Inner Revolution

Cool new Multi-site Video

Love this video Zondervan made. 

Multi-Site – Being One Church in Multiple Locations from Zondervan on Vimeo.

What do you think? How about the premise at the beginning that the early church was multi-site?

Technology rocks the church

I love technology available at our fingertips. Here is my afternoon with technology.

1. I watched the videotaping of the message that we will send out to all of our campuses.
2. Sent the message live to our campus pastors via LiveStream so they could have a preview of the weekend message.
3. Tracked my Twitter feed on Tweetdeck to stay up with what all my friends around the world are doing.
4. Listened on a wireless headset to the tech team as the recorded the message.
5. Texted a friend to see how his interview went today.
6. Direct Messaged (DM) a friend who is looking for a church in Myrtle Beach
7. DM'd a friend looking for a hookup for clean water in Tanzania
8. Called a missionary in Kenya via Google Voice to chat about next steps for Christ Gift Academy
9. Googled directions to a hotel in Charlotte and emailed them to my wife's Blackberry
10. A friend in Oklahoma DM'd me about helping with a conference coming up the fall
11. Talked to my wife by cell phone from in Charlotte
12. Got a message on Facebook about my book

     

All of this happened while I sat in our auditorium at the Long Point Campus. This is an amazing time to be alive.

How to serve at a church AND be a Christ follower

A few weeks ago I sat down with the staff at Seacoast and talked about 10 ways to keep from shipwrecking your faith. Here's the video from the meeting, hope it's helpful.

Seacoast Church; All Staff, Geoff Surratt from Seacoast Church on Vimeo.

Video Venues: Satan’s workshop?

Ok, I know I should leave this one alone. I have discussed video teaching as a tool to reach people for Christ and to help people grow up in their faith in books, blogs and social media so there is really no reason to address it again. But my old friend (whom I've never met) Bob Hyatt has brought it up again. He is preparing to debate Larry Osborne at the Multi-site 2.0 Conference in St. Louis in September and he's previewing some of his arguments on his blog. Let me jump on two of his main points.

First Bob says that the video venue question is a biblical one. I have searched my handy-dandy Strong's Concordance and I can't find video venues anywhere in there. I don't know Greek or Hebrew, but the Bible seems pretty quiet on what color paper we print the bulletin on, whether we can use an overhead projector to display the words to the hymns or how close the speaker should stand to his audience when he speaks. (Inches? Feet? Miles?)

Paul did not seem to be a major proponent of the supremacy of in-person teaching (a phrase coined in the "seminal text" on multi-site according to Bob) He repeatedly asked that his letters be read (READ?) to different churches in different cities. So if reading Paul's letters (as opposed to Paul coming in person and reading his letters) is acceptable, how far down this slippery slope would Paul be willing to travel? Would it be acceptable, if the technology was available, for the church at Ephesus to photocopy Paul's letter and send a copy to the church at Galatia? If Paul had had a Flip HD is it possible that he would have simply spoken to the Corinthians while Sosthenes held the camera? Would there have been anything inherently sinful if the Thessalonians would have popped in a DVD of Paul on Sunday instead of reading his letter?

If papyrus was an acceptable alternative to live teaching, why would video be forbidden? If video would be ok for Paul, would it have been ok for Timothy? For Silas? What if Luther posted his 95 theses on YouTube rather than defacing the Wittenberg door; would the Reformation have been unbiblical?

Bob's second main point is that the medium is the message. That puts all of us in a world of trouble. When was the last time you read the Ten Commandments in the original granite? Have you ever tried to load the Dead Sea scrolls on your iPhone? Mediums change all of the time. The Guttenberg Press was a huge change in the medium. Xerox changed the medium. The internet changed the medium. Video changes the medium. The medium will ALWAYS change, the message never changes. The message is the Gospel, the medium is merely a vehicle.

Will video teaching have unintended consequences? Yes. Can video teaching be used to inflate already over-inflated egos? Yes. Can video teaching lead to a lack of development of preachers? Yes. These, however, are not medium questions, these are leadership questions. An effective leader does not hesitate at the gates of hell to study all of the possible contingencies before making a move. An effective leader will follow Paul's example and "use all means that I might save some."

An open letter to pastors

    

This weekend Gary Lamb, one of the more popular pastors in the social networking world, admitted that he has been in an ongoing affair with his assistant. Following the direction of his church Overseers he resigned from the church he planted five years ago effective immediately. The damage his actions caused will continue for many years in the lives of hundreds of people. I do not know Gary personally but I have followed him on Twitter for the past year and have read his blog occasionally. I have no comment on his specific situation other than to say I am praying for his family, his church, the woman he has been involved with and for Gary.

    I do, however, want to comment on pastors shipwrecking their lives and the lives of their families. I have been involved in ministry all of my life, the past 27 as a staff member or pastor at three different churches, and I have seen stories like Gary's over and over. The details vary, but the end result is the same; total devastation. The key question is not what happened, but rather how can we avoid the same fate. Here are some random thoughts:

1. If you think you aren't vulnerable, you are already toast
   I had a counseling professor in college who said that the pastors who are in the most danger of a moral shipwreck are the ones who think it will never happen to them. If you think you are too honest, too faithful, or too transparent to ever be involved in an affair you are skating on very thin ice. David never thought he'd sleep with Bathsheba until he saw her naked; then he couldn't think of anything else. You can steal money, you can get involved in pornography, you can cheat on your spouse, and you can lie to your family. Every day of our lives we have to remind ourselves we are vulnerable to complete moral failure.
   
2. If you think you can burn the candle at both ends, you are already toast
   There are no super humans in ministry. When I read twitters of pastors who get up at 4:00 a.m. every day, who work seven days a week, who counsel people at night and on their "day off", I know that they are headed for a fall. God took a day off when he was creating the world, Jesus took a beach trip to Tyre and Sidon (Mark 7:24) during his ministry. Unless you know something God doesn't know you are headed for a major fall without regular downtime.
   
3. If you think you can do ministry without accountability, you are already toast
   The only "conversation" I ever had with Gary Lamb was a Twitter exchange over the importance of an accountability group. Gary felt that the Overseers of his church provided all the accountability he needed. My contention is that we need people who are face-to-face with us on a regular basis, who know our wives and our assistants, who can ask us the really tough questions. I don't know if the Overseers provided that for Gary or if a local group would have prevented his fall, but I do know that I need that kind of scrutiny in my life.

    

4. If you think you don't need safeguards, you are already toast
   Filters on internet access, never handling cash for the church, never meeting with someone of the opposite sex alone, letting others have access to your email; these are such a pain and to be honest I don't always have all of them active in my life. The reality is that safeguards will not keep you from doing what you have already decided to do, but they can give you enough margin to change your mind before you act.
   
5. If you think it's about you, you are already toast
   Failure begins with ego. When you begin to think that success is because you are smart, funny, talented, cool or a 100 other adjectives and not simply because God is God and has chosen to bless you; you are headed down a very dangerous path. When you being to think the ministry will crumble without you and that you have to work 24/7 to make it happen you are headed toward destruction. When you think the rules stop applying to you and you can cut corners and you are above it you are on a crash course for disaster.
   

As ministers we are in a marathon. If you do not pay attention to the danger signs along the way you will crash before the finish line. Your crash may be a spectacular moral failure like Gary's, it may be the slow destruction of your marriage, or it may be the rotting of your soul; but Satan will use ministry to destroy you. And God will not say to you in Heaven, "Too bad about your family, but awesome job building a great big church. Fist bump, dude."

Three things every pastor needs to do:

1. Slow down
   You will not change the world today and tomorrow isn't looking good either. There is plenty of time to hang with your wife, play with your kids, play golf, relax. God was at work long before you showed up and He will be at work long after you are gone. You cannot live on adrenaline all of the time. You cannot be pumped up about every weekend. If you live that way for an extended time you will crash.
2. Open up

   You need someone in your life who knows you inside and out; someone who will ask the hard questions and know when you are ducking the answers. It is difficult as a pastor to find someone you can be truly honest with, but it is essential that you find that person. Another pastor who does not attend your church might be ideal.

3. Count the cost

   Every time you are tempted to break a rule, to cut a corner, togo somewhere you shouldn't go consider what it will cost you when it all comes to light. What is going to happen when your wife finds out? How will she feel? What will it do to your children? What will this do to your church? How will it feel to write a letter like Gary had to write?

You don't wake up one day and decide to shipwreck your life. You do it one stupid decision at a time. As someone who has seen this happen again and again and again I am begging you to take action today because it will happen to you.

Dino Rizzo Servolutionizes Inner Revolution

Dino Rizzo is one of my favorite pastors in the country. He is an incredibe communicator and has a huge heart, but what impresses me most about Dino is that he is exactly the same one-on-one as he is on stage. Dino is a humble servant with a heart for God. Recently I got a chance to ask Dino my #1 burning quesiton about his new book, Servolution. (By the way, the book is amazing)

What is the best first step for a church that wants to open a Dream Center?

Geoff - it’s so cool of you to take time to be a part of this tour.  I’ve so appreciated your writing and the part you’ve played in making Seacoast such a great church - such a great example for us at HPC as we moved to a multi-site model.  Thanks for what you do for the Kingdom.

I think one thing we did right in our journey of starting a Dream Center was to go and learn from those who were already attempting to run Dream Centers.  We visited Los Angeles where Matthew Barnett is doing a phenomenal job with the LA Dream Center.  We also were on the ground to help at the St. Louis Dream Center as Joyce Meyer launched it.  We sent teams for several years to these places to serve and to inject the passion and culture into our family here.  You’ve got to go and touch it, see it... let someone sneeze on you so you’ll catch it.

Then we started doing outreaches into the community.  We went mobile to begin with and we started where we had favor.  We started small and let God guide each step.  Put your action behind it first, then as God grows it, the facility will become a reality.  Activity precedes facilities.  It isn’t about gathering a million dollars and going out to buy a building.  Just get busy serving where you have favor and watch where God takes it.

I want to thank Dino for taking time to give us his insight. He will be stopping by the blog today to interact with your questions and comments, so what would you like to ask Dino?

Doing Good

My friend Shawn Wood is sponsoring a very cool initiative he's calling 5 Days in May which got me to thinking about doing good. I think there are three levels of good doing:

Level One: The do gooder

These are people who see something like 5 Days in May and think, "I have to do something about this." They sign up to drink nothing but water for 5 days and give the money they save to Water Missions International. They are the people who hear an appeal to help tsunami victims and toss a $10 in the collection plate. Sometimes they will sign up to sponsor a child in Africa. Do gooders are a very necessary part of the good doing process.

Level Two: The game changer

When Shawn heard that one in six people don't have access to clean water he thought, "I have to do something about this." He could have mailed a check to Water Missions (do gooder), or he could try to start a movement that raises awareness and spurs hundreds or thousands of people to action (A game changer). A few years ago when my wife visited Christ's Gift Academy, a school for AIDS orphans in a small fishing village on the shore of Lake Victoria, she thought, "I have to do something about this." She could have sponsored a child (she now sponsors three children), or led a team of teachers on a mission trip to the school (which she has done several times). But that wasn't enough. Sherry organized a new board for the school, revamped their fund raising process and continues to lead the American operation. She is definitely a game changer. (And a darn good looking one as well)

Level Three: The world shaker

My friend Joe had no intention of moving to Africa when a buddy talked him into taking a trip to Christ's Gift Academy, but after his first visit he thought, "I have to do something about this." When he returned he spent several weeks in prayer, consulted with trusted friends and sought pastoral guidance on what he should do. Then he quit his dream job as a Division 1 basketball coach, sold everything he owned and moved to Africa. Joe still doesn't see himself as a traditional missionary, he's just a guy who had to make a difference. Joe is a world shaker.

What are you? Are you a do gooder? It seems like if we take up space on earth we should at least be a do gooder. Are you a game changer? Where could you made a significant contribution that would change the status of good in the world? Or are you that rare individual who is a world shaker? One of my favorite scriptures is in Acts 17; "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also." I hope before I die someone will say that about me. I want to shake the world. How about you?

A stupid brush with fame

Yesterday I was at a campus greeting people in the lobby after service when a sharp guy about my age introduced himself. He said he had committed his life to Christ a few months ago and had been baptized at Seacoast this past winter. He then began to explain his life situation which is, to put it mildly, complicated. I asked him what he did for a living and he said that he is a retired musician. I have never met a retired musician before, especially one in their mid-forties. Musicians tend to starve rather than retire. I started to ask him what exactly he had retired from, but I decided to leave it alone.

In the car on the way back I asked Jeanne Radekopf (several of us had traveled together to the campus) if she knew any more about the guy's story. Since Jeanne is a worship pastor at Seacoast I figured she might know more about retired musicians and their complicated lives. Actually she knew his story quite well. It turns out he was a member of a band that everyone in America over the age of 12 has heard of. In fact you probably own at least one of his albums, and you definitely have had his songs stuck in your head for at least a decade. He is a retired musician because when you sell as many albums as he has you don't need to work again, and everyone knows your name.

Everyone but me.

I'm glad I didn't ask him what he retired from.

Five Multi-site Lessons (part 2)

A couple of weeks ago I started a series of posts on Five Lessons I've learned about multi-site. Today I want to pick up part 2 of that series with a mistake I've seen at several multi-site churches I have visited over the past few years; offering an inferior experience at the offsite location. It seems like a no brainer that if you want people to attend your new site you need to make sure to offer something as close as possible to the original. If Ruth's Chris Steakhouse second location had opened with a menu of mystery meat and mac and cheese there would never have been a third location. Here are several areas where I have seen churches miss the mark in launching a second campus.

Poor teaching: If your church has been built on excellent teaching then your offsite campuses will need excellent teaching. The challenge is that great teachers are hard to find. You can find teachers who are effective with groups of 50, 100 or 200, but once you get beyond 200 people it becomes difficult to find teachers who can effectively engage a larger audience. That's one of the reasons Seacoast uses video teaching almost exclusively; we are able to leverage the teaching gifts of our primary communicators and allow our campus pastors to focus on their areas of strength. As my brother Greg often says, many people feel they have the gift of teaching; the question is does anyone have the gift of listening.

Poor music: The second most important leader at most campuses, after the campus pastor, is the worship director. If you put a poor band led by a mediocre singer in front of a skeptical crowd followed by a video preacher; people aren't going to come back. In fact if you choose to use video teaching you will need an extremely effective musical worship experience to capture the people's hearts. I saw this in action at North Coast in San Diego. The best worship band on the campus is in one of video venueus,The Edge, not in the auditorium where Larry Osborne speaks.

Poor children's ministry: This is often an uphill battle. Your original location has children's ministry space that would make Walt Disney envious; 3d characters, state of the art lights, sound and video, and backdrops straight off a Hollywood set. But you ask parents at the new site to drop their kids off in a dingy high school classroom or a dark, empty theater. Often they'll make the sacrifice for a few weeks until the kids beg to go back to WallyWorld. The first key to children's ministry in an offsite campus is to look good until you can be good. We often start with a video curriculum and put as much money and effort as possible into making the space look fun and clean.

Poor technology: We talk a lot at Seacoast about the good enough line; we want our technology to meet the expectations of the audience, but we don't stress about having the best cutting edge equipment available. For example we are still using standard definition video in all but one of our venues. The challenge with a good enough line is that it is very important to stay above the line. I have visited several churches that use video teaching and are either straddling the good enough line or woefully below it. Often they are capturing video that is hard to watch. The lighting is poor, the backdrop is cluttered, and the camera is poorly operated. Asking people to watch video teaching is a leap; you have to help them make that leap with appealing video. The same is true of sound and lights. You don't need Broadway, but you do need better than a Jr. High sock hop.

Definitions that should be

 

A friend emailed these to me last week. I probably shouldn't post them, but they are too funny to pass up:

Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologisms, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. The winners are:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs. 

2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach. 

4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent. 

6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown. 

7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp. 

8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash. 

9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller. 

10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline. 

11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam. 

12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists. 

13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist. 

14. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there. 

 The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners:

 1. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

 2. [You'll have to find this one somewhere else. A little too PG-13 for this blog]

 3. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

 4. Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

 5. Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

 6. Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

 7. Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.

 8. Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease.

 9. Karmageddon (n): Its like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

 10. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

 11. Glibido (v): All talk and no action.

 12. Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

 13. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

 14. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

 15. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

 And the pick of the literature:

 16. Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an a******.