Perry is one of my best friends and has been a mentor and confidant for me since Elevation’s earliest days. I don’t know a gutsier, bolder, or more dynamic leader in our generation. But sometimes you may see a highly visible, highly confident, highly successful pastor like Perry and wonder if he’s the real deal. He is. You won’t find anyone with more integrity or a bigger heart for the Kingdom.

And the lineup he and the incredible team at NewSpring have put together for this event is unbelievable.

Perry Noble. Francis Chan. Mark Driscoll. Jud Wilhite. Judah Smith. And as of yesterday, Rick Warren.

A leadership conference headlined by just one of any of these guys would be worth any price. But to have all of them in one day for $99 is just straight up ridiculous. But that just shows the heart of Perry and his leadership team to put on a ridiculously low-priced conference that anyone can be a part of and yet still get to hear from some of the best leaders in the church today.

Register here.  And don’t hesitate. The $99 early bird registration ends this Friday.

Get yourself there. If you can, get your entire staff there. This one day has the potential to be the highlight of your entire year.

Pastor Craig Groeschel is a great man of God and a good friend. God has used him to revolutionize my understanding of unity and the Kingdom of God. The team at LifeChurch.tv provides more resources and creates more opportunities for partnership in the Gospel than any church I’ve ever encountered.

A while back, Pastor Craig preached a powerful message series called Practical Atheist. He defined a practical atheist as someone who says he believes in God, but lives as if He doesn’t exist. One of the sermons gripped me so powerfully that I took an entire weekend at Elevation to broadcast the message to all of our campuses. The response was overwhelming.

When Pastor Craig told me that his next book, The Christian Atheist, would be based on this concept, I immediately started imagining the impact it could have on Christians and churches all over the world.

The book releases next Tuesday. Although Pastor Craig didn’t ask me to do this, I really felt I needed to take a day on my blog and help get the word out. Of course, I strongly encourage you to order a copy for you and your peeps. But I’d also recommend that you take this opportunity to expose as many people as possible to the challenge in creative ways. Here are a couple ideas.

-Show one or more of the messages from the series, Practical Atheist, in your church. Because of the incredible generosity of the LifeChurch.tv team, you’ll be able to download and show the messages free of charge. This is a tremendous blessing.
This link should take you right to the series: http://open.lifechurch.tv/series/3475
The sermon we used specifically was Week 2. They’re all fantastic.

-Buy a couple dozen, or a couple hundred books for key people in your church. Use it as small group curriculum. Give it as a gift to new Christians (would be especially helpful as Easter approaches.)

You know I don’t use this blog to advertise or promote stuff very often. But I believe when God has anointed a man and a message, we should all get behind it in any way we can. I really believe in Craig Groeschel, LifeChurch.tv, and the truth in this book. Now go buy a bunch of copies.

Guest Blogger: Wade Joye, Worship Pastor

Pastor Steven recently led our staff and select volunteers to read through the Bible in 90 days through an intense and challenging initiative called B90x. This process was so powerful for our leadership as we prioritized the Word of God in a new way in our lives. As a result, Pastor Steven wanted to take our entire church through a similar journey.

Beginning the weekend of January 9 and 10, we will launch a 5 week sermon series called New Thru 30. During this series, Pastor Steven will challenge our church to read through the entire New Testament in 30 days. Everyone in the church will get a reading plan and devotional guide as we take this journey together. Pastor’s sermons during these 5 weekends will also be focused on what we are reading at the time. I can’t think of any better way for us to kick off the New Year as a church!

And here is the really cool part. We want you to do this series with us. We are going to make the entire series available to you at newthru30.com so any church can participate alongside of us. At the site, you will be able to download Pastor Steven’s sermons, the reading plan, series graphics, trailers and all other programming materials.

Ultimately, we want to be a resource for you as you challenge your church to seek God in a new and audacious way. We hope you join us in this national campaign as we read the New Testament together and start the New Year off right.

We have an incredible design team at Elevation Church. They work hard. They play hard. And they produce amazing work.

As you can see, I have no problem bragging on them. I’d take them in a fight over any team in the country…as long as the fight wasn’t too physical, mostly just some light pushing and a little sarcasm.

They spend a lot of time creating just the right elements so our worship experiences speak to anyone who walks through our doors.  A series can easily be 200-300 total design hours when it’s all said and done.

The good news for you? We want to give you everything we’ve designed. We want to help you do what you do. And if it means taking a series graphics package and making it work for you, it’s our pleasure to hand it over free-of-charge.

Visit resources.elevationchurch.org and you’ll be able to log in and grab anything we currently have available. We’re working through all our assets and posting them as frequently as we can. Anything you don’t see, be patient, it’ll probably show up soon.

Few quick FAQs…
What’s up with no audio on videos? Most audio tracks require clearance. You’ll need to handle that on your end or use someone like these guys to help you out.
Is there a limit on what I can download? Maybe someday, but not yet.
Can I link the resources page? I’m expecting you to. Thanks.

Register. Log in. Download. We’re giving it all away. Well, everything we can. As fast as we can. Enjoy.

It’s Friday and I’m delivering a final thought on something I learned this year at THR3E.  If you keep up, you know that we did the event as a recap of what we learned in our first 3 years of ministry.

And for me, I learned how healthy it is to remember the past faithfulness of God.

Pastor Steven shared the down and dirty ways that we have developed the Elevation brand and culture. He detailed the mistakes we’ve made and defined our best practices.  He intimately shared the cost of doing what we do in the ministry and unloaded wisdom at a rate that couldn’t be re-tweeted.

The content of the day was for a church leader what a Brazilian Steakhouse is to a carnivore. It was a culmination of everything God had done over a short period of time. Not just numbers but even the processes and systems that were born out of frustration and hard work. And everything was a reminder to me of God’s faithfulness.

I’ve been blessed enough to be a part of Elevation since the beginning. I’ve watched Pastor walk with God through the beginnings of Elevation and develop as a leader of our generation. And I can’t hear him preach about what God has done here enough.

Today is the last day to get a cheaper ticket to our Impart event (the second coming of THR3E). You can sign up here. Whether you are there or not, I’ll be on the front row experiencing information overload remembering the faithfulness of God through it all. And I think that is healthy.

Here is your next installment in a week long series on some of the things we learned at our recent Thr3e event. Thr3e was an incredible day as Pastor Steven unloaded so many leadership principles that my hand hurt trying to write everything down.

The one that stands out the most, though, was the closing session when Pastor Steven got pretty vulnerable in a message called The Cost of the Calling. In this message, Pastor talked about the sacrifices he has had to make through each new leadership and ministry transition of the church. Sometimes the cost is emotional, other times it takes a physical toll, but there always is a price to pay as we walk in what God has called us to do. This was real life, honest stuff that you don’t tend to get at a conference, but it was filled with encouragement and hope as I personally was challenged that in order to embrace the calling and gifting God has on my life, I can’t avoid the sacrifice and pain. I must embrace it, because it is through these times that God brings an even greater anointing and effectiveness in the ministry He has for me.

If you are the lead pastor of a church, I would do whatever it takes to get to our Impart event to get the same kind of honesty from Pastor Steven on what it looks like to lead a dynamic move of God. Click here for all the details on Impart, and don’t miss the early bird registration deadline this Friday.

And if you sign up before Friday, you have a chance to win a fully loaded Kindle. Get those details here.

I look forward to seeing you in October at Impart.