And out of breath from laughing.

(via Rocketboom Blog):

My process is entirely my own, influenced of course by everyone who I have ever heard teach or talk about how they prepare their messages. In other words, just like preaching its an odd combination of inspiration, sweat, plagiarism, and the Holy Spirit.

Step One - Farming

I know my preaching topics a few months in advance. I usually kick a few ideas past our Creative Team and some of my co-pastors. Once I have settled on a concept, my brain goes into “farming mode.” Every website I skim, every magazine I read, every movie I watch, every song I hear, every passage in the Bible I know begins to be farmed for inspiration. I always have my notebook and iPhone with me to capture ideas as I have them. I also scan a bunch of stuff into Evernote for future reference.

By the time I get to my next step, I have a huge stack of paper to wade through.

Step Two - Processing

I then take all of this raw material and spread it out on a table in my office. If I am preaching through a specific text of the Bible, I print it in 5 or 6 translations and that goes into the mix, as well.

The pile stares at me. I stare at it. Patterns emerge. I begin to chicken scratch concepts onto a pad of paper, all the while stopping to pray for a bit, take a walk, drink coffee, read the Bible, etc. Eventually, I transition to my white board and I start mindmapping out a message.

Once it has taken shape, I usually leave it alone for a day or so to marinade.

Step Three - Manuscript

I then stare at the whiteboard with my trusty MacBook Pro in front of me and I type away. I convert the mindmap into a manuscript and I play around with the wording. Sometimes I can get way too anal at this point, being picky about the exact words I want to use. However, this pickiness helps me to really turn the message over and over in my head.

Step Four - Practice

At this point, I practice the message outloud as if I was preaching it at church. I reword constantly as I go and I also time the talk, writing little timestamps all over the notes. I then type these changes into the manuscript and put the message away for a few days.

Step Five - Doodle

After a few days, I come back to the message and I reread it (half outloud), drawing little doodles on the edge of the paper. When I am done, I transfer these doodles onto a legal size sheet of paper and I talk through the message in my head while I do this. By the time I am done with this step, the message is mostly memorized. I scan it into my computer and when I am teaching the pictures are right there on my monitor to help me remember where I am in the message.

That’s it. My process has been evolving quite a bit (especially over the last year) and I think I am finding a bit of a rhythm that works for me. I am sounding more like myself and less like other guys I listen to all the time. That is a good thing.

Just in case you are curious, here are a couple links for you:

A copy of last week’s manuscript with doodles.
A copy of last week’s final doodles.

Any other pastors out there want to share their process? I would love to learn from you.

The first ad launched yesterday on 5 area radio stations and I’ve already had people telling me they heard it. You can listen to my pretty voice here:

Here are a bunch of things you can pray for:

• Pray that tons of people who don’t have a church home would hear the ads and decide to give Riv a chance.
• Pray that all of us at Riverview will do our best to introduce people to Jesus.
• Pray for other churches and Christ-folowers in town. Specifically, pray that there would be a spirit of unity during this ad campaign. Sometimes, advertisements like this can come across as us vs. them, but they are not intended to be so. They are intended specifically for those outside of our the Christian faith, not those in other churches.

It’s like a blankie.

So this summer I have been playing around with a new idea which a lot of other pastors use: a mindmap that illustrates the manuscript. Using this method, I have been able to reduce my notes to 2 pages. Click on the thumbnail to see the first page of notes from this week’s teaching:

What does this have to do with my iPhone App review? Simple. Now that I am using a mindmap instead of a manuscript, I need a place to store the quotes and other stuff I like read during my message. Enter my iPhone.

Unfortunately, the iPhone notes program doesn’t sync with the computer and I don’t like typing the quotes into my phone. For awhile, I was placing them on a private blog and surfing to them during the services. That was sorta clunky.

Then I tried MobileFinder and absolutely hated it! Sure, it was easy to get files off the phone, but you had to use an FTP program to get files onto the phone. And since your IP address changes all the time, you had to re-enter it into your program each time. What a pain.

So last week I reviewed a bunch of other options and settled on Datacase.

The bottom line: it is very easy to use. And with the exception of a really dorky unMac like opening screen, it is pretty Macesque.

When you run the program on your phone, it shows up as a shared drive on your mac. No crazy FTPing, just drag and drop like any other harddrive.

Here are some screenshots:

First, here’s the goofy opening screen:

But when you click on “Documents,” it looks very clean and Maclike. The Drop Box is cool because you can let people access it without seeing your files.

This weekend I had one quote I was sharing so I put it into the documents folder and when the time came, I clicked on it and I was good to go:

Very cool. Who knows, maybe I’ll eventually scrap my computer and paper Bible and just teach with my iPhone. One step at a time, though.

What could be better for an Apple Fanboy than to be interviewed about his new iPhone 3G for the paper?
You can read the whole article here: AT&T’s latest network rolls out | lansingstatejournal.com | Lansing State Journal. But here’s the important part:

AT&T Inc. has rolled out its faster 3G data network in the Lansing area, something that should let new iPhone users tap into some of the device’s new features…

The upgrade was great news to iPhone user Noel Heikkinen.

The pastor at Riverview Church uses his phone for e-mail, his calendar and contacts when he’s out at meetings or traveling.

“As I’ve been traveling, I’ve loved 3G. It’s way faster,” he said. “In Lansing, it’s been killing me that I haven’t had it.”

That changed abruptly last week when Heikkinen was surfing the Web on his phone.

“It kept flaking out on me,” he said. “I was getting all mad, and then suddenly, ‘blip,’ it was 3G. I was ecstatic.”

Last night, we hit the final game of the year, which was also the Lugnuts final home game. The game was extraordinarily boring, but three things made it a blast: Ethan got a trophy for his Championship win, there were really good fireworks, and the kids got to get autographs from the players afterward. Here are a few shots from the game:

Oh, and I forgot to post this from the last time we were at a Lugnuts game, but my friend Kathy snagged some video of our kids at the game. Here’s her edited footage…you gotta love minor league ball.

I wrap up this week’s coverage with a link to Don Miller’s Blog. He posted an amazing set of emails between him and Senator Obama. I was laughing and crying all the way through.

Here’s his preamble. You’ll have to go to the site to read the letters:

I want to share with you a correspondence that has taken place between myself and Senator Obama. People have asked whether I know the Senator and whether we’ve met. Barack Obama and I have had an ongoing e-mail correspondence for several months, the bulk of which I have posted as a first entry to my blog.

It all started when I attended a rally here in Portland at which more than 75,000 people showed to support the Senator. Somehow, I managed to get a spot close to the stage and during his speech the Senator pointed at me and told me Yes, I could, something I think he might have stolen from the Black Eyed Pea’s, but oh well. Anyway, I was moved by the speech, but I had questions. I can do what? At the time, I was trying to pick paint colors for the living room, but was frozen between Icelandic Blue and Mossy Rock Green.

To my amazement, Barack e-mailed me shortly thereafter. I don’t know if it is appropriate to share our personal correspondence, but I offer it to you anyway. On my blog, I’ve posted Barack’s e-mails followed by my responses.

Financial research firm Javelin Strategy & Research (www.javelinstrategy.com) released today its latest report on credit cards and consumer spending, which shows that Americans are cutting back on credit card use and having difficulty paying off balances. The report indicates conservative spending behaviors as a result of the economic downturn and the ramifications of the mortgage crisis, soaring fuel costs and rising food prices.

“The sharp decline in credit card spending challenges the popular belief that Americans are charging basic goods in order to sustain their quality of life,” said Jim Van Dyke, president of Javelin Strategy & Research. “Consumers are making deliberate cutbacks like shopping at superstores, eating out less and watching what they charge. We believe this is because most people have already been impacted by the downturn or they’re anticipating that we haven’t seen the worst of it. It’s very cautious behavior.”

The good news is Americans are slowing down on their use of credit cards. The bad news is they can’t pay off the ones they have.

Proverbs 22:7 “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.”