The two researchers are Dan Gilbert and Barry Schwartz. Linked here are the videos where they explain the results of their research:

• Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice
• Dan Gilbert, Why are We Happy?

• Read the Rules: http://lafayetterocks.com
• Reply to the YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biXyVq6toa0

Yesterday was one incredible Sunday! For those of you who want to get the bullets first, here are the statistics on Lafayette Community Church’s 2009 Commitment Sunday:

• 13 people were baptized.
• 3 children were dedicated.
• 152 people were in attendance.
• $2500 (roughly) was donated.
• 59 people signed the Community Commitment
• 8 people signed the Associate’s Commitment

Now for the details.

The Purpose

Commitment Sunday is our annual moment to go on the record with God and with each other that we are committed for another year. Our God is all about commitment because he is deeply committed to us. From the earliest pages of the Bible, we read of God’s commitments to his people and his design for how people should be committed to each other.

Then, throughout the Bible, we read consistently of how God has bound himself to humans through the making of covenant promises, and yesterday, we took a look at two key covenant promises.

The first covenant promise was God’s promise to link himself with the children of Israel, and the second covenant was God’s promise to link himself as Father to all who would receive his Son.

In our church, we take the opportunity once a week to reaffirm our commitment to God through gathering for worship. We take the opportunity once a month to reaffirm our commitment to the redeeming work of Jesus for us as we share in communion. We take the opportunity once a year to reaffirm our commitment to this church and its core values by signing on the dotted line.

Yesterday was that day.

the lcc community commitment

Having put God first in my life through a commitment to Christ as his Son and the Bible as His Word, desiring to grow daily more like Jesus, motivated to use my gifts in ministry to others, and eager to follow God into the future he has for this church, I hereby commit myself to join the community of Lafayette Community Church for this year.

the lcc associate commitment

With a clear conviction that God’s will for me involves fellowship with the people of Lafayette Community Church, I commit to use this year to explore God’s simple commands to put him first, join in community, grow like Jesus, and use my gifts in ministry.

A day to remember

Because we take one day a year to highlight our commitment to God and his church, we get the joy of emphasizing on that one day every aspect of commitment we can. We had parents dedicate themselves (and their children) to God. We had people affirming their allegiance to Jesus through baptism. We shared communion together, and we actually signed commitments. I just know it was a memorable day for everyone.

Here’s the key question I asked people in my brief words yesterday…

The moment in history where God moved to save us was the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The moment today when we remember the work of Jesus for us is communion, but the moment in an individual life is the moment of repentance (turning to God from sin and self) and baptism. When was your moment?

That’s really the big question. When was your moment? If you don’t know or you don’t have one, get one. I can help you if you want.

On the printed front, we have been using Apple’s Pages for basic word processing and simple page design and Serif PagePlus 11 which is exponentially greater than anything else in its price range ($50 for features that easily surpass Microsoft Publisher and even rival PageMaker or Quark). However, that’s for another blog entry. On to what we do for video now and what our next steps are.

Video Presentation Hardware

• 15″ MacBook Pro 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 1GB RAM
• Draper Traveller portable projection screen with High Contrast Gray screen material.
• DLP Projector (I don’t remember the specs right now).

Software

• ProPresenter 3.3.8 by RenewedVision.
• Keynote 3

Description

ProPresenter is the best program we have found to display lyrics on the screen. It’s very easy to learn with only a few quirks that take getting used to. Together with the Mac, it is unbeatable in terms of visual quality of the text even with full motion high resolution video images in the background. On top of that, the programmers are very responsive to requests for improvements, and the software was designed from the ground up to meet the needs of touring worship bands like Chris Tomlin and David Crowder.

Keynote is the hands down winner in presentation software that understands the line between attention-getting and cheesy. Transitions, fades, and slide builds are unmatched in PowerPoint because Keynote does what it does with subtlety. It’s also much easier to work with once you learn a couple of its quirks.

Our current setup has us running ProPresenter and Keynote simultaneously on the MacBook Pro. ProPresenter takes over the projector screen and turns it black while waiting for us to begin. Navigation is done on the laptop screen, but lyrics and backgrounds are sent to the secondary display.

Just before my message, we hit F1 in ProPresenter to black out the projection screen, switch to Keynote without closing ProPresenter (the projection screen stays black during and after the switch), and hit “Play” on my sermon Keynote file. Keynote takes over the projection screen with my slides and also displays a “Presenter View” on the laptop screen. We turn the laptop to face me, so I can see my current slide and my next slide without ever needing to look over my shoulder.

Next Steps

Now that we are meeting in the Long Center (a larger venue), we want to make some changes to our setup so we stay on the excellent side of things.

1. Replace our screen with a larger rear projection screen. We’re looking at the Draper Cinefold and Draper Ultimate series of screens for this.
2. Consider upgrading our projector depending on its performance with the new screen. Most likely, we will just need to buy a new bulb.
3. Purchase a new Mac to put in the sound booth. It needs to have dual external monitor capability, and the only Macs to have that now are Mac Pro computers or Psystar Open Computer Macintosh clones.
4. Split the monitor signal from each monitor out to drive four displays (1). The monitor in the sound booth, (2). the projector on stage, (3) One monitor in front row pointing to stage duplicating what’s on the projector screen. (4) One monitor in front row pointing to the stage duplicating what’s on the screen in the sound booth. That way, the stage-facing monitors will show what’s on the screen and also show the “Presenter View” that Keynote can display.
5. Use VGA cables or a VGA over CAT5e system to get video signal to the stage from the booth.

Final thoughts

If anyone is reading this post thinking that technology will save your bad presentations, think again. Websites like http://presentationzen.com are a great resource to help you rethink the how and the why of your presentations. Technology can make your presentations more effective, but it isn’t guaranteed to do so.

The one I used (from the Princess Bride)

The one I almost used (from Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Quotes from the morning.

I like a church where I feel comfortable bringing my family no matter what age. I love the music… Keep up the good work. — Tama

The music ROCKED this morning! I liked the message — I love your practical, real world way of relaying the message. And it’s engaging too! — Nichole

…we are truly wanting to get back to church. I feel to be a whole person I must include God. Thank you for allowing me to be whole again. God bless!! — Cathie

I’ve grown more spiritually in the few months here at Southside than at any time in my life! — Len

A Note from Greg

In addition to these quotes, I wanted to post an excerpt from an email that Greg Shackleford sent out yesterday. For those who don’t know, Greg is on the church Advisory Team and has been part of the church since October 2005! Here’s what he had to say.

WHAT AN AWESOME DAY IN THE HISTORY OF SOUTH SIDE CHURCH HUH??!!??

I just can’t get over what an awesome experience it has been getting ready for the service today. Jeff and I have been working as musicians for two years for this! I never envisioned that we would finally get a band together that would sound that good and I would be playing drums!! It just goes to show that God really does work in mysterious ways.

Jeff and I had only played with Mark and Terry 4 times coming into today’s service so God really was a part of it today. I was nervous and excited and hopeful that we would be able to pull together and perform well and I think we did. Jeff’s sermon was wonderful and all the new faces there this morning was so encouraging! I just know that someone made the decision to turn their life over to the care of Christ today. Praise God! I really enjoy having the opportunity to serve the church and our Lord in this capacity. Thanks for letting me.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if we filled the Long center up next Easter!?

It was a great day!

Our current website has been in shambles for a while now http://thesouthsidechurch.org and I haven’t taken the time to really fix it. However, there are a few things I want the site to accomplish:

1. Have an attractive, fast-loading initial page that communicates friendliness and “contemporary-ness”
2. Have an easy-access media player to watch video and listen to audio files.
3. Have an easy-to-use podcast system for downloading media files.
4. Provide a section for standard Church Marketing Documents.
5. Provide for blog-style news updates.

The current plan is to implement the site with the WordPress engine. The plan is a work in progress now, but here’s the technical stuff:

1. Create a WordPress compatible theme and overall design of the site.
2. Use WordPress pages to host specific content.
3. Use the blog post system for both media files and for news items. (“sermon” category with subcategories, “news” category, “articles” category, and use the built in tagging system for posts in those categories)
4. Use the “Podcasting” plugin to provide separate audio and video podcast feeds.
5. Modify the Email-Notification plugin to send out newsletters to our mailing list.

I plan to do this on a test site first to see how it will all work, and if you are interested in giving me ideas or suggestions, I’d love to take them. Here are a few other church websites that you can look at to give me some help.

• http://www.thechurchinwestridge.com
• http://heartlandchurch.tv
• http://www.elevationchurch.org
• http://www.rivervineyardchurch.org

If you have any other church website suggestions, post them in the comments!

• At least 10 minutes a day with God, every day.
• Time with God means something is read (from the Bible), something is written, and something is prayed.
• There will be some kind of award given for the person who lasts the longest.
• There will be some kind of award given for the person who accumulates the most individual “God-Times.”

I haven’t figured out the prizes yet, but I’m willing to take donations! If you want to sweeten the pot, let me know!

I’m also working on setting up some kind of online tool to track our progress and see how we are all doing. For me personally, I’m going to use my blog to record my progress.

We started in an elementary school. Then we went to a Junior High. So where would you think we would go next?

That’s right!

The Holiday Inn! Actually, it’s the Holiday Inn Select: City Center here in Lafayette.

<br/>View Larger Map

We think it’s going to be a great opportunity for us, and I’m really excited… but now, we have to rethink our name. Downtown isn’t exactly “Southside” anymore, although the hotel is actually on “South Street”!

The second week of our WHY campaign got quite a bit more meaty as we discussed the heart reasons for believing in God and touched briefly on some of the head reasons for belief in God. Listen up and give me your feedback!

Download Video

Let me know what you think of my first “pneuma” style video. I know it could be more polished, but I didn’t have that much time.

• Why am I here?
• Why should I believe in God?
• Why should I trust the Bible?
• Why is the world so messed up?
• Why is there such conflict between Science and the Bible?
• Why Jesus?

It’s going to be a powerful program combining dynamic Sunday worship experiences with casual but deep discussion groups. I’ve been looking forward to it for 3 months now!

In many ways, I’ve been thinking of this 6 week campaign as a re-launch of the church. During the summer, our attendance went down quite a bit, but now that school is starting up again, I’m really hoping that we can get a jump-start on this new year by launching this campaign.

I want every Sunday service to be a real event. More than that, I’m really eager to see us take the life of the church to a new level. Here are my personal dreams for the campaign.

• That we would get more than 50 people solidly involved in a small group experience.
• That our Sunday attendance would double.
• That all our volunteers and campaign directors would be encouraged and excited all the way through.
• That the campaign would launch us full speed into the Fall.
• That we’d get a solid small group thing happening combined with memorable Sunday gatherings.

These things are so doable, and I believe God can easily accomplish them all. I’m eager to see it!

This week we executed a plan that I had been brewing since last year at this time.

You may already have read about our “Black Friday” Hot Chocolate Giveaway. On that day, we gave out nearly 500 mugs of hot chocolate or coffee to shoppers braving the local Wal-Mart on the day after Thanksgiving. Well, this week, we gave out flying discs to families at the fireworks show on Purdue’s campus on July 4. It was a blast, and it was a big success too.

The setup

At the top of this post, you can see the final design for the flying discs that we bought through <www.dollarimprint.com> for around 70 cents each once shipping was included. The design on the top is a gradual spiral (which looks really cool when the discs are flying) surrounded by the words “stop spinning, find your center, reach higher | southside church” our phone number, web address, and core value verbs are also printed on the top.

We ordered T-Shirts with a tye dyed look and a very similar logo design on the front and the back. Here’s a picture of what they look like.

The elements of the plan were simple and very much like the hot chocolate giveaway:

• Give a free flying disc to every family out there until we ran out or it got dark.
• Have two tables set up to take registrations for a free drawing to win an iPod shuffle or other prizes.
• Have all our volunteers wearing matching T-Shirts.

I should soon have a picture of what the setup looked like.

How it went

In all, it was a very successful event. The volunteers had a lot of fun, the people who received the flying discs were very appreciative, and a large number of people signed our entry forms. I don’t have a final count yet of those who were willing to be added to our mailing list. It was so cool to look across the field of families waiting for the fireworks to start and to see hundreds of purple flying discs whizzing through the air all over the place. It was really exciting.

On top of it all, I personally was able to get in some good conversations with at least 4 different families who were very interested in checking out one of our Sunday Gatherings. Who knows if they will actually make it this week, but I believe we really put our name out into the community in a positive way.

I’m really eager to hear more feedback from our volunteers and also from people who may visit our church because of this outreach. If I hear some good things (or criticisms) I’ll post them here. If you would like to chime in with your opinions please add your comment. I want to know what other people think about this kind of outreach. I especially hope that events like these let people in Lafayette know that there is a church around here that cares about them and is willing to invest in their lives in a way that makes their lives a little bit better (and a little more fun too).

Download MP3 | Download Notesheet PDF

To have lasting success in life, there really are only four things we need to focus on. They form the core values of our church and can readily be seen in the contrast between King Saul and King David.

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It’s my passion to see people get a big vision for what God is able and willing to do in our lives. I am convinced that God is bigger and more willing to do more incredible things than we give him credit for, than we expect, and than we are ready for. We just don’t have big enough dreams, but for those who do have big dreams the problem is often that they aren’t ready and willing to put in the effort required to see those dreams come true. Now I don’t have the answer to how to make your dream life come true other than a few simple suggestions I’ve picked up from the story of Joseph, but I do know that whatever your dreams are, if they are God’s dreams, and if you are faithful, they will come true.

At the conclusion of this message, I take a few minutes to just dream in front of the congregation about what Southside Church could become. I have big dreams for this church, and I’m pretty convinced they line up with the heart of God for this town.

How big are your dreams? Are you ready to work for them?

Download Note Sheet PDF

Download Audio Here | Download Video Here

Your suspicions are true; you were born for something great, but the greatness you were born for is beyond yourself. Listen up to hear the key for unlocking your greatness.

note sheet

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click here to download the slideshow

Click Here to Download.

Today’s message is a message that has been on my heart for a long time, but I didn’t know it until earlier this week. I had come up with the title long ago when we sent in our postcards to be printed, and honestly, I originally thought of the sermon being one about how great the afterlife was going to be. In fact, the whole point of the message originally was going to be that no matter how good this life might get, the really good life is yet to come. It was going to be a message about the Kingdom of God!

I still want to do that message someday. I’m not sure when that might happen, and I honestly don’t know if I would be able to preach that message now anyway. I think I need some more life experience, more study or something.

Nevertheless, I was praying about this message earlier this week and all at once I realized (it was probably God giving me the thought) that the Bible is filled with “Corner Turning” moments and that God is often the instigator of those corner moments. The whole picture came to me at once that the “better life” I should be talking about is the life that follows God around whatever corner he brings us to!

I’m really pleased with how it turned out. Listen up and tell me what you think!

This is the first message in Southside Church’s Grand Opening series. It’s a short series entitled:

In this message, I talk about how the Bible contains the keys to living your best life now. There are three key things the Bible offers us that help us to live our best lives: Guidance, Encouragement, and something I call “The Secret.”

The audio can be downloaded by clicking below or subscribing to my podcast or you can watch the video online if you wish.

Click Here for Audio

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My Odeo Channel (odeo/b7fe9b6d4f3e6629)