Mar 25
iPhone 3.0 Beta
icon1 Phil | icon2 Uncategorized | icon4 03 25th, 2009| icon3No Comments »

It’s no secret that I am an avid iPhone user. In fact, if I could have just one device with me at all times, it would be Apple’s handy little phone. So I was very excited to hear about the opportunity to get in on the iPhone 3.0 beta thanks to www.singlegrain.com.

Here is the information. Single Grain’s 50 iPhone 3.0 Beta Giveaway http://tinyurl.com/c3zxra

I’m not sure how well it works, or how quickly I can get in on the 3.0 action, but I’m pretty stoked at the chance. Here’s hoping!

If you are an iPhone user, head on over to www.singlegrain.com for your chance to try it out! I’ll post back with my own 3.0 experience.

Jan 26

Hey, everyone! I’ve been mulling around the idea of doing a series of blog posts entitled The Problem with Pastor. This series will touch on a very sensitive topic for many in ministry: how a pastor can make or break their staff.

I’ve always felt that as a pastor you can hire GOOD staff at your church. But GREAT staff are made. I know many of you have had incredible success on some church staffs and utter failures on others. So I’m curious to explore this topic, and I would encourage you to help me flesh this out by thinking through and answering these two questions:

1. In staff environments where you have seen success, what are the 3 things that your pastor did (or did not do) that helped contribute to that success?

2. What are the 3 things that your pastor has done (or did not do) that damaged or hindered your ministry?

Now, understand that this series is not intended to be a forum for anyone to attack their pastors. The motives are pure…to help educate pastors and staff people about the little things they do that influence the success of their staff. Let’s face it…pastors and support staff have entirely different ideas about how to make great staff.

Please send your answers to these questions, as well as examples, to phil@phillipcox.net. Please do not post your answers in the comments. When writing these blog posts, all examples will remain anonymous…I’m not gonna get you in trouble with your current staff. :)

Dec 17

Jeff Miller of Consuming Worship posted a video earlier today on Twitter that really hit me to my core.

Penn Jillette is the very outspoken member of the comedic magician’s duo Penn and Teller.  It is widely known that Penn is an athiest and takes every opportunity to promote athiesm and discount religion of any form, but has been especially critical of Christianity.  So I was surprised when I watched this video and was impacted by the words of a man who carries such disdain for Christianity.  Check it out:

It is obvious that this encounter Penn had with a Christian who genuinely cared made a real impact on him in a way that was unexpected…enough that he felt the need to share that experience with the world.

Watching this video really made me think.  What if we all could step out in faith and boldness and express a genuine love for the unChristian world out there the way this man did?  Instead of conentrating on building our little kingdoms (churches), shouldn’t we all be out there…having this kind of impact on everyone we encounter?

Oct 5

So, I’ve already shared with you that I have recently lost my job, and I am looking franticly for work that will allow me to join a friend of mine in starting a new church plant in Aiken, SC.  I have to admit, the last week or so has found me increasingly worried about where my next paycheck will come from…with bills coming due and no income to be found.  I’ve been fairly stressed about this….until now.  Check out this email I just received:

Notification of Request
E.W. KENNEDY SOLICITORS
Rm 41, 16 Baldwin’s Garden, 
London EC1N England,United Kingdom
http://www.btinternet.com/~Kennedy.Solicitors
Notification of Request
Dear Friend,
On behalf of the Trustees and Executor of the estate of Late Prof Roger
Michael Needham. I once again try to notify you as my earlier  letter was returned undelivered.I hereby attempt to reach you again by this same email address on the WILL.I wish to notify you that late Prof Roger Michael Needham made you a beneficiary to his WILL. He left the sum of Fifteen Million, One Hundred thousand United States Dollars to you in the Condicile and last testament to his WILL.
This may sound strange and unbelievable to you with the current upsurge in
cyber crime and the likes, but it is for real and true. Being a widely
traveled man, he must have been in contact with you in the past or simply you were nominated to him by one of his numerous friends abroad who wished you good.
Prof Roger Michael Needham, an engineer/Computer scientist who worked as
Director, Microsoft Research limited,Cambridge before he died on 1st
March in the year 2003 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Needham),
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/04/12/db1201.xml),
and was patron/life member of the Royal Academy of Engineering and also
memberof various societies and organisations . He was a very dedicated Christian wholoved to give out.
His great philanthropy earned him numerous awards during his life time one of
which was the Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Late Roger Michael Needham died on the 1st March in the year 2003 at the
age of 68 years, and his WILL is now ready for execution.
According to him this money is to support humanitarian/philanthropic
activitiesand to help the poor and the needy in our society. Please if I reach you as I am hopeful,endeavour to get back to me as soon as possible to enable me conclude my job. I hope to hear from you in no distant time. Your are advice to send the following information so that i can proceed immediately:
1. Your fullname……………………………………….
2. Residencial address………………………………………
3.Privatetelephone number…………………………………….
4. Fax number if any………………………………………..
5.Age and occupation……………………………………
Note: You are advised to contact me through my secured,E-mail address  edmkennedy@googlemail.com
I await your prompt response.
Yours in Service,
Edmond W. Kennedy ESQ.
Disclaimer:
The content of this message is meant to be received by the addressee only.
Use of the content of this message by anyone other than the addressee without the consent of the E.W. KENNEDY SOLICITORS is unlawful. If you have received this message but are not the addressee, please contact the sender immediately and destroy the message. No rights can be derived from the content of this message
Well there you have it…total financial freedom just came my way in an email.  Let’s ignore the numerous typos and grammatical errors, the fact that my name appears nowhere in this correspondence, and the fact that I have never encountered anyone named Roger Michael Needham, or anyone from England for that matter.  And you KNOW that a sum of 15 million, one-hundred thousand is MUCH more believable than an even 15 mil.  I dunno, guys…should I bite?
I hate this kind of scam.  People who prey on the hopes and dreams of those who are less fortunate or going through financial problems (because let’s face it…those are the ones who are going to give this a shot).  Has anyone else out there received a similar email recently?  I can’t believe these things actually work in this day and age.
But then again, I could be pocketing 15 mil.  Hmmmmmm.
Sep 19
Another Season
icon1 Phil | icon2 Uncategorized | icon4 09 19th, 2008| icon31 Comment »

No, I’m not talking about football. I’m talking about LIFE. You know, it seems to me that life has seasons all its own. Some are like the first warmth of Spring or the first cool Fall afternoon. Others are quite brutal, like a mid-July day in Columbia. But it’s the seasons that shape us into who we are.

I have recently experienced a changing of seasons in my own life. Around a year ago, I began to feel a very distinct call from God in my life. I was a youth minister in NC, but felt a call to worship leading. After many weeks of prayer, I resigned my position as youth minister and accepted a worship pastor position at a church plant.

This was a huge undertaking for someone who had zero experience in this line of work, and I was very grateful to this church for taking a chance on me. I started in January leading worship for around 120 folks on Sundays, and during my time there we experienced significant growth (I believe there were around 215 in attendance last Sunday). I absolutely loved leading our people in worship each week!

But the job was much more than worship leading, and I soon realized that I was totally unprepared for what was needed of me there. To make a long story short, last Sunday was my last day as Worship Leader at my church. I was let go by my superiors, not because of Sunday worship but because of the other, day-to-day stuff. And to be frank, I couldn’t argue with their decision. I know that I can take this difficult experience and use it to learn and grow.

It has been a long and painful process that is not quite over. I’m now left trying to figure out what’s next for me. Is ministry my future?

I ask my readers to please be in prayer for me as I search for God’s direction right now. I have had a few ministry opportunities come my way already, but I need some real clarity before I dive back in.

On a very specific note: one of these opportunities is with a brand new church plant, serving alongside a great friend of mine in a community in which I used to serve. Kind of exciting to think about.

Seasons. We all experience them. The question is: will we embrace them?

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”. Jeremiah 29:11

Jul 14

Just a quick shout out to readers of TechTheology.com.  I’ve had quite a few hits come to this blog from you guys lately.  I promise, I’m not trying to pull one over on you.  We have moved TechTheology from our original host, and haven’t really had the time to set things back up yet.  In the meantime, that web address will redirect to this blog.  I’ll let you know as soon as things are running again.  

Also, I wanted to inform you guys that my friend Danny has retired from the “blogosphere.”  Thanks, Danny, for helping get TechTheology off the ground, and for helping in the transfer.  See you at ‘Bucks!

Jul 10

Let me ask you, have ever had those moments when you feel as though nothing ever goes right?  I’ve been going through one of those times in my own life lately.  Don’t get me wrong, things aren’t all that bad, but sometimes your own perception skews reality. Read the rest of this entry »

May 15

I was sitting on my couch this evening, recovering from an afternoon bike ride, and as is my usual evening routine, I tuned the old TV to TBS…the sitcom station.  I love watching old syndicated shows…I don’t really know why.  Tonight, as I found myself doing other tasks (church web updates, anyone?), I was enjoying another episode of my all-time favorite show, Friends.  Something hit me as I watched.  It was an episode that I vividly remember watching the night it aired…the Finale.  That was a sad night for me.  You see, I had basically grown up with those six folks.  They helped me make it through High School, College, and my first steps into the “real world.”  I know, it sounds silly, but that was one of the few shows I’ve ever encountered on television that I really connected with.  Remembering how I felt during that fateful night of May 6, 2004, it really got my mind wandering to all of the other things that I will never enjoy again.

So here is a list of some of the things I miss the most: Read the rest of this entry »

May 14
Not too long ago, I seriously considered leaving the Church, as we know it, altogether.  Really.  After nearly 30 years of involvement, I was ready to break it off.  I grew up in church.  My father was a pastor, until just over a year ago (he’s now doing ministry at the state level), and I have personally been serving on church staff since 2001.  I have been part of small churches, mega-churches, country churches, city churches, traditional churches, contemporary churches, and I now serve in a new church plant.  I have experienced a full array of all that churches have to offer.  And I must say, I’m not too impressed.  

Let me warn you:  This commentary will offend.  This commentary will make someone uncomfortable.  It may even make some of you angry.  But I also hope that it will bring to the forefront all that should be good about Christ’s Church.  Please read this with an open mind, an open heart, and a sense of honesty and urgency.

So here they are.  5 reasons why I abandoned the Church…almost:

  1. Christian Elitism - What is Christian Elitism?  Simply put, it is the idea that my church is bigger, better, stronger, more in tune with God, and more effective than your church.  Or to simplify it further, my church is awesome and your church sucks and everyone hates us because we’re doing it better.  Let me explain.  Several years ago, I began attending a prominent church in the community in which I lived.  On the surface, this church was amazing.  A charismatic pastor, wonderful worship leader and band, “relevant” topical preaching, a young demographic, and there was just a buzz all around the place.  I must admit, I was a bit infatuated.  I had just resigned from a staff position and was in-between jobs, so this was the first time that I had really experienced what it is like for the average church goer.  Week after week, I attended and really enjoyed the experience.  After a while, however, I began to notice a strange pattern of behavior from others in the church.  Time after time, a typical conversation with others in the church would usually lead to a statement about how we were so different…better…than the other churches in the area.  A feeling of “us vs. them” permeated through the entire body.  I began to wonder where this idea was coming from.  I mean, all churches are working together for a common good, right?  We’re on the same team.  Then, the realization hit me.  This was a mentality that was being fed from the top down.  Over the next several weeks, I noticed that the leadership of this church was making some reference to this EVERY SINGLE WEEK.  The pastor was consistently talking about how our church did things different, and because of this the other churches in the area don’t like us, and if they aren’t going to reach out to the community then we sure will.  That was it for me (although there were many other factors in my decision).  As much as I enjoyed the experience at that church, I could not support that mentality.  Really…it’s one thing to be excited about your church and reaching the community, but it’s another thing to tear down other church bodies and further contribute to the divide.

    And this is not just a problem in the contemporary church movement.  In fact, this mentality was probably created by traditionalists who took every opportunity to tear down a church that was effective in the community.  And that’s the whole point.  Attacking other members of the Body of Christ is simply wrong, and there is no place in the Church for this type of behavior.  

  2. The Self-Centered Church - Take a look at your own church budget for a minute.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.  Good.  Now, grab a sheet of paper.  Make two columns and label the first one My Church, the second one My Community.  Now, I want you to go through your budget item by item and place them in one column or the other.  I know, it’s a tedious thing to ask.  But I promise you, it’ll be an eye-opener.  For the vast majority of churches, upwards of 80-90% of all budget items would probably end up in one column.  Can you guess which one?  This is an issue that crosses all church boundaries.  Most of the money in our churches goes right back into our churches.  Multi-million dollar buildings, countless programs, social gatherings, special concerts, etc.  A great man once said “for where your treasure is, your heart will be also.”  That Jesus guy…you know, he really got it.  The problem is, everything we do in our churches is for us.  Sure, we usually claim some desire to reach the lost with whatever we are doing, but the reality is that we are mostly just concerned with ourselves.  Programs don’t reach people…they just keep the people we already have satisfied.  Buildings won’t impact our communities…but they will provide a better, more comfortable environment for our own people.  And I gotta say…I’m amazed at what the early church was able do.  Let’s face it…they didn’t have sound systems, powerpoint, or really cool stage lighting.  I’m amazed this whole Christian thing ever got off the ground.  

    Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy all of those things as much as anyone.  But don’t you find that we spend far too much time and energy consumed with our own church agendas and far too little on going outside the walls of the church and building relationships with the world around us?  What would happen if a growing church would say “we’re not going to invest millions in building a new facility.  Instead, we are going to take some of our people and plant a new work.  Or maybe invest in planting a married couple into an apartment community specifically to reach those in multi-housing communities.”  With the vast financial resources that many of our churches have, we could make a global impact if we would choose to operate on 50% (or less) of our current budgets, and invest the other 50% in our communities.  

    So the question is:  whose kingdom are we really trying to build…ours or God’s?

  3. The Missing Element:  Ethics - What has happened to ethics within the church?  I have a close friend who once served on staff at a very popular, fast-growing church.  When I asked him about why he left, he shared something with me that broke my heart.  You see, he had discovered that some other leaders of this church were actively recruiting top givers from other churches.  Seriously.  They were visiting these families with their own pitch about why they should leave the church they were currently supporting and come to a church that was “actually doing something.”  My friend took issue with this, and shared his feelings with his pastor, after which he was quietly let go from his position.  Yes, this is an extreme example of a blatant disregard for ethics within the church.  But this sort of thing happens much more often than we would like to admit.  Staff are treated unfairly, the church operates more like a business than a church, top donors are given special treatment, and let’s not even get started on rumors, gossip, and backstabbing that goes on within a congregation.  All of these problems point to the existence of a deep, moral/ethical void alive and well within the one place it shouldn’t be.

    I remember a situation that happened to me in my very first staff position.  Among my other duties at the church, I was Director of Recreation, meaning that I was to oversee our children and youth basketball league.  We were a fairly large church, so we had over 20 teams just within our own church body.  I still recall the day that one of my coaches, and a deacon in the church, physically threatened me because I was considering moving a 9 year old boy off of his team and onto another one, at the parents’ request.  After a lengthy and very loud conversation, I remember hanging up the phone and sitting at my desk in utter disbelief.  Here was someone who was supposed to be a spiritual leader within our church, and I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.  Add in other issues, such as attempted recruiting and cheating in a church league, and one thing became very clear to me:  we had a serious ethics problem.

  4. Fear of Drowning - Possibly the most dangerous thing on my list is the watering down of scriptural truths that has become such a part of our church culture.  In our world, we have become so concerned with being attractive, relevant, and popular that we are deathly afraid of laying the truth of scripture in front of our people.  Let’s face it…the Bible is a tough book.  It is full of things that aren’t pretty, that aren’t easy.  But we have made Christianity into some sort of sideshow, claiming it’s all about us…our purpose, our success, our lives.  And anything in scripture that doesn’t fit nicely into our own pre-conceived notions is generally skipped right on over in favor of something a little more palatable.  And we all know what happens when we no longer eat for sustenance but for pleasure….we get fat and lazy. And that is exactly what has happened.  We have created a culture of Christians that have no concept of conviction, of sacrifice, of hard truths.  And we as church leaders have no-one to blame but ourselves because we have moved away from teaching the foundational truths of scripture for the sake of “relevance.”  

  5. We’ve quit caring.  This one is the toughest one to take.  I know that the church has problems, and most people will admit the same.  But when did we decide to stop fighting for His bride?  Or worse, when did we stop caring altogether?  I know I’m not the only one who sees the problems that the church has.  I talk to church leaders every day that are starting to grasp the situation that we have created.  So why is it that so few are attempting to do something about it?  Why is it that many of our church leaders refuse to work toward reconciliation? Why do we continue to support the same broken patterns that got us here in the first place?  Why do we still fight over things that are irrelevant, break each other down?  Why do we still teach our people to be self-centered, focus our energies inside?  It seems to me that if we acknowledge a problem we must be willing to do something about it, no matter how difficult.


By now, I’m sure some of you are saying “well Phillip, if you hate the church so much, why not just leave?”  Well, it’s simple, really.  I love Jesus.  And Jesus loves the Church.  The Church is the Bride of Christ.  And because Jesus loves the Church, so do I.  At least, I love the idea of what the Church was intended to be.  The problem is, churches are full of sinners saved by grace.  And because the Church is comprised of imperfect people, so we will have imperfect churches.  Church leaders are not messiahs…they are simply lost and broken people that have been found by Jesus Christ.  But although we may never reach perfection, we should always be striving for it.  

So here is my challenge to all of you church leaders out there:  What Will You Do?  That was the theme of the Catalyst conference last year, and those four little words haunt me every day.  Will you as a leader, whether in a contemporary or traditional church, take the first step towards reconciliation with the other churches in your community?  Will you make an effort to build up not only your own fellowship but the other church communities around you?  Will you commit to turn your attention from your own church operation and focus on the community in which God has placed your church?  Will you strive to teach and reinforce ethical responsibilities among your staff and church?  Will you freely teach the truths of scripture, even when it’s uncomfortable?  And will you love your church enough to do whatever is necessary to purify His Bride?
Apr 29

A picture is worth a thousand words.

« Previous Entries