My Friendship Connection

I am fired up. I had a great conversation yesterday with a guy named Vernon Brady who used to be the Vice President of the Church Growth Institute. He’s spearheading an evangelism initiative called My Friendship Connection. And here’s the awesome part for us: He wants eleven72 to help produce a series of videos for this oh so cool event (more on the event itself in a second). First a little background: Did you know that according to research done by the Church Growth Institute a full 86% of the people who trust Christ as their Savior do so because of the simple invitation of a friend. By way of contrast, only 2% come to Christ through the use of advertising. Wow. That is an amazing stat. The single most effective way to evangelize the people you know is to simply invite them to church. We didn’t realize that the idea behind our video Just Ask was such a powerful one! But it makes sense when you think about it, because God is all about relationship.

Twenty years ago, Vernon was part of a program called Friend Day. The program, asking people to invite a friend to church, was used successfully by 47,000 churches. Since then, God has been growing up in Vernon a desire to see millions of people’s lives forever changed through nothing more than being invited to church (and, of course, being reached by the Spirit and prompted to turn their lives over to Jesus). And the time is now. The seed that God planted with Vernon is poised to start a flood with My Friendship Connection.

What is My Friendship Connection?

My Friendship Connection is a strategy designed to mobilize your church for a great day of outreach. Synergy comes by connecting churches across North America on the same day with a single focus. Therefore, we seek to engage the masses into the largest army ever assembled for the purpose of reaching, evangelizing and winning friends to Jesus Christ through the local church.

Go to their website and check it out. Tell your church about it. Right now about 500 churches in Virginia are on board, but that number is quickly growing. They’ve had inquiries from other countries and big groups like the Southern Baptist Convention and the North American Mission Board are expressing interest. Just hearing about it, I could tell that God is in this. Imagine what might happen if tens of thousands of churches get involved with this in the next few months. Imagine all the people who will walk through the door of a church on November 4th (that’s the day when all of this culminates). My friends. Your friends. Tens of thousands of people. Imagine all the people who will come face to face with the life changing reality of Jesus Christ. What a great day for rejoicing that will be! All because friends simply asked their friends, “would you come to church with me?

I’m so excited that God brought this to Lee and I. So humbled that we might be used to serve God’s Kingdom in such a powerful way. I have never met Vernon Brady face to face. We connected because of our media on the internet. He could have called anyone. He called us. God continues to amaze me daily. This life of following Christ is truly a great adventure.

I’ll have more to post on this as things progress. For now, check out myfriendshipconnection.com. And get ready friends!

“We Are Human Torches Lit By the Flame of God.” So proclaims this striking piece of art stenciled, smeared and painted on a chunk of wood. I stumbled on the website www.weareloved.info while running down some referrals for designers. I got the referral from Eric Klein who is the super coolest guy and is currently pulling together the Better Off Rock’d Tour, a series of concerts featuring four of the top Christian rock groups and benefitting his new non-profit that is geared toward suicide prevention (more on that later, log on to www.betteroffrockd.com to find out more). Anyway, Eric referred me to the site of illustrator/designer Barak Hardley. I really really dig his paintings and designs. His choice of materials and the way he works with textures and wood and newspaper and spray paint. It’s got weight to it, you know. Substance and decay. While looking around his site, I found a link to www.weareloved.info. I know I’m just gushing all this stuff here, but I’m really excited about Barak’s work and I wanted to point it out. On the homepage of weareloved.info, there’s this video that explains everything. This video is awesome. I aspire to tell stories like this. Check it out:

Feed Readers, click here to see the video.

Two thousand years ago, on a day much like today, God, in the form of his son Jesus, was tried, tortured and crucified on a Roman cross. The God who created the heavens and the earth hung on a hill with common criminals. To pay the price for our sin. To bear our ultimate burden and to save us from death. What an incredible, unbelievably amazing act. But why do we call a day when such an injustice was paid to God by man Good Friday?

I found an explanation that I like on the United Methodist Church’s website that I wanted to share:

The source of our term for the Friday before Easter, “Good Friday,” is not clear. It may be a corruption of the English phrase “God’s Friday,” according to Professor Laurence Hull Stookey in Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church (p. 96). It is the common name for the day among English- and Dutch-speaking people. It is a day that proclaims God’s purpose of loving and redeeming the world through the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It is a day that is good because God was drawing the world to God’s self in Christ. As seen in John’s gospel, particularly, God was in control. God was not making the best of a bad situation, but was working out God’s intention for the world — winning salvation for all people. We call it “good” because we look backward at the crucifixion through the lens of Easter!

“Good Friday” is not a universal name for the day. The liturgical title for the day in the Western church was “Friday of Preparation,” since the time Jews used the word paraskeue (getting ready) for Friday, meaning the “day of preparation.” Popular names for the day are “Holy Friday” among the Latin nations, “Great Friday” among the Slavic peoples, “Friday of Mourning” in Germany, “Long Friday” in Norway, and “Holy Friday” (Viernes Santo) among Hispanic peoples.

I’d like to wish everyone a Good Good Friday. As I write this, the Body of Christ all over the world begins to celebrate the most incredible act in human history. God’s sacrifice, perfect blood shed, blood that makes us clean. Grace that none of us deserve, extended by the hand of the Creator of the universe. And through this act and our belief in Jesus Christ, we pass from death to life and become the adopted sons and daughters of the Most High. As we move from Good Friday to Easter, we rejoice as the apostle Paul says in Romans 5: 10-11:

10For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Happy Easter everyone. Our redeemer lives. And that is more than good!

Here’s a great story that has inspired me. I just finished a book called The Irresistible Revolution: living as an ordinary radical. It’s a book by a guy named Shane Claiborne who is part of a group in Philadelphia called The Simple Way. I’ve got to be honest, this book made me really uncomfortable. It is a book that raises the ugly issues of poverty, inequality, and warfare. But it’s never about throwing the issues in your face so you feel guilty or bad or defeated. Instead, it seeks to bring these issues to light so we might have the courage to imagine a world where they no longer exist. It’s about what it really means to follow Christ fully and completely, written by a guy who is doing his best to do just that.

At times, while reading the book, I wanted to dismiss Shane as a hippie idealist, as an over zealous activist, as some kind of left-wing nut… but I couldn’t. God wouldn’t let me off the hook that easy. Shane lives in voluntary poverty in inner city Philadelphia at a house where he holds all things in common with his community. It’s a hospitality house, where the door is always open to anyone with any need. In college, Shane followed Christ to India, where he worked with Mother Teresa and ended up living, serving and loving his neighbors in a leper colony. Recently, Shane was led by the Spirit to journey to Iraq, where he worshiped, encouraged and communed with the Christians living there (while the bombs were falling!). This is a guy who puts his proverbial money where his mouth is. He is a voice calling us out of the complacency that so easily infects us in this American life. Shane may be a little crazy, but he’s crazy for all the right reasons. And I know he’s crazy about Jesus.

Here’s what Rob Bell (NOOMA, Velvet Elvis, Mars Hill) says about Shane:

Be warned, my friends: Shane is a poet, a friend, a brother - but underneath it all, he’s a prophet with a fire in his belly and a story to back it up. If you listen - or in this case, read - you will not be the same.

AMEN!

Nike and The Art of Storytelling

Speaking of great storytellers, I think Nike does an awesome job of storytelling. I don’t know if there’s any other corporate entity that taps into our hearts, our dreams, our desires, like Nike does. They want to tie our longings and desires to their products. We know the only place we’ll find satisfaction for those desires is at their source - God. It’s easy to say that Nike is able to tell such great stories and do so much because of all the resources that their wealth provides. I often find myself using excuses like that. But sometimes, Nike does it so well and so simply that it lays my excuses bare. We can tell stories like this. Stories that inspire, encourage and point people to the Source. Watch this short video about Brazilian soccer superstar Ronaldinho and think about the stories you want to tell:

Free Easter Worship Backgrounds and Stills

The March Free Media is here! Check out the add on the homepage. You’ll notice the ad is now clickable. Click on it and you’ll be taken to our new FREE MEDIA page, where you can preview the free downloads each month.

My hat’s off to Lee this time. He has really created two awesome backgrounds and stills that are highly usable for Easter. And we’re giving them away! We’re so pumped about Easter and it makes our hearts glad that we can participate in your services by offering you this media. It’s our gift to you because God has given us so much.

We also have other Easter content available on our Seasonal page. Check out Jesus Is and I Will Remember. We’ve got a Palm Sunday themed background and countdown, as well as some great Sunrise stuff (Sunrise Countdown w/Scripture, Sunrise Countdown and Sunrise Worship Background). Check out the Seasonal page to see them all!

We would really love to hear from any and all of you. Please let us know what you think of our stuff and how you’re using it. We want to help share your stories with others and learn from you how to better serve God’s church with our gifts.

God Bless,
Storme

Click Image Above To Watch our Easter Worship Video, I Will Remember

We Remember

With Easter approaching, I’ve been thinking about our video, I Will Remember. The video is a simple illustration of a song that means a lot to us here at eleven72. It’s a song written by the Music Director of our church, JJ Plasencio. JJ recorded it on an album of praise songs that he wrote for our church (you can get the CD at gatewaychurch.com). The album was recorded with and by Gateway’s volunteer praise and worship band members. The singer on this track is a guy named Scott Leger who is the singer for what I think is the greatest unsigned band I’ve ever heard, WideAwake (you should check them out).

When our church first started out, we were meeting in movie theaters and hotel banquet rooms, loading in and out before and after the services, completely portable. At one point, we were moving around so often that our pastor joked, “if you can find us, you can go here.”

Each week, as our little body grew and as more and more seekers became true believers, we would sing this song that JJ had written. We will remember your name! We will remember your grace. We were seeing Him do mighty things among us. Redeemer. Prince of Peace. The Lamb Who has Died in my Place. Lyrics from this wonderful song.

The video for I Will Remember was really a labor of love for Lee (see our about page to learn more about Lee). He put his heart and his considerable talent to work illustrating this beautiful praise song. And I think the love he put into it shows through in the work.

Over time, I Will Remember has become one of our most popular videos, especially at this time of year. It’s a great piece to use as you give the congregation time to reflect on who Jesus Is and what He has done for us. It’s a great video to use to end a sermon with. Build up your sermon about Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and sacrifice and then let this video make a powerful ending statement that moves people closer to Christ. We’ve also heard that the video is really useful during the celebration of Communion as the congregation reflects on the body and the blood of Christ.

However you use it, know that it means a lot to us and we pray that it might mean something to you and your congregation as well.