How NOT to tell the world about your next online conference for pastors and church leaders.  I’m excited about our next Leadership Network online conference.  It’s called ENCORE and happens on your computer on June 6.  I had fun putting together a series of videos for the conference that I hope you’ll enjoy… starting with this one entitled “Screamer Guy”…

Thom Rainer had a great post today about ten signs of an inwardly obsessed church.  Here are some thoughts: 1.  Worship Wars.  Man, I remember trying to transition a traditional church to a contemporary one (at least worship style).  It really WAS a war.  And it’s still that way in many churches.  When you make changes in worship, you can expect casualties.  But if your church is STILL in the midst of a war over worship, it’s time to stop.  Chances are at this point, you’re fighting a war with your own people.  End that battle soon, or you’ll never reach out to who...

Chrislam, Schlislam. Even when Rick Warren says he believes Jesus is the ONLY way to Heaven, I’m sure that there are some that will not believe him. Rick appeared on ABC This Week yesterday, and gave, what I thought was a great interview.  They talked about all kinds of things, from Tim Tebow to mormons, to gay marriage. Solid performance by Rick Warren: But my guess is that this won’t qualm many if any of Rick’s critics. And that’s where I totally agree with him on how we’ve lost our civility. Watch the interview.  I’d love to hear your...

There is a move on the internet to ban an upcoming visit to Liberty University by Mark Driscoll. Driscoll is supposed to speak at an April 20th chapel service and hold a marriage conference on campus. But this isn’t sitting well with some, and they’ve started an online petition to stop Driscoll from speaking on campus. Add an outspoken blogger to the mix, and you have a mini-firestorm that caused the Liberty board to fire back an official response, claiming big misrepresentations from the blogger. As it stands at this writing, Driscoll is still scheduled to speak on April 20. Here’s...

Interesting quote from John Piper.  Agree or disagree? I think the use of video and drama largely is a token of unbelief in the power of preaching. And I think that, to the degree that pastors begin to supplement their preaching with this entertaining spice to help people stay with them and be moved and get helped, it’s going to backfire. It’s going to backfire. It’s going to communicate that preaching is weak, preaching doesn’t save, preaching doesn’t hold, but entertainment does. And we’ll just go further and further. So we don’t do video clips during the...