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Watch this at halftime. PLEASE read it now.

Feb 1

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church, Cultural Commentary, Leadership, Live Blogging, Resources, Social Media, Spiritual Insights, Tallahassee | 2 Comments

In case you haven’t heard, NBC said “no” to a Super Bowl ad from CatholicVote.com. Here’s a brief explanation of why from the CatholicVote.com newsletter:

So why did NBC reject the ad?

The network claims that they do not allow political or issue advocacy advertisements during the Super Bowl, but that’s simply not true.

The network was willing to air an ad by PETA, which is definitely an advocacy group, if PETA would tone down their ad’s sexual suggestiveness.

Also, the first ad scheduled to run during the Super Bowl is a creative spot about Pedigree’s pet adoption drive. The ad ends with the line: “Help us help dogs.”

In recent years, some Super Bowl advertisements have caused controversy. But there’s nothing objectionable about our positive, life-affirming advertisement. We show a beautiful ultrasound, something NBC’s parent company GE has done for years. We don’t attack Barack Obama, but focus on him becoming the first African-American President. We simply ask people to imagine the potential of each human life.

Below is the video (RSS subscribers may need to click here), but here’s my request: Watch it during halftime. Take a moment to sit around the computer and watch the video. It’s even in HD!

Tell everyone you know. Repost the video on your blog. Twitter it out. Do whatever you do to let people know about things. Let’s use the power of social media to send a message to mainstream media.

Video Friday! (LOST edition)

Oct 3

Posted by Clayton Bell in Live Blogging, Video Friday | 3 Comments

For those of you who watch LOST and remember Kate’s escape from the cage in season 3, you’ll appreciate this reenactment of that scene…BY A BEAGLE!!!!

HT to Amanda for the video.

My answers to Life’s Toughest Questions

Oct 2

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church, Cultural Commentary, Live Blogging, Resources, Spiritual Insights, Tallahassee, Youth | No Comments

Here’s a brief summary of the answers I gave last night at ENT Youth:

If God is always with me, why do I feel so alone?

  • You’re, right- God is always with us, as we see in Matthew 28:20- “And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
  • There may be unrepentant sin in your life
  • You might not be cultivating your relationship with God. How will you know if He’s near you if you have no idea what He’s like?
  • You might have an unrealistic expectation of what it means to not “feel alone.” Feeling God doesn’t always mean a goosebump moment, or a shaking in a room. God is also in the quite whispers of our soul.

If you know that you have sinned but you forget your sins can you just ask God to forgive you for every sin you’ve done, not naming them specifically?

  • Yes!
  • We should live a lifestyle of repentance, not just in a moment of coming to God do we repent.
  • When we recognize things we’ve never repented of, we should repent to God!
  • Different stages in life will reveal different things in our life. We should always be sensitive to what God is doing and revealing to us.
  • We should follow King David’s example and continually pray Psalm 139:23- “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”

If you do a sin but you keep on doing it, but every time repent and really mean it, will God stop forgiving you?

  • No, he will keep forgiving. Jesus tells Peter about this in Matt. 18:21- “Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?” “No!” Jesus replied, “seventy times seven!”
  • But we should not view it as a license to keep sinning. Paul addressed this mindset in Romans 6:1, 2- “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?”
  • You need to ask- why am I still stuck in this sin? Do you know God’s truth about the issue you’re struggling with? Are you confessing your sin to someone who’s got victory in that area?

Why are we here on this earth?

  • I would go with Ps. Adrian’s answer from Sunday: to know God and to make him known
  • “Making him known” can come through a variety of means, both proclaiming who He is and what He’s done, and demonstrating it to the world in our individual and unique way. Which leads to…

How do you hear your purpose from God?

  • Know God first, THEN seek to know his will- Romans 12:1-2 “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice – the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.“
  • Know God, serve him, ask him, seek him. Sometimes we don’t know what God wants because we simply haven’t asked Him!
  • Try everything- how are you going to know what you like and what you’re good at unless you try it? I’ve had at least seven job titles since I graduated from college. Stop trying to hit the mark on the very first try and with only one shot.
  • Ask around- how are people blessed by you? Do you know how God is moving through you? Ask your friends what THEY see in you!
  • Examine your desires

How do you think we should deal with friends who are depressed/suffering to comfort them and help them through it? And the same question for gay friends.

  • Very carefully! These are serious issues that can’t be taken lightly or dealt with in a bible trivia method
  • Just like the suicide issue we talked about last week, there’s a big difference between hashing out finer theological details and the intense and serious real-life nature of these discussions.
  • Pray for them
  • Pray with them when they allow you to
  • Don’t ever promise to keep anything a secret!
  • Don’t try and explain everything in over-simplified biblical terms. Don’t be like Job’s friends and try and make everything a 2+2=4 situation with God. He’s more complicated than that.
  • NEVER encourage them to stop taking their medication!
  • Encourage them to talk to an adult, a parent, a professional
    • Check with Megan O’Leary, who is studying clinical psychology, to find out more about this
  • You might have to risk their friendship to save their life. They might not understand now, but they will thank you in 20 years from now.
  • For gay friends- Love them while refusing to be compromising in what God says about their lifestyle. Don’t fall into the extremes of either cursing them with every word, or ignoring scriptural truths about sin.
  • Find Christians who work specifically with this issue if your friends are interested in knowing more about God and how God might help them in their situation.

That’s it! How did I do?

Video Friday!

Sep 11

Posted by Clayton Bell in Live Blogging, Video Friday | 33 Comments

I was going to post this tomorrow but my wife FORCED me to post it today. Besides, it will probably be old internet news by Friday.

Just to give you an idea of what this video is all about, here are the tags for it on YouTube: dancing, sad, bizarre, funny, awkward, Jesus, mind, key, renewed. I could not have said it better myself…

HT to Dustin, AKA Pastor Mark, AKA My Little Pony & Kelley

Oh wait, there’s more. That’s right…

Y? Because I love you! M-O-U-S-E…

Aug 10

Posted by Clayton Bell in Live Blogging, Resources | 1 Comment

You guys are awesome.

If it wasn’t for you I’d have left this whole blogging business a long time ago. I love to read the comments, see the discussion, hear the differing and challenging opinions that you, the reader, expresses.

So let me help you out a bit.

Perhaps you’re coming here everyday to check and find out if there’s new material. Did you know that you can save that time but subscribing to this blog via either RSS or by email? When you do that, you’re notified when I post something new and you don’t have to worry about missing anything. Because, let’s be honest, THAT’S what you’re worried about. Yeah, right.

Simply click on the buttons to the right to subscribe now. If you’re not sure what RSS is, check this out.

Heck, I even uploaded a special theme for all of my iPhone viewers, as you can see to the right…

Why? Because I love ya! Thanks for coming around, and tell a friend if you think they’d like to know what’s going on here…

Willow Creek Photos

Aug 8

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church, Cultural Commentary, Guest Blog, Leadership, Live Blogging, Resources, Spiritual Insights | No Comments

To sooth your anger for not providing notes, I’ll provide some photos of the venue we’re attending, Bradfordville Baptist Church.

Additionally, here’s the official Willow Flickr stream of photos.


Willow Creek Notes- Update to Craig Groeschel

Aug 8

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church, Cultural Commentary, Guest Blog, Leadership, Live Blogging, Resources, Spiritual Insights | No Comments

Here’s the closing prayer Craig used, I believe it was a Fransiscan prayer. Thanks to Kem Meyer for getting it over to me in no time at all!

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitations of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

Willow Creek Notes- Chuck Colson

Aug 8

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church, Cultural Commentary, Guest Blog, Leadership, Live Blogging, Resources, Spiritual Insights | No Comments

DEFENDING THE FAITH

  • Chuck is old. Perhaps older than Bill Hybels. That’s OLD! :-)
  • We have transferred our allegiance from truth to therapy
  • A great leader says, like Jesus, follow me…
  • If you are a shepherd or leader, your job is not to pander to your people but to lead them into the truth, defend the truth, and proclaim the truth…
  • Explaining the law of non-contradiction and taking a shot at the Supreme Court…
  • We need to stop blaming culture for everything!
  • Someone just cheered in Chicago for gay marriage in California. Did they mishear or get the wrong conference?
  • God speaks judgement against the people of God in the OT, not against the culture. Perhaps that is what is happening to us, we’re in Babylonian captivity.
  • We must continue to contend for the faith that was entrusted to the saints
  • Questions in the book?
    • What is Christianity?
      • Conversation? Church? Religion? Relationship with Jesus?
      • It’s all of those things, but it’s so much more than that…
      • It is a way of seeing and living all things through the eyes of God
      • God says “MINE” over every square inch of creation- Kuyper
    • What does it rest on?- Certain truth claims:
      • God is
      • He’s spoken
      • The fall
      • Jesus was incarnate (Chuck just said point three, so I may be off)
      • We make an exchange of identities on the cross
      • We are unified in the community. That was Chuck, not Efram Smith.
      • We need to be holy so that our holiness will display the characteristics of the God we follow
      • We live on revealed truth, not the thoughts of men
  • We don’t believe in forced conversions. We don’t impose, we propose…
  • The first thing people should say about us is how we love and love others


Session over, a little quicker than I thought. Great principles.

Willow Creek Notes- Craig Groeschel

Aug 8

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church, Cultural Commentary, Guest Blog, Leadership, Live Blogging, Resources, Spiritual Insights | 5 Comments

IT: HOW LEADERS CAN GET IT AND KEEP IT

  • Senior Pastor of LifeChurch.tv
  • Craig’s rocking the blazer. He must think it’s Easter or something.
  • He’s hyping Efram Smith from yesterday. He’s gonna be the story of the summit.
  • Craig is white. We’re told to set our expectations appropriately…
  • We’re having to say “IT” quite a bit. If I was less of a man, I would whispering “shhh”
  • Some churches just have something different from the moment you walk in, the moment you pull into the parking lot.
  • Telling the story of his first time coming to the summit, being overwhelmed with IT, and knowing he didn’t have IT in his life
  • He began to pray to God for IT
  • “The local church is the hope of the world!”- Hybels
    • When Craig heard that, he believed it, and it caused him to start LifeChurch.tv
  • Items in hell- green felt-back chairs…
  • They started with an overhead projector. You don’t have to start where they are in terms of technology to get where they are technologically
  • They didn’t have all the bells and whistles, but they had IT. They knew Christ, they told their friends about Christ, their friends would meet Christ. They didn’t have what we think we need, that had what they actually needed: IT.
  • They have the same elements of corporate worship in all of their locations, but not every campus has IT. They began to ask, what is that intangible?
  • It’s too easy to say that it’s “The Holy Spirit,” because to say that other people don’t have it is arrogant and insulting. It was more about the Holy Spirit moving through specific people in specific ways.
  • More of their satellites are growing, but the location where he’s preaching live is the only one that’s declining.
  • WHAT IS IT??!?!- Don’t know!
    • Pretty sure is has to do with the Holy Spirit
    • For some reason some churches had it more than others
  • God makes IT happen
    • We can’t create it, reproduce, manufacture, put it in a bottle
    • Rare that ONE person to bring it, common for the wrong person to kill it
    • Not taught, but caught
    • Not a system, a model
    • Where ever you see IT you see changed lives
    • IT attracts critics and shots at you
    • “You could say ‘IT HAPPENS.’”
  • If you have IT, you might not keep it. If you don’t have IT, you can find it!
  • The early church had IT: selling possessions to help their friends and family eat. To see that in our American churches!
  • Acts 2:42-47- Extreme words
    • EVERYONE, MANY, ALL, EVERYTHING, ANYONE, EVERY, ALL, DAILY
      • What would it be like to see seven people a day saved
  • I WANT IT! I WANT MORE OF IT! GIVE IT TO ME!
  • Qualities that are there when IT is present:
    • A laser focus
      • Guy told him he had 287 ministries in his church. He didn’t know if he was telling him a joke or needed prayer
      • Less ministries = better ministries
      • To reach people no one is reaching, we have to do things no one is doing. But to do things that no one else is going, we can’t do what everyone is doing! (Author note: Woo!)
      • Six years into the church he woke up and realized he may not need EVERY ministry that he’d created. They were using resources, volunteers, and building on activities that weren’t producing any fruit.
      • They cut everything but five areas:
        • Weekend
        • Small Group
        • Kids’ Ministries
        • Student Ministries
        • Missions
      • Don’t Do: VBS, Concerts, Conference, singles, mens’, womens’, etc. so they have the resources to do to other things like an Internet campus, Second Life, YouVersion
      • What are you doing that you need to stop doing?
    • See opportunities where others see obstacles
      • There’s every excuse to NOT do something
      • You have everything you need to do the things that God’s called us to do
      • If we don’t have, maybe it’s not what we need to be doing
      • God will guide where he doesn’t provide
      • The lack of space forced them to go mult-site
      • I can’t even describe what just happened. DVD will be the only explanation
      • What is God trying to show you through your greatest limitations?
    • They are willing to fail
      • Those without tend to play it safe.
      • Failure is not an option. It is a nessecity.
      • Peter failed over and over, but then saw 3K saved in his first message. He knew the power of forgiveness from failure.
      • You have to fail to figure out what God’s actually saying. He’s using that failure to grow you and prepare you for what you will do in the future.
      • Shake it off and STEP UP!
      • What has God called you to do that you are afraid to attempt? WHEN are you going to do IT!?!?
    • They are lead by people who have IT
      • You need to have IT for your ministry to get IT
      • He had IT after getting saved, but then ministry started to kill IT
      • He was doing more to build a church and get people into the building instead of asking what would bring glory to God and build His kingdom.
      • When you have IT in your heart, you get IT out to people, and then things start happening…
      • We have a tendency to look out for IT instead of inside of us for IT
      • He felt like he was a full-time pastor and a part-time follower of Christ.
      • What is our primary focus? His kingdom or our ministry?
      • He stopped listening to other things and only went to the world. He went overseas. He began fasting again. He let his tears emerge. He let God break his heart again.He hurts more, he cares more.
  • We must do WHATEVER it takes to get IT back into our life.

He ROCKED the house. He is one of the next great Christian leaders in the line of Hybels and Rick Warren.

Willow Creek Notes- Efrem Smith

Aug 7

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church, Cultural Commentary, Guest Blog, Leadership, Live Blogging, Resources, Spiritual Insights | 1 Comment

LEADING IN NEW CULTURAL REALITIES, PART 2

STROOONG end to the day. Good job, Efram.

  • Efrem Smith is on stage. The white-wash is over!
  • We need leaders who will live, love, serve and understand the multi-ethnic realities of our world and our churches
  • He’s got a little MLK in his voice. Very impressive.
  • HA!
  • 1 in 100 children were born of mixed race 1970. Now it’s 1 in 19. 1 in 10 in places like NYC
  • At some level, we all must step out and lead in a multi-ethnic situation. We don’t have to be experts, but be willing to step into a situation and be changed.
  • OK!
  • Drawing from 1 John 4. How do we engage for kingdom purposes?
  • This session is very good, but does not led itself to prolific note taking.
  • When God comes back, it’s justice. Until then, it’s just us!
  • MMM HMMM!
  • I have no idea when he is breathing.
  • “Tina Turner changed me life!”
  • We need to be an abiding leader, the kind that abides in God and has God abide in us.
  • WELL!
  • Some have not stepped out into multi-ethnic leadership because we feel under-qualified.
  • We can’t let the same disparity that exists in the world exist in our churches
  • If we really wanted to go where the most pain was, we’d plant as much as we can in the inner city
  • YESSIR!
  • We must also be confessing leaders, confessing where we’ve been wrong, where we can take responsibility.
  • Perhaps some of the storms in culture is the high pressure of what God wants to do bumping up against the low pressure of what we’d rather do.
  • WOOOO!!
  • The church might be the only place where an argument can be made to specifically reach out to people who look similar. No restaurant, business, etc. is going to build in that way.
  • What if we addressed the mindset that lead to have the separate ethnic churches, giving us a preview of heaven?
  • Crazy, deranged kids come in all colors!
  • We need to raise our kids! Grown men need to stop having “Lil” in front of their name.
  • Look intentionally to build with those around you. Sometimes it needs to be organic, sometimes it needs to be programmed.
  • He’s both black and Irish. He eats Lucky Charms all the time. May have invented the McRib.
  • OK, he just brought the house down with a classic black church preaching rant. Unreal. The whole place here was clapping, people in Chicago standing. Then he just walked off the stage. Would have just dropped the mic if he could have.

That’s it for me. See you tomorrow!