Your Journey Blog

Sowing Seeds of Love Into Your Community

Sowing seeds of Christ's incarnational love into your community is a key characteristic of a missional church.  NorthBridge Church in Antioch, IL, at their one year anniversary banquet, raised $17,000.00 to give into their community and cast the vision for three other churches to simply love a local struggling school district by turning a useless, old school building into a functional classroom.  Here is the newspaper article on the project: Download NorthBridge School Article.pdf

A few take aways:

1) There are hurting organizations in your community.  Open your eyes and ears to see and hear the hurting.

2) Ask people how you can help them.  Don't tell them what you want to do.

3) Don't do it alone.  Involve the larger body of Christ.

4) Love them unconditionally in the name of Jesus.

5) New churches can make a big difference!

Take a look at the Expansion of Christianity

I found this and thought it was interesting even though it doesn't show the expansion of Christianity in China and India. Here is the source: Maps of Wars

Storyline Church Nashville

Jer Dunlap has a cool video idea for this Easter as he builds his launch team in Nashville.

Satan uses Turbo Tax

LifeChurch offers another great video "Satan uses Turbo Tax".  Check out all their free resources on Open their free resource site.  If you don't use them they will just sit there.

Launching Your Church with Servant Evangelism

Check out this video!  See how Steve Sjogren and his team are using Servant Evangelism to create buzz for the launch of their new church in Tampa, Florida.

Five "Quick Hits" on Public Speaking

The first century Roman historian Dionysius said this, "Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent."  How are you improving your ability to communication publicly?  Here are five quick hits to help you take a close look at your communication effectiveness.

1. How to Get a Standing Ovation - Guy Kawasak

2. 6 Do's to Open Your Presentation - Bert Decker

3. Better Beginnings: How to Start a Presentation, Book or Article - Kathy Sierra

4. How to Give a Great Presentation - Keith Robinson

5. 10 Lessons from My Speaking Coach - Lee LeFever

Cool Idea for New Churches

A friend of mine sent me to a blog written by Devin Hudson, the pastor of Grace Point Church, a church his children attend in Las Vegas, NV.  Here is a great idea for celebrating those who serve in your church and connecting people with what they do during the week.  A great recruitment tool and community building idea!

Cool Idea

Chris Brown of Life Connections Church in Montgomery, IL is doing a fall impact series on parenting called "Raising Great Kids."  He is using the "Life's Biggest Adventure: Guiding Your Child on Their Spiritual Journey" book as a free give away.  We are offering a special price to make this affordable for all churches. Email us if you want more information.

Here are the details:

1. Place the offer in your marketing vehicle - post cards, personal invites, newspaper ads, etc.  Email us for art work.
2. Order 50 books or more and receive a 50% discount, $1.50 per book.
3. Send us a sample of your marketing vehicle.
4. Report to us how it worked.

Five "Quick Hits" on Five

Here are five more "quick hits" for Friday.  Enjoy!

1. Allan Hirsh's post on passing the batton is right on!  Here is a portion.

He writres, "To be effective, movements, and the central ideas associated with them, must take root in the lives of their followers. If this does not take place, the movement will simply not ignite. And again, it’s not just an issue of personal integrity alone, it’s also about patterning. The pattern of a movement is usually set in a definitive sense, by its founder. Therefore in terms of the movement dynamics and mission of the Christian church, this notion of modeling the message is therefore absolutely crucial to the transmission of the original message beyond our Founder to that of subsequent generations."

2. Darryn Scheske offers some great remarks on his grandparents celebration of 67 years of marriage.  Together they spent 43 years in East Africa as missionaries.

3. Steve McCoy's post How I Study the Bible for a Sermon is a insightful and helpful post.

4. George Bullard's post on Do You Blog provides some insights on how other pastors use blogging in their ministry.

5. Guy Kawasaki's blog has great tips on public speaking Must Read

Five "Ouick Hits" on Friday Oops Saturday

It's Friday and time for another set of "Quick Hits."  Enjoy!

1. Download the BGC Church Planting Survey.pdf available thanks to the hard work and generosity of Ed Stetzer and the North American Mission Board.

2. Tim Keller's New Book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. See the Table of Contents on the Reformissionary Blog.

3. Guy Kawasaki offers The 10/20/30 Rule of Power Point ... interesting rule that will serve as a guide for your presentations.

4. Jim Botts' post on Getting Your Hands Dirty in Jesus' Mission.

5. Confessions of a Happy Pastor from Monday Morning Insight ... helps with the perspective issue in ministry.

Extra: Pictures of the Week  For all my TeAmerica Buddies who saw the best Cubs game I've EVER attended.  You had a true Chicago experience.  Even you Brewers fans would have to say it was great.