JamesLaws.com

Over the past few months I have been asked about my opinions of Todd Bentley and what has come to be known as the Lakeland Revival by both family and complete strangers. Although I’ve been trepidatious, I’ve remained somewhat silent in my conjecture up to this point. And actually, I am not going to start now.

All I want to do is draw your attention to an article by J. Lee Grady, an editor for Charisma Magazine. He offers some challenging questions from church leaders and Christians in general who long to see the supernatural power of God at work in our nation and around the world. Here is one quote from the article that just about somes up my feelings on all that has transpired.

I blame this lack of discernment, partly, on raw zeal for God. We’re spiritually hungry—which can be a good thing. But sometimes, hungry people will eat anything.

Please click here to read the article in it’s entirety.

I wanted to make sure that all of my subscribers were aware of some of the changes I have made in my online existence. It seems that the more stuff I have online the less I update any of them. In an effort to simplify my online identity an give myself a little more focus I have made the changes listed below.

Twitter - Twitter will now be my main mode of regular online communication.  It’s a challenge to say if I can say all that I need to in a 140 characters or less. I will use twitter to post my deep thoughts, everyday activities and of course the occasional picture.

Twitter updates will be fed to my blog’s front page as well as to my status updates on Facebook. To subscribe to my twitter feed click here.

JamesLaws.com - I have made a few significant changes and there are many more to come. One big change is that there are no longer full posts on the main page. The main page will link to archives and my most recent blog posts. The page will mostly be devoted to my most recent updates through twitter.

I will still be writing regular blog posts but not nearly as frequent as I once aspired to. Thes recent articles will be listed in the left sidebar. If you are already subscribed to JamesLaws.com you will get these posts just like you always have. If you would like to subscribe to receive these blog posts you can do so by clicking here.

Facebook - I haven’t been on Facebook very much in the past year or so but I have decided to ressurect my profile and start using it once again. The truth is, however, I don’t have the time to update all of thes online services. That is why I am on the journey of integrating all of these services so that when one is updated…they all are updated.

The current situation:

My twitter account is tied to my blog and my Facebook account. When I update twitter it gets sent to the front page of my blog as well as updates my status on Facebook.

My blog is tied to my twitter and Facebook accounts. When I write a blog post it is sent through twitter which also updates in my status on Facebook. Also Facebook imports my blog posts as notes.

I have yet to get actions that I do on Facebook to get sent to the blog or twitter but be sure that is one the list.

Anyway, that is how things have changed thus far but be on the look out for many more changes to come.

I haven’t used facebook in over a year but I was reminded about it during a work meeting. I will be working on a project that in facebook soon so I thought I would try to get more involved with it again.

This is where my OCD gets the best of me. I should login, do a few things and get out and yet it will stay open and I will play with it on and off all day. Ugh.

It seems that every few months I come to the same revelation. I have a terrible case of project OCD with a heaping helping of prcrastination. What this means is that once I am in a project I can’t seem to tear my self away from it untill it is complete but it also means that I sometimes get hung up on the wrong projects and can’t seem to break away.

It seems that every few weeks, and many times more frequently, I have to review where my time is going. I am in one of those periods right now and I really wish I would have done it sonner.

Do any of you suffer from a similar dark epedemic? What secrets have you learned to combat it? I would love to hear your thouhts?

To clear up confusion, I am not referring to the last several weeks of nonexistent blogging. In fact I am referring to how I am trying to remedy that in the future. I have now been blogging for a little more than a year and a half and I have come to the conclusion that don’t write about as many topics as my previous categories suggested. I had 10 categories and some had become fluff or garbage categories. I have now dwindled it down to 5 categories that I think I will be able to manager much better. Here they are.

• At LifePoint - This is where I will write about things specifically concerning the happenings of LifePoint. I will share things that are being implemented, events that are taking place and all the other LifePoint goodness.
• Church Talk - This is where I will write about various general church topics such as planting, strategy, systems, and leadership issues.
• The Art of the Talk - One of my main passions is communicating the Word of God. Here I will share my own practices and techniques for preparing and presenting messages. I will also write about what I am learning from other amazing speakers and life in general concerning communication.
• One Minute Devotions - These will just be my short (hopefully) thoughts and observations from scripture, life and the twisted recesses of my mind about God and Christ-centered living.
• Odds & Ends - Here is where I will place posts that I just felt compelled to share but that don’t fit in the main focus of this blog.

Some weeks I might write in all of these categories while others may focus on just one. That part I will leave to inspiration and circumstances. I don’t know how well this will work but then gain I would never know if I didn’t try.

This has been the theme God has been speaking to me over the past few months. In a discussion with Kevin today about blogging he shared that he was narrowing down his categories. It got me thinking about this blog and I relalized that part of my problem with regular and consistent blogging is not content but focus.

In light of this new information I think I am going to try and trim down this blog to just a few of my most passionate topics. I have a few topics that I am passionate about so here are some of the ones I am looking at.

• Communication (Preaching & Teaching)
• Leadership
• Church Planting
• LifePoint

Of course I already write about these topics and I don’t know what that will do with all the odds and ends that come up. It may be this is more of a shift in my mind than on my blog but I thought I would just throw it out there anyway.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you just have so much stuff to write that you don’t know where to start. I am in that place write now. I have been taking so much time off from blogging that I am clogged. With that in mind I am not going to write about anything. Well, that’s not completely true. I am not going to write about anything specific. Instead I am going to share all of the topic that I want to write about in hopes that some coherent thoughts might find there way to later posts.

• So much has been happening at LifePoint. We have been growing during a time when our attendance should be at it’s lowest point. We have been financial stable when we should have been struggling. People are serving Christ like never before when they are usually on vacation.
• I have heard amazing thiings from this past Sunday. Record attaendance, record giving, amazing music. It’s nice to know that things can go even better when I am gone.
• We have been giving out free water on the greenway for a full month and we are going to try to keep it up through the remainder of summer. It’s neet the conversations that get started and the new friendships that are made.
• I actually took a weekend off. Not just from my paying job but from LifePoint as well. It was really nice. We spent the weekend in Georgia and vsitied North Point Community Church. It was very refreshing and a very powerful message by Louis Giglio.
• New message series starts on August 3rd. I am so excited about this series. I haven’t nailed down the title yet since it has kind of morphed from where it started but I can promise you that it will challenge the rhetoric of faith with the reality of faith.
• God has been really challenging me to write about what he has been revealing to me through his word. I hope to start doing that soon.
• I have a lot on my mind about the systems of LifePoint. There are a lot of things that we have implemented recently that are really working but God has me challenging everything we do. It makes for interesting discussions and even more interesting changes. God is calling us to take risks. They may not seem like risks to most other churches but for LifePoint they are risks. I am ready to take them.
• I am working on a new way of planning our worship services. New for us anyway. I think iy will increase the quality and focus exponentially.

That’s it for now. Time for bed. Let’s see whate all these thoughts develop into in the days to come. Goodnight.

There are so many church signs that I hate. They use bad puns and sometimes just bad messages. Most of the time a churches sign doesn’t really tell you about what kind of church it is. Instead they say things like “contemporary worship” or “relevant messages”. Both of these phrases actually tell you nothing about the church. What do they even really mean anyway.

I feel the same way about our sign at times. Now, it’s not an official church sign. It’s just a banner that we put out each Sunday morning to let people know where we are. But it’s the message on the banner that I am referring to.

On our sign we proudly say that we are a “church for people who don’t like church.” But are we really? I mean, if someone who truly didn’t like anything about church in anyway came to a Sunday morning service, would they actually like it. If I were to be honest with myself I would have to shout “no” from the roof tops. That’s not to say that we aren’t a church that doesn’t reach people. It just means that we are church that reaches people who want to be reached or are at least curious.

Today, however, I finally found a church that doesn’t pretend to be something that they are not. In a world where many churches pander to a younger, post-modern generation by using irresistible phrases like, contemporary worship and relevant messages there is a church that will not compromise. While we say that we are a church for people who don’t like church when we actually mean we are a non-traditional church, this church says exactly what they are. A traditional church with traditional services for traditional people. Honesty…I like it.

Luckily, few people ever see me angry. Of course that really isn’t the purpose of this post. The only real reason for this post is to say that I am looking forward to seeing the new Incredible Hulk movie. The last one was way to artsy. Plus, I love Edward Norton as an actor. All in all it looks like it might be a lot closer to the comic than all the rest.

I know some people are sick of comic book movies so I have a word of advice for them. DEAL WITH IT! I grew up on comic books and remember dreaming about how these characters could be portrayed on the big screen.  That was over 17 years ago and technology has come a log way. I am even more stoked about these movies now. Call it nostalgia or whatever. I love comic book movies. That is until I see them and see how they ruined the original stories, but I digress.

Incredible Hulk movie - tonight - with Kevin. Can’t wait.

As I posted earlier today I haven’t drank a soda in 7 weeks. It has been nothing but water for me. Well this evening I felt like I really wanted a Coke with my dinner. I decided that a 12 oz. can of Coke wouldn’t be the end of my current weight loss journey.

It was a magical moment. I walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door. On the second shelf there was this radiant red glow behind the cottage cheese and light mayonnaise. As i pushed them aside I saw what I had longed for. I opened the can and listened to the sweet carbonated melody. I put the beautiful aluminum chalice to my lips and and took in the glorious nectar. And I hated it.

That’s right! I no longer like Coke at all. It tasted terrible. It is so nice to be free of an addiction that I have had since I was a child. Just thought I would share.