• You will need parent permission if one of the people is under 18 years of age. As a dad of 4, I say good call.
• Three day waiting period to obtain a wedding license in WA state. Which by the way is the same amount of time you need to wait to get a handgun permit in WA. If you are a little anxious to tie the knot quiker, jump in the Civic and drive to Vegas, cause by the time you get there you’ll sober up see how stupid an Elvis drive through wedding is.
• No ship captains, including tub boats. Sorry Love Boat fans, you have to have Capitan Stubbing do the deed in “international” waters.
• Marriages cannot be performed by proxy. Meaning, no matter how much you love your party pals, you cannot get married for your buddy who is too drunk to stand. This law was most likely a reminiscent throwback to the WA State redneck days.
• Of your $64.00 dollars to the state, the breakdown of where that money goes is as follows:
  $8 General Fund
  $8 Family Court
  $4 Records Preservation Fund
  $2 King County Council
  $15 Family Services
• $10 Displaced Homemaker program
  $5 Child Abuse program
  $4 Centennial Records Preservation program
  $4 State Archives
  $4 Washington State Heritage Center

for those who want to see the full list find it here.

Sunday Nights pastor has been focusing on the seven churches in Revelation. In Rev 2, Jesus speaks to the leader of the church about the condintino of the hearts and lives of the people there. “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. 4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. 6But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” WE can adhere to TRUTH and believe all there is to believe & still lose your place. It’s not just about adherence to truth, it’s about love for Jesus. Do we love him like we used to? If the Lord was to speak to me about my relationship with him would he tell me that there are indicators of coolness of heart? Or am I still passionate for the things of God.

Jesus tells the church to do the “things they did at first…” these practices are the indicators of our passion for Christ. Jesus tells us that we can get back in the rhythm of expressing our faith and love to Him. Love for God is not expressed in some technical way, do the “things” you did in the beginning. Maybe you are doing the same things now – they were been done in love then, but now, maybe not so much. What do we need to do to express our love for God? What we need to do is to do the same things we did in the beginning.

Good thoughts from another ministry friend I have not actually met in person. Tony Morgan is great guy for more than just because he works with Perry Noble at New Spring Church but because he distills thoughts clearly and is a catalyst of some really good initiatives.

Five marketing mistakes to avoid. The mistakes include and MY comments:

1. Promoting your church instead of generating a response.
   • In seventeen years at this church, I have only had one person who ever looked us up because we were a certain denomination. 63% of our first time visitors came in respond to invitation.
2. Making a promise you can’t keep.
   • Think of most every movie trailer.
3. Trying to be all things to all people.
   • I cut my blog reading teeth on the dude Guy Kawasaki. It was he who gave words to my thoughts. A paraphrase of his principle is “do no be afraid to marginalize people. You cannot be all things to all people.” Do something, anything, extremely well and you will most likely tick off some people
4. Thinking other churches are your competition.
   • the “competition” for churches is not each other. The real competition is “anything else people can do with their time besides go to your church…”
5. Publicizing programs that compete with another.
   • Values set this as a priority. I am pretty embarrassed with how little time and attention is spent on this.

Uncertainty Principle

When you do not plan ahead, you have to make up for it by making last minute decisions in desperation. Most of these do not work out so well. As this story tells…

Cemetery Christmas Tree

Now we have a new one. The Gay and Lesbian Bible.

“Deep in the shuddering guts of that religion known as Christianity is a rich and troubling history of persecution. Bullying. The singling-out those the Church professes to be Anti-God, such as Gay, Lesbian, Bi- sexual and Transgendered people. All built up from the foundation that is God’s word, the Bible. Only it isn’t. There is no Scriptural foundation for this persecution, no anti-gay passages in the Bible that the Church professes there are. There have been mistranslations. Check. Persecutions. Check. Bullying on the largest scale. Check. But none of this is set down in the Bible as God’s way. Hence Smith and Stirling Publishing announces the release of a new and only LGBT Study Bible, “Study New Testament for Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans-gender: With Extensive Notes on Greek Word Meaning and Context.” The translator is Dr A. Nyland, an ancient Greek language scholar and lexicographer…”

This is a quote from the website of the Gay and Lesbian Bible. Here’s some more:

Generally speaking, many Christians are a judgmental lot and do not approve of women as Church leaders, divorced people, or homosexuals.

So far, the US Distributor for this Australian publication has banned the distribution in the US because of it ‘promoting a lifestyle contrary to scriptures’. More here.

About the dude:

God has incredibly blessed Philippe Vallerand in business, given him exposure to world leaders including the Pope and Presidents; and most importantly, developed within his heart a passion to live his life purposely for Jesus Christ. Philippe has an intriguing life story and a contagious heart of passion. You will be challenged and inspired to live a life of purpose for the kingdom of God. In 2005, Philippe did over one Billion dollars of retail sales with such retailers as Costco, Home Depot and Wall-mart.

The dude’s message:

God is the author of our lives and he wants to use your life to make an effect for his purposes. The alternative is to live a boring life. But men try to escape God’s call. (In fact some may be here at the men’s breakfast trying to escape something.) It does take intentional steps to connect with God’s purpose. Where is the mission that you are not fulfilling? There will always be people telling you how to live, but each man has to know hoe God wants him to live. For the Christian man there is not retreat, either it’s straight to the battle or die. Like in the Gladiator clip, every man will probably have someone tell him that he is something, for Gladiator he was a slave. Gladiator called himself. Father of a murdered son, murdered wife & he served the true emperor.

1. Will you let God speak into your life? He will be generous in speaking to you.

2. We do the possible and God does the impossible.

3. There’s no method it’s Jesus writing your life story and

4. Order life to cultivate the passion of Christ.

Probably used more media in a half hour talk than I have seen anyone use. EVER!

Cliproll – “Oh, how I love media, let me count the ways…”

1. Opened with a scene from Shrek

2. Two clips from Dumb and Dumber – ”stay here and save money for the worm far…”

3. Two clips from Dumb and Dumber

4. Two clips from Chariots of Fire – “God made me for a purpose. When I run I feel His pleasure.”

5. Two clips from Chariots of Fire – Last scene where Eric wins the race.

6. Three clips from Braveheart

7. Three clips from Braveheart

8. Three clips from Braveheart

9. Two clips from Hoosiers

10. Two clips from Hoosiers

11. Clip from Ghostbusters

12. Lord of the Rings

13. Gladiator

14. Pall Potts

15. Amazing Grace Movie

16. Amazing Grace Movie

I was reading Bobby Gruenewald‘s blog today and he presents a real life scenario that made me think, “what would I do”. SHould make us all think actually.

He looks up a friend from school and finds that his old buddy has a new booty! The dude has become a lady. Fast foward and she is coming to visit and Bobby invites her to church. what ensues is pretty remarkable.

What would you do if an old friend or an old flame (OK, that’s a creepy thought) looked you up?

Read Bobby’s post here.

Right after church the whole family had lunch at the in-laws. Roz’s grandparents (our kids GREAT grandparents) were in town. My mother in law fixed a great meal and provided an awesome environment for us to enjoy each other.

Back to church at 4:00 for a press conference since the church had the outgoing Jewish ambassador to the US, Daniel Ayalon. 4:30met with baptism candidates for video taping testimonies for baptism next Sunday nigh. The off to prep for Sunday night service with Daniel Ayalon speaking. There were 822 for the outgoing ambassador. You can listen to the service here.