One of my unnamed, inside sources at Granger shared with me the brand new Specific & Practical magazine that’ll be shipping soon. All I can say is "Wow!" You’re going to love the articles. It’s also filled with recommended resources and events that are available through WiredChurches.com. Make sure you’re on the mailing list so you can get your free copy.

Also, while you’re tooling around WiredChurches.com, check out the upcoming regional workshops Granger is offering in April. My former peeps will be visiting Atlanta and South Florida to share their practical insights.

Yes, I’m sad I won’t be able to experience the palm trees in Miami with my former teammates; however, I’m thinking I may plant my own palm tree in my backyard in Anderson. What do you think?

Drum roll please….

The Mac-using, evangelist that will be speaking at the 2007 Innovative Church Conference is Guy Kawasaki. Guy is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Forbes.com.
Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. where he was
one of the individuals responsible for the success of the Macintosh
computer.

Guy is the author of eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

And, most importantly, he’s going to be on the platform at Granger Community Church in September for Innovate 07. Stay tuned for more announcements regarding the 2007 conference.

(Congratulations to Chris Surratt for being the first person to correctly guess Guy. You’re going to Innovate 07 for free!)

OK, a couple of weeks ago I shared Clue #1:

"We’ve just about firmed up our first guest speaker for the 2007 Innovate Conference at Granger. (He owns a Mac.)"

Well, now, we’ve officially firmed it up. Only problem is no one has guessed the speaker based on the first clue. So, here’s Clue #2:

He has some experience as an evangelist.

The first person to correctly guess the guest speaker will get a free registration to Innovate 07.

In case you missed the big news, WiredChurches.com recently announced a new partnership with National Community Church (NCC) in Washington, D.C. and NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina. This partnership will make NCC and NewSpring’s innovative message resources available through WiredChurches.com. Downloadable audio files and message transcripts from these churches are part of WiredChurches.com’s strategic launch to provide even more practical, creative resources for pastors and church leaders.

Mark Batterson, lead pastor at National Community Church, and Perry Noble, lead pastor at NewSpring, are doing phenomenally creative ministry in settings that are very unique from Granger. They help prove that innovation in the church comes in all shapes and sizes. I’m excited to get their resources in the hands of more churches.

Want to check it out for yourself? See the new resources available from National Community Church and NewSpring. More will be coming soon!

By the way, we’ll be adding resources from other like-minded churches in the future. Feel free to offer your suggestions for other churches you’d like to see included in the WiredChurches.com lineup down the road.

Next week I’m hitting the road with a few of my cool friends. We are moving forward with our road trip for WiredChurches.com. This is a great opportunity to pack several of your teammates into your minivan and come participate in our one-day workshops. We’ll be at:

• Westside Family Church in Kansas City on October 17.
• Church at the Springs in the Orlando area on October 19.

The workshop topics will include:

• Communications with Kem Meyer
• First Impressions with Mark Waltz
• Simply Strategic Volunteers with Tim Stevens and me
• Purpose-Driven Church Planting with Ron Sylvia (only in Orlando)

I’m hoping to see you and your team at these events. In fact, if you end up attending with your team, I’ll post your picture with me on my blog. We can take it by your vehicle and have a little contest to see who has the coolest wheels…or at least the biggest budget to rent the coolest wheels. See you next week!

For those of you who missed the first Granger Film Festival during the Innovative Church Conference, we’re allowing you to experience the event online. WiredChurches.com has partnered with Light Cast Media to pull this off. Light Cast is donating streaming server space, so we can make all of the winning medias available for you to watch for free.

Video clips were submitted in each of the following categories:

• Message Series Trailer
• Message Illustration
• Event Spotlights (used to promote before or highlight after)

Enjoy the samples on WiredChurches.com. In case you’re curious, we’ve also provided the low-down on Granger’s new, video screens.

Wish you were here for this year’s Innovative Church Conference? Or, you were here and you just want to relive all the fun? Now’s your chance. You can now download all the sessions for a small fee from WiredChurches.com. Also, we’re offering free streaming of a few sessions from Mark Beeson, Tim Stevens, Mark Batterson and Perry Noble. Check out all the fun here. Enjoy!

If you live in a large metro area and you’re interested in hosting WiredChurches.com workshops in the future, we want to hear from you. In addition to the Kansas City and Orlando stops this fall, we’ve already lined up a stop in Atlanta in April. We’re looking for another location for April and a couple more locations for next fall. Here are the details:

• We’d obviously prefer a host church that matches the WiredChurches.com brand.
• We need a facility that can host 400 to 500 people in three separate workshop spaces.
• We need additional space for breaks and a resource area.
• If you provide the space and volunteer support, we’ll help cover your expenses and give you some free and discounted workshop registrations to provide training for your ministry team.

If you’re interested in learning more, send me an email message. (And, yes, bribes are also welcomed.)

I’ve been so wrapped up in the conference for the last couple of weeks, I forgot to mention the upcoming road trip for WiredChurches.com. We’re taking a few of our one-day workshops to places that may be more appealing to you than Granger, Indiana. We’ll be at:

• Westside Family Church in Kansas City on October 17.
• Church at the Springs in the Orlando area on October 19.

The workshop topics will include:

• Communications with Kem Meyer
• First Impressions with Mark Waltz
• Simply Strategic Volunteers with Tim Stevens and me
• Purpose-Driven Church Planting with Ron Sylvia (only in Orlando)

Because these are only one day and involve less travel, if you live in these regions, hopefully these will be good opportunities for you and your team to check out these events. It’ll be fun to connect with some of you in person at these sites.

I’ve blogged about all the sessions at this year’s Innovative Church Conference. Here are some of my other highlights from the conference:

• I got to hang out with several of my friends at the house on Wednesday evening including Perry’s team, Brian Orme, John Jackson, the Aspire!One team and a guy from this church.
• Lindsay and the rest of the WiredChurches.com team rocked!
• I had the opportunity to eat lunch with Bob and Gerry from Springcreek Community Church in Garland, TX.
• I got to hang out with Matt Card from Clark ProMedia for a few minutes and talk about what he’s seeing with multi-site strategy across the country.
• We got to eat great food with Mark Batterson’s team.
• I had the opportunity to teach a blogging breakout with with Kem, Daryl and Jason. There were lots of future bloggers in the room including…well, I shouldn’t probably say. But I think you’re going to love it when she starts blogging. The TechPastor has the play-by-play from our breakout.
• I found out that there are Dick’s in South Carolina as well.
• We had an after party at the house yesterday evening and lots of my WiredChurches.com team joined us. Scott Hodge also crashed the party before heading back to Chicagoland. Scott’s a lot prettier in person than he appears to be on his blog.

And, in case you’re wondering, next year’s Innovative Church Conference is on September 27/28.