It Takes All Kinds of Churches

When I was a kid, my church friends were critical of other churches. The “other” churches were too weird, too charismatic, too legalistic, too boring, or too stuffy.

Sadly today, many Christians are convinced their style of church is the only and best way.

It takes all kinds of Christian churches to reach all kinds of people.

Surely God can work through Bible Churches, Charismatic Churches, Traditional Churches, and Seeker Churches. He can use Baptist Christians, Methodist Christians, Episcopal Christians, and Spirit-filled tongue talking Holy Ghost rollin’ Christians.

No matter how much you enjoy your expression of worship, your church won’t reach the world alone.

It is exciting that instead of criticizing the differences, many are embracing the similarities and truly making a difference for Christ.

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Partnering with Churches: OPEN

Partnering with churches globally is a huge focus of LifeChurch.tv. This week I’d like for us to discuss the three ways we do that.

OPEN - A website where churches can access, download and use LifeChurch.tv’s creative content for free. The content includes, but is not limited to, message series artwork, themed videos that are used to promote and brand a series (provided in full resolution), message outlines, and layered graphic files.

Network - LifeChurch.tv Network is a global network of churches that are strategically partnered with LifeChurch.tv to reach more people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. LifeChurch.tv Network churches consistently utilize our video teaching messages in one or more of their weekly services or experiences.

United - In the short history of LifeChurch.tv, five of our existing campuses are the result of churches of different sizes and in different locations taking the step of faith to become a part of all God is doing at LifeChurch.tv.

Today, we’ll take a closer look at OPEN, which provides free resources for churches to download. Absolutely free. There are message series, kids stuff, series for students, administrative tools and things for LifeGroups.

Since launching in 2006? we have had over 225,000 downloads from over 75 countries! Currently, OPEN is averaging around 2000 downloads per day.

We are honored that so many churches have taken what we have done at LifeChurch.tv and used those resources to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ!

Interestingly enough, sermon transcripts and videos are the most frequently downloaded items.

If you haven’t visited OPEN, please do! We are adding new content all the time.

Have you used OPEN? What resources have been helpful to your church?

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Hostage - Sneak Preview

We are starting a great series this weekend called Hostage.  In the series, we are going to address  how to break free from several things that can hold us hostage like fear, pride, anger and jealousy.

I wanted to show you all a video that we will be using in the message this weekend as a lead-in to Craig’s message about how bitterness can hold us hostage.  I think the team did a great job with the video and thought you might be interested in seeing it in advance.  Let me know what you think.  It will be available on OPEN after the series is over if you’d like to use it in your church.

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OPEN Website Redesign

About a month ago, I mentioned OPEN (our site with free resources for churches) was redesigned with some great new features.

Based on feedback and recommendations we’ve received, we’ve made it easier to utilize. Here are some of the changes:

• Thousands of free resources are available on OPEN. A few of the newest resources include volunteer training tools and updated youth resources. We plan on announcing other new resources soon.
• A new and improved user interface makes it easier than ever to locate and download free resources.
• You can choose as many free resources as you like, place them in the Download Manager, then simply agree to one licensing agreement for all of them.
• The Download Manager will organize the resources by file size, helping you download your files more efficiently.

Creating an account (if you already haven’t) takes less than two minutes. Simply visit open.lifechurch.tv and click “login” in the upper right corner to get started.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on OPEN. Have you downloaded resources from it? What other features would you like to see in the future?

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Going All The Way - Free Giveaway

Thank you to all of you who agreed to blog about my new book, Going All The Way. This book is meant to help people prepare for a Godly marriage.

People from all over the world including Brazil, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Philippines, England, and Peru have written requesting copies.

We still have another 150 copies to give away to anyone who will blog about it.

If you’d like to have a copy, please email sarah@lifechurch.tv. Send her your name, address, and blog site. The publisher will be mailing all the copies soon.

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Open, YouVersion, Digerati and more

I’ve got quick updates and news on several things:

• YouVersion beta was recently updated with additional translations (The Message and the Reina-Valera Antigua [spanish]) and hundreds of bug fixes. You can read more about the release or visit YouVersion.com to see it yourself.
• LifeChurch.tv/open (now http://open.lifechurch.tv) has been completely redone. I am waiting for a few more details to get completed, and then I will post a comprehensive list of the new features and content that are a part of the new site. If you have not visited Open recently, please do so…we’d love to hear your thoughts.
• If you know someone that would like to be a part of the team (Digerati) that is building YouVersion, Open, the Internet Campus and many other cool projects, we are looking for web developers (read more).
• Anne Jackson (you might know her from her blog, book project, OR frequent comments here on swerve) will be coming to work at LifeChurch.tv (but not until January). Anne will be applying her many talents to help me get things done and execute the many projects and initiatives we will have in coming years.
• And lastly…I have failed to put a post up for the swerve lab for the last few weeks…sorry. I will post one next week. If you have question or issue that you would like the rest of the readers of this blog to help answer or give you feedback, please send it to swerve@lifechurch.tv. You can read more details about the process here, and/or you can see the entire archive of past swerve lab posts.

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Day One at Catalyst

As I mentioned earlier, we are at the Catalyst Conference Reverb with thousands of other church leaders from across the globe. We’ve bumped into our friends Perry Noble and Tony Morgan from NewSpring Church as well as other bloggers and Swerve readers. Tim Stevens has a great recap of the day’s speakers over on his blog.

Throughout the conference, attendees have been able to interact through YouVersion and mobile phone technology. We’ve had two opportunities for people to text in with their favorite Bible verses on leadership and their favorite Reverb song (Beautiful Day) and we were able to display the results in real time. Tomorrow will present another opportunity for conference-goers to connect using this interactive technology.

For those of you at the conference, if you see us around, please take a moment to say hello. Friday, Craig is speaking, and I know he appreciates your prayers.

On a side note, you should drop in on the new and improved OPEN website. OPEN allows pastors and churches to download LifeChurch.tv resources absolutely free of charge. I’ll write a bit more on OPEN next week, but I’d like to hear what you think in the meantime.

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