Questions For Andy Stanley

So I’m sitting here with Scott Hodge, Todd Rhoads and Jay Hardwick backstage at the Exponential 2008 Conference in Orlando.  We are blogging, talking, networking and generally just waiting for an audience with Andy Stanley.  So here’s your chance…along with our chance…to ask Andy whatever you want.  Drop me an email with your questions…but do it quick.  We’ll try to iSight the interview and have it up on YouTube this afternoon sometime.  Also if you have questions for Rick Warren, Ed Stetzer, Tim Keller or any of the other speakers…drop Scott, Todd or I a message and we’ll do our best to make the interview happen.

Be the way, any videos I shoot during the conference will be here.  Keep in mind…most of it will be raw, behind-the-scenes and unedited…may not be for the faint of heart. 

Exponential Blogging Workshop

So here is the details…Scott Hodge, Todd Rhoades and I will be doing a “Blogging 101″ worshop at this year’s Exponential Conference in Orlando. The workshop will be a part of the “Nuts & Bolts Track” and the details are as follows:

DATE: Tuesday, April 22nd
TIME: 4:00 p.m
LOCATION: To be determined
DESCRIPTION: Blogging has developed into one of the foremost ways to communicate in the 21st Century. From international news sites to celebrity gossip, blogs are popping up everywhere on the Internet. This workshop will help you discover how blogging can enhance your ministry and introduce you to new techniques for communicating with your congregation.

Scott, Todd and I have a few other things up our sleeves when it comes to blogging and networking. More on that as the conference gets closer. Don’t forget…if you are an established blogger (meaning you already blog)…comment here or drop me an email…if you have not done so already. There’s going to be an “unofficial” gathering of the bloggers during the conference.

A Busy…And Humbling Day

It’s around 10:15 pm and I finally made it home.  My day started with a 7:00am meeting with Lee Saunders…a member of Compass Point and the the driver of the world record Viper run.  From there it was off to fight with Verizon Wireless…then AT&T Wireless…and then lunch with my good friend Bobby Triplett.  That dude is going to seriously set the world on fire for God in the Brandon/Tampa area next September.  I love hanging out with him…bouncing ideas off of him…and just soaking up his knowledge.  From there it was off to the other side of town for an interview with the Catalyst Road Trip guys.  LV and Micah asked some really great questions and it was a blast just grabbing some Starbucks and talking about the future of church.  I said some pretty irreverent things on camera (imagine that)…I hope some of it makes Catalyst this year. 

From there Kyle and I grabbed a bite to eat…talked about ALL of the changes happening at Compass Point right now…and just generally tried to come to grips with the stuff that God is allowing to happen.  God is moving very quickly…and very mightily…it’s pretty crazy.  While we were grabbing dinner we looked over across the restaurant and there was Jason Burns…the pastor the local church plant Access.  A great guy…we’ve talked via email and this blog…but never met in person.  They are moving into the other Lakeland YMCA this week…so we talked “shop” for a while.  We’re going to grab some coffee next week to finish up.

Went over to my folks house to see my aunts and uncle…then finally headed back home.  Pulled up my  office email to find a staff member had sent me a link to this.  I balled my eyes out…seriously.  If I was only half the leader and pastor that he thinks I am.  What a very humbling honor…and a reminder that God is so awesome to allow me to do this as a calling.  Thanks for reading Austin Porter…your post left me speechless and emotional.

Perry Hit A Homer

Run…don’t walk…to Perry’s blog and read this!!!

Hey Bloggers Going To Exponential

If you are a blogger and are going to be at the Exponential Conference in Orlando this month…please email me or comment to this post.  Scott Hodge, Todd Rhoades and I are going to be doing a blogging breakout…but we also have something else up our sleeves that will be for established bloggers only that will be attending the conference.

Oops!!!

Got a call early this morning from a friend telling me that my blog was down.  I checked Google Reader to see if last night’s post made it through RSS…it did.  Checked through Word Press…there was my blog as a clear as day.  Went to ChrisElrod.com and…oops…I forgot to renew my domain name and web forwarding.  Seems I used an old email address to sign up with Network Solutions and was not getting the renewal notices because I never check that account anymore.  I paid for three years of service in advance and never gave it another thought.  Renewal paid…email contact changed…the fine folks at Network Solutions tell me everything will be back to normal in a few hours.

Blog Readability Test

So I was poking around the ‘Net today and found this site that measures the readability of your blog and rates it by academic levels.  When I ran mine (chriselrod.com) it came back rated for “High School”.  I felt pretty good about that since Dr. Ed Stetzer’s and Dr. Al Mohler’s blogs were also rated at that level.  Then I started running some of my friends through the test….let’s just say that any 5-year-old can enjoy the blog postings of Gary, Tadd, Dave and Travis. 

I Got Tagged

My friend Adam Mayfield tagged me today…and thinks I won’t follow through with it.  It’s my birthday…so I might as well have some fun.  The tag goes like this…

• Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more (no cheating!)
• Find page 123
• Count down five sentences
• Post the next three sentences
• Tag five people

The book is “Patoral Ministry: How To Shepherd Biblically” by Dr. John MacArthur (it’s sitting on my desk right now).  Dr. MacArthur is talking about the requirements for pastors/elders as found in 1 Timothy 3 and the tagged sentences are:

God’s logic for these high standards moves from the lesser to the greater.  If a man cannot lead the little flock of his own family effectively, he certainly cannot fruitfully undertake leadership of the larger flock, the church. “But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God (1 Tim. 3:5)”

I’m still thinking about the five folks I’ll be tagging…but rest assured I will be tagging five others. 

New Header

I got tired of people saying I looked depressed with my previous blog header.  I made some changes…hopefully a little more “cheerful” looking. 

Thank You

Sometime today my blog will pass the 50,000 hits milestone. For other bloggers that number is a “drop in the bucket”…but for me it is pretty humbling. When I started blogging back in 2004 it was solely as an online journal…I never expected people to actually read it. I guess it was the middle of 2005 that I began to realize that folks on the web were dropping by to take a look,,,though only a few at a time.  In 2006 I moved over to Typepad and…thanks to the encouragement of guys like Gary Lamb, Travis Johnson and Dave Anderson…got into blogging for church planters/leaders more seriously.  It was last June after the “man church” thing exploded in the media that I added a SiteMeter counter (set at zero) to keep track of the hits from then on (I have no clue how many people dropped by before then).  Now…after less than a year…that little counter tells me we’re almost at 50,000 hits (not to mention over 100 subscribers).

As I mentioned above that is pretty humbling for me.  There have been times I have ranted here…told jokes here…presented ideas out of the norm here…been off base here…and generally just shared about my life here.  Through this blog I have gained some incredible friendships…some I’ve actually met in person…others just through email half a world away.   However, I have never ceased to be amazed by how God continues to use the folks that stop by here to speak into my life.  It is with a heartfelt “thank you” for your continued participation and readership of ChrisElrod.com that I move forward into the blogging future.  You guys rock…thanks for reading!!!