Emily and I were heading up to Greenville last night and we passed by this sign:

It’s been hot in Anderson, but I didn’t realize it was that hot. The high temperature in Hell, Michigan was only 81 degrees yesterday, so it actually was hotter than Hell in Anderson.

I’ve heard folks in town talking about the humidity in this area. Honestly, I haven’t experienced it yet. Maybe it’ll happen in the coming weeks, but humidity here doesn’t come close to the humidity I’ve experienced in the Midwest. I’m waiting for one of those step-outside-and-immediately-sweat-through-your-shirt days. It’s not summer until that happens.

By the way, you may be wondering whether or not Hell is a real place. That’s a great question. Perry will be sharing more on that hot topic in a few weeks.

I’m trying desperately to be cool and hip, but I still don’t get it. While I try to figure it out, here’s my new Facebook profile. Looks like you have to register and become my "friend." (This is so weird.)

Here are my thoughts and highlights from Joel as I continue my journey through the Bible:

• "Make sure you tell your children, and your children tell their children, and their children their children. Don’t let this message die out." I have a responsibility to make sure my kids hear about my faith. And, I’m glad NewSpring has age-appropriate ministry for my kids.
• Did you know there’s a verse about Clemson football in the Bible? It’s in the second chapter of Joel. "When it leaves, it is Death Valley. Nothing escapes unscathed."
• "God is kind and merciful. He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot, this most patient God, extravagant in love."
• "I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people." God intended for his church to be a diverse gathering.
• "God is a safe hiding place."

That’s the "profit margin" per registration from this year’s Unleash Conference. The accounting department just provided the final financial reports earlier this week. We had exactly 900 registrations and we made a whopping $1,149.55 on the conference.

Why only a $1.28? Because we only charged $45 per person to attend. There were no promotional expenses. No speaker honorariums. Every dime went into things like providing materials, meals and renting ginormous tents to accommodate breaks, lunch and breakouts. If you were there, you know there wasn’t any fluff. And, that’s what we’re planning again. One day. Two main sessions with Perry. Two breakouts with NewSpring leaders. Rockin’ worship. Great food. And, the chance to rub shoulders with a couple thousand of your favorite friends.

Here’s the deal. Our per person expenses for Unleash 2008 are going up because of the crowd we’re expecting. But, because we want as many people to attend as possible, we’re keeping the $45 registration fee through September 30. We’re actually taking a loss on every registration we get between now and October. In other words, now is the time to register your teams for the big event.

By the way, we’re not idiots. We realize having a profit margin of only $1.28 per person doesn’t make good business sense, but we think it makes great Kingdom sense. We can’t wait to see how lives will be transformed because of this event.

Oh, one more thing, Perry and I were talking the other day about a few fun surprises for next year’s conference. Good stuff. You won’t want to miss it. Register now before space runs out.

Today’s the first day with over 2,000 subscribers. You guys rock! Thanks for bumping the site into the ranks of the megablog. I couldn’t have done it without you.

By the way, I’m now only 463,000 subscribers behind TechCrunch.

The question you’re probably asking is what’s next? Well, I do have some surprises up my sleeve. It wouldn’t be any fun, though, if I shared it all now. Sometimes anticipation builds curiosity and curiosity captures attention. Let’s see if that strategy works with blogs.

There are stories of pain walking through the doors of our
sanctuaries each Sunday. Those stories should cause us to revisit what we preach and how
we preach it. I’m reminded of an interesting interaction Jesus had with
a person caught in sin. Initially, he didn’t address the person’s sin.
His first priority was to address the accusers. Jesus showed compassion
to the sinner. He didn’t condemn the sinner, but He did, however,
redirect the sinner. At your church, are you simultaneously showing
compassion and helping point people in a new direction?

For the rest of the story, visit OutreachMagazine.com.

It’s been about six months since I’ve provided this little reminder to help
folks that are new to my blog. You may not know this yet, but one of my
goals is to simplify your life. With that in mind, here’s a quick
overview of how you can enjoy following blogs like this one and add more time to your day.

Several of you are running around the Internet
visiting this site and then that site and then that site and so on. I
know, because I can see the stats on my end from all the hits I’m
getting through browser searches. That process takes time. Lots of your
precious time. You deserve to have that time back to do more important things…like downloading free resources from NewSpring Ministries.

Right now, I’m tracking about 100 different blogs, but it only takes
me a handful of minutes each day. Rather than visiting each of those
sites individually, I take advantage of Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
to let the fun come to me in one location where I can scan only the new
posts and ignore the sites where I know nothing has been updated. You
can do this as well. It’s really simple.

With that in mind, here’s how you can easily subscribe to my blog:

1. Sign up for a "newsreader." I use Bloglines. Most people who follow my blog use Google Reader.  If you use Firefox like me, it’s built in.

2. Copy the text in red into your newsreader and subscribe to my feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TonyMorganOneOfTheSimplyStrategicGuys

If you want more options, just click the Feedburner icon on the top of the right column on my site, or you can go here.

If that sounds too complicated,
you can also receive my posts directly in your email inbox. Just
complete the email subscription form on the right sidebar of my blog.

There you have it. It’s that simple. Now, what are you going to do with all the extra time in your day?

Terry pointed out a new, free personality test. Here’s
my personalDNA Report. I’m a "respectful leader" with a strong sense of style…which makes sense given my appreciation for The Buckle. How about you? What’s your personal DNA?

In a post from yesterday, I identified the worship leader at Buckhead by the name of Moxie. I admitted my name-envy. Certainly, you must agree–Moxie is a cool name. Turns out, though, that may not really be his name. I received an email message from a fairly reliable source (let’s call him "Deep Throat") last night that indicated Moxie may actually be named Mark.

Now, I’m not trying to belittle Marks across the globe including Mark Cuban, Mark Batterson, Mark Hamill and Marky Mark minus the Funky Bunch. But, let’s face it–"Mark" is in the same category as "Tony." Neither are likely to be considered rock star names.

So, if you’re following this developing conspiracy at home, first, we have the question of whether Moxie is Moxie or if, indeed, Moxie is really Mark. Secondly, we have the question of who may or may not be involved in a potential cover up. Who else may have known Moxie was just a stage name. Was the Buckhead music director aware? Did the campus pastor know? Is it possible that Andy Stanley himself may have known of this dubious moniker? And, if he did, that begs the question: What did the Senior Pastor know, and when did he know it?

I had the opportunity to visit Buckhead Church in Atlanta this morning. Buckhead is a campus of North Point Ministries–Andy Stanley is the senior pastor. Buckhead is one of three North Point campuses in the Atlanta area. Here are some of the observations from my visit this morning:

• Though the church has been around since 2001, they just moved into this new location off of Lenox Road at Tower Place in May. It’s an amazing campus. If I understood correctly, they have 200,000 square feet in four stories crammed onto 2 1/2 acres of land.
• Within that facility, there’s an auditorium that has seating for 3,000 people. Currently, there are about 4,500 people attending the three Sunday services. Did you catch that? This is a campus where the teaching is primarily delivered via video, and there’s 4,500 people showing up. Multi-site works.
• The video, by the way, is very cool. I’ve seen Andy preaching live at the Alpharetta campus. I think I actually prefer watching him preach on the video screen.
• Everything besides the teaching is like a normal service experience. There’s a band, kid’s programming, host teams, etc. I’m sure it takes several hundred volunteers to pull off everything that happens at that campus.
• The worship leader was named "Moxie." That’s a really cool name. It’s better than "Tony."
• I really appreciated how the campus pastor opened the service. He didn’t assume that people had been there before. In fact, he took a few moments to update guests on what had happened in the the series in prior weeks. I loved the intentionality of communicating as if people were going to show up for the first time.
• I’ve attended services at all three of North Point’s campuses. As a late-thirty-something, I really prefer the "edge" of the Buckhead experience. If I lived in Atlanta, I’d probably connect at that campus.
• I enjoyed hearing a little bit of Jeff and Bob’s stories. They’re on the staff leadership team now. Before that, though, both were fully-engaged in high-profile marketplace positions. They gave up their careers to transition into full-time ministry. It makes me wonder who God may be preparing to make similar transitions at NewSpring.