LeadingSmart

Pyromaniacs Smackdown Begins

I told you last week there would be a "book review smackdown" coming soon over at the Pyromaniacs blog. If you have read Pop Goes the Church as well as The Courage to be Protestant, I would encourage you to jump in on the debate.

Please be nice and engage the conversation as a learner and a spirit-filled follower of Christ.

One Prayer Speakers Decided

This morning we finalized the speakers we will be using during the One Prayer series at Granger Community Church. I love the idea of joining with more than 1,000 other churches, and the messages these men will be bring will help our people take steps toward Jesus!

• June 7/8 - Craig Groeschel, LifeChurch.tv, Make Us One
• June 14/15 - Mark Beeson, Granger, Make Us Courageous
• June 21/22 - Wayne Cordeiro, New Hope Christian Fellowship, Make Us Wise
• June 28/29 - Dino Rizzo, Healing Place Church, Make Us Generous

Getting to Faith Through Doubt

Ever since Wednesday night, when I heard the news about the daughter of Steven Curtis Chapman...I can't get their family off my mind.

I don't have a personal connection to any of them. I heard Steven first sing in a library in Arkansas in 1987 just after his first album was released. And his first wedding song, I Will Be Here, came out just before Faith and I got married, so it was the love song we featured at our wedding. But other than that, I really haven't listened to his music or followed his story since then (although my wife and girls are avid followers).

Maybe it is because of the age of my kids and having a new teenage driver at home, but they have been in my prayers and on my mind non-stop. I can't imagine the horror they have experienced since Wednesday when their 5-year old daughter was run over and killed in their own driveway. So many questions go through my mind...

• Why would God allow this to happen? (I know that God didn't cause it, but I also know He could have stopped it.)
• How is the teenage son (who was driving the SUV) ever going to recover?
• How do Steven Curtis and Mary Beth ever make sense of this tragedy? How do they lead their family with strength while going through their own pain?
• What do they say to the well-intentioned but stupid Christians who will approach them and say, "Well, at least she's in a better place now"?
• A week ago they were planning their sons graduation party looking to a bright future. Now, the future is missing a little girl who was just having fun playing outside--how is that fair?

The final session at WhiteBoard last week was delivered by Ed Stetzer. I've never heard him speak before, but I was mesmerized by his talk. Because the death of Maria Chapman was on my mind, his words were especially important...

• Don't be afraid to say to God, "I don't get it...I don't understand."
• God is not scared of your questions. He doesn't get mad at you for doubting Him.
• At the end of the day, I have to press through my doubt in order to get to faith. You can't get to faith without doubt.

I don't know how I'd respond or what I would do. I can only hope I'd have people surrounding me, as the Chapmans do, to walk through it with me.

If you want to get to know Maria, watch this video.

A Beautiful Wedding

For those who love Ben Sanders and Vanessa Shaffer (now Sanders) as much as I do, you might enjoy a 90-second highlight video from their wedding. It's a little grainy, but the best I can do with my Windows Movie Maker software :)

Should I Twitter?

When it comes to technology, I've always been an early adopter.

• I bought a DVD player for $750 when they first arrived in the U.S. in 1997. It was before you could buy DVD's in most stores.
• I bought my 57" high definition TV more than five years ago for (cough, cough)...alot of money. At the time, only the Discovery Channel was available in HD.
• I subscribed to the now-defunct VOOM satellite service when it launched in 2003, and kept it until they cancelled service in 2005.

So it is interesting, even to me, that I haven't jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. While I am an early adopter in the audio/video world--it pales in comparison to how fast Kem Meyer adopts new applications in the Web 2.0 world. She is a FaceBooker, Jotter and SpinVoxer...and tells me I need to begin Twitter'ing. Or is it Tweeting? See, I don't even know the correct jargon.

I tried a couple days ago to set up a Twitter account. I thought I would at least become a Twitter-Stalker to see how it works. But evidently the Twitter site had crashed. Did a little googling and found out that Twitter crashes are fairly normal. That doesn't bother me...anytime something is new and popular, it has growing pains.

But since it was crashing and I couldn't sign up, it gave me time to pause and say, "Why?" Why would I twitter? Will it be another application to keep up with? My friend whose motto is "less clutter, less noise" says it fits well within her life of simplicity...but I'm not sure I can see that yet.

Some of my favorite bloggers are twitterers, including Mark Batterson, Dave Ferguson, Scott Hodge and Bobby Gruenwald, so there must be something to it, right?

Okay, your turn. Tell me why I should (or shouldn't) become a Twitter dude?

John Burke at WhiteBoard

Key thoughts...

• God was asking me, "Am I enough?" I had to honestly answer, "No, God, you aren't enough."
• Addiction to self is a real deal.
• We've made Christianity confusing and complex for people.
• It's simple though: Stay connected...fruit happens. Stay connected to Jesus moment by moment and help people around you do the same. God brings the growth.
• We get to create a culture of grace and acceptance, but we don't have to change people. That's God's deal.

John Burke is the pastor of Gateway Community Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of No Perfect People Allowed and the upcoming book called Soul Revolution.

Vince Antonucci at WhiteBoard

Vince Antonucci began telling the story of how he met Jesus as an adult who had never been to church. He then asked, "How is it possible I grew up in this country and never heard about Jesus and was never invited to church?"

There are churches all over the country exploding with growth and all kinds of new churches being planted...so how is it possible that there are 8 million less people attending church today than  20 years ago?

Vince recently released a book called I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt which I hear is a great book.

Mark Batterson at WhiteBoard

One Idea:

Whatever you're dreaming, it is too small. Whatever you think of God, it isn't close to how great He is. Seek God. Dream bigger. Do something great for God.

Mark Batterson is the pastor of National Community Church in Washington D.C. and ended with this moving baptism video.

WhiteBoard Begins Now

The WhiteBoard Sessions. 8 leaders. 30 minutes each. 1 big idea. It starts now.

Mark Batterson is teaching right now. I'm #3 in the line-up, starting at 10:55am eastern.

Follow along at Conference Channel.org.

Praying for Steven Curtis Chapman

Just heard the awful news of a tragic accident earlier today...

"Steven Curtis Chapman’s youngest child died Wednesday afternoon after being struck by a car driven by her teenage brother in the driveway of the family’s Williamson County home."

I can't imagine the pain they are feeling. My prayers are with them.