You Can Know God

18 away

Just realized that we're just a few comments away from 1,000 comments.  I now offer a fantastic prize to the 1,000th commenter...an all expense Hawaii vacation! (or a copy of Everyday Jesus.)  Whichever I prefer.  Just leave a witty comment or an intelligent statement and you may be on you way.

Steven Furtick

I want to introduce those of you who are not aware of Elevation Church to Steven Furtick, their 27 year old lead pastor.  This church is doing some amazing things in Charlotte.  They are just about a year old and had 1,600 people at church last week.  Steven's blog is a must-add to your Bloglines.

Question for the Blog World

Two questions to see if anyone can help me out.  In fact, I'll send the person who gives me the best answer a free book from your amazon.com wish list.

1.  What's the best way to incorporate online giving to our church website?  I don't want to switch to some packaged hosting company.  And I'd like something a little more official than paypal.  Any suggestions?

2.  What can we do to add an "e-vite" feature to our site?  Is there some web tool or site that allows users to send something with a graphic, a standard message, and a customized message to an e-mail address?

Thanks for the help blog readers!

Blog Stats

In case you were wondering, in the last year...

According to Typepad, this blog has had 44,661 page views from 26,752 unique users.  I have no idea if that's good or bad.  But I see that there are readers from every continent and countries that I've never heard of.  I'm not sure who you are, but thanks for listening in.

This Blog, That Blog

I've been blogging for about a year now, and I really enjoy it.  I've written on everything...conference reviews, church planting, rants against Wal Mart, etc.  I know a lot of bloggers come to the point where they have to narrow the focus of their blog, and that's been something that's been hard for me to do.  I have opinions on just about everything, and they are all right. :)

However, I'm going to focus this blog on personal commentary, my thoughts on different stuff, and just my journey.  I'll still write about Oak Leaf and church planting and all that stuff, but we've just launched a new blog specifically focused on the Oak Leaf journey.

Behindtheleaf.com will focus on the things we have learned and the mistakes we've made starting Oak Leaf Church.  It's somewhat hilarious to think that an eleven week old church can add anything to the conversation, but even if it's a way to publically document our victories and challenges, then it's good.  Hopefully, some other pastors and planters will find some useful information.  We're no experts, but we do have some good ideas.  I'll post on strategy, marketing, leadership, and other church related stuff, and the rest of our staff will contribute from time to time. 

This blog will continue to be the place where I post my thoughts on whatever floats my boat.  I'll keep this site helpful and useful, but you might want to add Behind the Leaf to your Bloglines account just to keep up.

You Probably Are Rich Quick

Seth points us to the Global Rich List.  Check it out and see where you rank among the world's richest people.

New Feed, Changes, and Links

My feeds are all messed up.  I'm sticking with Typepad, and basically starting over.

The website here is youcanknowgod.com.  It points to a typepad blog.  Here's the feedburner page.  Of course, you can use bloglines, too.  If you were a bloglines subscriber, you'll probably need to subscribe to the new feed.

The Sunday's @ Oak Leaf Podcast is here should you like to listen in to my Sunday messages.  You can also subscribe with iTunes right off the Oak Leaf Website.

Why I Blog

I've been blogging for a little under a year, and I follow about 60 different blogs through bloglines.  In fact, this is my 501st post.  I don't really know who reads this, but here's a few reasons why I blog.

• It lets me be personal.  My hope is that people at Oak Leaf or anybody else for that matter will get a little glimpse into my life.  This isn't a Bible study, just thoughts and ideas.
• It let's me think out loud.  I process some thoguhts here.  There's nothing like writing it down to help craft a point.
• My wife likes to know what i do all day.  Seriously, my wife reads my blog, so that's a good enough reason to write.
• I like to pass along interesting things like stories, links and dumb YouTube videos.
• It gives me a venue for my sarcasm.  Elijah was sarcastic.  Jesus was sometimes sarcastic.  So I'm going to keep on making fun of Wal Mart and PC's.
• Blogging is kind of like journaling, but without the journal.  I do use a moleskine to write notes, but a blog is lind of like journaling without having to go to women's conferences and talk about journaling your feelings.
• I like to write.  I wrote a book on youth ministry last year.  John Evans and I are about to finish a devotional book called Everyday Jesus.  And I'm slowly working on Ten Lies of Christianity and Uncomfortable.

Is the Blogging Buzz Quieting

It seems like the 60ish blogs I track through bloglines are a little quieter these days.  Is it just summer?  Are people too busy to blog?  Has it lost some of it's steam? 

I read about all these blogs that are created every day, but so many have 2 posts about chia pets and then the authors run out of content.  How many of these blogs popping up are actually useful?  People say blogging is here to stay, but where is all the interesting content?   

And don't even get me started about the number of useless podcasts.

Bartowlife.com

I discovered bartowlife.com a few days ago.  It's a nice little local site that has a local calendar, movie times for the new theater and a nice discussion forum.  I've been following a couple of conversations there, and have posted a thread of my own seeking feedback on what Cartersville really needs.  Though my first responses were an alternate route down 113, a Dungeons and Dragons revival, and alcohol sales on Sunday, we're now talking about some other ideas. I would encourage you to go join the conversation...be involved in community life.