Here are the most popular posts of this year:

10.  Trends in the Biggest Churches In North America 

9.    Confessions of An Internet Addict

8.    Top Mistakes When Dealing With First-Time Guests

7.    Three Principles For Effective Communication

6.    How Much Is Too Much In Church?

5.    Communicating For a Change: Book Review

4.    Engaging First-Time Guests So They’ll Want To Come Back: Part Two

3.   To Suit Or Not to Suit

2.   Why do People Leave Church?

And finally…here’s the most popular post of 2009:

1.   My Problem with Pagan Christianity

So what do you think of the list? Are you surprised? Any that you thought would be on there that wasn’t?

Thanks for all your participation and dialogue this past year. I think it’s been an enriching experience. Especially for me.

See you next year!

We all have them. Whether you verbalize it or not. There are always things that we wished we would have ended up following through with in the year. So at the end of the year we lament our misgivings and put up some resolutions, or things that we’d like to work on in the coming year.

You know what’s the best resolution you could ever make?

Read the Bible through in a year.

I know. If you’ve never done it before it probably sounds like a bear. Maybe you’ve never read more than a few chapters of the Bible. Maybe you’ve never really read any of the Bible.

Well here’s your chance to change.

YouVersion.com has released a new tool that will help you towards that goal. Here are some of the informational stats from the website:

• 20+ plans are available online and on your mobile device, so you can keep up with your reading no matter where you are.

• You can customize each plan to match your schedule by making it shorter or longer.

• Easily track where you are by checking off each day’s reading. We’ll also show you how far along you are with a percentage of completion.

• Your online and mobile accounts will synchronize your information, including your plan and your progress.

• Soon, you’ll be able to build a support system by opting in for accountability emails to you and/or a friend.

Following a reading plan helps you stay on track with your Bible reading goals. Choose one (or several) and each day a special selection will be ready and waiting for you.

I’m set with my plan and I’d love for you to join me. I’ll also be challenging my congregation to jump in. I know it will be a transformational time as we seek to spend more time in God’s Word.

Here’s to a wonderful 2010.


[image by thebrownhorse]

I just read one of the best definitions of a missional church. I think. And guess what? It’s not from a pastor or theologian, and it doesn’t even have any Scripture quotations. Cue the scream: *scream*

Here it is. It’s from Jeff Bezos, founder and chairman of Amazon.com, and it’s in reference to their strategy for creating products and reaching customers:

“There are two ways that companies can extend what they’re doing. One is they can take an inventory of their skills and competencies, and then they can say, “OK, with this set of skills and competencies, what else can we do?” And that’s a very useful technique that all companies should use. But there’s a second method, which takes a longer-term orientation. It is to say, rather than ask what are we good at and what else can we do with that skill, you ask, who are our customers? What do they need? And then you say we’re going to give that to them regardless of whether we currently have the skills to do so, and we will learn those skills no matter how long it takes. Kindle is a great example of that. It’s been on the market for two years, but we worked on it for three years in earnest before that. We talked about it for a year before that. We had to go hire people to build a hardware–engineering team to build the device. We had to acquire new skills. There’s a tendency, I think, for executives to think that the right course of action is to stick to the knitting—stick with what you’re good at. That may be a generally good rule, but the problem is the world changes out from under you if you’re not constantly adding to your skill set.” (Click here to read the whole article).

This concept kind of turns some of the dialogue on spiritual gifts on its head. For example, much of the seminars on spiritual gifts focus on exactly what Bezos was talking about: what are my talents, gifts, personality, etc. But I think his concept is more Scriptural. It simply asks, “what does our community need, how can we reach them,” and then the church would go about learning those skills or doing what is necessary to reach the people. I think this is something the Holy Spirit can really work through: the Spirit blessing you with gifts as you seek to reach those far from Christ.

What do you think of this concept as related to spiritual gifts and reaching people?

[image by Jim Darling] *picture of a guy reading on an Amazon Kindle with a cover.

In my search for a good Christmas gift I ran into this online store called WeAreOverlooked.com. They have a great selection of “socially conscious” clothes and items for purchase. What sets them apart is for every purchase they donate part of that purchase towards bringing clean water, feeding children, etc.

The purchase of this other shirt provides one person with a water purification tool that will purify water for five years.

I think this business model is pretty cool. They can make a profit and still provide for a social cause. And being in an age where people are becoming more socially conscious than ever, I think this preaches better than most sermons.

What about you? Are you familiar with any similar sites or companies? What do you think about companies leveraging their business to help others?

Nelson Searcy has released his top books of the year. This is quite a valuable resource because he routinely reads over 200 books per year. So it becomes a nice filter.

Here are the top books of 2009 for ministry leaders.

9. Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches From Growing: How Leaders Can Overcome Costly Mistakes

8. Taking Your Church to the Next Level: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

7. Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem

6. How to Multiply Your Church: The Most Effective Way to Grow God’s Kingdom

5. What Americans Want…Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears

4. What’s Right With the Church: A Manifesto of Hope

3. Real Leaders Don’t Do PowerPoint: How to Sell Yourself and Your Ideas

2. The Apostolic Congregation: Church Growth Reconceived for a New Generation

1. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World

If you missed last year’s list here it is. So there you have it. Get ‘yer reading on!

[image by perpetually]

If you’re like me, there are times in which you need to share a large file with people on your team. Small files are easy. You email them. With large files, though, there are other applications that must be used.

If you need to send a file under 100mb, it’s pretty easy to use it YouSendIt.com. You upload the file to yousendit, and it sends your recipient an email with a link where they can download the file from. To send a file up to 250mb, you can use Send6.com for free. It works in the same way as YouSendIt and works well.

However, I had been on a search for how I can send a really large file. Sometimes I have a file of 400mb or more that I needed to send, and I’m too lazy to burn a cd and mail it to someone.

So here’s what I found: Dropbox.com

With DropBox you can send files up to 2Gigs for free. That’s really nice. And it works really, really well. Let me walk you through it. (make sure to watch the video on the main page for an overview as well)

Drop box is an application you can install on you pc or mac that helps you to automatically sync and backup your files across many platforms. So, for example, I installed the app on my mac laptop. There’s also a free app for the iPhone. (It’s similar to the AirShare app on the iPhone, but Dropbox works much better.) So I can open my Dropbox folder on my mac, throw in whatever file I want, and then it syncs it to all my platforms. I can walk away with my iPhone and have the file with me. Or I can go to another computer somewhere, log-on to the website, and download the file there. It has many, many uses.

I really like it’s ability to share files quickly with friends, though. Here’s how you do it.

In the last few weeks Facebook has instituted some new privacy settings. They give you more control over who gets to see your stuff. Here’s one post by the New York Times on how to change and edit some of those.

All this has made me think more about boundaries.

In the same article it mentions how many workplaces and schools have instituted protocols where you cannot become a “friend” of your student. And I think I can see why. Older adult. Younger student. Not usually the best recipe.

But what about in the church? What do you think? Should a church be different? What’s it like for you to be a facebook “friend” of your pastor?

I’m interested to hear your responses on that.

Here’s why I enjoy being connected on Facebook and Twitter to my congregation, though.

1. It adds a connection point
I think anything that reminds me of someone is a good thing. When I log on and see how one of my “friends” are doing, it makes me want to send them a quick note. Or if they don’t seem to be having a good day, I may give them a call. As they say, “out of sight, out of mind.” So this helps to avoid that.

2. It humanizes people
I think that transparency corresponds to trust. I want to be authentic in all areas of my life. Whether in front of a church or in my home. Back in the day pastors were actually admonished to not share too much of their life. To always be in a suit. Otherwise, the “image” of the pastor will be damaged. Personally, I don’t feel like that’s the case anymore. Especially with the younger generations. So when I share on Facebook or Twitter I think it helps to build a bridge of connection and understanding, and helps people to see that, though I am a pastor, I am a human being with red blood as well.

Of course we should always be careful about what we share in a somewhat public arena.

So what do you think? Should a church be different? What’s it like for you to be a facebook “friend” of your pastor? Does it help or hinder the relationship?

[image by bejealousofme]