sorry, but this is hilarious

this is why i cannot understand why karaoke is even a word.

click here to see the video.

thanks to mark batterson from national community church for posting the link at evotional.com.

content is STILL king

check out this article at brand autopsy about marketing. i love the point that what we want is people to not just talk about what we did, but what we do. at healing place church our mission is to not just be a place where people leave an encounter and are amazed at what we did - the cool factor, the excellence in worship, the authentic kindness, etc. it is much much better if they leave remembering that this is a place where the can encounter God - where their needs are met by a loving Savior.

it's not enough just to get them talking about what we did last weekend at church. we need to be sure that the "wow" is just a piece of the bigger theme of hosting an encounter with God himself.

"hill"ing place church weekend

it was cool to have the houstons and darlene zschech at healing place church this weekend - in from hillsong in australia. josh foster wrote a cool blog post about the experience of playing with the hillsong worship team (darlene led a "one way" worship night at healing place sunday night). in that post, there's a link to bootleg video of the night that is really worth watching. it starts with a good long countdown (4 min or so) but the rest is so worth the wait.

on drafting

had a cool thought hit me in church Saturday night. usually i go to service and sit up in the balcony and type extensive notes on the message on my mac. but this Saturday i sat up front and took notes on my very handy xv6600 phone/pocket pc. i know, i sound like a real geek - i don't really deny it, but that isn't the point of this post at all.

the thought that hit me as i sat close to the front was about pursuing God. i have really been feeling this whole deal lately about making my life to be all about the pursuit to know God and to make him known (thus the name of this blog).

i thought about how sometimes God will allow me to get behind someone and i can draft them like Jeff Gordon or Dale Jarrett (or any other NASCAR driver you wanna name) would draft another car . the idea is that the car ahead of you actually creates a draft that if you pull in closely enough, you're actually pulled ahead by the car you're drafting.

dino rizzo is one of those people for me. it seems like at times i'm able to draft behind him, and i always end up stronger in my pursuit to know God. there are others who have been that way for me at different times in my life - Julio Melara, Lee Domingue, Chad Daniel, Kerry Wilkerson, Mark Stermer, Rob Ketterling, and of course, my dad.

but what is more important is the opportunities i get in life to draft God. There are zones - times during this race - when we get to draft behind the Master. there's a lot of parallels that can be pulled from this thought - i'd definitely be interested in hearing from a NASCAR fan what they think - but i know this much right now - i want to live my life on an intense, intentional pursuit to know God and to make him known. and i know that if i pull in close and follow tightly, there's a place where i'm not having to face all the wind resistance on my own.

any NASCAR fans out there with more insight about it?

reach conference 2006

anybody know anything (pro or con) about this conference?

Reach Conference 2006

don't get stuck in the cement of a campus model...

okay - in my post "the first hit is always free" i whine a lot about how much time blogging takes to really do it like i want to be able to do it. one complaint was that i take pictures to blog about something then never seem to get around to posting them.

well, here's one, anyway. and i'm not just posting this one of me and geoff surratt because he practically begged me to post it. (i guess he thought my side of the picture made his side look better.)



this is at fellowship church's plano campus. we were there as part of a leadership network multi-site community gathering. geoff is a smart, big-hearted, obviously good-looking, God-loving genius - especially where it comes to multi-site church concepts. he's part of seacoast church and they've got like 497 campuses now (give or take a few).

he said something at the gathering that i really took to heart for how we do multi-site church at healing place church with our 12 or 13 services at 8 campuses (depending on how you count). here's the quote:

"don't ever get stuck in the cement of a model."

when it comes to doing multi-site church the way we do here at hpc, there's not a sliver of space for a mindset that isn't flexible to customize for particular situations. we have no two campuses that are alike. we've got a campus that is a video playback and is just around the corner from the main campus. we have one that is spanish-speaking only - a huge factor in planning. we have one that is predominantly african-american, planted in the middle of one of the poorest zip codes in the USA. we just started one in a rural area just north of town. we have a campus out in california that is a video venue. we have one in manaus, brazil that is planting more campuses of its own in the interior along the amazon. little mini-HPC's all along the river.

talk about a modeling nightmare. it would be a nightmare if we decided to get stuck in the cement of a model. by being able to employ what works from various models to build a setup for each new campus based on its own cultural factors and needs, we're going to be able to be more effective in a much shorter time than if we just bulled our way in and said, "this is how it has to be because it is our model."

sure, we have a DNA that we aren't going to change. but the expression of that DNA will become self-paralyzing if we refuse to pursue flexibility in how the DNA is expressed.

anyway - thanks geoff for the encouragement about that. and congrats on the new multi-site revolution blog. i'm looking forward to what we'll see (and hear?) there.

coming from a father of five...

you soon-to-be parents out there, make sure you've got this procedure down. if you do it wrong, however, it should only take once doing it wrong to remember the right way.

Diaper Changing 101

the first hit is always free

dang - the whole blogging thing is like doing drugs. you get in and it is free to start with - everything is great fun... read what is going on in the minds of some great minds like geoff surratt and mark batterson and tony morgan and chris over at www.chrisbusch.com. then you start tracking down stuff they're talking about and you end up with a few sleepless nights spent taking "hits."

then you start dealing your own blog and you start finding yourself seeing life through the eyes of blogging. everything makes you want to take out your phone and take a picture.... "ooh ooh, let me get a pic of that for my blog..." and you start talking blogs with some newbie and you're pushing blogspot.com on him like a bag of weed.

i don't really know what that has to do with my main point here except to say that it isn't easy to keep up with. today i had 55 new entries my RSS feed was telling me i needed to read. now, i DID try to steer clear of blogging for a few days there - maybe four at the most - but 55 new entries? that's getting into a job just to read the ones i have thought were too good to pass up.

and writing new entries in my own blog? hah! i'm too busy reading everyone else's blogs.

i went on a trip last week and i took all kinds of pics and noted about a dozen things i wanted to blog about from that trip, but it's over a week later now and i STILL haven't blogged about any of it. and now there's all kinds of new stuff i wanna blog about.

i'll never catch up. it is a terrible feeling. i took a picture with geoff surratt while i was in dallas last week and i told him it was for my blog - guess he's wondering why i haven't posted it yet - you know HE looked good for the pic.

why does something that starts out a such a novelty end up being so able to full me with guilt for neglecting it for just a few days?

anyone got any guidance for a blog junkie? i really don't see quitting cold turkey as an option. i want to blog - and i want to read blogs. but i'm sure curious to konw how some of the rest of you who blog actually keep up with it without letting it overwhelm your "free time."

it's 1:00 in the morning and i'm asking this... dang - just go to bed, dan.

okay. i think i will.

in the meantime, i'd love to wake up in the morning and when i check my blog - to have some helpful answers on the blog here....

thanks y'all.

catalyst blog link

great summary - all-in-one shot of the happenings at catalyst....

the official catalyst blog

healing place church - a "pimp" church...

the folks at www.pimpmychurch.com think so. not something they taught us at JSBC, but coming from these guys, it really is a compliment.

another new look

i just noticed a whole new look for the Healing Place Church site - nice job, guys!

and i thought giving my site a facelift was a big project.

new look and a new name for the blog

got tired of the old look. hope it all still works.

the old name was a ref to one of my favorite movies, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" I still like that, but I think this name tags better what i'm writing about. i really really want to live my live intentionally and intensely pursuing God - to know Him and to make Him known.

that's all i've got.

catalyst in a blog

i am thoroughly impressed with tony morgan's reviews of the catalyst conference. for those of us who were unable to go, it is a great - no, really - great synopsis of the thoughts the various communicators are giving. erwin mcmanus, bill hybels, andy stanley, donald miller (blue like jazz author - great book), louie giglio, etc.

it's worth tagging this guy's rss feed.

tonymorgan.typepad.com

thanks, tony.

check out tony morgan's blog today

http://tonymorgan.typepad.com

the "Catalyst One" entry is some great stuff about decision-making from Andy Stanley.

i've got the hat. he's got the style.

me and my big brother.

i'm sure it was baby day.