One of the advantages for most going to Princeton Theological Seminary is the size of the institution’s endowment because that translates into 90% of the students receiving some type of financial aid.  I have heard something like 80+% receive a full ride.  So on top of the academic competitiveness, there’s the free money thing that ups the competition to get in the door.

But of course that means there’s 10-20% of the seminarians that definitely need to find some green to fund their education.

Logos Software is doing their part to chip in and is giving away one $1000 seminary scholarship each quarter.  The Logos Bible Software Seminary Scholarship is open to all students currently enrolled in an accredited theological seminary located in North America, or those who plan on enrolling within the next 8 months.   One incentive to apply (other than hard cold cash?!) is that I was offered a 30% discount on their software just for applying.

The only requirements is to watch a 15 min video promoting their Logo Bible software and filling out a one page form.  Seems like a no brainer for anyone that is hitting the books…or I guess, THE Book actually.

By the way, if you are awarded the $1,000.00 Tuition Scholarship, you’ll also get their Logos Scholar’s Library which contains over 330 titles — supposedly, in print, all these titles would cost over $6,100.  Theological book nerds should be drooling over this offer just because of this. Check out all the books you’ll get for free: (more…)

I recently shared about the upcoming online conference, THE NINES, on 09/09/09 and 09:09am Central. It’s put on by Leadership Network and Catalyst.

Well, it’s here!

Here’s the tentative schedule of speakers (Eastern Time) — tons of great content available free to you:

9AM — Troy Gramling, Mark Beeson, Anne Jackson, Dave Ferguson, Scott Hodge

10AM — Perry Noble, Stacy Spencer

12PM — Dino Rizzo, Nancy Beach, Steven Furtick, Reggie McNeal

1PM — Craig Groeschel, Leonard Sweet, Greg Surratt, Jon Tyson

2PM — Margaret Feinberg, Larry Osborne, Matt Carter, Pete Wilson

3PM — Neil Cole, Reggie Joiner, JD Greear

4PM — Mark Batterson, Dan Kimball, Mark DeYmaz

5PM — Jud Wilhite, Brian McLaren, Bob Roberts, Rick McKinley, John Ortberg

6PM — Alan Hirsch, John Bishop, Toby Slough, Ed Stetzer

7PM — Mark Driscoll, Darrin Patrick, Brad Powell

8PM — Darrin Whitehead, Brian Bloye

9PM — Eric Bryant, Nancy Ortberg, Rick Warren

Wonder who’s going to put on The Tens on 10/10/10 at 10:10am?

Today, you can grab any Christian Music mp3 download from Amazon for free.

Here’s the details of the free mp3 download offer from Amazon:

1. Click through to the Amazon Free mp3 promotion details page with this link: http://tinyurl.com/freemp3fromamazon
2. Click on the “ENTER CODE” button
3. Use code FIRSTMIL and click the “Apply” button
4. Go find your mp3 and then buy it!  The promo credit balance should be applied automatically.
5. Personally, I browsed through the Top 100 Christian Contemporary Music songs list and picked out Chris Tomlin’s God of This City.  Great song!
   

NOTE: According to Amazonmp3.com fine print, you must redeem the credit by September 6, 2009 11:59 PM PDT

Bonus: Here’s an extra freebie, How Great Is Our God, sung by Kimberly and Alberto Rivera

Super Bonus: You’re not satisfied with TWO free mp3 songs?  Will you be satisfied with 16 MORE Free Christian Music mp3 downloads?

Are you a pastor in a church that seems to ignore the fact that there’s only 168 hours in a week?

Does it seem like your original intentions to be centered on prayer, go out and build rock-solid deep relationships with your entire congregation and spend enough time studying the Scriptures were all bad typos in the job description?

Perhaps you need to reassess your game plan.

Here’s a quick pop quiz to help figure out your approach to ministry:

If you, as the pastor, have only limited time available during the week, would you prefer to choose (A) OR (B) in each scenario below:

A. Do more visiting to shut-ins?
B. Put more time into sermon preparation?

A. Attend a wedding reception?
B. Go on a retreat with parish staff?

A. Call on prospective members?
B. Conduct a training session for church officers?

A. Visit a bereaved family?
B. Help two church officers resolve a conflict?

A. Make a hospital call on a fringe member?
B. Attend a continuing education event?

A. Engage in pastoral counseling with members?
B. Attend a planning event with officers?

A. Do more parish calling?
B. Recruit leaders for parish events?

A. Attend an activity with parish youth?
B. Critique a meeting with a church officer?

Apparently the correct answers differ largely NOT ON YOU, but where your called to ministry.  The Alban Institute published an interesting article which gives practical insights for how to approach various types of ministry environments.

Surprise! It turns out that a pastor is not a pastor is not a pastor anywhere and everywhere.  One size does not fit all!

Being self-aware of the context first will dramatically increase the odds of success in your role as pastor.  Requirements for leadership style, relationships, and responsibilities all change based on whether you are in a family, pastoral, program, and corporate sized church.

Are you sitting in the right seat?  Is there more than one seat at the table?  It all matters tremendously.

If you read the informative article from the Congregational Resource Guide site, you’ll also learn the landmines of moving down in church size.

What’s the good news in all this? You’ll notice that pastor burnout is largely avoidable by being able to answer the pop quiz questions correctly.

Tim Keller was recently featured as one of the headliners at this year’s Leadership Summit put on by Willow Creek.

Some of the other speakers on the list are favorites of mine too including Jessica Jackley (the best $25 you’ll spend this year if you try out Kiva.org), Dave Gibbons (Monkey and the Fish and if you’re ever in southern CA, you must visit New Song Church) and Chip and Dan Heath (awesome book! Made to Stick from the moment you see the book cover jacket in person you’ll understand why).

But back to Dr. Keller. . . (more…)

I recently had a chance to connect again with Mike Kim of Generation Holy Ministries.  Mike is one of those guys that take the stage and just exudes worship.  He loves God and you really see it when you are with him live.   He just released a new album on iTunes which is a project that always calls for digging deep into the creative center that drives you.

Whether you are leading a worship band, facilitating a Bible Study group or a working in any other ministry for the church, you need continuous inspiration.  I asked Mike to share with us some of his current sources for renewal and refreshment in creativity. . . .

On the other hand, I am also a songwriter and recording artist; the whole point of these things is to draw attention to my songs and myself. This is an even tougher issue for me personally because I really don’t like attention!

Despite that tension I still want to do what I’m called to with excellence and inspiration. Inspiration channeled through creativity, skill, and excellence glorifies God. I try to draw my main inspiration from the Holy Spirit, the place of prayer, the place of His presence. It’s cliché but true; if I want what I do to give true life to people, it needs to come by the spirit. Any song or sermon I’ve written that “worked” was birthed in the place of prayer and worship.

I also try to be very honest about my strengths and weaknesses. It’s not an arrogant thing to know what we’re gifted in. If we know our strengths, we can hone them and offer them in humility. Conversely, knowing our weaknesses forces us to stay small in our own eyes (check my blog on the Praise of Man) and get others involved in kingdom work. Majoring on the minors will cause me to run thin on doing the things I’m gifted at and prevent others from contributing.

My primary assignment right now is to help pastor a church by developing its worship ministry. I try not to be creative outside of what I’m called to; that just burns time and energy. Jealously keeping the main thing the main thing keeps me focused and allows me to soak up inspiration from other streams of ministry that apply to what I’m doing.

Here’s a quick rundown of some current sources of inspiration to me for what I do:

• Bethel Church in Redding, CA – my wife and I got to attend Bethel last summer for one of their conferences. My understanding of what is possible in a local church in terms of pursuing and hosting the presence of God was changed here. It inspired me to stay hungry for God and to see worship as a by-product of that pursuit. Jesus Culture is Bethel’s youth ministry; their worship band is quickly gaining mainstream recognition. I love how they press and stretch people in worship. Their songs are uncomfortably long, in a good way.

• Kent Henry in St. Louis, MO – not many know Kent by name but they know the songs he introduced to the body of Christ. Kent was the worship leader on many of Hosanna! Integrity’s early works and has recorded numerous independent albums. I grew up listening to his tapes (!) and CD’s and my style of leading worship was defined because of him. You can imagine how cool it was for me to get to know Kent personally…we’ve known each other several years now and he is a regular guest at my church. Kent always inspires me because he stays youthful and relevant (it’s pretty fun rockin’ out with a 50+ year old to Hillsong United tunes) and he continually challenges me to intermingle praise with prayer and worship with intercession. That’s had a direct influence on my songwriting as I want my songs to be launching pads for people to pray off of.

• Ross Parsley/New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO – Pastor Ross has given me a model of what a worship pastor is. I know a lot of worship leaders and even worship pastors by title, but I had a hard time finding people who took the aspects of pastoral ministry into the worship department. The title of “worship pastor” in some churches is merely another way of saying “primary worship leader.” I knew there had to be more. I got a chance to sit down with Pastor Ross recently and he shared about building a culture in my team and helped me see what ministry in a megachurch looks like-I wanted to know in case mine becomes one! He’s also been at New Life for almost 20 years, which speaks to me of consistency and longevity.

All this inspiration wouldn’t be worth much if I didn’t have an outlet for it. I gear my endeavors towards the needs of my circle of influence. Being honest with myself involves being honest about what field God has me working in. I write songs based on what we’re going through as a community of believers and try to write and record our albums with excellence so other churches can adopt them if so led. I ask God regularly to give me insight and skill to build our people and ministry like a master-builder. If what we’re doing is good enough to “grow wings” and be used elsewhere, that is great. If not, that’s fine.

What’s really important is that I tend to the field I’m in. It’s easy to focus on touching the world that we fail to touch home. God wants to use us to reach the world, but the road that bears the most fruit goes from the inside out.

I encourage you to pray, worship, stay honest about your assignment and field, staff to your weaknesses, and stay teachable. If you do you’ll be bound to be inspired along the way.

###

Mike Kim is a worship leader, pastor, and songwriter.  He currently serves at Church of the Living God and is president of Generation Holy Ministries with the vision to empower and equip all generations through worship and life-transforming truth. Spirit-led and highly congregational, many of Mike’s songs are being sung around the world.

What if I said, I can give you front row access to the following ministry leaders’ and pastors’ teaching:

• Scott Williams (www.LifeChurch.tv)
• Perry Noble (New Spring Church)
• Dan Kimball (Vintage Faith Church)
• Nancy Beach (Willow Creek Church)
• Leonard Sweet (Author/Futurist)
• Mark Batterson (National Community Church)
• Reggie McNeal (Leadership Network)
• Ed Stetzer (Lifeway Research)
  
• Dave Ferguson (Community Christian Church)
• Alan Hirsch (Forge Mission Training Network)

Well, the truth is, you can have access to their priceless content and much more actually.

At what price?  How about: $FREE?

I just registered and you should too .  .  . (more…)

How many times have you visited websites (not just limited to church websites) where it is just a brochure put up on the web?

We all know this is NOT the best use of websites.

Although websites can be static and linear, it doesn’t mean they can’t also be dynamic and tell a story.

Here’s one of the best Christian websites I have seen that tells the gospel story on the web.

Read this before you die. . .

No really, that’s the website address: ReadThisBeforeYouDie.com

Immediately from just the website URL, you can tell this site is different.  From the time you are typing in the URL, you are brought into the story.

Check it out for yourself and let me know why this site is so “alive” and forwardworthy?

What other Christian websites out there are worthy to be included in this category?

Speaking of faith-related mashups, Sim Young reminded me today that there are already many voices in the church + tech + web conversation today.

It’s evolving so fast, it feels like dog years!  The Church is achangin’ . . . Take notice!

Here’s 7 church tech blogs you should check out (via digital.leadnet.org)

• ChurchCrunch – exploring the intersection of technology and the church
• Church Tech Matters – a site for tech volunteers
• BetaChurch -design and technology for the church’s mission
• Church Technology Review -church meets Internet, websites, technology and web 2.0
• Church Tech Today – technology for today’s church
• Geeks & God podcast – encouraging ministries to use technology more effectively
• Mobile Ministry Magazine -the intersection of faith and mobile technology

Any that should be voted off the island?

These days, we now know that the front door to any church isn’t located at the front of the building.

Another door to the church is located on the world wide web.

When people are first considering to visit a church, they’ll google the church name or generic searches for churches with town names, denominations, or other features they desire in a church.

Then there’s another entire group of web surfers that are not local to your church building and they might be looking for more information to help them on their own faith journey – weather they are seekers or already committed disciples of Christ. It is just as important for your site to be accessible and offer content which will encourage and move them further along on their own spiritual walk.

If your church website isn’t doing it’s best to be outward facing, it’s time to wake up and start paying attention.

Here are 55+ tips every church website should consider in being evangelistic on the web: (more…)