Ministry Today

Rick Warren's 'The Purpose Driven Life' Celebrates 10 Years

Published on Monday, 22 October 2012 16:00

Written by Charisma Staff

After 10 unprecedented years as the best-selling non-fiction hardback in history, Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? is being re-tooled and re-released by Zondervan.

“There is an entire generation who was too young to read The Purpose Driven Life 10 years ago but are now asking the critical question of , ‘What on earth am I here for?’” said Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. “This anniversary edition represents a new approach for a new generation incorporating a new understanding of barriers that keep people from finding their purpose, based on thousands of readers’ letters I have received.”

Reaching the Unplugged

Published on Monday, 22 October 2012 12:00

Written by Jon Rodgers

The rise of the Internet and mobile technology has ushered church communications into a new digital era. As a result, churches have worked hard to create a flawless user experience, engaged social networks and search engine-optimized websites. We’ve come far, but I fear we’ve left people behind. Meet the “unplugged.”

Despite popular belief, the unplugged are not just senior citizens, they are those in our pews who are not regularly visiting the web or aren’t socially engaged online.

So how do we keep up our online strategies while still caring for the unplugged?

I imagine communication as if it were a hub and spokes on a bicycle. A bike has two wheels (online and offline) and is capable of moving us forward. Just like using Facebook, Twitter, email and other tools to bring everyone back to your website, you can use platform announcements, posters, people, etc., to point back to one central hub with all your communication pieces.

Bon Appetit

Published on Monday, 22 October 2012 09:00

Written by Mark Batterson

A Fast Company article, "Weird Science" (May 2006), spotlighted one of the most innovative chefs in America. Homaro Cantu is part chef, part mad scientist and part inventor. And he is on a mission to change the way people perceive and experience food.

The menu at Moto restaurant in Chicago is constantly changing as the chefs use everything from a Class IV laser to liquid nitrogen to experiment with new ways of making and presenting their meals. Cantu and his rebel chefs are pushing the culinary envelop by combining foods in unprecedented ways. Their doughnut soup, for example, tastes exactly like the inside of a Krispy Kreme doughnut. And if you want, you can actually eat their edible menus.

Stuck in a Professional Rut?

Published on Friday, 19 October 2012 16:00

Written by Justin M. Wise

Three strategies for freeing you up to develop your ‘tent-making’ skills

One of my favorite quotes on bi-vocationalism comes from renowned Southern writer and economist Wendell Berry. He spoke at a 2007 seminary convocation saying: “It seems to me that one of the most important things in ministerial training would be to teach them to do something besides be a preacher. Because ... it’s a bad thing to be professionally trapped.”

Those last two words really sting: “professionally trapped.” I dare say it, but there are likely thousands of pastors—young and old, men and women—across the country who feel like they have no place to turn but the church. In other words, they’re stuck.