Happy Labor Day to all of you. I’m probably out on our boat fishing right now. Enjoy your holiday. We’ll resume with the interviews tomorrow!

Over the past two weeks, we’ve been looking under the hood at the role of a campus pastor at a multi-site church. If you’re a campus pastor at a multi-site church and want to be interviewed, just let me know. If you’re a LifeChurch.tv Network church pastor or a North Point Strategic Partner pastor and want to be interviewed, let me know.

Starting next week, we’ll look at a twist on this campus pastor concept: network or partner churches of a mother multi-site church. This may be a new concept for you.

These churches that we’ll look at are autonomous churches that have chosen to use a communicator like Andy Stanley or Craig Groeschel as their primary teacher and let the senior pastor of the church function in a role similar to a campus pastor at a multi-site church. I’m, personally, fascinated with these churches and again, I’m building up to a point.

I know my parent’s generation would say, “But that’s what we pay him for. We pay the pastor to preach. If he doesn’t preach, then what are we paying him for?” I’m seeing and advocating a switch in the way we view the senior pastor role and don’t think that the senior pastor has to be the primary communicator (I’ll write more about this in the future).

Another example of this being played out is at Mars Hill in Seattle. At Mars Hill, you’ve probably heard of Mark Driscoll, but may not realize or have put together that Mark is the teaching pastor, not the lead pastor. Jamie Munson is the Lead Pastor. That’s a healthy, working model of this concept that I feel strongly about. Jamie can be the lead or senior pastor and lead the church and someone else (Mark) can be the primary communicator (both live and via video at their multi-site campuses). See HERE for more info.

Today is the day to submit any questions, comments, feedback, thoughts you’re processing, etc. about what we’ve been dealing with the past two weeks. Have you enjoyed the interviews? Are you starting to grasp what I’m building up to – that’s there’s a difference between a preacher and a pastor and the two are not synonymous. What do you think about that statement?

Over the next several blogs, I’m going to give you a little peak into my head and heart and what I have been chewing on for the last few years. For about three years, I have been fascinated with the multi-site church movement and the unique role of campus pastor at a multi-site church. About two years ago, I interviewed campus pastors at well-known multi-site churches around the country.

In the next few blog posts, I’m going to share the interviews I did with multi-site campus pastors. Keep in mind, these interviews were done two years ago and that some of their answers and situations may have changed by now – as a matter of fact, I’m sure they have. For instance, Dave Clark (who I interviewed as a campus pastor at National Community Church in Washington DC) is now on staff at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX.

However, some of the key issues, principles, challenges and advantages are still the same and that’s what I want you to reflect on. I’m leading up to something and will share more of my heart and my vision for the future in the near future. These interviews (and how God used them in my life 2 years ago) are foundational for what I’m working on now and have planned for the future.

After I share the interviews from campus pastors of multi-site churches, I will share brand new interviews with the next level of my vision – campus pastors and pastors of network churches or strategic partners of multi-site churches. These are autonomous churches that use video teaching primarily. Again, I’m leading up to something with all this and will eventually make a point.

As a primer for this conversation and the future conversations, I encourage you to pick up and read the following books (if you haven’t already):

• The Multi-Site Church Revolution: Being One Church in Many Locations
• A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip: Exploring the New Normal

In the meantime, if you’re a part (member, staff, volunteer) of a multi-site church or a network church, I want to hear from you. Please leave a comment and let us know about your involvement. Also, if you have any questions in general about all this, please comment as well. Campus Pastors: I want to hear from you!

My friend downunder, Steve Fogg, inspired this blog post or at least encouraged me to write about it for my readers. When I create a secret shopper report for churches, the first thing I report on is the church’s online strategy and the first thing I look for is the church’s Facebook presence and specifically is they have a custom landing page.

Why is this important? To put it simply: If you’re trying to reach people, Facebook is your mission field. Facebook just passed 500 million users and if it was a country it would be the third largest in the world! By the way, if we’re not already friends on Facebook, we should be. Add me HERE.

Instead of giving you a step by step ‘how to’ on this post, below are some links which others have used as a tour guide to getting it done and also getting started on Facebook. Any and all of these can more than help you.

Darren Rowse from Problogger gives the clearest step by step instructions for creating a Facebook landing page here.

Brandon Knight provides an another excellent step by step guide.

DesignM.AG shows who they consider the best landing pages on Facebook are.

Smashing Magazine gives some insight and help here.

If your church isn’t on Facebook yet. Get on. ChurchCrunch provides 4 tips to help you get started.

Here are some great Facebook landing pages:

LifeChurch.tv

Soul City Church – this Facebook landing page was recognized by SmashingMagazine.com

Park Community Church

Crossway

Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit

I created one for my secret shopper company HERE. If you’re not a member of the page, please join for special tips, insights and resources for your church.

Have you created any custom functionality in Facebook? How would you rate your church’s Facebook presence? Also, do you have some other awesome church Facebook landing pages that I need to know about and list? Share!

Last night I returned from my weekend in Phoenix, AZ. I was there doing a secret shopper at Christ’s Church of the Valley on Saturday and Sunday. I had a great time with CCV and have a great respect for their church and their desire to do what they do better.

Sunday night, I went to Phoenix First and got to see a legend in action: Tommy Barnett. Pastor Tommy is in his 70s, been in ministry for over 50 years and had more energy than I have at age 34. I was so inspiring and encouraging to see his fire and passion. I have a great respect for his ministry and the many Dream Centers that have come out of his leadership and influence. God is using him greatly.

Who is a living legend that you look up to?

Obviously, I don’t want to spoil it for those of you that haven’t seen it, yet, but I think we all know Andy is getting older. In this movie he’s going off to college – surely he can’t play with his toys forever and thus the movie tells the rest.

I don’t know if it was the fact that I was surrounded by my precious children while I was watching the movie and deeply resonating with the theme of kids growing up and not interested in the stuff they used to be interested in, but I was moved – very moved. I found myself crying and wanting to stop time.

Here’s a few pictures of how time flies:

Today’s post is an example of what I refer to as life-streaming and have talked about all around the country. If you’re reading this via email or RSS, please click on the link and look at the above pictures on my blog.

This blog posts serves two purposes: First, for those of you who are new to my blog or missed the most commented on blog posts, I want you to have a chance to read and respond (by commenting on these popular posts). Second, I’m trying to get the Popular Posts feature you see at the top of my blog to work correctly.

Apparently, it only tracks comments since I installed the new blog theme. So even though there are blog posts with 40, 50 and 70 comments, the most recent post which got commented on only 4 times is at the top. Make sense?

I need new comments from regulars (using a different email address – it won’t work if you’ve commented before) OR new comments from new people that have never commented on my blog before. Please help me let the Popular Posts section truly reflect the most popular posts from my blog.

Here are the posts that have the most comments and need new comments on them so they can appear in the top Popular Posts section:

• Flat-screen Pastor
• Is Your Preaching Impotent?
• Impotent: Steven Anderson
• Impotent: Steven Anderson 2
• Impotent: Mike Murdock
• Impotent: Conclusion
• Can’t We All Just Get Along?

All I need each of you to do is make a new comment on each link. It can be “testing comment” or anything you want to say to respond to the post. Just make sure you’re either a first-time commenter or you use a new email address.

Catalyst 2010 | The Tension is Good from Catalyst on Vimeo.

You won’t want to miss the Catalyst Conference this year, happening October 6-8, 2010 in Atlanta, where 13,000 young leaders will converge for the leadership experience of the year, including high-octane speakers, powerful worship, innovative programming, and an experience unlike any other. I’ll be there and I hope to see you there, too.

Hear from leadership authorities including Andy Stanley, Seth Godin, TD Jakes, Craig Groeschel, Francis Chan, Beth Moore, Perry Noble, and Christine Caine, along with several innovative thinkers and practitioners like best-selling author Daniel Pink, charity: water founder Scott Harrison, Gabe Lyons, First Response Team founder Tad Agoglia, and Rani Hong, winner of the United Nations Human Rights Award.

Plus, Catalyst Labs will feature innovative thought leaders like Michael Hyatt, Pete Wilson, Mark Batterson, Anne Jackson, John Ortberg, Mike Foster, Jud Wilhite, Reggie Joiner, Jamie Tworkowski, Alan Hirsch, Gayle Haggard, Chris Hodges, Jon Acuff, Tim Elmore, Charles Lee, Chris Seay, Chris and Phileena Heuertz, and others.

Best Rates on Catalyst tickets end this Thursday, June 24th, so register now. Call 888.334.6569 to speak to a Catalyst Concierge, or register online at www.catalystconference.com. You can use Rate Code FOB for an additional discount off your ticket price. Catalyst will sell out, so make sure and register early!

Maybe you heard all the buzz about the new iPhone 4 last week and even saw Steve Jobs’ presentation of it. What you may not have heard is about how Steve Jobs is fighting to keep porn off the iPhone and iPad.

Is Steve Jobs taking heat for this? Absolutely. Could he make a ton of money by offering porn on his products’ app stores? Yes. But sometimes you have to take a stand. So-called “apps,” or programs, are wildly popular and can be downloaded through Apple’s iTunes store. There’s an application for nearly everything — including news, sports, maps and restaurants — but Jobs says the store won’t offer porn. Approximately 5,000 sexually explicit applications were removed from the store early this year after the Parents Television Council, the conservative group, urged citizens to complain to Apple. The PTC noted that children often browse the store, looking for games.

Jobs took a stance against porn when the iPhone was released in 2007 and has reiterated that stance at least three times during last month while also taking a dig at a competitor, Google’s Android phone.

“The Apple CEO can expect further criticism from fans of pornography; but the PTC applauds Steve Jobs for his bold and courageous stance in favor of promoting decency and protecting children,” the Parents Television Council said.

Asked during an April interview with reporters whether Apple would keep in place its strong restrictions on making applications for the iPhone, Jobs said, “You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go.”

He wrote e-mailer Matthew Browing in April, “We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy Android.”

Then, in May, Jobs defended Apple’s new iPad — which also uses applications — from charges that the product does not give consumers enough freedom. The e-mailer, Ryan Tate, had written Jobs saying that “revolutions are about freedom,” implying that iPad’s commercials touting a revolution were off base.

Jobs retorted, “Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom.” Jobs later wrote during the exchange, “You might care more about porn when you have kids …”

So, what say you? Are you in favor of Jobs and Apple taking a stand against porn on their products and trying to protect our kids or do you think he crossed the line?

* Note – some quotes were taken from an article published by Baptist Press