If you look at porn, have looked at porn, or know someone that looks at porn—download this book, print it out, and read it.

This book is now available to download and print as many copies as you like. It's short and should be cheap to print. We'll be making the book available for purchase soon.

A Few Ideas

• Get a few friends together and deal honestly with each other about the subjects of each chapter.
• Once you're done reading, pass it on to a friend.
• Give it to the counseling pastor at your church as a resource.

In a recent interview, singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright surprisingly remarked: "We're so obsessed about debunking Bush in this country that we don't spend time on any other subjects. That's a little depressing." Wainwright's point is that many Americans neglect a whole range of cultural issues, often neglecting political engagement for finger-pointing.

What's more depressing is that many Christians are just as guilty of this charge as non-Christians. As a result, there are few citizens who think through cultural issues critically, and even fewer who think them through redemptively. Here are six ways to promote critical and redemptive engagement with culture.

1. Engage culture prayerfully. I'm not suggesting that we should actually bow our heads and recite a prayer before reading a newspaper or book, watching TV or a movie, or going shopping, though that certainly wouldn't hurt. Instead, we are to live life and engage culture in a spirit of dependence upon God; we are to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). We should approach culture just as we should approach all things: prayerfully.
   
   
   What should we pray? We should thank God for the gift of culture, confessing that all cultures contain truth, beauty, and virtue, asking Him to help us recognize and rejoice in these good gifts, which come down from the Father of lights (James 1:17). Alternatively, all cultures also disdain truth, beauty, and virtue. Thus, we are dependent upon God to enable us to recognize and reject those things that are harmfully false, ugly, and immoral. By asking God to give us the perspective of His Spirit, "the Spirit who searches out all things, even the depths of God" (1 Cor. 2:10), we can begin to discern between the things which are true, beautiful, and good and the things that are false, ugly, and evil.




2. Engage culture carefully. When approaching any given issue, from parenting to politics, we all have our biases. In order to engage culture well, we must strive to avoid the paths of both the sectarian and the secularist, of both blind rejection and uncritical acceptance. This will require careful investigation into the issues we face, taking the opposing view seriously and weighing its merits. Make a habit of hearing both sides of an issue before you baptize your opinions. Be slow to speak and quick to listen (James 1:19).




3. Engage culture biblically-theologically. Why hyphenate biblical and theological? Why not just say "think biblically"? Well, the plain fact is that the Bible does not explicitly address most cultural issues. It does not tell you who to vote for, which school to go to, what movies to watch, whether or not you should date, whether or not to abort your baby, or how to respond to cloning. Instead, the Bible offers theological principles which we can appropriate in order to form opinions and convictions about cultural issues. For instance, there is no verse in the Bible that reads: "Thou shalt not have an abortion." However, the Bible does inform us that God is the author of life and that to take human life is murder, which is prohibited by God. The circumstances surrounding abortion can be complex. A mother's life may be threatened if the life of the baby is not taken. The Bible does not say, "Preserve the mother's life." However, there are principles and practices in Scripture that can help us make wise decisions about cultural and ethical dilemmas.
   
   

   The problem, however, is that we often start with cultural assumptions about what is right, beautiful, and good and go to the Bible to prove them. Instead, we need to bring cultural questions about what is true, good, and beautiful to the Bible, reflect on them theologically and then prayerfully, and carefully form our opinions. Don't begin with cultural convictions and end with biblical proof-texts; end with cultural wisdom by beginning with biblical-theological reflection. Start with the biblical text and reflect theologically on cultural issues. Move from Text to Theology to Culture, not the other way around.




4. Engage culture redemptively. Strive to connect your theological reflections regarding culture to redemption. We can redemptively engage culture in two ways: practically and positionally. To practically redeem, identify what is broken, what is in need of redemption, and take restorative action. Ask yourself questions like "How can I bring the gospel to bear on this issue?" or "How can I restore, forgive, or reconcile in this situation?" For example, if you come to the conviction that abortion is ugly and immoral, think about how you can help those who are suffering from the devastating affects of abortion. Don't just debate others. Volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center. Learn how to counsel mothers. Don't become self-righteous and inactive; practice your cultural convictions. Live them out redemptively.
   
   

   Our practice should flow from our position in Christ. Our actions ought to reveal our redeemed identity, not form our identity. Consider the danger of mistaking your newly-formed habits for who you are. For instance, do you think of yourself now as an environmentalist or as a citizen of Zion with an environmental conscience? Do you draw significance from being a "pro-lifer" or from being new creation in Christ Jesus? Ask yourself, "Am I confusing my practice with my position?" or "Am I finding my significance in what I do instead of who I am in Christ?" Guard yourself from subtly allowing cultural convictions to take the place of your identity in Christ. Ground your identity in the gospel and your practice will be more redemptive and more honoring to the Lord.




5. Engage culture humbly. Recognize that you have much to learn from a given culture. Read, converse, and reflect on cultural issues with a teachable heart. Ask God to shape your convictions through whomever or whatever He wills. Avoid proud dogmatism and cultivate humble conviction. Don't put others down who believe differently from you. Consider others more important than yourself without surrendering your convictions. Yet, be willing to revise your opinions through a process of Text-Theology-Culture.




6. Engage culture selectively. Realize and embrace the limitations of your own time, experience, and interests. Spend your time wisely. Don't sacrifice time with God, church, or family in order to become more culturally savvy. Everyone has been created differently, to live a unique life. Make the most of your experience by redemptively engaging culture, but try to avoid making the experience of others your own. There are too many issues in the world for you to become an overnight expert on Christ and culture. Be selective about what you engage.

Summarizing the Six Ways

When engaging culture prayerfully, we depend on the wisdom that comes from the Spirit who searches out all cultures, who can enable us to recognize and rejoice in what is true, beautiful, and good, and reject or redeem what is false, ugly, and immoral. As a result, engaging culture can become an act of communion with God. Relying on the wisdom of the Spirit will also mean careful investigation of cultural issues, being critical of our own biases while maintaining an open ear to the arguments of others. However, we're not left to navigate the turbulent waters of our culture with only prayer and reason. God has given us his Word, a divine and authoritative Text from which we can glean wisdom and theological principles to engage culture.

When wrestling with issues, we must be careful to bring questions, not assumptions, from our culture to the Word, following a pattern of Text-Theology-Culture. This biblical-theological engagement with culture should always lead to redemptive action, restoring what is ugly and immoral from our position as accepted children of God, citizens of Zion. In turn, we can engage culture humbly and selectively, recognizing our limitations and rejoicing in our unique opportunities to engage the world around us.

Finally, try to practice these six ways of engaging culture not just as an individual but in community. To put a spin on Rufus Wainwright's words: Only when the Church in this country becomes obsessed with glorifying God in all things will we critically and redemptively engage our culture on all kinds of subjects.

Continued from Part 2

Questions for Reflection

Where is my first entry point in the grocery store? Do I frequent the prepared food section, the chips section, the beverage section, or packaged food sections? On average how often do I cook for myself? Do I eat on the run or do I take time to enjoy my meal? Do I shove large chunks of food (not chewing your food) in my face not giving time to enjoy the food eaten? Do I at least sit down for a meal or are you standing while eating always in a rush?

Discovery: When it is not refrigerated, iced, watered and cared for as a perishable food it is dead food. Humans cannot live on potato chips, Stouffer’s lasagna, pizza, beer and microwave cuisine and stay healthy.

Microwaving (nuking your food) kills natural enzymes and nutrients in foods and if this is your mainstream diet you are heading for trouble. I am not saying that you have to toss your microwave. However, if you are using it all of the time you are in a serious rut and may have to toss it.

Oh, I often hear “I eat peanut butter and protein nutrition bars, they are healthy aren't they?” Not if you are engorging yourself with peanut butter and protein bars alone it’s not. If you are obsessive over any food to the exclusion of other foods you are cutting yourself short of nutrition and will suffer depletion of vital nutrients to keep your cells and systems healthy. If you deplete your body of these vital nutrients, oh by the way
pure water included, (at least 2 liters per day check out the link) you will become a shriveled prune and your chicken gizzards (those things that hang from your neck) will begin to form real early. I would advise nurturing foods and plenty of water to keep you from this petrified state.

Drinking 1 cup of coffee can set you to lose ½ cup of water. With every serving of alcohol you can deplete your body of 4 cups of water and can cause liver and nutrition impairment. Tobacco use causes unfavorable skin, hair, nails changes, lung disease and other health associated health risks.

Chewy but Creamy

If you do not chew your food appropriately you will experience an increased burden on digestion because the large chunks of food cannot be broken down in the stomach. If you are not chewing you are truly not enjoying your food. One of my professors of nutrition in medical school mentioned a hilarious way to slow down a fast eater. He said tie the forks together with the slowest eater in the house. The fast eater cannot take a bite of food until the slow eater takes a bite. A good old tug on the fork does it every time. Of course, the best teacher is when the digestion can no longer handle the poorly chewed food resulting in indigestion, reflux, cramping and other undesirable symptoms. Good chewing liquefies the food and produces a creamy consistency when swallowing as opposed to chunky hard to swallow blob.

Organic Foods or Not?

—Should I stick with organic foods? Absolutely! I believe that pesticide residues, herbicides, depleted soils, poor irrigated and nutrient deprived farming are contributing factors for so many existing cancers and chronic health breakdown. Keep feeding on live foods and your cell life increases exponentially. Here are helpful links on organic foods, Journal of Food Science study of organic foods and a Consumer Report on organic foods and better choices in selecting organic foods. I recommend you consider prioritizing your food types and that you stay with more alkalinizing foods. Simply, eat more of green leafy veggies and root foods (radish, carrot, turnips, etc), fresh fruits in variety and color, wild fish and organic low fat meats in this order. A good resource to consult is the Alkaline Way approach to eating. This is a good basic reference to get you started in understanding acid / alkaline forming foods.

Food to Chew On

—Enter in at the fruit, vegetable and live food section for this is the narrow way that leads to health and longevity. Wide is the aisle of potato chips, quick and greasy foods which leads to increased risk of free radical damage, heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes and cancer. Your choice!

Jesus gives us clear direction: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4 ESV)

Next…..Wrong Tree Wrong Food! Why do we need “bread” from heaven?

• Mark Driscoll continues the series Free Sex.
• AJ Hamilton gives insights into a Mars Hill Sermon Series Part 1 & Part 2.
• Mark Driscoll Answers: What Is the Dance of Mahanaim?
• Tim Smith works through Psalm 3
• Video:Lindland prediction on outcome of Couture / Lesnar fight
• Dr. Catanzaro explains the eternal feast.

Continued from Part 1

What is Your Food?

The battle begins in choosing food. Do you believe this is the case? The entire fall was based upon a food choice. You bet there are certain foods that I like and that I feel I need! Don’t be fooled some foods can either truly nurture your wellbeing and others trap you. We are all subject to listening to infomercials regarding certain foods and no doubt we may think the advertisement stupid or funny regardless we just might find ourselves giving in and responding to the eye candy and consuming the food. Don’t buy it or give in. Educate yourself and carefully choose!

Good Foods / Bad Foods You Choose:

• Juicy steak, cheeseburger, fries (arterial disaster and surgeons friend)
• Bowel of broccoli (may not like this as well but good for you)
• Dark chocolate (really like this)
• Spicy foods and cultural foods (I like spicy foods can’t eat much anymore)
• Triple mocha double shot latte (Wow! How many can I have?)
• Lots of bread and pasta (you don’t have to be Italian to like this)
• Nice glass of wine (nothing like a good glass of wine!)
• Tobacco (can’t really see how this is essential to health)
• Pornography (bad food!!)
• Material goods (Lots of toys can get expensive and ruin relationships)
• A good read (a problem if you are illiterate learn to read it’s a must)
• Nature walks (doesn’t sound manly but is one of the best habits to form)
• Exercise (a necessary much neglected part of our physical diet)
• The Bible (feasting forever type of food)

In Genesis 2:9 God created every tree good for food. This simply means that the trees that bore seed bearing fruit were edible and to be used for complete nourishment. Both the “tree of life” and the tree of “knowledge of good and evil.” are mentioned in the O.T text. So what’s wrong with some of the above items? Some foods nurture, some medicate, some are fun foods, some are essential to living and some are flat out a worthless waste of time and energy. Some of these foods we eat, experience, and put into our daily living and others we may ignore, not really feel we need or maybe feel we can’t live without. Regardless both trees were created by God. However, only one tree was forbidden by God to use as food. Yes, even the tree of knowledge of good and evil is included in this perfect park. See the next blog “Wrong Tree Wrong Food.”

Physical Food—Let’s turn our focus now to foods that feed our physical body that are wholesome, nurturing and biblical.

Root Words for Food

Just to let you know the Hebrew word generally used in the O.T. text for food is maakal; food: — eaten, food, fruit, provision, something to eat. The Greek word generally used in the N.T. text is trophē; nourishment, food: — enough, food, meals, support. Stay with me…..

Live food and dead food are on the menu you decide

God created a paradise, a beautiful perfect park if you will, with great tasting fruit and green herbs that Adam and Eve had at their disposal to take and eat as food. Before the fall fruits, grains and vegetables were the main staple for nourishment of physical body. It was perfect food meeting every nurturing need of the body. There was no genetic engineering of this food. It grew naturally in a rich environment and it was alive!! Everything was organic!

Animal food came after the fall as there was no need for shedding the blood of animals for food. All foods before the fall were unadulterated because of the perfect conditions in which they grew and flourished. All foods after the fall were marred. After the fall the Earth lost its perfectness and the process of death and decay ensued.

Whole Food is Live Food
Genesis 1:28-30 says every plant yielding seed and every tree with seed in its fruit God gave for food for man and beasts. There was no flesh eating noted before the fall. It is proven by research that consuming foods rich in fiber, vegetable matter and fruit is healthier than consuming heavy amounts of meat products.

Discovery: Organically grown vegetables, herbs and grains are healthier and this is an established fact according to research. Individuals that consume more vegetable matter are eating more alkaline which is also proven to extend life and health and decrease degenerative disease. Organically raised and cared for meat and wild fish are excellent choices but the bulk of the diet should be vegetable and fruits. You will notice significant vibrant health when you make these changes.

Old wise saying,
Live food equals live person!
Dead food equals dead person!

Your Cells Depend Upon It!

Every human cell is dependent upon live nutrition. It is a medical fact that foods high in bad fats (Trans fats) will breakdown healthy cells and causes them to die at a high rate. Human cells that are malnourished (poor diet and nutrition) results in compromised cell function and premature aging. Certain foods promote this activity so ask yourself???

Feasting on good food forever sounds good to me.

Jesus is the forever feast and He commands us to feast on His Word. Everything that is consumed as food, whether soul food, spirit food or physical food is weighted with an eternal value and I am learning to think long and hard about the type of food I consume.

We are what we feast off of.

The Bible is rich in wisdom about the foods that are good for nurture. There are bad foods for our physical body and bad foods for the mind and spirit. The spirit and mind foods that are bad are really bad!!

Some may not think that pornography is a food but it definitely is a mind and spirit food. It is a deadly food! It is weighted in eternity as defiling, degrading and evil. There are foods that become our idols and are so habit forming that it seems we cannot live without them. They become an obsession and we are consumed by their harmful drawing lusts. The eternal feast is free from sin and lust with all of its severe consequences;

• pain,
• suffering
• sadness
• separation from God

Feasting on Jesus

The Jesus feast is pure nurturing food forever and it builds upon itself a pure perfectness in glory that cannot be matched with any food produced by humankind. Man truly ate the “bread of angels” and exchanged all for pleasures that perish. This is the biggest whoops permeating the hearts of people feeding on pleasures that perish! There is no middle ground with God on this as He hates every appearance of evil.

He wants us all to hate every appearance of evil fleeing the lures of evil as Joseph’s example of running from the adulterous seductions of Potiphar’s wife the high officer of the Egyptian Pharaoh (Genesis 39:7-23). I love the way this Scripture bears out that the Lord was with Joseph and made him to prosper. This being the highest blessing for not exchanging the eternal food of heaven for the age old deception of Satan pleasurable but deadly! We will discuss this in detail further on the next blog “Wrong Tree Wrong Food.”

This Life is Our School

God the Father has given us the opportunity to feast on His Son and with this comes the promise of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is and should be our
comforter,
provider,
friend,
helper,
soul and spiritual food source while we have our physical existence.

This is our school during our sojourn on Earth. To avoid all the foods bringing perishable harm jeopardizing our eternal bliss with Christ. He wants us to learn to feast on the eternal foods while we live preparing us for the glorious feast to come. This is the ministry of the Holy Spirit right along side us keeping us from the harmful foods. This gentle persistent Spirit of God speaking to our conscience and hearts telling us firmly don’t do that, stay away from this, this tree is bad for you….. Listen, He speaks to you… Thank you God for not giving up on us we need You, Help us to be the aroma of Christ.

The Forever Feast authored by a wonderful Christian physician, Paul Brand bears out that in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16 the Apostle Paul says that … “We are the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other the fragrance of life.”

Resurgence Literature:

Re:Lit is a ministry of Resurgence. There you will find a growing line of books to help guide the resurgence of the new reformed. Find out more.

In every sport there are those marquee matchups that everyone gets excited to see and in MMA it’s no different. This Saturday night we have the opportunity to watch Randy Couture defend his belt against Brock Lesnar who is quite possibly the most physically intimidating man on the planet! For those of you that have been following my blog, you know that we are currently talking about controlling where the fight is fought and this is probably the most important element of Randy’s game plan. A few months ago I spent a couple of hours hanging out with Randy in Atlanta and we talked at length about this fight and the one thing he said he did not want to do was “end up on the ground underneath Brock”.

While this is not a shock to anyone, it is a bold undertaking given that Brock is one of the most athletic, strongest, and best pedigreed wrestlers to enter the sport and he will absolutely be looking to put Randy on his back! So I suggest you go back and read my blog about controlling where you fight, and then watch this Saturday and remind yourself that you have an enemy who wants to take the fight to certain places where you are weak. If he succeeds, you will be much worse off than just waking up with a bad headache and not getting your hand raised.

To break this fight down even more for you, I asked one of the other great wrestlers in MMA to talk to us about how he sees this fight playing out.

From time to time I will have a series of guests contribute as we dig into the Psalms. This week we will hear from my dear brother Joel Brown from Mars Hill. Joel and I have been working together at Mars Hill in one way or another since I came to Seattle 9 years ago. He is a record producer, drummer, guitar player, singer, songwriter, sound engineer, the leader of MH band “Red Letter,” and currently serves as my “Director of Band Development.” If that weren’t enough he’s also in our elder process. Here are his thoughts on Psalm 3...

What’s going on in Psalm 3?

This Psalm begins with a note of context: “A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.” David wrote this prayer to the Lord while under an incredible attack on his kingship in the land of Israel. There is far too deep a plot to explain here, but the story (see 2 Samuel 13-19) is well worth the read and gives us a great perspective on Psalm 3. We see David’s abdication as a father, the rape of his daughter Tamar at the hands of her half brother, followed by David’s son Absolom’s fury over the event, and the drama that ensues as David flees Jerusalem from Absolom’s hostile takeover of the country.

At this time, despite his fear, conviction, and shame, David unwaveringly trusts in God. As he’s leaving town, people are throwing rocks and dirt, cursing him saying, “there is no salvation for [him] in God.” David knows that God holds the cards and will deal what he will (2 Samuel 16:5-14). David has a peace in God’s sovereignty. He cries out to the Lord and, freeing him of his anxieties, the Lord allows David to rest in comfort.

David is not our ultimate example

Though David ultimately trusted in God, looking to him as our example is unsufficient—our ultimate example is Jesus, as in all things. Jesus had far greater foes rise against him than David could have imagined. I am reminded of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane praying “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39). Jesus, living by the Spirit in full submission to the will of the Father, had nothing to fear in what was the most terrifying of human experiences. He was abandoned by everyone. He was wrongfully tried and sentenced to the most gruesome punishment man has conceived. Most importantly, the Father turned his back on the Son and laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). What could be more terrifying? What could be a heavier weight to carry?

Yet, despite his circumstances, Jesus identified deeply with David’s prayer, “I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.” In complete trust in His Father, He walked in silence to His death, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7)! All of this was brought upon him not as a result of his actions but out of the Father’s wrath, which Jesus willingly accepted in spite of asking that it be removed.

I wrote about this in my song “One Righteous Man,” inspired by Isaiah 53.

Learning how to be more like Jesus through the Psalms...

My first reaction to this Psalm was: Who are my foes? If I’m really honest with myself I don’t really have any ‘foes’ to speak of. Not in the David-against-Absalom/Nation sense anyway.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this approach, but if Christ is the center of the scriptures (John 5:39-40), I have to look deeper. Seeing Christ here allows me to have the perspective that God intended when He inspired David.

David’s trust in God is a calm reminder to us all that true rest and peace only comes from God (Matthew 11:28-30; Ephesians 2:14). We often pour ourselves out in an effort to find comfort in created things, but nothing created ever lasts (Isaiah 40:6-8). In thinking about this, I realized that true worship—living every aspect of our lives in full submission to the Father’s will—is comfort and rest and peace and all things that we most deeply desire.

Looking at Jesus’ example, “The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom” has new meaning (Proverbs 9:10). If you truly fear God you needn't fear anything or anyone else. God is sovereign over all and with complete trust in Him, fear of created things no longer exists. Wisdom is where the fear of the Lord begins and the fear of creation ends.

Father,
Thank you for Your salvation and blessing! Thank you for Your love and steadfastness! Thank you for Your wisdom, which transcends human understanding!
Help me to not fear man and seek comfort in created things. Help me to seek You in all things. Allow this to affect my heart so deeply that I would even willingly and fearlessly go to my death if Your will required.

Tim Smith’s facebook page
Joel Brown’s facebook page
Discuss this psalm on facebook
“One Righteous Man” written by Joel Brown, performed by Red Letter, taken from the album “Death to Life” available early ’09 from Re:Sound (Resurgence music)

This post is continued from Part 1. It covers the individuals who make a sermon series like The Peasant Princess possible.

Illustrations to Animations

We asked Mars Hill member Royden Lepp (roydenlepp.blogspot.com) to provide illustrations of the unnamed woman and the representations of the metaphors Solomon employs in SOS.

These were done in pencil on paper (Check out Royden’s books).

These illustrations were then brilliantly colored by Deacon Patrick Mahoney (www.themahoney.com). Patrick is responsible for most of the major art and design aesthetics for MH and has been on staff for 2 years.

Now the characters were ready for animations and we had all of 4 days until deadline. Deacon-in-Training Andy Maier wanted to create a new look for the animations, but because of the impossible deadline he created them with Adobe After Effects in the same static, 2D style he and the team did with the Doctrine Intro (http://www.marshillchurch.org/search/results?q=doctrine).

Scoring

Deacon Sam Stewart created the musical score for the intro to the sermon. Sam, following the same guidelines of Vegas 2050 meets Disney meets Mars Hill, wrote this piece of music specifically for the series intro. Sam struggled with the 'Disney' aspect and the result was 13 unsuccessful attempts before coming up with the winner. He was striving for something that “people could really bump their heads to”. He asked that I mention his efforts to EQ the bass so that anyone with a decent car stereo system could probably bounce quarters on their trunk!

LED Stage Design

The LED wall employed as the stage back drop was loaned to us by a MH member. It functions like a giant computer monitor and you can send images and video to its brain which then addresses each individual LED (roughly 6,500 in number).

The cross, pulpit, and TV frame set pieces were hand-made and wired by Deacon John Clem (John’s wife Candice was bored one Saturday and came into work with him to work on the set. After a quick tutorial she did all the wiring for the cross panels). These set pieces are comprised of many RGB LEDs that are each fed from a DMX controller connected to the lighting board. Each set piece is capable of displaying any of over 200,000 different colors.

The LEDs in the set pieces are flex-strip LEDs and are little SMDS (surface mounted devices) on a 5-meter strand that can be cut and still remain operational every 10cm.

The cross is the most intricate piece. Each panel is a 1-foot square with 6 RGB LEDs and has a power/dmx input and output allowing for further use/expansion (For future projects on stage or in the studio we could make each panel a different color, cycle colors up and down the cross, or take individual panels and use them as accent lighting).

SMS Q&A

The way that we do Q&A at the services created a lot of media attention and email traffic from organizations asking about the technical details. The technical how-to is listed below, but the why is what attracts me as a pastor to the medium. This series, we have opened up the Q&A segments to each of the 7 campuses that are synced up at the 9am, 11:15am and 5pm services. Pastor Mark and his wife Grace are fielding the questions together. After deleting the “stump the Pastor” or hypothetical questions and the frequent off topic questions, we are left with very real, candid questions that an open microphone setup would discourage. There is a false anonymity that Text Message Q&A provides. I say “false” because each message includes the sender’s phone number (allowing pastoral follow-up via phone), yet the ability to send a question up to the pulpit without self-indentifying encourages a brazenness that makes answering 160 character questions exciting and most helpful.

To provide this service to the church we use a company called Mobile Marketing (www.mobivity.com). They charge us a minimal monthly fee, which includes 1000 incoming text messages and 1 "keyword". We can rent additional keywords for an extra monthly charge. Each keyword is customizable to allow for different responses for each keyword. When someone sends in a message, they get a custom response back thanking them for submitting their question and participating in the sermon.

After the question is sent in, it can be forwarded to an email account or cell phone for review. We have it setup so that each question goes to my email box. I review the questions to present to Pastor Mark & Grace, and enter them in a spreadsheet located on our Character Generator, which is a Chyron Lex2. The software that the Chyron uses, called Lyric, is set up so that we recall a slide linked to a cell in the spreadsheet. When one of the slides is called up it pulls the question from the right cell in the spreadsheet, and that goes to the TV on stage with Pastor Mark. For more info on SMS Q&A check out this blog by Pastor Jamie Munson.

Whac-a-Fox

During a team meeting, Deacon Jesse Bryan joked about how cool it would be to have a whac-a-mole game created for the series based on Song of Songs 2:15. MH volunteer and animator Tom DesLongchamp chimed in that he could take the images and create the first ever Mars Hill Church video game! My high score is 34 points.

If you’ve missed any of the Peasant Princess sermon series, in which we’ve walked through the Song of Songs, I hope it was not last Sunday. Why? Because we covered the most erotic, passionate, and debated section of the entire book, and possibly the entire Bible.

If you subscribe to the sermon feed this week, you can learn what the Dance of Mahanaim is, why a husband greatly enjoys seeing his wife perform it, and whether or not Song of Songs 7 is really talking about her belly button or something more interesting.

Also, at the end of each sermon in the series, my wife, Grace, and I answer questions text messaged to us during the sermon. So, please help us get the word out and the sermon subscriptions up as we labor to replace Christian porn, adultery, and divorce with hot, hetero, covenantal monogamy.

Who knows, you may even help us leapfrog Oprah and Osteen on iTunes for Religion & Spirituality as we just don’t have their marketing budget and can’t seem to overtake them. But if ever there was a week to make a run, this is it.