Willow Summit and Tony Dungy

I’m very honored and excited to interview Coach Tony Dungy at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit on August 5th. We’ll be discussing Coach Dungy’s newest book, The Mentor Leader, Secrets to Building People and Teams that Win Consistently.

In preparation for the interview, I reread Quiet Strength and enjoyed a couple of pre-interview calls with Coach Dungy. I’ve always admired Dungy’s leadership and spiritual strength from a distance. He’s everything you would hope for and far more up close.

Tyndale House Publishers also provided me with an advance copy of Coach Dungy’s new book. I’m so thankful for his exceptional work on the important subject of mentoring. This is a must read for pastors and spiritual leaders.

In fact, at Life, I will be doing a 4 week teaching on mentoring and investing in the next generation of leaders in September called, “I Believe in You.”

If you are able to attend the Summit or a satellite broadcast location, I know you will benefit from his story and example.

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2 Billion Minutes + Norwegian: YouVersion News

This June was the biggest month in YouVersion’s history, which pushed us forward to an exciting milestone. YouVersion users have spent two billion minutes engaging with Scripture using YouVersion! I’m excited to see what could happen as more and more people spend more and more time in God’s Word. We’d love to celebrate with you and hear how you’re using YouVersion.

And, more and more people are adding the Bible to their phones. In just the last four weeks, the Bible App was installed on more than 650,000 new mobile devices! That’s approximately one new user every four seconds, and in that same four second period of time, 17 other people open up their Bible App and use it.

We’re committed to making the Bible available to people around the globe, and we just took an additional step in that direction. 
Today we introduced the first native translation of YouVersion.com with the rollout of a Norwegian language version. This means the entire interface of the site is available in Norwegian. Next up: Spanish!

And have I mentioned that we’re hiring? To keep up with all the great things God is doing through YouVersion, we’re adding five people to the team. Should we hire you?

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Swerve Favorites: Fasting from Church Stuff

[Repost from August 12, 2008]

For years I tried to be like other ministers. I listened to messages, attended conferences, and devoured every Christian book I could.

Each time I learned from a new leader, I tried to become more like them.

God led me to do something very different. (I don’t recommend this for you. I’m just sharing the story of what God led me to do.)

For an extended season, I stopped attending conferences, reading ministry books, and listening to others’ sermons. Instead of becoming like others, my goal was to become who God wanted me to become.

It was very difficult to cut myself off from learning from other people. During this season, I felt like God wanted me to learn directly from Him.

I still love to study and learn from other leaders, but this journey of intensely seeking God freed me to be me.

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Swerve Favorites: Spirit Led Instead of Model Driven

[Repost from August 13, 2008]

Many pastors copy models.

There is the “seeker sensitive” model, the “purpose driven” model, the “emergent church” model, the “contemporary church” model, the “spirit-filled classic charismatic” model, the “small group” model, the “multi-site” model, the “missional inner-city” model, the “dream center” model, and the list could go on and on.

Each of those models and the leaders who practice them have contributed a ton to the Kingdom.

Rather than copying the latest model that moves you, I suggest you let the Spirit of God direct your ministry based on the values, gifts, and people God gives you.

• What are YOU passionate about?
• What has God put in YOU?
• What needs can God use YOU to meet?
• What breaks YOUR heart?
• What are YOU uniquely equipped and called to do?

Even if you learn from another model, make it your own. Adapt it for your community. Improve on it. Tweak it. Take it up two notches.

Don’t copy models as much as you follow what God leads you to do.

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Swerve Favorites: An Outsider’s Words Often Mean More

[Repost from October 22, 2008]

I see it as one of my biggest roles to encourage and strengthen our staff.

Almost every time we gather, I remind them they are part of something special. But no matter how often I say it, it doesn’t mean as much as when an outsider tells them.

We’ve been blessed to have Dr. Sam Chand, Chris Hodges, Perry Noble, Steven Furtick, Jentzen Franklin, and Bill Hybels speak to our staff.

Each time, I promise you they say things very similar to what I often say, but when they say it, it means so much more!

• Invite the youth pastor from the other side of town to speak to your youth leaders.
• Call another worship leader to lead your choir in worship.
• Ask a neighboring pastor to speak to your volunteers.

Leverage the voice of friends to lift those around you in a way that you can’t.

How have you observed this in your life or ministry?

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The New LifeChurch.tv

Some of you may have already noticed the new LifeChurch.tv website we recently rolled out. Thanks for the kind words and helpful feedback some of you have sent our way. I wanted to share some thoughts about our approach to overhauling the site.

• We’ve kept the launch fairly low-profile to give ourselves some margin as we iron out any issues that have popped up. We don’t wait to go live until things are perfect–that’s just asking for indefinite delays. Now that it’s out there, it’s easier to see what’s working and what’s not, and we have a stronger sense of urgency to get those things updated.
• We designed for mobile first. Knowing that mobile devices are going to dominate the usage of the web in the future, we didn’t want our mobile site to be an afterthought. It drove our development and forced us to include only essential content. We killed many pages, streamlined the design, tightened up copy, and were very intentional about the interface.
• We shifted our focus to people who are new to LifeChurch.tv. I’ve posted already about the way we offloaded some online functionality to Facebook, and that shift allowed us to change our focus for this site. Instead of trying to create a site where people would hang out (now our users are doing that on Facebook), we were able to narrow the audience and gear our content toward visitors and people who are trying to learn about us. Of course, plenty of areas (giving, resources, etc.) still offer helpful content for regular attenders, but our overall strategy is to reach out to new people.
• We added more storytelling. I’m a firm believer in looking back to recognize all the things God has done within the life of our church. Our new site incorporates some of the work we’re doing to document, share, and celebrate what we get to be a part of.

We’re excited to get this launched and have a site that better represents who we are. What are some of your favorite church websites?

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YouVersion is Hiring

YouVersion is on the brink of some exciting developments, and I’m really looking forward to telling you about those next week. But did you know we’re looking for people to join the YouVersion team? We need a few talented individuals who are passionate about getting millions of people around the world engaged in God’s word:

• YouVersion iOS (iPhone/iPad) Engineer
• YouVersion Blackberry Engineer
• YouVersion Symbian Engineer
• LifeChurch.tv Digerati UX Web Designer/Developer
• YouVersion Partnership Development

Even if you don’t fit these descriptions, you can help by telling people you know about these positions. Thanks for everything you do to help YouVersion break new barriers in Scripture engagement!

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Response to Flooding in OKC

Last week, several areas in and around Oklahoma City experienced flooding after record amounts of rainfall. Some of the neighborhoods near our locations saw water levels as high as 4-5 feet, which destroyed nearly everything in their homes. Flooding of this nature is very unusual for these areas, so most of these families did not have flood insurance.

Since Tuesday we’ve been working with the people in those neighborhoods to offer help clearing and cleaning their houses, food, water, prayer, and other assistance. Here are a few of the pieces from local media that have been covering the response:

Helping Flood Victims

Volunteers clean up flooded neighborhoods

We’ve been overwhelmed by the people, organizations, and businesses in the community who have jumped at the chance to help. I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has been giving their time and resources so generously. It’s great to see the church being the church!

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