Last month, Collision Media and I teamed up to host the “Battle Ugly Church Website Giveaway”. Good Shepherd Church of Huntington, Indiana won a free custom website. Here’s their current ugly website. (Yep, that’s ugly.)

About a year ago, Molly and Josh Kesler were called to pastor a small church in Indiana. However, life was good in Minnesota where Molly had landed her dream job and Josh was a pastor at a healthy church with over 12,000 in attendance. Leaving these great jobs and relationships to “breathe life” into a dying church was not on their list of desires.

Out of obedience to Christ, they moved to the city of Huntington, Indiana, where they currently pastor a small, older church in need of change. Good Shepherd has lost several key staff leaders in recent years through difficult circumstances. Stepping into a hurting church and trying to restore it has been challenging for the Kesler’s.

The church website was the last of their worries, yet they knew the importance of a web strategy. They tried to remove their current website simply because it is horrible, but they were unable to do even that. Good Shepherd Church is looking forward to starting fresh as they change locations, change their name, and change their website.

For those of you who submitted your church into the “Battle”, thanks. We have been encouraged by your stories and do agree that your websites are ugly.

I’ll keep you posted on Good Shepherd’s new site. Until then, be grateful that your website is not as ugly as theirs.

Yesterday I posted the version of “Highway to Hell” that was performed at the Anderson campus on Easter. Here’s the same song from our Greenville campus. Justin slammed it.

HIGHWAY2HELL_JUSTIN from Jiggle Snort on Vimeo.

Just in case you’re wondering, the band in Greenville does the exact same set list as Anderson probably 95% of the time. We also just launched a full band in Florence that Sam is leading. Not sure if they’re on the same set list at this point. Maybe Sam will chime in.

btw… I love, love, LOVE the camera work from Greenville. They’re getting some fabulous shots and the rapid cutaways to new shots is fantastic. It keeps those of us with ultra-short attention spans completely engaged.

Everyone else will be blogging about it, so I thought I’d get a head start. Here’s the opening song from NewSpring’s Easter service. This is the band’s cover of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”:

To see the context of the song with the message, you’ll have to check out the video of the entire service that will be posted on www.NewSpring.cc sometime tomorrow.

I know. It makes you angry. Ultimately, though, this helped over 300 people hear the Gospel and make a decision to follow Jesus.

We had 14 services at 4 campuses over the last 2 days. It was a crazy Easter celebration at NewSpring Church this weekend. Lots of people. Lots of new life. (I’ll explain in a moment.) Here are some of the lines from Perry’s message that grabbed my attention:

• “When it becomes personal, we’re forced to pay a little more attention.”
• “No one wants to sign up at the ‘go to hell’ table.”
• “We pay attention to people we perceive are important.”
• “Every one of us in this room is going to die.”
• “Some of us won’t be here the same time next year.”
• “Jesus said there was a hell.”
• “I can talk about hell all day long and it doesn’t scare me because I’m not going there.”
• “You don’t have to be good to get into Heaven – you have to be perfect.”
• “The bad guy deserves to die. Here’s the problem – we’re the bad guy.”
• “It’s not just about what he said. It’s about what he did.”
• “Do you know him?”

This weekend, we broke attendance records at our Florence, Greenville and Web campuses. We had over 15,000 people total for the first time in NewSpring history. But, the best news of the weekend is that 319 people accepted Christ. New forgiveness. New direction. New purpose. New life. It’s a brand new day for 319 people.

That’s why I do what I do.

The Greenville News has a great story in today’s paper about NewSpring and the web campus. Nick, our web campus pastor, shares some of why we’re doing what we’re doing online. Among other things Nick addressed the issue of whether on not people can experience authentic community online by sharing:

“To say that I wasn’t somehow connecting with them through the power of God and through the Holy Spirit is actually kind of saying God can’t move except physically.”

You can read the rest of the story on the Greenville News website. If you’d like to see the web campus in action, you can check out any of the three Easter services at 11:15 am and 6 pm EST and 11:00 am PST.

I just wrapped up the book This is Your Brain on Joy by Earl Henslin. It’s my first book that I’ve reviewed as part of the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers program. I’m breaking the rules on this review, so this will also probably be my last review in the program.

Honestly, the worst part of the book is the cover. It took me a while to get past all the flowers and the depression and anxiety I experienced thinking I was reading a woman’s book. Once I got started, though, I quickly learned that the book is for everyone…including people like me who have a tendency to wrestle with depression and anxiety.

Henslin’s goal in the book is to help us take steps towards brain health so we can experience joy in our lives. The best part of the book, though, is that Henslin is a Christ-follower yet he doesn’t over-spiritualize our brain issues. (We all have them by the way.) Yes, some of how we are raised impacts our joy. Yes, sin in our lives can impact our joy. But, our brain health, which is also impacted be those two things, also impacts our joy.

Henslin uses the latest research in brain science and brain imaging to help us understand how we can experience joy and happiness. What you thought was a spiritual challenge – anger, depression, mood swings, anxiety, addictions – may also be the result of a sick brain that cannot comprehend a good and loving God.

Here are some of the highlights of the book that grabbed my attention:

• “Only God knows how much of our wrongdoing is the result of pure rebellion or evil intent and how much is caused by brain imbalances.”
• “Tragically, too often in religious circles we’ve been trying to pray away or spiritualize a brain problem—assuming (however well-intentioned) that we or someone else has a sin problem. Or a character flaw. Or a root of bitterness. Or, worse, a demon.”
• “There really isn’t such a thing as a normal brain.”
• “All our brains are uniquely wired. Some of our wiring gifts us with a basic emotional set point that includes mostly thoughts and feelings of happiness and peace and basic sanity. Sadly, however, some of us are wired to experience more anxiety, anger, or depression.”
• “Doctors, scientists, and researchers have been so impressed by how prayer changes brain and body chemistry for the better that many hospitals are incorporating and encouraging prayer for their patients as an adjunct to traditional healing therapies.”
• “It can now be proven that human beings literally change their own brain makeup and that this process continues (as long as you continue to learn and grow) until the day you die.”
• “Life itself was meant to be our original natural high.”
• “Surrounding yourself with positive people who believe in and champion your dreams is vital to bouncing back from sorrow or stress into joy.”
• “Human connection studies show a greater rise in pure happiness than when you are involved, in some way, in voluntarily helping someone else.”
• “The happiest people tend to give more money to charity. It didn’t matter how much they earned—across the board low- and high-income families who gave a part of their money to help someone else were much happier.”
• “People who have more activity in the right half of their brains have less control over negativity and tend to walk on the pessimistic side of life’s street. Therefore, they are often introverts who are more paranoid, get depressed more easily, and find that happiness often eludes them.”
• “The practice of forgiveness has been shown to reduce anger, hurt, depression, and stress, and leads to greater feelings of hope, peace, compassion, and self-confidence.”
• “The Scriptures speak of ‘taking every thought captive’ (2 Cor. 2:5 NASB) and ‘the renewing of your mind’ (Rom. 12:2). One way to do this is to exchange our worries for God’s reassurances.”
• “We cannot always believe our thoughts, for our thoughts often lie to us when our chemistry is off balance.”
• “The famous preacher Charles Spurgeon struggled so severely with depression that he was forced to be absent from his pulpit for two to three months a year.”
• “If life were perfect, it wouldn’t be life; it would be heaven.”
• “Scientists have discovered that when we are actively blessing others or saying thanks to God for his many gifts to our lives, the neuron path to worry and fear is literally blocked. You can’t be grateful and anxious at the same time.”

This was a fascinating book. It gave me a whole new perspective on why people (including me) act the way they act and think the way they think. You would really benefit from checking it out. God created our brains. Unfortunately, since we are human, they aren’t perfect.

Just wanted to take a second to thank all the sponsors. Here are the folks that are helping to make TonyMorganLive.com happen:

Church Volunteer Central – currently offering a free VBS starter kit to new members

Church Web Works – offers churches easy-to-use and professional websites at discounted pricing

Clover – provides websites for growing churches and ministries

Collision Media – a creative design studio that provides web design and other media related services for churches and businesses

faithHighway – develops cost-effective, cutting-edge websites to reach the unchurched

Fellowship Technologies – offers Fellowship One, the fastest growing, 100% web-based, church management software

Israel Houghton – listen to his new album, The Power of One, from Integrity Music

Lightbulb Creative - provides creative series packages, web design and other graphic design services

National Outreach Convention – a gathering place and connection point for leaders committed to outreach

If you’re interested, we still have advertising spots available for your organization. Email me for more details.

You’ll be able to attend NewSpring Church Easter services without leaving your home. For the first time ever, you’ll be able to participate in Easter services anywhere you have a high speed Internet connection through NewSpring’s web campus. It will be available for Easter services, allowing people across the globe to go to church without leaving their homes.

Through the web campus, people can participate in worship with the Anderson campus band, listen to Senior Pastor Perry Noble teach and take notes online. The web campus also allows people share experiences and thoughts in a live chat room and connect with others attending through social media and small groups.

“We don’t think there should be any barriers to hearing the good news of Jesus,” said Nick Charalambous, NewSpring’s web campus pastor. “We know people are living more of their lives online every day, and we want to offer them an option to learn how God can transform their lives with joy, hope and purpose without their having to visit a church.”

The NewSpring web campus services will be at 11:15 am and 6 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) and 11 am Pacific Standard Time (PST) on our website www.NewSpring.cc.

Do you have friends or family who aren’t interested in going to a church for services on Easter? Maybe this is an easy invite that would allow them to participate in an Easter service from the comfort of their own home. Spread the word.

We’ve had some new positions added to the job board in recent days. Check out these cool new roles. Here are all of the ministry positions recently posted to the Job Board:

• Senior Pastor | Evansville, Indiana
• High School Student Pastor | Hickory, North Carolina
• Media/Production/Creative Director | Graham, North Carolina
• Family Pastor | Graham, North Carolina
• Director of Student Ministries | Dover, Ohio
• Student Pastor | Lufkin, Texas
• Multimedia Director | Lexington, Kentucky

There are a number of other positions available on the job board, so check out the entire list.

If you have a position that you’d like to let others know about, you can advertise that role on the job board for only $49 for 30 days.

Also, if you’re looking for a job, you may post your resume for free. Lots of sharp people are lining up. Check out their resumes.

Geoff Surratt is the Pastor of Ministries at Seacoast Church, a multi-site church based in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. That makes Seacoast my second favorite multi-site church based in South Carolina. Geoff and the entire Surratt clan are a fantastic group of folks who are changing the way churches do church. Though Geoff has experienced many successes in ministry, he’s also made some mistakes. Here’s a brief interview where we discuss some of his more “stupid” mistakes.

TONY: People may not know that Seacoast was a pioneer for multi-site ministry. Would you be willing to share a little of that story?

GEOFF: Seacoast never intended to be a multi-site church. In 2001 we had grown to about 3,000 attenders and had run out of space and service times, so we made plans to build a larger auditorium. We ran into a major roadblock, however, when our local town council denied us permission to build.

Seemingly out of options we heard about an experiment that Willow Creek and a couple of other churches around the country were trying with multiple locations  utilizing video teaching. We didn’t think it would work for us in South Carolina (a state not known for being on the cutting edge), but we were out of options. We rented a storefront about ¼ mile from our original location and opened our first “offsite campus” on Easter Sunday, 2002. Much to our surprise it not only worked, but many people actually preferred the intimacy of a smaller congregation combined with the resources of a mega-church. Seven years later over 10,000 people each weekend attend Seacoast’s 13 campuses.

TONY: In honor of your new book, what’s one “stupid thing” churches do when initiating a multi-site strategy?

GEOFF: The biggest mistake churches make when considering a multi-site strategy is to attempt to launch before the church is ready to multiply. In The Multi-site Church Revolution, a book I wrote with Greg Ligon and Dr. Warren Bird, we identify three major questions a church must answer before going multi-site:

1. How healthy is your church? If your church is not growing and is not healthy you should not export your disease.
2. What is the driving impetus behind your desire to go multi-site? Some churches are addressing crowding issues, some are reaching communities that do not have a life-giving church, some are reaching into a new culture or demographic. A really poor impetus, however, is to keep up with other churches that are going multi-site. Going multi-site without a compelling reason is like trying to have a baby before getting pregnant.
3. Are the key leaders behind the decision? Some churches have attempted going multi-site without having the senior leaders fully onboard with very poor results. While you will never get 100% buy in, if the senior leader is not fully invested it is not time to open a new campus.

TONY: How long did it take you to come up with 10 stupid things to write about in your new book?

GEOFF: Church is in my genes. My mom played the church organ on the night I was born and she was back on the organ bench the next Sunday morning. My grandfather was a pastor, my father was a pastor, my brothers are pastors, and my sister is married to a pastor. I won’t go into all of the cousins, uncles, and assorted other relatives that pastor or have pastored somewhere in America. Let me just say if I don’t have a relative already pastoring in your community I’m sure one will be coming soon. My family would start our own cult, but we can’t agree on who gets to be the leader.

The point is that church is in my blood. I have worked for or pastored a church since I was twenty years old and somewhere along the way I have committed every stupid mistake in the book. In addition to my own experience I have talked to hundreds of pastors across the country including the ten prominent pastors featured in the book. So in one way it took me 47 years to come up with the 10 stupid things I wrote about.

TONY: Is one of those stupid things more stupid than the others?

GEOFF: When I led a small church in Huffman, Texas, I was the pastor, the bookkeeper, the Sunday School superintendent, the worship director, the administrative assistant, the groundskeeper, the maintenance man, the janitor and the preacher. As I look back on my time at Church on the Lake, I can’t help but wonder what I was thinking. We had some great people in the church that would have done a much better job than I did at most of these jobs, but I seldom took the time to develop them or give them the freedom to make the job their own. As I’ve talked to pastors around the country I’ve discovered that I’m not alone. Trying to do all (or most) of the work themselves is the number one stupid thing pastors and leaders do that inhibits their church from growing.

TONY: Should we read anything into the fact that my boss, Perry Noble, is the first person that you interviewed for your book on this particular topic?

GEOFF: Perry was incredibly generous to contribute to the book. What you guys are doing in at NewSpring is incredible and an inspiration to pastors in smaller (and larger) communities around the country. I was very fortunate to be able to draw on the wisdom of leaders like Perry, Craig Groeschel, Mark Batterson, my brother Greg Surratt and others to provide insight in how to overcome costly ministry mistakes. My role in writing was to illustrate stupid mistakes from my own experience and then draw on the wisdom of others on how to recover. My mom always said that everyone is good for something even if it’s to be a bad example.

Geoff’s new book, Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing, releases May 1 but you can pre-order your copy today.