Each day I get an email entitled, “Online Spin.” It’s written for people who market products or services electronically. I take what it says and then translate it into church principles and ideas.The goal in electronic marketing is to make it as personal as possible. Why? Because word of mouth of advertising is always the most effective. No matter how personal an electronic campaign can be, at the end of the day, it is still more effective to write a handwritten note, make a personal phone call, or speak in person.One of the things I love to see are people bringing friends to LifePoint. This has happened every Sunday since our Grand Opening! I am humbled by the confidence you place in us every time you invite a friend or neighbor.Having said that, I want to pledge this to you: We will strive to make every Sunday gathering a meaningful…

The following is from LifePoint's weekly newsletter.It has been almost ten years since my mother died. Tonya and I were living here in San Diego, not far from where LifePoint meets. In the course of about three weeks, I experienced the true meaning of Christian community.When mom was put on life-support, our friends at church purchased an emergency airline ticket for me to travel home. When she died two weeks later, they did the same – this time also paying for Tonya to travel with me.Mom was hospitalized in Peoria, IL, across the river from my hometown. During the time we waited in ICU, we had a steady stream of visitors come sit with us. Almost every single one of them was a friend from church. Many of them stayed for hours while we took turns spending time with mom.One episode remains vivid. It was Thanksgiving Day and we were…

Another great Sunday at LifePoint. Our theme for the day was water:community. We looked at the need for investing ourselves into relationships ... if we don't do that now, they won't be there when we need them. Part of the message was autobiographical -- how my personal family has been blessed by our church communities.Our band did a few acoustic numbers and it was a good change of pace. We're continuing to make progress on many fronts and it's great to be a new church. We also had 28 newcomers between our 9:00 and 10:45 gatherings!Our LifePoint podcasts are now listed in the podcast directory on iTunes! You can go here to subscribe yourself. Or browse the podcast directory on iTunes and download it there.I'm recording our podcasts directly to my iPod using a Belkin voice recorder. I'm very impressed with how well it records. I plug it into the…

This is one is to be filed under the "for what it's worth" category.Wading through the shallow water on NBC's 'Today' showASSOCIATED PRESS2:12 p.m. October 14, 2005NEW YORK – If Michelle Kosinski's canoe had sprung a leak on NBC's"Today" show Friday, she didn't have much to worry about.In one of television's inadvertently funny moments, the NBC Newscorrespondent was paddling in a canoe during a live report about flooding inWayne, N.J. While she talked, two men walked between her and the camera – makingit apparent that the water where she was floating was barelyankle-deep.Matt Lauer struggled to keep a straight face, joking about the "holy men"who were walking on water. "Have you run aground yet?" Katie Couricasked."Why walk when you can ride?" Kosinski replied.Later, an NBC News spokeswoman explained that Kosinski had been riding indeeper water near an overflowing river down the street, but there were concernsthat the current was too…

This morning as I was watching the news, there came an update regarding a murder that happened near where we used to live in the Bay Area (read story). It involved a 16-year-old suspect who beat a woman to death, carved satanic symbols on her back, and then used her shower to clean himself up. The story was so gruesome it even appeared to impact one of the reporters -- which is no small feat these days.The other story involved a mother who threw her three small children into the Bay because the voices in her head told to. A passerby saw what happened and called 911; the San Francisco Fire Department was there within four minutes. The children were no where to be found. Later two bodies were recovered and they are still searching for the third child.We live in a dark, fallen world. The San Francisco area is…