The Floodgate New Year’s Store

We invite you to visit the New Year’s Media section of our Online Store.  Whether your preaching about personal renewal, your church’s unique vision/mission, or New Year’s resolutions, you’re sure to find everything you need right here.  We even created a new motion loop that simply says, “Happy New Year”.

We also invite you to visit the Sermolicious website to check out our New Year’s resources – many of which have corresponding videos available on the Floodgate website.

And finally, if you’ve got a spare moment, we’d love to know your teaching/preaching plan for the month of January.  Are you preaching through a book of the Bible? Your church vision? Evangelism? Personal renewal issues?  Resolutions?

And for Worship Pastors/Leaders – Do you have any great music that’s related to the New Year?  What songs are in your hip pocket for January?

When pastors and leaders willingly share this information on a site like ours, it ALWAYS encourages other pastors and church leaders.  It also helps us all remember that there is a “Big C” Church that we’re all a part of.

So what about you?  What’s your plan for January?

TWENTY-TEN

2010 is here. Have you ever noticed that January feels like you’re being given a fresh start? A do-over? Maybe it’s the culture we live in, and maybe it’s a God-thing, pointing us toward redemption. Maybe it’s a little of both. But make no mistake… in the life of the local church, January is unlike any other month of the year, because people FEEL like their lives are brimming with potential.

And they ALREADY feel it.  Church leaders just get to help guide the potential.

At Floodgate, we’ve got a best-selling video, with an inspirational message, and we’re particularly proud of it. The video is called “Whatever“, and it features some favorite people from our own lives. It’ll help your people dream with their resolutions, and not get bogged down with any legalistic fear of failure.  And incidentally – the girl who says, “This year I want to look into building wells in Third World countries”, actually went to El Salvador and built a well in 2009 (see the video here).

We’ve got a number of other New Year’s Media Resources – whether your focusing on personal renewal, or church vision.  Check them all out here.

An Idea for Christmas Eve

We don’t usually do this, but we want to give you a last minute programming idea for Christmas Eve. The good news: You don’t have to reinvent your entire already-planned service. In our experience, we’ve learned that most people still desperately want to touch Jesus, even if it’s during the final moments of their Christmas season. They’re open. But they’re also stressed. With that in mind, here’s a programming idea for your church…

Play “An Open Christmas Eve” toward the beginning of the service. This mini-movie is intentionally short and inexpensive. If you need a matching motion loop, go here.

After you do whatever you’ve already got planned (music, a children’s time, etc.), and as you begin to turn toward inviting people to put their faith and trust in Jesus (usually the end of the message), try playing one of these two mini-movies:

Four Words – After it plays, invite people to experience “God with us” for the first time.

Redeemed – This is actually an invitation to receive the redemption that only Jesus can offer.

Finish off your services, and head out to your gatherings.

May God bless your church during these special moments.

The Floodgate Staff Team.

You, Your Personality, and Facebook

My buddies and I were laughing yesterday about the different roles people play Facebook.  The funny thing is that we found ourselves in so many of the roles, highlighted below…

The Instigator – This person loves to help their friends think critically.  They do this by posting a difficult question, a current events link, or a quote.  Their goal is to get as many people as possible to give their opinion in response.

The Intercessor – In Christian circles, there are a number of Facebook friends who use it as a motivator to pray.

The Purest – Facebook got its start by simply encouraging people to post their unique answers to this question:  What are you doing?  This person simply answers that question, once or twice each day.

The Advisor – Whenever anyone posts something like, “I’m having a bad day at work”, or “Thinking about eating at Red Robin”, the Advisor quickly posts their advice.  As the name implies, they’re always ready to give it, whether the initial post asks for it, or not.  “Just give it to God”, or “You should try the Monster Burger”, are phrases the Advisor might use.

The Scheduled Responder – These are the people who, at a designated time every day, respond to all posts, one after the other after the other.  They view their responses as a task to be completed.  Once they’re completed, they log out.  Until the next designated time.

The Opinionator – This is the person who will always give her opinion on your post.  You may not ask for her opinion, but even as you WRITE YOUR POST, you know her opinion is coming – it’s just a matter of time.  Unlike the Advisor, they’re not trying to help you figure something out.  They’re simply telling you what you should believe.

The Lurker – This is the person who never types his own status updates, but is very interested in keeping up with the lives of his Facebook friends.  Curiosity motivates the Lurker to spend a lot of time on Facebook, but fear and insecurity prevent him from contributing.

The Gamer – This is the person who gets on Facebook as a Purest, but transforms into a Gamer by playing games, taking personality tests, or sending gifts.  You know you’ve got a Gamer as a friend if, after six months, you still have no idea what’s going on in their life; but you know that their personality most closely resembles Britney Spears.

The Skeptic – This term describes anyone who is not on Facebook, because he refuses to see any real potential.  Secretly, he may be scared to try something new.

The Cook – This is the person who thinks it’s vitally important that everyone knows what he’s eating, and where he’s eating it.  The Cook can graduate to the title of “The Chef” if he posts a picture of the food he’s currently eating.

The Humorist – As the name implies, these are people who simply make the rest of us laugh.  They have a unique way of writing, and have learned to use words as a paintbrush that makes light of the crap we all go through every day.

So the obvious question is:  Which one (or two?) are you?

I suppose this post describes the true beauty of what Facebook offers.  It offers relationship, and it offers diversity.  And sometimes, I wonder if I go deeper relationally on Facebook than I do on Sunday morning.

Just the kind of closing comment an Instigator would write.

Blessings to you – Gary Mo