If I sound a little giddy online today, it’s because I’m getting to meet someone who I have admired for years. Later this afternoon, I’m heading to Menlo Park Presbyterian Church to spend some time with John Ortberg. John and I will be talking about spiritual formation and social networking and what might happen when the two collide. My friend Eric from monvee will also be joining us.

For those of you who may be unfamilar with John’s story, he’s currently the senior pastor at Menlo Park. Prior to that, he was the teaching pastor at Willow Creek. That’s when I first encountered John’s ability to put spiritual truths into words that I could understand and apply to my life. If you haven’t heard him, he’s one of the best teachers/communicators in the church today.

Additionally, he’s a very gifted writer. One of his books, If You Want to Walk on Water, You Have to Get Out of the Boat, has been transformational in my personal spiritual journey. Honestly, though, you won’t find a dud if you pick up any of his previous writing.

I’ll share more about our talk later on this evening. Until then, I’d love for you to participate in the conversation. If you had a couple of hours to sit with John Ortberg, what would you want to ask him?

Sorry for not announcing the winners of the FREE Innovate 09 registrations yesterday. With the conclusion of the contest, I’m naming the following five folks the winners:

• Danielle H. for being the first entrant
• Craig Strauss for being the biggest brown-noser
• David Barfield for being the local guy
• Jesse Bowles to avoid seeing his interpretative dance
• Chad Nygren for not hugging me

If you are one of the five winners, email me your contact info so I can help you get registered.

Thanks for playing.

That’s the question I asked on Twitter the other day. In response, I got several questions that I couldn’t answer. So, rather than just make up answers like I normally do (smile), I decided to call an expert.

Dave Ferguson is the lead pastor of Community Christian Church in Chicago. Actually, they have 11 campuses in the Chicagoland area. Dave also leads the NewThing Network which is trying to encourage a movement of reproducing churches throughout the country.

A couple of days ago, I caught up with Dave as he was running errands. He took about 15 minutes to answer the questions you submitted on Twitter. Listen to the interview here:

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Dave and his brother, Jon, have just finished writing their next book. The Exponential Church: How You and Your Friends Can Spread a Missional Movement will release next spring. You can pre-order it today.

I was reading through Gizmodo’s review of Snow Leopard, the new Mac OS X that releases in a few days. In describing the new operating system, Brian Lam said:

“Challenging 30 years of ever more bloated software tradition, the changes here are about becoming a more effective middleware between the media and the hardware, reducing friction while becoming more useful by, well, being lighter, less visible.”

We have that same bloated tradition in the church. Somewhere between the outreach and our desires to help people experience spiritual maturity (however you define that) is the “middleware” – it’s everything we ask people to do once they connect with our churches.

Might be a good idea to talk about the middleware in your church and decide if it’s useful and actually generating the outcomes you desire or if it’s really just creating friction.

Generally speaking, I think we have a tendency to get too bloated in our ministry programming. May be time for us to update the middleware and reduce the friction.

This week’s focus is on multi-site strategy. One of the trends that both Jim and Geoff mentioned was the rise of Internet campuses. With that, I thought I’d pursue an interview with someone at North Point Ministries. My good friend John Saddington has helped North Point experience a successful launch to their new site which offers a live service experience. Here’s my interview with John.

TONY: For those folks in blogdom who don’t know your story, tell us about your ministry role at North Point.

JOHN: I am the Creative Web Director and I do whatever I’m told to do. :) In other words, my role is to serve the ministries and organizations within the walls of North Point and help provide them with solutions that fit their needs.

TONY: North Point Online recently launched. What’s the vision for the site?

JOHN: At North Point we strive to create “Irresistible Environments” for all who attend our services in tandem with our “Invest and Invite” strategy. Our goal is to do the same in the online segment and provide a simple communication medium and site that looks good, functions well, and is a place where insiders feel comfortable inviting outsiders. In addition, our desire is to use it as a “connection” point into our great history of grouping and community development.

TONY: Does North Point consider “Online” to be a separate campus of the church or a tool to support the ministries of the existing physical locations?

JOHN: Functionally, North Point Online will be very much like a campus. One of the categorical differences is that it quite literally is an extension of our existing campus in the Buckhead area of Atlanta, Georgia: We have a live broadcast of the 6:00pm service where those online can join those in the seats of our auditorium and “Share the Experience,” as we like to say. All that to say, it will function and perform a number of different roles, both as a supporting vehicle for current ministries and the campus as well as an “outpost” for new visitors who would have never grace our walls physically.

TONY: Can an Internet Campus really serve as someone’s church?

JOHN: This is a tricky question and would take much more time to answer and would require a number of clarifying and parallel remarks. So, I’m going to skate past this question by simply saying “Yes” and “No.” Let’s say that our internet campus or experience plays an important role in how we seek to engage with those that have never heard the Gospel or who have become de-churched and are hesitant to re-engage.

TONY: What do you think the next iteration of Internet campuses will look like?

JOHN: One of the transformations that I, personally, think will occur naturally as more time and resources are poured into online experience development is that the so-called Internet Campus will become much more of a focal-point and portal rather than a secondary or sub-level site within the greater ministry web presence. What this could look like in one example is that ultimately the iCampus is the website for the ministry and/or church. Period. Just think of how integrated that approach is! Just think of how effective that might be!

I’ve had the opportunity over the last month to visit some great churches throughout the region. I’m guessing some of these may not be on your radar, so here’s a quick recap of my journey.

• Church @ the Springs (Ocala, FL) – The senior pastor at The Springs, Ron Sylvia, has been a good friend of mine for several years. We’re leading a LifeWay team coaching network together. And, among other things, I’m helping The Springs with a volunteer team building strategy to prepare for their new facility opening around Christmas.
• Revolution Church (Canton, GA) – I had the chance to hang out with the staff team recently to talk about where they’ve been and where they’re heading as a church. It was part of the process of helping them identify a new senior pastor.
• 12Stone Church (Lawrenceville, GA) – 12Stone has multiple campuses in the northeast Atlanta metro area. Dan Reiland, 12Stone’s executive pastor, gave me a tour of their brand new campus in Lawrenceville. The facility is amazing!
• The River (Semmes, AL) – I spent the weekend with senior pastor Chris Farley and his team. In addition to helping their team revisit their volunteer strategy, Chris treated me to the biggest piece of fish I’ve ever had.
• Avalon Church (McDonough, GA) – Avalon is in the southeast Atlanta area. It’s a good-sized church at nearly 1,300 people, but what was more amazing to me was the number of volunteers they have serving and the quality of the creative arts/service experience. I’m going to share more of Avalon’s story in the in the coming days through an interview with Ritchie Miller, their senior pastor.

I love the stories that I’m getting to hear by visiting churches across the country. This week I’m at home, but my next stop is San Fransisco!

My friends at Granger Community Church handed me five FREE registrations to Innovate 09 which will be on September 24-25.

Only problem is that I’m not feeling very innovative this morning. Because of that, I can’t figure out how I want to give away these FREE registrations.

With that in mind, you get to create your own contest and submit your entry. For example…

• Best pencil sketch of your image of Granger, Indiana may get a FREE registration.
• Best song about Tim Stevens may get a FREE registration.
• Best comment begging for one of these tickets may get a FREE registration.
• Best video of you trying to explain innovation to a random person at your local Wal-Mart may get a FREE registration.
• Best demonstration of why you should be the “People’s Choice” main speaker at Innovate 09 may get a FREE registration.

Really…the possibilities are endless. Submit your entry in whatever format you feel is appropriate. You only have 48 hours. I’m picking the winning entries on Friday.

Now go innovate.

It was a close vote, but Wayne is the clear winner in the “Andy Stanley Look-alike Contest.” Congratulations! It was a hard fought battle.

I’m sure you’ll see the uncanny resemblance in the pictures below:

Both Andy and Wayne are handsome men. Wayne, shoot me your mailing address, and I’ll put a copy of The Principle of the Path in the mail for you.

To everyone that submitted a photo and voted, thanks for playing.

Leadership Network recently asked some of the church’s greatest communicators: “If you had nine minutes to talk one-on-one with thousands of church leaders, what is the one thing that you would tell them?

That simple question is the foundation for THE NINES, a web event unlike any other you’ve previously engaged. The format is simple: 9-minute video leadership lessons that can help multiply your church’s impact. You will be stretched as a leader, and motivated as a church. And you’ll hear a personal word from many of the leaders you know and trust (along with some great new leaders we’ll introduce you to). It all starts at 9:00 a.m. Central time on 09/09/09. We’ll make a day of it. The conference will probably last around nine hours! You can come and go as you please, but hope that you’ll be with us the whole day!

And here’s the best part, you can participate here on TonyMorganLive.com. My blog will be hosting the event as one of several simulcast sites. (You can visit other sites, but our crowd will be more fun.)

The event is FREE, but you need to register now to participate.

Seacoast Church is a multi-site church based out of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Geoff Surratt is the ministries pastor for Seacoast, and he’s written quite a bit on multi-site strategy. His first book, The Multi-site Church Revolution, is a foundational resource that every church leader should read before launching their own multi-site campuses. Here’s my interview with Geoff about his current learnings.

TONY: First of all, catch us up to speed on what’s happening at Seacoast.

GEOFF: Life is fun at Seacoast. We are now in 13 locations across three states with about 10,000 people attending each weekend. This year we have been realigning our focus on making a positive impact in our neighborhoods through community transformation projects and we have been concentrating on helping leaders within Seacoast to take their next step in development. We are very excited about what’s next as we harness 21st century tools to spread the ageless Gospel. (Pretty pithy, huh?)

TONY: Tell us about your newest book on multi-site.

GEOFF: Greg Ligon, Warren Bird and I have teamed up to write a companion volume to our first book (The Multi-site Church Revolution) which will come out at the beginning of October. In A Multi-site Church Roadtrip, we travel to 15 different sites to experience the latest innovations in multi-site ministry. During the roadtrip we stop by Seacoast to look at the variety pack approach to multiple campuses. We drop in on Lifechurch.tv to get the latest on technology. We cruise on down the bayou for a stop in with Dino Rizzo and the gang at Healing Place Church to see how multi-site, Dream Centers and social justice all come together. I think this book will be a great resource for churches considering becoming multi-site as well as multi-site churches who are considering new opportunities for expanded influence.

TONY: What are some new trends you’ve noticed since your first multi-site book was published?

GEOFF: One of the biggest trends I’ve noticed is that multi-site is no longer a novelty. When we wrote the first book it was difficult to find multi-site models in many parts of the country; now it’s difficult to find a city without a multi-site church. Another trend is the explosion of internet campuses. With the rise of free or almost-free services like USTREAM and LiveStream any church with a website and a webcam can have a live online presence. A trend that is just emerging is the idea of an international campus; several churches are trying to figure out how a congregation in South America, Asia or Africa can be campus of a church in America.

TONY: Is there anything in the first book that you disagree with now?

GEOFF: While some of the examples in the first book have changed as churches change over time, I still think the principles are very solid. The Multi-site Church Revolution actually makes a great primer for churches launching their first or second campus and thinking through questions such as structure, budgeting and location. I have talked to several churches who have taken their whole staff through the book as a primer to where the church is going next.

TONY: Name a church doing multi-site that we should be studying that may not be on our radar at this point. What’s their unique story?

GEOFF: One of the most unique multi-site churches in the country is Brand New Church (yep, that’s their name) based in Harrison, Arkansas. Pastor Shannon O’Dell has a vision for rural America, so they are bypassing the big cities to go into small communities in the Midwest. Brand New Church currently has four campuses in Arkansas and several house churches spread across Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma as well as an internet campus. All of the campuses are linked up live by satellite and Brand New Church can broadcast from anywhere using their mobile uplink mounted on the back of a bright red Hummer. On a recent Sunday Pastor O’Dell gave a live tour of one of the smaller campuses using his Flip HD camera and beaming the signal via the Hummer parked out front.

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For other great resources on multi-site strategy, you may also want to check out the Leadership Network. They have several free resources specifically to help churches learn more about launching new campuses.