Francis Chan -- Impacted by Writing a Book on Hell

Francis Chan is writing a book called, "Erasing Hell." In this video he talks about how writing this book has impacted his life. This is an outstanding video. I love the spirit he demonstrates as he talks about this controversial topic. Can't wait to read his book. It's scheduled for release on July 5th.

My Outstanding Son

I love how this photo captures my son Cody's personality. He is easy going, has a great attitude, and is so much fun to hang out with.

Of course, we had many wrestling matches over the years, that either I won or I let him win. Well...now he's 17 and I'm not really encouraging wrestling matches between us these days! He's taller than me, and has gotten a lot stronger over the years. I think I can still win against him in arm wrestling, but I haven't been challenging him to that lately either.

Thanks, Cody, for being the most outstanding son! I love you and I'm so proud of you!

Like New Strings on Guitars

I learned how to play guitar when I was 12 years old. My parents generously paid for my guitar lessons and drove me to my lessons. It was great. I've loved playing the guitar ever since.

One thing I realized early on was that if you don't change the strings on the guitar frequently enough, it starts to sound substandard. But it happens gradually, so you really don't notice it until it gets really bad. Then, finally, when you take the time to put new strings on the guitar...WOW what a difference!

My son, Cody, and I changed strings on our guitars last Sunday. Great time changing those strings together. The real excitement, however, came when we were finished stringing them. The sound was fantastic! It's easy to forget how good that guitar could sound. Of course, along the way there was the unpacking of the strings, the stretching of the strings, the clipping of the strings, and the fine-tuning of the strings.

As followers of Jesus, we are like new strings on guitars. First, we come out of the package for use, and the Lord stretches us and clips us, and of course he regularly tunes us. Great thing about it is that He never stretches us beyond what we can take. And He's always re-tuning us.

Sometimes we make strong major-sounding music, and other times our songs are in minor keys. Amazing how the Lord is able to make great music through His followers. And the most amazing thing is the Lord can make us always sound new. "Eternal guitar strings" if you will.

May you find the joy of being like new strings on a guitar, being cared for by the Master Guitar Player Himself. Psalm 150:4b "...praise him with strings..."

A Non-Profit and 2 Businesses in 11 Months!

Wow! What a journey the last 11 months have been! Around the beginning of November of 2009, along with some friends, I started launching a new non-profit organization called The Sending Project (TSP). TSP's mission is to unite the Church to eliminate physical and spiritual poverty in the world. It has been a fantastic season of pioneering this work, and I've had the privilege of meeting many wonderful people along the way. Now, we actually have functioning teams, 9 churches that have joined TSP Alliance, and we're facilitating our first conference later this month. God has been orchestrating some amazing things along the way! Can't wait to see what the next 11 months have in store!

In April, I launched two businesses. Never started a business before, but have wanted to. Allow me to introduce you to Green Kite Travel (also doing business as Eric's Travel Club) and MediaBoiler. Green Kite Travel is a comprehensive travel agency that specializes in group travel organizing for church groups including mission trips, while Eric's Travel Club is more focused on group leisure travel. MediaBoiler is a media company that provides high quality media for churches and non-profits at reduced rates. Both are brand new, and I hope both of them will help cover part of my cost of living, enabling me flexibility of schedule to provide leadership for TSP. Stay tuned for more updates about all three of these ventures in the near future!

The Best Thing about the Tea Party

Probably by now, you've heard of The Tea Party...a grass roots movement of millions of people, calling for the U.S.A. to get back to the founding fathers' version of the government's role in American's lives. Small government is good. Big government, taking over more and more control of people's lives and adding more and more taxation, is bad.

These days I don't consider myself a Democrat or a Republican...basically an Independent. I like what the Tea Party is doing, and I hope it can avoid becoming a political party. As long it remains a movement, and not a political party, I think it will continue to shake things up in both of our main political parties. And that, I believe, is the BEST THING about the Tea Party...it's shaking things up.

The people of the U.S.A. are rising up and saying to our government: enough is enough. Enough debt, enough taxation, enough government growth and control. So...I say...GO TEA PARTY, GO! I hope it remains strong, and can avoid latching on to any one leader personality. It's making a difference...it has the attention of the White House, and both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Back to basics is usually a good thing...and I believe the Tea Party is helping us take steps to get back to the type of America our constitution and founding fathers intended.

Angels and Airwaves

Gotta thank my daughter, Lindsey, who introduced me to Angels and Airwaves. We went to hear them in concert last night, and I have to say, I was really impressed! These guys have something unique and fresh musically. Can't really think of another band that really sounds like these guys. Angels and Airwaves, or AvA for short, is on a leading edge of a new type of music: Space Rock. Of course, the lead singer of the band, Tom DeLonge (from Blink 182), is a talented singer/songwriter, but what even stood out more to me is that he is a brilliant visionary, with great branding and marketing skills, too. (Or he has some brilliant marketing and branding people around him.)

The live concert was executed masterfully. Another thing I appreciated about it was it's simplicity...they don't over complicate their music, which seems like you could easily do with "space rock." I'm still exploring their lyrics, but it's clear to me so far, that overall they are bringing hope, rather than hate and destruction. It also didn't hurt that the sound and lights were phenomenal.

With so much of the rock music world sounding like itself, it's refreshing and really amazing to have a unique band like AvA in the mix.

Mission House KC

I had the privilege of spending some time with Sam McCord this morning. He gave me a tour of an old house in Kansas City, Kansas, and then we had coffee and snacks at a nearby coffee shop. I'm inspired by Sam and the vision God has given him. He's launching a ministry this Fall that will host interns for 11 months at a time. The interns will focus on following Jesus and sharing Jesus with others, in the context of communal living. (Check out Acts 2:42-47 for a Biblical foundation for this type of ministry.)

Sam is in his mid-twenties, and he's stepping out in faith in a big way. Way to go, Sam! I hope the best for you. He's not that far removed from college himself, and there are tons of options for him to pick from, regarding what work he will do. But here he is, in the urban part of town, going for it. He's chosen a less convenient path, for the sake of making an eternal impact in people's lives. If you know of an 18-25 year-old follower of Jesus who might be interested in an intense discipleship and mission experience, in the context of urban Kansas City, Kansas, make a comment on this blog post, with your contact info. I'll make sure to pass it on to Sam.

Go Sam! Go Mission House!