Will captured this photo. It contains clues to what’s coming next at NewSpring. Perry will be blogging more about it later this week. Aren’t you curious?

Interested in getting an insider’s perspective of weekends at NewSpring? We’ve designed a new All Access experience for church leaders to attend a service, participate in behind-the-scenes tours and connect directly with NewSpring staff leaders. The first event is coming up on October 21-22. We currently have 46 people registered from 13 different churches. We’re capping this first All Access to only 50 people. You interested in joining us? If so, you better act quickly. I’ll let you know about future All Access events as they are scheduled.

Just to catch everyone up after being gone for a few days…

• Today’s my birthday. I’m still thirty-something. Barely.
• My mom sent me an iTunes music card for my birthday. She has a milestone birthday this coming week as well, but she’s proving that’s she’s still the coolest mom on the planet.
• Andy Stanley’s last session yesterday at Catalyst absolutely rocked. It’s one of those "every church/denominational leader needs to hear it" messages.
• I got to spend a few minutes with Tim yesterday. I miss him.
• I’m pumped about tomorrow. The service that Perry, Lee and the rest of the crew have planned is going to be amazing. The opening song is going to be powerful.
• Emily and I have been talking and praying about our financial commitment to the GameTime vision. After several weeks of considering what God wants us to do, we are ready to make that commitment and watch God use it to reach thousands of people in the Upstate. We can’t wait to be part of that!
• Just in case you’ve ever wondered, the leadership team at NewSpring is solid. I’m honored to be a part of that group. And, it’s been a long time since I’ve laughed as hard as I did the last few days with Perry, Shane, Jason M., Jason W. and Paul.
• Sherry Moorhead, our Director of Volunteers at NewSpring and the wife of the infamous Jason Moorhead, is now blogging. Don’t let the "deep thoughts" fool you–Jason and Sherry are one of the sharpest married couples in ministry today.
• We’re more than five months away from Unleash 2008 and almost 550 folks have already registered for the big, one-day event. I had a number of friends mention this past week that they’re planning to attend. We’ll definitely hold a gathering for bloggers. Hope you can join us.
• It’s looking like I’m going to have book news in the next several weeks. Here’s a little secret–you may have a chance to be part of it. Stay tuned.

"I like listening to radio stations from other cities, because it makes me feel like I’m in two places at once."

Jason Moorhead, NewSpring Chief Operations Officer

(P.S. — This post is dedicated to Sam from LifeChurch.tv)

So I was strolling down the hall at the conference today, and you’d never guess who walked up. Perry and I were standing there chatting with a few of our friends and Andy Stanley stopped to say hey. Perry took the opportunity to officially introduce me to Andy.

For those of you who may be new to my blog, you may not know that I’ve been kind of stalking Andy for several years.

• He was one of the five people that I had never met that I’d invite to my backyard barbecue.
• I’ve forced my kids to listen to podcasts featuring Andy.
• I’ve mentioned Andy so often that I’ve had people visiting my blog trying to find "Andy Stanley’s blog."
• I was in his conference room earlier this summer, while he was studying in the room next door.

All of that is behind me now, because it finally happened. I met Andy Stanley. And I have the picture to prove it.

Here are a few observations from this chance encounter:

• I thought it was very kind of Andy to stop and say hello. And, even if he was faking it, he made me feel like he was genuinely interested in meeting me.
• It was nice of his assistant to encourage me to get a picture with him.
• I was impressed that Andy wasn’t a "let’s hug while we pose for a picture"-type of guy. Notice in the picture that there is no physical contact between the two of us.
• I have to admit, though, that Andy did hug me. For the record, other than my wife, he’s one of only a handful of people for which that type of greeting is acceptable. And, no, Jason Moorhead, you’re not on that list.

Thanks, Andy, you made my day.

I’m in Atlanta with a few of my friends from our NewSpring team. We’re attending this year’s Catalyst Conference. Here are a few highlights from the trip so far:

• Perry knows how to eat. He’s a workout maniac, but it’s worth it because we get to eat very well.
• I’ve run into some of my favorite bloggers including Craig and Bobby, Scott, Dave, Mark and Mark.
• Andy opened the conference and really challenged leaders to consider how they use their power and influence.
• I ran into a conference speaker roaming around behind the scenes. He said he was nervous about speaking. That made me respect him even more.
• This is by far the biggest Catalyst Conference I’ve been to. There are people everywhere. The stage is set up in the center of the arena floor, and just about every seat is filled.
• I laughed harder tonight than I’ve laughed in a long time. Ministry isn’t easy, but it can be a lot of fun when you get to share life with fun people.
• Oh, there was one more highlight from today, but that highlight deserves a separate post.

Jud Wilhite, the senior pastor of Central Christian Church in Las Vegas, stopped in at NewSpring this afternoon. For those of you unfamiliar with Jud’s story, he took over at Central when Gene Appel left to join the leadership team at Willow Creek. Jud inherited a 40-year-old ministry and followed an incredible transition that occurred under Appel’s leadership. In the last few year’s, though, Central has continued to grow under Jud’s leadership jumping from around 7,000 people to over 12,000 people in attendance each weekend.

Jud hung out with our leadership team this afternoon while we met for our weekly senior management team meeting. It was encouraging to hear the stories from Central including the success of their first multi-site campus in Summerlin, Nevada. That campus launched just a year ago and already has 2,000 people attending each weekend. In fact, 60 to 70 percent of the folks that attend the Summerlin campus have never attended a service at their original Henderson campus. Central is obviously reaching a completely new audience with their second campus. I’m hopeful we’ll see the same results with the Greenville campus we are planning to launch in 2008.

During the time we spent with Jud, he also shared these leadership nuggets. He encouraged us to…

Plan for the “one life.” He said we need to always keep in mind the one friend or family member we are praying for to receive Christ into their life. Consider that “one life” as you’re preparing a weekend service or any other ministry outreach to confirm that your teaching and experience speak to that person.

Structure around “growth engines.” For Central, their growth engines are the weekend services, family ministry, campus ministries, groups and leadership development. Their entire ministry is structured around those key areas, and they have one identified leader over each of those areas.

Focus your ministry. Jud indicated for their church it means simplifying their ministry programming to focus on weekends, groups and serving. That’s it. They’ve tried to eliminate anything else that might compete with these primary ways that people take their next steps toward Christ.

I’m going to see Jud, again, out at the National Outreach Convention. He’s teaching a workshop called “Stripped: Creating a Culture of Uncensored Grace at Your Church.” I’m grateful for the time and encouragement he gave our team this afternoon. And, it confirmed again, I still have a lot to learn from other leaders.

This picture should generate lots of questions. Included among those questions might be these:

•     Why is he building a big piñata?
•     What will he put in it?
•     What does it have to do with the Catalyst experience?
•     Why does that man have his shirt off?

Honestly, I don’t know the answers to these questions, but apparently we’re all going to find out on the red carpet at Catalyst. See you on Thursday morning.

I learned from TechCrunch yesterday that Yahoo! Podcasts is shutting down. There’s a notice at the top of their site that says, "Yahoo! apologizes deeply, but we will be closing down the Podcasts site on Oct. 31, 2007." Read/WriteWeb also did an article recently questioning whether or not podcasting will survive. Makes me wonder…is podcasting dead?

I have to admit, it’s been months since I’ve listened to a podcast other than the one Perry and I did for Catalyst. I have a number of subscriptions to podcasts, and iTunes has stopped updating all of them.

I know there are a couple of guys on my team that listen to several different podcasts on a regular basis. There are also a lot of folks that download NewSpring’s messages each week through podcasts. Maybe my experience is unusual.

Here are some challenges I find with the technology:

• You can’t scan podcasts. Unlike blog posts, I can’t scan through a podcast and decide whether or not I’d like to listen to more. I’m sure there are nuggets of great information out there. I’m just not catching them because there’s not a way for me to preview the content and then skip to the section that might capture my attention.
• They’re not designed for my lifestyle. I just can’t find time to sit down and listen to a podcast, and my life doesn’t really allow me opportunities to listen to a podcast while I’m doing something else.
• I’d rather read or watch a video than listen to something. That could be an indication of my learning style. And, probably explains why I’ve struggled in the past with connecting with some speakers.
• The quality of a lot of podcasts is very poor. That includes the audio quality, production and content. A lot of podcasters don’t seem to be prepared. They end up rambling. Then, in my opinion, the podcast ends up being too long.
• They aren’t viral. Because podcasts are typically much longer than blog posts or video clips, they don’t naturally lend themselves to viral distribution. Some podcasts develop a steady audience, but I can’t remember the last time I ever read on someone’s blog, "You need to go listen to so-and-so’s podcast on such-and-such topic."

So, what’s your experience? Have you ever tried subscribing to podcasts? Are you still listening to podcasts as much as you did before? Or, have you opted out of this technology?