MoviePastor.com: Church, Culture, Christ

I may ditch twitter (again)

Seriously - I went to post something - and got this: 

Twitter is over capacity.

Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again.

Are you kidding me?  I may ditch twitter for real (again)

An Experiment...

Im turning off comment moderation for my blog.  This may be temporary.  We'll see.  I am doing this to encourage dialog so feel free to leave comments - I just have a few guidelines

1) dont bash me or my church
2) dont bash another pastor or church
3) stick to the topic and spirit of the post and dont make it about your disagreement with me or ask me to explain myself to you
4) Its my blog and I reserve the right to delete your comments without explanation so lets play nice

Fair enough?  Comment on!

Advice from me? Are you kidding?

Chris Reeder contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I would guest post on his blog.  His question - what advice would you give someone who is called to plant a church but has no idea what he's doing (or something like that).

Im not sure why he thought I would be a good planter to answer that - except for the "has no idea what he's doing" part!  So among some really cool guys, Chris posted my thoughts here

Honestly I think I could write a book called "Church planting for the rest of us"  Im pretty sure I could teach a conference on how not to plant a church.  Maybe I could do a session called "My last church plant failed and Im stupid enough to do it again but I still suck at it"  Seriously I made a lot of mistakes - still do - but its one heck of a ride and I wouldnt change anything (well I should have listened to my own advice - and the advice from the rest of the guys.)

Read them here: 

Paul Peterson, Walls Down Church, Cincinnati
Dustin Willis, Midtown Fellowship, Columbia, SC
Jay Hardwick, Columbia, SC
J.R. Lee, Freedom Church, Acworth, GA
Chris Elrod, Compass Point Church, Lakeland, FL

Thanks for doing this Chris!

The Birdhouse!

Traveling for business this week so I had a chance to take in an Orioles Game last night at Camden Yards.  What a nice ballpark.  And tickets were only 8 bucks right behind home plate (but in the top level) still we had great seats - saw a #1 team beat a #2 team I think (the Tampa Bay Devil Rays) and even though food was more than the tickets and it was a little cold - it was a fun. 

The highlight of my night there was hooking up with my friend Darren Plummer.  "D-Plum" is planting Mosaic in College Park, MD just outside DC, and has a PASSION for building a multi-racial church for God's glory.  And he's getting it done.  Darren is funny, compassionate, passionate and encouraging.  I loved hanging out with him.
 

A blog to check out

You may want to check out Chris Reeder's blog this week.  He will have an interesting series of guest posts from pastors answering this question:

What advice would you give to a guy that has been called into church planting, but sometimes feels that he has no idea what he is doing?

I wont tell you who the list of celebrity pastors is but it should be pretty good - well except for one of them ;-)

Thats funny, I dont care who you are

This is one of the funniest blogs I've read: Stuff White People Like.  Check it out  HT: DJ

Bloggers Unite at Unleash

I am stoked about taking a team to Unleash tomorrow!  We are taking 10% of our church to see what is possible and discover what we can transport back to our culture here.  My prayer has been that God will open our eyes to see the possibility of doing impossible things.  I know our people will not just come back with ministry ideas and vision - but they will be ministered to and they will be refreshed.  The NewSpring staff and Volunteers are off the chart.  I cant wait to bring back 15 people ready to charge hell with a super soaker.

If you are a blogger I would love to meet up with you at the conference.

Checking Out For a While

Im disconnecting from the internet for a while.  I also set comments to require my approval to prevent spam and abuse.  Have a great remainder of 2007!

New Blog Look?

I found something I think I like for my blog.  Check it out here.  I would still need to purchase artwork and make a few adjustments.  But this is going in a direction I like.  How about you?  Let me know if you like the new look or not by voting in the poll. RSS readers vote here.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Blogged with Flock

If you don't stop that you'll go blind

I have been staring at blog themes for hours now.  I feel like im going to go blind!  I started blogging regularly again a year ago next month.  I adopted a Typepad blog because many of the bloggers I followed used it and the interface was easy to figure out and just jump in.  They hooked me with a "free trial" and then I opted for the cheap $4.95 a month plan which sucks - especially compared to free.

Wordpress is fast becoming the most popular blogging platform and is much more extensible (than the basic typepad) and its free!  Its built in to my web hosting site too so I don't have to be hosted on wordpress.com.  So I am making a switch soon. 

Here's where you come in.  I need a theme. 

• If you have a favorite wordpress theme - please leave a comment with a link
• If you have mad web skills and can help MODIFY a theme - shoot me an email
• if you have wicked crazy graphic artist skills and can help me with a header- shoot me an email 

For anyone who contributes to the final product I will of course link you to my blog.

I would like to develop a simple but elegant theme worthy of a mac owner that reflect the fact that I pastor a church meeting in a theater.  Something with movie/film elements would be awesome.

If you want to peek at what Im doing - look here.  It wont be up to date and will probably change a zillion times between now and whenever.  This is hopefully my Christmas present to myself.

Blogged with Flock