History in the Making

Friday Thoughts

• TODAY is the last day to get a discounted rate to The Whiteboard Sessions! Don't dilly dally.
• Did anyone know Blake MyCoskie got the idea for TOM'S Shoes by appearing on the second season of The Amazing Race? I was a ravid fan of that show then.
• I'm flying to Los Angeles today to attend The Biola Media Conference tomorrow.
• Ran into @aaronkeyes yesterday in some freak divine happenstance on Michigan Ave here in Chicago. If you want your church to be better... bring in Aaron.
• Meeting with @LukeMacDonald for breakfast this morning. Such a good friend. And I'm the biggest fan in the world of Harvest Bible Chapel.
• @JasonWideny is one heck of a creative genius at set design. So privileged to work with him on STORY.
• @CamronWare is going where no man has gone before with environmental projection. Even the projector companies are going "What the Wha???"
• Getting so many great e-mails and DMs about Church in the Making. So humbled. But I'd actually prefer those reviews to go to other people. It ain't word of mouth if it all comes back to me. If you know what I mean.
• Studying the cell phone novel phenomenon in Japan as part of my Monday morning e-mails to Dream Year class. Fascinating use of micro-blogging. I'd totally do this.

Carlos Whittaker at Whiteboard

Excited to have Carlos Whittaker at The Whiteboard Sessions in Virginia Beach on Friday, May 21. He just released his brand new album, which hit #16 on the top iTunes albums yesterday. Are you serious?? I know Christian albums don't always stay there, but what an absolutely remarkable feat on opening day.

Check out Tony Morgan's blog tomorrow for more on Carlos...

Wednesday Morning Run-Down

• Charles Trippy's site got a really nice make-over.
• Incidentally, Aletheia Church started a campus at University of South Florida in Tampa where Charles goes to school. Rooting for my friend Aaron Proffitt there.
• I'm headed to Chicago this week for a meeting with some amazing set designers for STORY.
• Then off to Los Angeles to attend the Biola Media Conference held on the CBS studios lot.
• This song by Never Shout Never is the spiritual anthem of the millennial generation. You don't need Lifeway research to figure this out. Just listen to their songs.
• My friend Brad Hill at SiteOrganic is offering a free website for one year to church plants. Brad created the website for The Whiteboard Sessions.
• Speaking of... THIS FRIDAY is the last discounted rate for Whiteboard. Don't miss a great time in Va Beach.
• My friend Chris Stephens is hosting his very first LIT Conference in Knoxville tomorrow. Coach Pat Summitt, Johnny Hunt, Pete Wilson... Praying for a great day.
• Working with Pixel Peach on the exclusive printed invitations to STORY. You can register here.
• I'm looking for the best, youngest worship leaders in the country. Know any prodigies you can point my way?
• Yesterday, about 8 FBI agents stormed a neighbor's house. It would have been terrifying if not for my fascination with the show Criminal Minds, which actually made the experience rather delightful.
• Saw the movie The Lovely Bones and was sad to see someone beat The Shack to the silver screen.

The Porn Problem

This is how porn addiction used to go down. Your kid was out playing with friends. He either went to his buddy's house where his dad stashed Playboys in the basement. Or he found some behind a dumpster while skateboarding. And ever since that day, he's been struggling with a porn addiction.

But this is the age where porn comes to you on your smart phone. YouTube tried to tamper it with sign-ins, which pushed all the pushers to TwitVid. And now almost every unmoderated photo or video sharing site features porn among its trending items because... well... it's the fastest trending vice.

God luck raising our kids, right?

Last week, a big Christian conference was pointing us to images on a photo-sharing site that featured trending pics on the homepage. I pulled it up to see full, hard-core porn running alongside the conference pics. A quick e-mail to the webmaster with a screen capture got a "Well, that's the risk you run with public sites." Well... you better hope your kids aren't perusing. Not to mention... every-freaking-one else.

Last week, 30 high level leaders at the Security Exchange Commission (office building across from NCC's Ebeneezer's coffeehouse) were caught spending at least 4 hours a day surfing porn. But it's no different than most people. I'm sorry but if you subscribe to HBO, you can't help but watch porn.

But there are some people fighting the good fight. Steve Jobs recently ordered iTunes to remove 5,300 applications that featured porn. (I knew I liked Apple.) We need more good-fighters. If you're a church leader, it's worth preaching about. And if you're a spouse, it's worth asking about.

Personality Colonies we Call Churches

Ainsley and I used to conduct personality assessments for church staffs using Myers Briggs, and the results didn't lie...

Most church staffs are formed around personality types. The "problem" staffers who quit or get fired are usually the differing types... the salmon trying to swim upstream. When pastors brag about what a great staff they have, it's because they hired people just like themselves.

Now that we're parishioners, it's easy to see how entire churches have formed around personality type. Virginia Beach is probably one of the most segmented cities by personality I've ever seen. It's couched in spiritual conviction, but it's really a personality lens. 

It's easy to move on when a personality colony doesn't feel comfortable or natural. But if you can hang in there, you can make the greatest contribution to that church.

Last Discount for Whiteboard Ends Friday

Don't miss the last opportunity to get a discounted rate to Whiteboard. It ends Friday.

1 Day.

7 Influential Leaders.

30 Minutes Each.

The presenters include:

• Dr. Al Mohler - author and president of Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY
• James MacDonald - pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows, IL
• Jonathan Falwell - pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, VA
• Jon Tyson - founding pastor of Trinity Grace Church in New York City
• Eric Mason - A29 board, pastor of Epiphany Fellowship in Philadelphia
• Perry Noble - lead pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC
• Tony Morgan - blogger & strategist, author of Killing Cockroaches
• Worship Artist, Carlos Whittaker - blogger and artist

You can register HERE

Fires

Putting them out today.

Back tomorrow. =)

My Last Post for the Weekend...

There goes the professionalism of my blog

Learning Between the Lines

I'm not a literal person. I read documents from the center... outward. There is no page one in a magazine for me. I can be moved by the soundtrack of a film more than the dialogue.

So it drives me crazy when all that people get out of conferences are specific quotes. We have become masters of reducing an entire conference experience down to one-liners.

Here are 10 things I learned from attending 99 Percent in NYC last week that had nothing to do with quotations:

1. If you facilitate community in the lobby, you'll have a warmer experience in the auditorium.
2. Theme music isn't just for sitcoms.
3. Christian conferences are in an "arms race" for production, speakers and programming. Try going in the opposite direction and strip down... simplify.
4. Who says you need a notebook?
5. The church has forsaken the natural beauty of venues. We turn all the lights off and light up the stage to hide the abhorrence of our big box rooms. 
6. Chocolate in the afternoon is magical.
7. We speak faaar too long in the church world. Does it really take 45 minutes to make a point?
8. Presentation slides can appear really disjointed throughout the day. Create consistency by preparing presentation slides for the speakers.
9. For conferences, the experience can extend to the hotel.
10. The wrong emcee can seriously hurt an event.

Thursday Night TwitPics

Send a twitpic of you and the book to @benarment and you will be in the circle of trust.

Church in the Making TwitPics

twitpic you and the book to @benarment on twitter

Thursday Afternoon TwitPic Photos

More twitpic craziness for Church in the Making. Send your pic to @benarment and I'll add it to the fast-growing photo wall.

The Fun TwitPics continue

The TwitPics are Getting Crazy now

I'm telling you... But love it. =) Twitpic you and the book to @benarment.

Thursday TwitPics

More submissions to @benarment. Thanks for helping me create a photo wall for Church in the Making.

Book Photo Submissions, Cont'd

@tkmckamy is a ham(ster) with this twitpic of Church in the Making iPhone edition. Love it! =)

Take that, Francis Chan

Another twitpic to @benarment for Church in the Making photos. Steve Milner is a Lifeway store manager who moved the book to #1 bestseller shelf space in the store. Grassroots baby!

New Photo Submissions

These just came in from twitpic to @benarment for the Church in the Making photo wall. (click to enlarge)

And this cutie patootie - Kason O'Hagan, son of Kyle O'Hagan, an associate pastor at Heartland Community Church...

Would you Help Me Make a Photo Wall?

My friends, I'd love to make the mother of all photo walls for Church in the Making. Would you mind twitpic'ing yourself holding the book to @benarment? You'll be my friend for life.

Wednesday Morning Run-Down

• Found these great little books called Fifty Lessons Learned from Harvard Business Press. Just $10. Well designed and strong content. I'm taken with them.
• Stayed at the Ace Hotel in NYC. Posh. Uber clean. And the staff was bend-over-backwards helpful. I'm sold.
• Feel bad for Gray Powell, an engineer at Apple, who left a prototype iPhone on a bar stool on March 18. Another customer found it and tried to return it to Apple, but no one took him seriously. But Apple knew the device was missing and by the next day had remotely wiped its data
• Love monoslideshow.com but I don't want to pay for it.
• Found a pair of fake glasses that's a USB drive. Perfect for STORY's theme: Communicating the Unseen.
• This looks like a great book. Great website for sure.
• Here's a "did you know?" In 1981 Broadway superstar Kristen Chenoweth sang, "I'm Four foot Eleven and I'm going to Heaven" at the Southern Baptist Convention.
• This is the week when thousands of church planters and their families descend upon Disney World under the guise of the Exponential Conference. Ahh, I miss that.
• Sweet Moses this is beautiful. I want a church-house.
• Whiteboard's last discounted rate ends April 30!
• Heard Twitter's founder Jack Dorsey talk about the new Square Up. Pretty soon, we won't be using cash with each other. We'll be swiping each other's credit cards.
• I want Church in the Making to be a 10 year success. That's the beauty of a church planting book. It can affect generations of planters. Hoping this one does.
• There is now a Kindle version of the book.
• Visiting Chicago next week for a meeting exclusively with set designers for STORY.