No education would be complete without them. Field trips bring theory to life. It is one thing to read about something in a book. It is another thing to experience it. A field trip turns secondhand knowledge into firsthand experience.

I live in the field trip capital of the world, Washington, DC. And sometimes I have to laugh at the fact that my kids are studying politics and history in a school that is within walking distance of the Smithsonian Institute, all of the major monuments and memorials, and all three branches of government. Why not just take a field trip?

Isn't that what Jesus did two thousand years ago? Think of the incarnation as a thirty-three year field trip that started in Bethlehem and ended a half mile outside Jerusalem when Jesus headed back to heaven sans bus.

Jesus could have just dictated a theological textbook to be studied in the temple. It would have been so much easier and so much safer. But the Son of God became the Son of Man so that He could relate to us and we could relate to Him.

The Omniscient One had to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. The Omnipresent One downsized to the confines of Mary's womb. And the Omnipotent One became a helpless baby that had to be nursed, burped, and changed like the rest of us. But the end result was a High Priest who understands our weaknesses. He understands what goes through our heads and our hearts because He's been in our skin. The incarnation made Jesus omni relevant.

Jesus was a friend of sinners. He wasn't afraid of talking with Samarians; befriending prostitutes; or partying with tax collectors. He modeled what it means to be in the world but not of the world.

And we're called to follow in his incarnational footsteps.

Street Smarts

In Matthew 10, Jesus briefed his disciples before they embarked on their inaugural mission. He told them where to go. He told them what to pack. And then he gave them a word of warning: "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."[i]

Unfortunately, too many of us are dyslexic when it comes to this passage: we're shrewd as doves and innocent as snakes!

I think innocent as doves speaks to our motivation for ministry. In God's economy, if you do the right thing for the wrong reason you don't get credit. And I'll be the first one to admit that it is virtually impossible to totally eliminate selfish ambition from the equation of our lives. We all have mixed motives. There will always be trace elements of pride and jealousy. But sanctification tips the motivational scales so that we do what we do to glorify God. And we've got to continually check our motives and make sure we're doing the right things for the right reasons.

But that motivational purity must be coupled with street smarts. If we are going to fulfill our divine mission we have to be shrewd as snakes. I certainly wouldn't trade my book smarts. My undergraduate and graduate education laid a foundation for what God has called me to do, but there is no education like actually planting a church. It is baptism by immersion. It is learning by doing. And that is how you develop street smarts.

I recently read a fascinating business school study. The study found that the book smart graduates of this particular business school were outperformed by their street smart competitors. And the primary conclusion of the study was this: The book smart business people were taught how to solve problems not recognize opportunities.[ii]

According to Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and Primal Leadership, IQ factors only account for between four to ten percent of career success.[iii] In other words, book smarts must be supplemented with street smarts if we're going to be successful in our callings.

Being shrewd as snakes means outsmarting our enemy. And that is no easy task. According to Genesis 3:1, "The serpent was the shrewdest of all the creatures the Lord God had made." What a fascinating juxtaposition. We've got to be shrewder than the shrewdest of all creatures--Satan himself.

The word shrewd comes from the Greek root phren, as in phrenology, the study of the mind. In this context, the word literally means a sensitive mind.

Contextual Intelligence

In their book, In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century, Anthony Mayo and Nitin Nohria profile the greatest leaders of the 20th century. They lived in different eras, worked in different industries and faced different challenges, but the authors found one common denominator amongst all successful leaders: contextual intelligence. And it is the differentiator between success and failure. "They possessed acute sensitivity to the social, political, technological, and demographic contexts that came to define their eras." Contextual intelligence is the ability to read the times and seize opportunities. It is keeping a pulse on the issues and ideas influencing culture. Leaders with contextual intelligence not only spot trends; they are trend setters.

Let me put it in biblical terms.

I Chronicles 12:32 references the men of Issachar. It says they "understood the times and knew what Israel should do." The men of Issachar possessed contextual intelligence. And they weren't just theoreticians. They were practitioners.

Permission to speak frankly? Too many pastors get As in Biblical exegesis and Ds in cultural exegesis. We know Scripture, but we're out of touch with the times. The end result is a gap between theology and reality called irrelevance. We're out of touch with who we're trying to reach--the unchurched and dechurched. And the way to close the irrelevance gap is by exegeting our culture. That's what incarnation is all about.

Too often we are too suspicious of churches that are doing ministry in relevant ways. It is assumed in some circles that they are dumbing-down or watering-down the message. And there are certainly examples of churches that distort the message or turn the gospel into a gimmick. But those abuses don't excuse irrelevance. We've got to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. We'll get criticized by the Pharirazzi just like him, but we've got to walk the tightrope between biblical authenticity and cultural relevancy.

[i] Matthew 10:16
[ii] Roger von Oech, A Whack on the Side of the Head, 31.
[iii] Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind, 58.

Here is a short video recap of our missions trip to the Galapagos. There is no way you can capture it :) But hopefully it gives a little glimpse.

Watch the Video

Just wanted to put a save the date out there.

I'd like to evite evotional readers to a seminar we're hosting on October 19. We're tag-teaming with Nelson Searcy and the crew from The Journey Church in New York City. We'll host two half-day seminars @ Ebenezers--our coffeehouse on Capitol Hill.

Journey will host the AM Seminar on assimilation.

Here is a brief description of our afternoon seminar: right-brain preaching.

FYI. The seminar will be highly interactive and we'll involve our NCC staff.

The most important truths ought to be communicated in the most unforgettable ways. The Right-Brain Preaching Seminar will help you maximize your creative potential and communicate more like Christ.

The 7 Steps to Branding Your Sermon Series
How to put together a One-Year Preaching Strategy
How to utilize Emerging Technology to supplement your sermons
How to Shoot, Edit, and Produce Videos to supplement your sermons
How to use word-of-mouth and word-of-mouse to promote series
The 3 Laws of Right-Brain Preaching

I just sent out the lastest evotional--an email version of my weekend message. The subscription is free. For what it's worth, I think our podcast is for auditory processors. The evotional is for print processors.

Just follow the evotional link @ www.theaterchurch.com.

This week we finish up the i am ncc series. Then we launch our September series: God @ the Billboards. We're using four popular songs to talk about spiritual themes. I love our mix this year--Bad Day, Crazy, Savin' Me, and Unwritten.

For what it's worth, we're designing an invite card that looks like a CD just to mix it up. We'll hand them out to NCCers this weekend. Invite cards are one way we remind ourselves that church is a tag-team sport. When NCCers walk in they tag me and say "go for it." When NCCers walk out I tag them and say "go for it." The invite cards make it easier for them to go for it and invite someone to NCC.

It is the first day of school for Josiah. Pre-K. He seems to be adjusting pretty well considering he was disappointed the first day was only a half-day. In fact, he asked me if he could go to school twice today :) That's my boy. We might have a scholar on our hands :) Or it might be the fact that all they do is play with blocks, eat snacks, and have recess in Pre-K :)

I just read a review my friend, Earl Creps, did on my forthcoming book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. Earl's book, Off-Road Disciplines, releases right before mine. I got my hands on an advance copy and I love it. Must-read.

Earl cited a sobering stat for authors--U.S. book publishers released 172,000 new books, and new editions of previously published works, in 2005. That's a little initimidating :) But it reminds me of a simple truth--if this book is going to find a niche it has to be a God thing.

All I can do is write like it depends on me and pray like it depends on God. I feel like I've done both of those things.

Anybody have a connection to Oprah's bookclub :)

I ended my five-week preaching sabbatical this weekend. It was pure joy getting back into the pulpit.

I have a litmus test when I'm coming back from vacation or ending a preaching sabbatical: am I fired up about getting back into the saddle? I can still say, ten years into this God-ordained gig, that I wouldn't want to be anyplace else doing anything else.

I think a relationship between a pastor and a church evolves over time. I definitely sense that evolution. I feel more love. I feel more responsibility. I also feel more freedom to talk about tough topics. And I believe in the potential of our congregation to make an impact more than ever. I feel more and more pastoral :)

I sense in my spirit that we're entering a new chapter at NCC. The reason I say that is that I've found that God usually does something new in me personally before He does something new in us corporately. I have an unexplainable desire to experience God in new ways. And I feel like God is going to do some things in the coming months that defy human explanation.

I feel an acute spiritual sensitivity right now because I'm about a week into forty days of prayer and fasting. I'm definitely living in prayer mode and that has a way of sensitizing your spiritual nerve endings. That may explain my reaction to worship on Saturday night. I was crying and shaking. I can only explain it in terms of Isaiah 6. I felt undone. And I honestly wasn't embarrassed. Jesus cried in public. I dont' want to be any less of a man! Maybe what seems abnormal ought to be normative?

It's hard to put into words, but I feel like I'm ready for whatever God wants to do next at NCC. I can't fully explain it. But there are seasons where you feel like you have to catch up with what God is doing in the church. And there are seasons where you feel like you're ahead of the curve because of the way God is working in your life. I sense the latter right now. And that is a good place to be.

I definitely preached from my gut today. I hope it lays the groundwork for what God wants to do at NCC. The big idea today was: big miracles start with small sacrifices. I talked about the little boy who sacrificed his lunch--5 loaves and 2 fish. And the way Jesus used that small sacrifice to perform a big miracle--he fed 5000 men plus women and children.

In our hands, 5 + 2 = 7.
In the hands of Jesus, 5 + 2 = 5000 R12.

We started brainstorming an October sermon series this week. I want to do a series on sin. It is one topic I honestly feel qualified to talk about :) I'm a sin expert. So are you! I really want to "get down and dirty" and help people deal with their sin issues. I think sometimes we minimize our sinfulness and all that does is cheapen God's grace!

One of my ideas was to do an online confessional. I personally like letmetellyouwhyisuck.com as a potential website. That is inspired by Tommy Boy, of course. But we might come up with an alternative :)

Not sure how we'll brand the series yet, but I like the idea of an online confessional where people can write out a confession. One of the enemy's primary tactics is to get us to keep sin secrets. That is why I think written confessions are powerful. My most meaningful communion experiences at NCC have been when we write out confessions and literally nail them to a cross.

So we're brainstorming the series and I get this link: http://www.mysecret.tv/

I like the fact that we're on the same wavelength as lifechurch.tv. They're usually just a few steps ahead :) By the way, if you don't get their podcast you need to. They're right at the top of my podcast list.

Just got back from a field trip to the Gateway Marriott in Crystal City. We're trying to figure out where to hold our Buzz Conference next year so we're looking into a variety of venues. I'm torn.

We want to accomodate as many people as possible. And I think we have the potential to dramatically increase attendance this year. But I also love doing it at Union Station. It's so unique and so close to our coffeehouse. It feels a little more authentic because it's where we meet and who we are. Plus Ebenezers, our coffeehouse on Capitol Hill, is half a block away.

So here's the $64,000 question: do we limit registration and stay at Union Station or change venues and open the floodgates?

Just blogging out loud :)

My apologies in advance to all owners of pet guinea pigs! You are going to hate me. You might not want to read this. In fact, if you have a weak stomach you might want to stop reading right now. Alright, if you're still reading it means you have a strong stomach. Last chance...

I ate guinea pig while I was in Ecuador. I'm not proud of it. I'll probably never do it again. But I did it. Evidently, guinea pig is a delicacy in Ecuador. To put it in monetary terms, a hamburguesa cost $3 and the guinea pig was $15.

We actually gave some of our leftover guinea pig to our taxi driver. He loved us. I wouldn't however recommend that you give an American taxi driver fried guinea pig. It might not be interpreted as a gesture of kindness. You'd probably be considered a freak. Which is probably what you are if you go around giving taxi drivers guinea pigs.

I've stopped making sense so I'll stop blogging now.

One of my great joys and privileges is serving as a trustee for a charitable trust. We basically give away money to a variety of upstart ministries. Not sure how to say this, but giving away money is a ton of fun :)

Serving in this capacity has totally revolutionized the way I look at my own resources. When I'm serving as a trustree I'm keenly aware that the funds aren't mine. I didn't start the fund. I didn't fund the fund. But I've been charged with helping to manage the fund.

But the truth is that we're all trustees. "My resources" aren't really mine. Our resources don't belong to us. Everything we have is on loan from God.

Jesus was right. "It is more blessed to give than to recieve."

True joy is found on the giving side of life!

Maybe we need to see ourselves as trustees or fund managers?

The proof is in the picture. Even in the Galapagos you can't escape coke. Some of the places we went had next to no amenities. But you can always get a bottle of coke :)

My friend Doug Miller just launched Plum Creek Community Church in Castle Rock, Colorado. I love what they did with this flatbed truck :) A huge popcorn box and movie preview billboard.

If you're looking for innovative ideas, I think the vast majority come from church planters. No one stretches me or inspires me like church planters. What I'm trying to say is: church planters rock!

It felt even further than it looks in this picture :)

A few years ago I missed an opportunity to jump off a cliff in Jamaica and I've always regretted it. In fact, I did an article for Catalst Monthly titled Jump off a Cliff last month that referenced it.

When I was in the Galapagos I checked cliff jumping off my life goal list. On our last day in the Galapagos we went to Las Grietas and I jumped off a forty foot cliff. I was as scared as I've ever been, but what a rush of adrenaline.

My heart was pumping for hours!

Today is T-minus forty days till my book, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day releases on October 1, 2006. I feel like the release of the book marks a new chapter and a new ministry in a sense. Whenever I'm facing a new challenge or a new season I follow the example Jesus set with forty days of prayer and fasting.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm less spiritual than Jesus :) I'm not going to fast food for forty days. I am fasting a variety of things and adding some new twists on some old spiritual disciplines.

I just spent the last half hour reading our Small Group Guide for the Fall Semester. We hand it out next weekend, August 26-27.

Once again, I'm blown away by the variety and creativity of our leaders. We've got 75+ small groups this semester. And each one is an amazing opportunity for spiritual growth. I really feel like small groups make us who we are as a church.

One of the highlights of our Galapagos trip was driving via bus through the Andes mountains from Quayaquil to Cuenca, Ecuador. We couldn't see the top of the moutains because of the clouds. Then we drove through them!

Here is a picture I took at about 12,000 feet. The clouds formed a celestial carpet. At one of our stops we actually gave God a hand of applause. It just seemed like the right thing to do! It felt like we were at the place where heaven meets earth.

One of the highlights was screeching brakes as we descended the mountain in the dark. We were two inches from hitting a horse that was crossing the road. And Parker was in the front seat. He was eye-to-eye with the horse. They'll never forget each other :)

If you've frequented my blog for any length of time you know that I love Lou Malnotti's pizza. I grew up on Chicago-style deep-dish pizza. Nothing compares!

Let me just say it like it is: if you haven't had Malnotti's pizza you're not ready to die yet. The only consolation is that I'm pretty sure it'll be on the menu at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb along with Ruth's Chris and Carson's ribs.

Anywho.

Someone anonymously sent me two pizzas yesterday and an Eli's cheesecake. I immediately popped one in our coffeehouse oven. And I ate it while listening to an 80's classic--Heaven is a Place on Earth by Brenda Carlisle. The song just seemed to fit my mood.

By the way, if you just happen to be looking for a gift for me (or some other person you love very much) here is an invaluable link: the tastes of chicago.

Simple Pleasures!

The Washington Post did an article on blogging about a month ago that featured evotional.com. Like a lot of Post articles, it got picked up and reprinted in a variety of newspapers across the country. Gorman Woodfin from CBN sent me an article from the Virginian Pilot. I love their title for the article: Thou Shalt Blog.

Blogging is now the eleventh commandment :)

I've got to share one story from our missions trip. Before going we prayed for divine appointments and God answered that prayer big time!

On our last day in the Galapagos we were headed to the airport to fly to Ecuador. It was about a thirty minute bus ride across the island of Santa Cruz. There is only one road and that goes from the main port city to the ferry that takes you to the airport. And there is hardly anything in between. No civilization. But about halfway there we see a man standing by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We don't pick up hitchhikers in America, but our bus driver stopped. And this man named Raul got on the bus and sat next to one of our team members.

Long story short, Raul told this teammate he had tried to commit suicide the day before. He tied cinder blocks around his ankles and planned on throwing himself into the ocean because his wife of thirty years had left him.

Raul could have sat anywhere on the bus, but God strategically positioned him next to this particular team member. If he had sat next to me we wouldn't have been able to converse because I don't speak spanish well enough. But he sat next to a teammate that not only speaks spanish. His wife of fifteen years left him and he was suicidal.

So here we are several plane rides, bus rides, and boat rides away from home. And God, in his sovereign GSP, strategically positions us to touch the life of a guy who is hitchiking in the Galapagos. Our teammate prayed with Raul. Raul promised to go to church. And God revealed himself. In fact, Raul said he never felt like God was there for him. But God revealed himself on August 12, 2006. It was a God-ordained divine appointment. It doesn't matter if your hitchiking in the Galapagos. God knows where you are in every sense of that phrase!

Here's the bottom line. We should have never met Raul. We live in different countries. We speak different languages. But God is sovereign. And setting up a divine appointment in a different hemisphere is as simple as setting up a divine appointment with your next-door neighbor when you're omni-dimensional.

Read Acts 8:26-39.

Philip should have never met the Ethiopian Eunuch. They were from different countries. They spoke different languages. But one divine appointment changed the history of a country. The Ethiopian Enuch was the second most powerful person in the entire kingdom. He also doubled as the first missionary to Ethiopia.

Now here is the thing. Divine appointments require a step of faith. When the Holy Spirit told Philip to go south Philip went. We want more information. How far do I go? Where do I turn? Who am I looking for? What do I do when I get there? But the will of God is usually revealed one step at a time.

Take a step of faith and you never know who's path your going to intersect. It might be the second most powerful person in Ethiopian. It might be a suicidal man in the Galapagos.

All I know is this: God is still ordering footsteps.

About a year ago I met with an AP reporter named Ron Fournier who was working on a book that is about to be released titled Applebee's America. You can check it out at www.applebeesamerica.com. Ron said I'm quoted somewhere in the book. Happy hunting :)

The book crosses a variety of disciplines like religion, business, and politics and explores how the way we "do business" "do politics" and "do church" is changing. I think one of my pastoral responsibilties is keeping a pulse on culture. This is one of those books that will help us "understand the times" like the tribe of Isachaar.

Here's an amazon.com link.

I've had two conversations in the last two days that got me thinking. Looks like I'll be podcasting with www.wiredparish.com. It's a novel concept that delivers content via podcast on a variety of topics. Some of the other podcasters are Len Sweet and Brian McLaren. I love the concept.

Today I had a discussion with a former AP reporter, Ron Fournier, who is helping launch www.hotsoup.com in October. It takes social networking sites and blogs to another level and creates an amazing online community. Ron and I talked about me being a panelist on the site talking about faith issues.

I can't help but think about how dramatically life has changed. Sometimes it just smacks you across the face. People used to walk to the office next-door when they wanted to talk with someone. Or they'd write a memo. Now we use email or instant messenger. People used to have real encyclopedia collections that sat on shelves. Now we have wikipedia. We used to check the card catalogue instead of google. And that is the tip of the iceberg.

We are redesigning out theaterchurch.com website right now and I really think we've got to push the envelope to facilitate more online community like a myspace. I think the tectonic plates are shifting. I'm not sure what they'll look like, but give it a decade and church websites will look nothing like they do now.

The Galapagos is the closest thing to the Garden of Eden on earth. There aren't natural predators so the animals seems so tame. You can walk right up to marine iguanas or pelicans. Sometimes the sea lions bark or the turtles hiss or the lizards run, but let's just say that zoos will never be the same again. All these animals are like two feet away from you and there is no fence. We went swimming with sea lions. We watched frigatebirds and blue-footed boobies dive bomb right off our boat.

I kept thinking of the way Adam must have interacted with the animals pre-fall. By the way, I wonder how long it took to name them? I'm guessing it must have taken a hundred years. And it's not like God lined them up single-file. I wonder if Adam went bird-watching and snorkeling and mountain climbing to find and name the animals. His first job was a safari. That is one reason why I think the spirit of exploration is hard-wired into the human soul. We were created to explore God's creation.

I read the Genesis account while we were on the trip and I was marveling at the fifth day. What a day! We have been exploring and enjoying for thousands of years what God did in one day. I kept thinking that a well-stamped passport is good stewardship if you see travel as a spiritual field trip.

Here are a few pictures of Eden.

The lizards owned the sidewalks! Sea Lions would jump up on boats and chill out on them all day long. And there were blue-footed boobies everywhere!

An NCCer who works at the White House invited our family to watch a presidential takeoff. We've lived in DC for a decade so it's easy to get immune, but every once in a while you experience something that reminds you of how cool and how unique this city is.

We watched the guy with the nuclear briefcase get on board. Then the President followed by his entourage.

The helicopter almost blew Josiah over! We were only about fifty yards away and the helicopter blades are pretty powerful.

We finally got our public space permit for Ebenezers so we set out our tables and chairs and umbrellas yesterday! It totally changes the vibe. I think people sitting outside is our best advertising. It really makes Ebs more of a hangout environment. Way cool.

I did an article for Leadership Journal on Godcasting a few months ago. I think it recently went online because Warren Bird from the Leadership Network sent me the link.

Here's a link if you want to read the article.

It's not everyday you get to hang out with 250 year-old turtles. We went to a turtle park our first day in the Galapagos and these huge land turtles were everyplace. What's wild is that some of them are older than America.

Darwin may have seen these same turtles during his exploration of the islands. He credited evolution. I credit God's infinite creativity. How can a creature that slow survive that long?

By the way, turtles hiss. They didn't like it when we got too close, but when you're that slow there isn't much you can do about it except hiss.

FYI. Pirates and sailors used to take turtles on their voyages for food because they could just lay them down on their shells and the turtles for would survive for months on end and provide fresh meat whenever they needed the food. Poor turtles. I now have this mental image of helpless turtles on their back trying to turn over.

I just got the galley of my book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. It goes to the printer today! I love the look and layout. We're inching closer :)

One of my favorite blogs is churchmarketingsucks.com. They are pushing the proverbial envelope. I did a little tribute that got posted on their Center for Church Communications website last week. Here's a link.

One of our core convictions at NCC is that the greatest message deserves the greatest marketing. I'm obviously not talking about watering down or dumbing down the message. Think of marketing in the context of Luke 14:23. We are called to compel which means to demand attention.

On our last day in the Galapagos we visited the equator. There are actually two equator claims--one French and one Indian. The Indian equator was more convincing. They did the whirlpool test. Right on the equator the water drained straight down without a whirlpool. In the Southern Hemisphere it drained clockwise. In the Nothern Hemisphere it drained counter-clockwise. May have been a trick :) But it seemed pretty convincing.

For what it's worth, you weigh approximately 2.2 pounds less at the equator. And you ought to be able to jump your highest because the force of gravity is at its weakest on the equator.

Couldn't resist doing the crane on the equator.

I just completed my tenth flight in ten days! Pretty exhausted from a red eye from Quito, Ecuador. But it's great to be home. What a trip! Hard to believe I was hanging out at the equator yesterday.

Once I catch up on a little sleep I'll be a blogging banchee.

It is our last day in the Galapagos. We have visited five islands in five days and logged twenty-one total hours on the open seas.

We handed out several thousand packets that included a gospel tract, gospel of John, and information on Unsion, the network where our services get translated and broadcast in South America.

We also spent the last couple of days exploring Eden, aka Galapagos. We petted seals, went snorkeling, and jumped off some forty foot cliffs today. More on that when I get back.

We have had a spanish phrase of the day while we have been here. One of them is no es en todos las dias. Tranlation: it is not every day. Every day has been full of unforgettable, once in a lifetime experiences. It is not every day you get chased by huge sea lions, snorkel with exotic fish, or watch blue-footed boobies dive bomb two feet from your boat.

By the way, zoos will never be the same! There is nothing like experiencing these animals in the wild. I am ruined for zoos forever!

I did not think I would get a chance to post a blog while in the Galapagos, but I am sitting in a little Internet cafe on the island of Santa Cruz. I will save the full upate for when I get back, but what a day and what a trip.

We spent eight hours on the ocean today traveling from Isabela to Floreanna, two of the Galapagos islands. There is no prostant church on Floreanna and only a population of 110. It feels like the end of the earth. It is so remote and so volcanic and so natural. I honestly think the Galapagos are the closest thing to Eden left on earth! Man and animals coexist. We saw some huge marine iguanas today. We could actually touch them. And then a few of us went swimming with sea lions. No kidding!

So we went door to door on the island giving out the gospel of John and talking to the islanders. They seemed very open to conversation. I think part of it is the remoteness of their island. They are lonely! Hopefully our efforts are paving the way for a church plant on the island.

I'm checking out the blogosphere while I'm in the Galapagos. I have a feeling I'll have a few pictures and a few stories to post when I get back :)

One of the greatest things about going on a mission trip is that I get to take off my leadership mantle, put a towel around my waist, and wash feet.

I'm really trying to put myself in the sandals of the disciples before their first mission. In fact, I'm meditating on Matthew 10 as we embark on this mission. What were the disciples thinking and feeling right before their first mission? Very cool to follow in the ancient tradition.

I'd really covet your prayers for our team.

As always, I turn off my comments when I check out of the blogosphere. Hate to do it given the volume of the great comments the last few days, but in the spirit of the old SNL skit coffee talk:

Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic.

No Jesus Know Fear. Know Jesus No Fear.

Discuss.

So I'm walking home today and I see three guys carrying a forty-two inch flatscreen TV into their apartment. The look on their faces was priceless. Almost angelic. They handled the TV so delicately like it was a newborn baby. I could tell it was their pride and joy.

Someday I want that same look on my face and feeling in my heart :)

Just dreaming out loud :)

My friend, Trey Hicks, just sent me a great article titled The Squirrel's Dream by FW Boreham. If you haven't read any of Boreham's stuff you need to. Here is a link to some reccommended readings on Trey's site.

Boreham talks about the spirit of adventure in all of us and the way God wants to redeem that adventurous instinct for His purposes. I love Psalm 45:1: "The heart is stirred by a noble theme." I think we all have an adventure gene. And it finds it's ultimate fulfillment in seeking God. Heaven is going to be an eternal adventure.

Boreham also cites something G.K. Chesterton wrote in The Everlasting Man. Chesterton says life is a great game of noughts and crosses. The nought (circle) represents the basic monotony of life. Unless something interrupts us we go around and around in circles almost like the Israelites in the wilderness. To play the game of life correctly you must put the cross inside the nought and the four extremities of the cross will pierce the nought at four points shattering the monotony of life forever.

I love that image and concept.

Jesus came to destroy monotony.

Never a dull moment when you're following in Christ's footsteps!

Last month we launched a podcast for NCC leaders.

Here is a link to subscribe. I think the podcast is a great way to keep the channels of communication open and continue casting vision. We're doing a series on our core values. This month's podcast focuses on one of my favorite core values: pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on you.

Here is a link if you want to listen to this month's podcast.

We're working on creating an evotional theater where I can stream videos. It's a work in progress, but here is a link to check it out. Hopefully it lessens download time and the screen is a little larger.

If you haven't seen our latest baptism video it's worth checking out.

Check it out.

One of the subplots of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day is seizing opportunities. In fact, the subtitle is How to Survive and Thrive when Opportunity Roars.

When Benaiah crossed paths with a lion (II Samuel 23:20) he didn't see a five-hundred pound problem. He heard opportunity roar. Scripture says he chased the lion into a pit and killed it (NLT). In a Pit tells the story of how Benaiah went on to become King David's bodyguard and eventually Commander-in-Chief of Israel's army. But it all traces back to one of the most improbable episodes recorded in Scripture--a man chasing a lion.

Anywho.

I think we underestimate the importance of seeing and seizing God-ordained opportunities. I think it is the heart of spiritual maturity.

I just read a fascinating study in A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger Von Oech. He cites a study done by a business school on its graduates and it found that their book smart graduates were outperformed by their street-smart competitors. And the main conclusion of the study was this: The book smart business people were taught how to solve problems not recognize opportunities.

Part of me wonders if that is part of the problem in some of our churches? We're focused on holiness by subtraction--solving sin problems. And that is certainly part of the holiness equation. But maybe we ought to focus on holiness by multiplication--recognizing opportunities. That is what the parables of talents is all about.

For what it's worth, often the biggest opportunities look like five hundred pound problems.

"Make the most of every opportunity."

Colossians 4:5

We're inching closer to a final cover design for In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. Just thought I'd share the latest draft.

This process of designing a book cover is so tough because you want it to be "perfect" but it is such a subjective thing. I feel really good about the look and feel, but you never know what is going to pop off the shelf at the bookstore.

When you go out to eat do your order pop or soda?

My brother-in-law, Robb Schmidgall, just sent me a funny research study that was done to determine what generic name people use for their beverages. The study maps out what parts of the country use pop, soda, and coke to refer to their soft drinks.

Growing up in Minnesota it was definitely pop. In fact, I remember going to the pop shop as a kid.

What I don't get is how many people in the southeastern US use coke to refer to soda. So how do you order a Pepsi :) Is it just me? Coke is coke. Soda is soda. But it looks like there are a large percentage of disillusioned people who refer to all soda-pop as coke :)

Not sure why this fascinates me so much :) Must be Friday.

Check out the map.

My friend, Earl Creps, just posted a great thought on his writing journey. His book, Off-Road Disciplines, comes out in September.

Earl says something really profound on one of his blog posts: "Perhaps we can promote ourselves without being self-promoting. The daylight between the two might be called humility."

I totally resonate with what Earl says because I really struggle with anything that hints at self-promotion. At the same time, if an author really believes in what they write, they want anybody and everybody to buy their book. So there is a tension. How do you promote your book in a way that doesn't smack of self-promotion :)

Ultimately, I would like to think that In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day will promote Jesus :) I think that is my job as an author. I'm not just introducing myself. I'm introducting Jesus.

I'm in magazine article mode these days. Trying to finish up three deadlines before I head to the Galapagos. Here is an excerpt from one of the articles I'm working on.

Routinization

Here is one of the central tasks of pastoral leadership: keeping what is sacred from becoming routine.

I read a fascinating study a few years ago that suggested that we stop thinking about the lyrics of a song after hearing it thirty times. That has profound implications when it comes to worship. If we aren't careful, we stop worshiping in spirit and in truth and start lip syncing. Maybe that's why the Psalmist exhorts us eight times to sing a new song.

Maybe a central task of a worship leader is to keep worship from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a teaching pastor is to keep the Bible from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a pastor of discipleship is to keep spiritual disciplines from becoming routine? Maybe a central task of a lead pastor is to keep church from becoming routine?

Let me put the challenge in neurological context.

Neuroimagining has shown that brain stimulation depends on task familiarization. Novelty stimulates the right-brain. Familiarity stimulates the left-brain. Longitudinal studies have shown that the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from right-to-left as we age. In other words, memory overtakes imagination. At some point, most of us stop imagining the future and start repeating the past. Our leadership shift from right-to-left, and if we aren't careful, serving God can become routine.

That neurological tendency has significant implications when it comes to pastoral leadership. How do we keep prayer from becoming an empty incantation? How do we keep Bible reading from becoming rote? How do we keep church from becoming nothing more than a religious obligation?

The Element of Surprise

We have a core value at National Community Church: expect the unexpected. That value is based on a cross-section of gospel episodes that reveal the creative leadership style of Jesus. Jesus always had a surprise up his sleeve. I think the disciples lived in a state of perpetual shock at the things Jesus did.

Jesus healed on the Sabbath, walked on water, threw a temple tantrum, cursed a fig tree, partied with tax collectors, talked with Samaritans, and rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

In other words, Jesus was predictably unpredictable and that is one reason why the Pharirazzi wanted to kill him. He was too unorthodox for their linear and logical left-brains, but he did capture the right-brain imagination of the masses.

I think we grossly underestimate just how unconventional Jesus was. And the question is this: are we following in his leadership footsteps?

One of my prime objectives at National Community Church is to keep church from becoming routine. And I think that is one reason why 71% of our regular attenders come from an unchurched or dechurched background.

We try to overcome routinization in a variety of ways. Sometimes it is as simple as changing our order of service. We'll do responsive worship following a message instead of preparatory worship before a message. We'll often turn our movie theater screen into postmodern stained glass and use videos to communicate the gospel story in moving pictures. And we try to celebrate communion in a variety of different ways. Sometimes we'll serve communion in trays the old-fashioned way, but other times we'll put the elements in a small canvass communion bag that attenders receive on the way into church. Or we'll have people write out a confession and nail it to a cross before taking communion. Our goal is to make communion a fresh experience every time we come to the Lord's Table.

One Sunday a few years ago, we did away with our normal service all together. Instead of sitting in one theater for an entire service, we set up a message theater, worship theater, and communion theater and let people go on a self-paced, self-guided journey. That Journey Sunday was slightly awkward for regular attenders, but that is healthy. It keeps us from going through the motions.

Part of right-brain leadership is throwing an occasional change-up or curve ball to keep people on their toes. And that can be as simple as moving the piano, changing your staging, or giving your bulletin an extreme makeover.

Some of our staff did a little reconnaissance at the Spy Museum for Buzz 07 today. Not sure how it came up, but our digital pastor, David Russell, is a military alphabet guru. Forgive me for my naivete. I guess I should already know what each letter designation is, but I just discovered my initials stand for Mike Bravo. I think I've found my alter ego!

By the way, the other members of my recon team were Delta Charlie, Sierra Mike, Hotel Zulu, Juliet Sierra, and Delta Romeo.

10-4. What's your vector victor? Over and out. Roger Roger.

Here's a link to last week's missions video.

I love the video because it's about an NCC couple that felt called to the mission field during last year's series! I'm also loving the way we're using green screen to incorporate video into a variety of video templates.

Check it out.

I think a class on humor ought to be a requirement at every Seminary in America. That's my crazy idea of the day.

I think I value humor above just about every other personality trait when it comes to friends and staff. You can't work at NCC if you aren't really good at laughing :)

Fun and funny. They are etymologically inseperable.

Not only is laughter biblically mandated. I think the healthiest and holiest people are the people who laugh at themselves the most. I don't think there is near enough humor in the average church.

Anywho.

I just read a fascinating study in Psychology Today on humor. They identified four types of humor: Put-Down Humor, Bonding Humor, Hate-me Humor, and Laughing at Life.

I think put-down humor is unhealthy, but we ought to cultivate the other three types.

Bonding humor is laughing at the challenges all of us face. It is the ability to defuse a situation or reduce tension by finding something funny to laugh at. Seinfeld is the master of bonding humor. The sitcom was a show about nothing. But everybody resonated with the humor because we've all "been there" and "done that."

Hate-me Humor is making yourself the butt of your own jokes. You can take this too far, but this type of humor is also a form of humility. You don't take yourself too seriously. In the words Chris Farley, the quintessential hate-me humorist: "Let me tell you why I suck."

Laughing at life is the ability to cope with life's challenges via laughing at them. I think this is the only way to survive some situations. You just have to laugh.

I think most of us underestimate the spirituality of laughter. I honestly believe it is part of the imago Dei. Sure, hyennas cackle. But true laughter is unique to the human race. It is a God-given gift that ought to be cultivated to its God-given potential.

I enjoy my children's laughter as much as I enjoy anything else they do. I think our Heavenly Father is no different. God loves our laughter.

We're already gearing up for our God @ the Billboards series in September. While it's not the most convenient shape, looks like we'll do invite cards in the shape of a CD.

Pretty excited about exegeting those songs and juxtaposing them with Scripture. I think we'll do a character study for each song. Job is a perfect fit for Bad Day. And Crazy is a good match for Nebuchadnezzar. After all, he ate grass like a cow for seven years.

We're in the middle of our missions series. Last year we came up with the idea of using a passport metaphor. We actually give every NCCer a "passport". We have a map with a list of the missionaries we support. We highlight our missions trips. We spotlight our missionary speakers. And we really challenge NCCers to go, invest, and pray.

Here are some of the graphics:

T-minus five days till I head to the Galapagos islands.

It is pretty amazing to be part of something that Jesus commissioned two thousand years ago. I marvel at the Great Commission. What a BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal). It's one thing to travel to the Galapagos utlizing airplanes, GPS, and maps. But Jesus cast the vision of going to all nations before there were maps, airplanes, or samsonite suitcases. The average person living in the first century never traveled outside a thirty-five mile radius of their birthplace! And Jesus envisioned his disicples going to every corner of the planet He created. What a dreamer!

Our team is part of that dream.