John:

Please write an article for http://ChurchCrunch.com and answer the following question:

You're living the dream of the modern day writer. You've successfully turned a blog into a book deal. Very early in your blog's life you decided to commit to a one post a day minimum. You were a young, aspiring writer with an unknown blog. To me it looks like you made the conscious decision to focus on quantity of writing over quality of writing. How has this affected your success and what can other bloggers learn from this decision?

peace | dewde

I was talking to this guy at work (an unbeliever) and I gave him advice about something based on what I learned the previous Sunday at North Point. He made the comment, "You learned that at your church? Huh. Maybe I'll go with you sometime." Which I took for a polite way to say, "Oh crap, he's one of THOSE people. Hrm... that advice was actually helpful. Awkward. I should probably dazzle him with false hope to buy time and make my escape from this conversation."

So right after he said, "Maybe I'll go with you sometime," I looked him straight in the face, dead-pan, and replied, "You're not invited to my church, dude." Then I walked away.

It became a thing. He'd invite himself to my church, I would say no, end the conversation immediately, and walk away.

Months later I was getting baptized and I CCd everyone in my address book on the email invitation. Of course he was in my address book. I had INADVERTENTLY given him Willy Wonka's golden ticket to my freakin church. Great. And after months of build-up... he was ready to cash in. No way he was missing church THAT day.

He went to church with us for 6 months after that until we ditched him for a more convenient service time.

peace | dewde

This is why so many of the environments at our church (http://northpoint.org) look like living rooms and not classrooms. The High School area looks more like a hangout place than a church. We have miniature "living rooms" and "coffee shops" every other corner you turn.

It's not to look cool or hip or make smaller churches jealous (after all... they can do the same thing!). It's to leverage/borrow/steal from the relational collateral that already exists within these types of environments.

peace | dewde

dude. totally. i just can't say "no" to a sassy pair of red pumps when they perfectly compliment my purse.

peace | dewde

lol that's awesome.

peace | dewde

Steve Jobs announces the new Apple iHole.

peace | dewde

NO TROUBLE AT ALL.

PEACE | DEWDE

Sometimes "PC Load Letter" makes more sense to me than the output I'm getting from my spouse software. And she would confirm the same is true for her.

peace | dewde

this metaphor makes more sense to me than real life.

peace | dewde

Merry CHristmas dude.