Last year, one of the books I read that had the biggest effect on me was the book Not a Fan, by Kyle Idleman. When I read it, I knew it was something I wanted to share with our church. So this week, we are starting a six week series based on the book. I am really excited about this study, because I know it has the power to start a movement. A movement of people who are not content with simply being fans of Jesus, but who are committed to follow Jesus no matter the cost.

Two of our LifeGroups will also be going through the corresponding small group material, and we will show the Not a Fan movie on Saturday night, February 11th. Details are on our church website. If you haven’t read the book, we have copies available for purchase at the church. I want to encourage you to invite others to join us for this six week challenge.

It’s that time of year when everyone starts thinking about goals and plans for the new year. I want to challenge you to make Bible reading a priority in your life. Regular, systematic Bible reading is the best way to jump start your spiritual growth. When you read the Bible, you are allowing the God of the universe to speak directly into your life.

Many of you have gotten new mobile devices this Christmas. From iPads to smartphones to android tablets, YouVersion has you covered. It’s a great Bible app for your mobile device that allows you to have access to the Bible from anywhere. I use it on my phone and on my iPad to read the Bible. YouVersion also has a great assortment of Bible reading plans and devotions to guide you.

I just started a chronological reading plan to help me as I read through the Bible this year. Why don’t you join me and start reading today! Don’t want til January 1st. Start now and start unpacking the incredible truth of God’s Word. If you want to download the app for your mobile device visit www.mycornerstone.org/bible to find out how.

One of the big new features that YouVersion has added this year is the ability to email your Bible reading to you each day. On your computer, login to the youversion site and view your reading plan. On the settings tab, choose email delivery and you’re all set. Here are a few suggested reading plans and devotions for you to consider this year (there are over 200 in all!)

• The Chronological Reading Plan – Reading God’s Story - this is the one I’m doing this year
• The Essential 100 – 100 days to take you through the key passages of the Bible
• The One Year Bible
• New Thru 30 – the New Testament in 30 days
• First Steps Reading Plan 
• Josh McDowell’s Youth Devotions
• Life Application Devotional
• Rick Warren’s Daily Devotional

If you don’t like reading on your computer or mobile device, we have some Bible reading plans that you can download and print out on our church website. Click here to see the plans we have available.

When we open up the Bible, we’re inviting the creator of the universe to speak directly to us. It’s our connection to His truth—the story of His love for us since the beginning of time. And it’s meant to be woven throughout our lives, giving us new wisdom with each season we experience.

For us to know and understand God’s Will for our lives, we must invest time in reading and learning His Word. It is His divine love letter that reveals to us how we can be reconciled to God.

On January 9th, the new Church Online platform will be launching from LifeChurch.tv. This will be another free offering from the tech guys at LifeChurch. It allows your church to provide online church services, including video, chatting, and prayer and response times. If you are interested in doing ministry online, then you’ll want to check this out. For more details about how this will work, you can check out the LifeChurch Blog.

As for our church, I’m still a little hesitant to jump into online services. We provide the audio and video of our sermons through our website and through our podcast, but I’m not sure if we would have enough interest to justify the time required to kick off a full online ministry.

Tonight at Cornerstone, we will be having a special Night of Worship. On the First Wednesday of every month, we have a special service. A few months ago, we switched our format around and started doing things a little differently. When we started First Wednesdays, we had a meal before, then went into our service with music, updates, teaching, ministry group meetings, and a time of communion. We always felt rushed because we were doing too many things, so we decided to simplify.

Now, each month we have a different focus. We have one month focused on leadership and discipleship, followed by a fellowship meal with church updates and vision sharing the next month, and then we have a night of worship.  By switching the focus of the meeting each month, we are able to do a better job communicating and a better job celebrating what God is doing at Cornerstone.

Tonight is our first Night of Worship celebration. We’ll be starting at 7pm, and we plan on arriving early and staying late to enjoy our time together.  We’re asking everyone to bring some snack food if you are able, and we’ll provide coffee and drinks. We also plan on recording the worship for use on an upcoming Cornerstone Live Worship CD.

We hope you can join us tonight at our church in downtown Galax for this special service. We have so many talented musicians at Cornerstone, and we are truly blessed to be able to worship each and every week with passion and excellence.

Invite your friends and join us!

Our church really surprised me a couple of weeks ago for Pastor Appreciation month. They had secretly collected money and bought me a brand new iPad 2, keyboard, and case. Not only that, they compiled a notebook full of letters that people had sent in. Ministry can be discouraging at times, but all it takes is one look through that notebook full of letters to realize that I am a blessed man.

I feel like a new kid in a candy store. I’m already finding more and more uses for the iPad in my ministry. My wife has had one for a while now, and she uses it all the time as her main internet device. She had let me use it to preach from, but that was about the only time I got to play around with it. I can finally set mine up like I want to and use it even more.  Here’s what they surprised me with

• A 32Gig wifi iPad 2
• The Griffin Survivor Case – this thing is crazy tough. It’s got a kick stand to use to prop the iPad up that I’m using a lot. It’s also an extreme duty case that is shock resistant and water resistant.
• A bluetooth keyboard when I need to type in a lot of notes
• An incredible notebook full of personal letters to me and my family. Notes of thanks, notes of appreciation, and notes of encouragement. Let’s just say there were many tears shed as I read through the letters.

So far, my most used apps seem to be YouVersion, Evernote, Logos 4, Kindle, iBooks, Air Display, Wunderlist, Dropbox, Pages, Twitter, and Facebook. It’s also really helped in my studying and note taking for my seminary classes. What other apps help in ministry? Any recommendations?

Thanks to all my Cornerstone family! You guys are awesome. I am so excited to see how God is working in and through the people of Cornerstone, and I know we are just seeing the beginning of an incredible move of God.  You have been a blessing to my family, and I am honored to serve as your pastor! Greater things are yet to come!

If you are at a church with a full staff of graphic designers and videographers, this post probably won’t apply to you. But for the majority of churches, when you want to have great looking graphics for your bulletins, video screens, and website, you turn to the internet for help.

I like preaching in sermon series. It builds continuity from week to week and allows me to teach the Bible as a story. But it also saves time because I don’t have to create new graphics each week. When I’m planning sermon series, I first pick a book of the Bible or a topic and start my preparation. After study and research, I start listing possible series names. I then start looking for graphics that will reinforce what I’m teaching. At times, I can’t find anything and I decide to create the graphics myself, but many times, I find great graphics that are readily available for download and use. My only caution for you is that you should start with what God is teaching you, then find a graphic that works. If you reverse the order you will struggle with connecting the sermon to the topic.

It can be hard to find what you’re looking for, so I wanted to share a few great places to look. Check these links out for sermon graphics. Some even have photoshop files, powerpoint backgrounds, video openers, countdowns, and video loops included.

Free Sermon Graphics

• Open from LifeChurch.tv 
• Elevation Church Resources
• Stuff I Can Use – from Southeast Christian Church
• Resources from Newspring
• Vintage Church Resources
• Seeds from Church on the Move
• Creation Swap
• Muddy River Media
• Open Resources
• The Church Box
• Inspiks

For Purchase

• Graceway Media
• Sermoncentral Pro
• Outreach Church Campaigns
• SermonView
• Midnight Oil Productions
• Church Leader Insights – click on sermon series
• Creative Pastors
• Saddleback Resources
  
• Church-wide Journeys by Zondervan

Sermon Series based on Books or Ideas

• r12 – Chip Ingram study on Romans 12
• Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman
• One Month to Live by Kerry and Chris Shook
• 40 Days in the Word
• The Elephant in the Church by Mark Batterson
• Chase the Lion by Mark Batterson
• Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson

What else would you add to the list?

I’m starting a new series here on the blog to help people find resources. If you’re in a small or medium size church with a small budget, then this series is especially for you. I want to share the sources and companies that have been helpful to us in starting our church. I will focus this series on computer and technology resources, although I will share about facility needs and equipment in later posts.

Look for posts on sermon series resources, video clips, stock photos, a/v equipment, and more. If you have an idea for another post in this series, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do.

One of the hardest things to find are good quality backgrounds. These are typically used as looping backgrounds behind song lyrics using worship presentation software like ProPresenter, EasyWorship, or Mediashout. But they can also be used as the basis for creating your own countdowns or sermon series graphics. Think outside the box!

Free Video Background Loops

• NLC Creative - incredible site of backgrounds created and used at New Life Church in Arkansas
• Open.lifechurch.tv – Background Loops from the crew at Lifechurch.tv
• CMD.tv Freebies – From the CMD.tv podcast
• Worship VJ Vimeo Group - videos that have been shared and available for download
• Centerline New Media Freebies – Check out this site for a new freebie each month. Look for the link to the free download.
• Videos for Worship on Vimeo
• Open Resources
• FreeHD Countdowns – I included this because it has greenscreen counters that you can add to any background above

Where to Purchase 

If you are looking for more and are willing to pay, then check out these sources.

• WorshipHouseMedia
• Igniter Media
• Digital Juice
• SermonSpice
• Motion Worship
• Playback Drive
• iStockPhoto
• Centerline New Media
• Christian Collages 
• Graceway Media
• ShiftWorship
• Church Motion Graphics