It is less a contrast than it is a similarity. Two men, both highly educated Jews, both bold and passionate preachers of the message of the Gospel, both leaders in the first century Church.  Paul and Apollos were both used by God to build His Kingdom in the precarious, turbulent infancy of the Christian faith.  But only one of these men still has a ministry today.  Indeed, Paul’s contribution to the New Testament is central to our understanding of the Gospel.

Why is Paul’s influence greater than that of Apollos?  Spiritual calling aside, there seems a simple reason:  He Wrote Stuff Down.

I’m a big Writer of Stuff.  I have To-Do lists, archives of song lyrics, sermons and speeches, unpublished books and written meanderings.  According to the stats counter, my personal blog site just hit 100 blog entries last week.  I even have an archive of carefully documented calendars that stretches back to my freshman year in college, which I can’t bear to throw out.  What if I suddenly need to know what I did during the summer of 1984?

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I am currently writing my second book for NavPress called "Beginning With Brokenness" and I want YOUR story. If you are in your 20/30's, please take a few minutes to fill out my short survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GRSLJXV

If you need to change your first name for privacy, please use your middle name. I look forward to seeing your name in print! Thanks for helping out.

A few weeks ago, I shared on why I'm happy to attend the Origins Conference in Los Angeles. One of the speakers, Eric Bryant, who is the Navigator Pastor at Mosaic Church is launching a new book soon called "Not Like Me." You can pre-order a copy on Amazon, and listen to this video I asked him create just for you! You can see for yourself what to do w/those peeps in our life who just happen to be not like you! :)

Go Eric!

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I'm attending the Origins Event, July 23-24th in Los Angeles, CA. I'm excited for a number of reasons, but here is my short list as to why I'm going--and why I think you should too!

1. It's a group of friends. Seriously how cool is it that amazing people like:  Eric Bryant, Erwin McManus, Alan Hirsch, Margaret Feinberg, Dave Gibbons, Dan Kimball, Charles Lee, are actually friends and want us to join in our the funness! Count me in!!!

2. It's not about hype. So many conferences pump you up (and not to say that hype is bad), but I'm looking for something a little deeper. 

3. It's a cross cultural movement. It's not about who wears the best clothes or sings the best worship songs. Want to create something? Here's THE place to start.

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I've been on an unplanned blogging break. For whatever reason, I just needed to go quiet.

A friend sent me Rilke's Book of Images and said, "It's ok that you're not writing these days. Just be sure to read good things."

That made me pause and feel comforted as I recalled what I have read since the beginning of the year. Here's my brief synopsis of some great reads...

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Death personified watches the life of one little German girl during WW2. So beautiful! Really astonishing.

Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson. More inspiring stories from the author of Three Cups of Tea. Mortenson builds schools in the hardest to reach areas of Central Asia. Great stuff.

When the Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd. Thoughts on faith and how it changes as we grow. Lovely.

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My friend Ed Cyzewski recently wrote a blog series on Writing As a Ministry, and he asked me if I would share a few thoughts on this well, which I’m more than happy to oblige.  As a reader, you may also be a writer, or you may be a mom, or a pastor, or in business, or a carpenter, or a student, or any number of occupations.  But I invite you to consider why you do what you do and whether you consider what you do as a ministry or not.

I would love to say that I write books and this blog purely as a ministry.  I would love to say that because I desire for this to be my heart’s deepest desire.  What I can honestly say is that I write in order to:

• Be affirmed
• Express a gift
• Force myself to think more deeply about daily life
• Prove I have something worth saying, or prove I am valuable because of what I do
• Attempt to know more of God
• Share ways in which the gospel touches our daily lives
• Satisfy my ego
• Proclaim Jesus as the greatest satisfaction to our soul’s deepest cravings
• Feel important or impactful

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Anybody who says the book is dead hasn't been keeping up with current events. Truth is, more books are being published now than ever before. Way more.

More than a million book titles were published in 2009--a quarter of those by "traditional" publishers and the rest by self-publishers and micro-niche publishers--including five titles by ConversantLife writers published by Conversant Media Group and Harvest House:

• Apologetics for a New Generation by Sean McDowell: Helping you effectively share the answers to life's big questions with a new generation.
• I Can't See God Because I'm in the Way by Stan Jantz and Bruce Bickel: Showing that a fresh view of God is more accessible than you think.
• The Last TV Evangelist by Phil Cooke: Knowing why the next generation couldn't care less about religious media, and why it matters.
• The God Question by J.P. Moreland: An invitation to honestly explore an entirely new way of living--the way of Jesus.
• The Forecast by Caroline Ferdinandsen: A counterfeit memoir the lets the author lie the entire time and still tell you the absolute truth.

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Being a first time novelist, I've been surprised by a lot of things, one of which is the difficulty in explainng a book if it doesn't fit simply into one genre.  And that's been a problem with Imaginary Jesus: It's a comedy.  It's a novel.  It's theology.  It's fiction. It's autobiographical.  What possible genre could this be? Let's turn to Amazon.com's rating system to discover what they think.

First, an overview of the three categories that Amazon thinks that IJ fits into:

Good.  Okay.  So our comedy theology novel falls into Science Fiction Adventure (no doubt because our hero chases Jesus through "time and space"), Religious Fiction (no doubt because it has Jesus in it and is fiction), and in Single Women's Fiction (no doubt because the chicks dig me).  Hmm.  Let's see what sort of books that puts Imaginary Jesus up against.

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