This next week I'll be traveling back and forth between TN and the Midwest.

First, it is off to Michigan.

Michigan State Evangelism Conference, near Flint/Detroit, MI (March 2-3, 2009)
Next week I'm heading into the Midwest for the Michigan State Convention Evangelism Conference.

it will be good to see some old friends, but my time will be short since they have me speaking five (that's right, five) times in 24 hours. I am eating my Wheaties in preparation.

Then, it is back to Tennessee...

Chattanooga Pastors Conference, Chattanooga, TN (March 5, 2009)
Then I'm coming back to TN to speak at the Chattanooga Pastor's Conference at the invitation of the good folks at the Maclellan Foundation. The focus is on my new co-authored book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and Churches that Reach Them.

This is actually the first time I have presented on Lost and Found since the book has come out. So, it is a bit of a "launch party." In the Fall, Thom Rainer, Jason Hayes, Sam Rainer, and I will be doing a road tour around reaching and keeping young adults-- but this is still the launch for Lost and Found. So, I hope you can come and see us in Chattanooga.

They're making this very affordable - $15 per person or $50 per church (up to 4 people).

So, I hope you see you in Chattanooga.

Reaching The Next Generation, Granger, IN (March 7, 2009)
Then I'm heading back into the midwest for an "Enrichment Seminar" with the Missionary Church North Central District in Indiana. There I'll be addressing two topics: 1) Reasons 18 to 22 Year Olds Drop Out of Church - Can the Church Close the Door? and 2) Connecting Young Adults.

The Missionary Church is a remarkable small denomination. Of all the denominations we looked at in our Leadership Network church planting study, they had the highest church planting rate. If you have ever been to their home office, it is small and functional-- and has church planting literally written on the walls.

Good people-- and I am looking forward to being with them on Saturday.

Now, for an upcoming seminar.

The Flourish Conference

This one is a bit unusual for me. Actually, it is the first time I have spoken at such a gathering.

May 13-15, I am going to be a part of one of a unique conference. Flourish 2009 (www.flourishonline.org) will be hosted by CrossPointe Church in Duluth, GA. Sponsors include Southeastern Seminary, David C. Cook Publishers, and the National Association of Evangelicals. The subject is how to live as missional, evangelistic followers of Christ in a world full of poverty, injustice and environmental degradation, but that is not the most interesting part.

To me, the speaker line-up is most fascinating.

it is an interesting to see an unusual mix of speakers, For example, well known Southern Baptists such as James Merritt and Al Mohler will be speaking along side a whole assortment of authors and speakers including Chris Seay, Rick McKinley, Joel Hunter, Margaret Feinberg, Gabe Lyons, and a whole bunch of others from all kinds of denominations and perspectives.

The MCs for this event will be Jonathan Merritt, a faith and culture writer and well-known SBC troublemaker :), and Andy Crouch, author of Culture Making and Senior Editor of Christianity Today.

This will obviously be an event you won't want to miss.

My goal: get Chris Seay and Al Mohler together in the green room and start up a conversation.

The organizers asked me to pass on two things especially for my blog readers. First, there will be a church planters track led by Rand Clark, a church planter in Colorado (http://genesiscastlerock.com/), and Dr. Jack Allen (http://www.nobts.edu/Faculty/AtoH/AllenJ/Default.html), Director of the Nehemiah Center for Church Planting at New Orleans Seminary (nobts.edu). I will be some part of that, but I am not sure yet what that is. More on that soon...

Second, they are offering my blog readers a 25% discount if they register soon. Simply go to FlourishOnline.org, and when you are registering enter "Stetzer25" into the discount section. With the early bird discount, this will give you all three days for about 100.00, which includes a personal meet-and-greet / Q&A with many of the conferences speakers at a party the first night.

This is going to be a unique and enriching experience that you won't wanna miss. The early bird special ends tomorrow, although the discount code will continue to work throughout the month of March.

Something to think about over the weekend concerning the generation gap in our churches because of technology. The Barna Group recently published some research on the role tech plays in widening the generation gap.

Technology is fast becoming the latest driving force behind what is often called the "generation gap." While Americans of every age have become quite comfortable with and dependent on technology, a new study by The Barna Group explores how technology is shaping different experiences and expectations among generations.

I just finished a meeting with one of our smartest LifeWay employees, Selma Wilson, who has a much better office than I have. (Just sayin'.)

When I came back to my office, I found this story which includes some research we recently completed on parenting.

In 2008, the staff of Exponential Network began following a large cross section of bloggers looking specifically for practical insights from other leaders. The material in this eBook is pulled from 22 bloggers and amounts to over 600 pages. The collective learnings represented in this 600+ pages of "nuggets of gold" is significant and the guys at Exponential want to get the aggregated resources out as a free resource to as many leaders as possible. Contributions have come from the blogs of Ben Arment, Mark Batterson, Chris Elrod, Dave Ferguson, Mike Foster, Seth Godin, Craig Groeschel, Alan Hirsch, Scott Hodge, Michael Hyatt, Gary Lamb, Brad Lomenick, Shawn Lovejoy, Will Mancini, Tony Morgan, Perry Noble, Bob Roberts, Jr., me, Tim Stevens, Tullian Tchividjian, Jud Wilhite, and Jared Wilson. You can download it here!

Yesterday, I was glad to visit with friends in Atlanta at the ChurchPlanters.com Conference in North Georgia. I am driving to North Carolina right now to speak at another conference so I did not get a chance to stay for the second day, but it got off to a strong start.

It was good to visit with friends Troy Gramling, Tony Morgan, David Putman, Shawn Lovejoy, Larry McCrary, Brian Bloye, and others at dinner last night. Their conference continues today and it looks like a day filled with encouragement and challenges.

During my talk yesterday I promised to post my notes here on the blog. During my message, I also cited yesterday's blog post, which seems to have garnered a bit of contention in the comments.

So, here are my notes from yesterday:

I was interviewed by Brian Proffit for Rev! Magazine concerning the "80/20" rule in most churches - where 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work. It's a good conversation to have and I wanted to share ours with all of you here on the blog.

I talked about the most common sin in many churches. I am guessing there are many, but I think one of the most common is a lack of obedience.

My observation is that we often preach against sins that are not a problem in our church (sins more prevalent in the world) while not preaching against sins that are a common problem in the church (like lack of ministry involvement in this case).

Here is the interview:

What's Coming Up This Week?

I am in Atlanta already and have Donna with me. She is coming along on this trip, but I bet she won't come to my sessions. Grin.

Here is where I am heading this week.

So far we're getting a lot of positive feedback from our most recent book, Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and The Churches That Reach Them. We're grateful that so many ministry leaders from so many different places are finding it to be a helpful resource.

I've talked about my friend and co-author, Jason Hayes, in some past posts related to the book or to "Threads," LifeWay's Young Adult initiative. Jason is a smart guy with a passion for connecting this generation to God and the church. Despite his serious influence in this movement, you'll see below that he's also got a sense of humor and that he knows how to do a blog tour well (with no input from his victims, it appears).

I was going to beat on him like a low hanging pinata on Cinco de Mayo but he used the word "missional" so it was OK. ;-)

Watch the video and then check out Blemished.

Donna and I are in North Georgia today.

We are here for a few reasons. First, we are taking a little time off today. Then, I have some meetings at the North American Mission Board tomorrow. Finally, we are staying over for a conference on Monday called ChurchPlanters.Com. (It's a great conference so check out the web page if you are in the area-- more about that on Saturday.)

My meetings at NAMB revolve around some recent research.
Obviously, I believe in research. It doesn't hold out the hope for fallen humanity, but I believe that research is valuable to the church as we seek to communicate the gospel, plant churches with strategic precision, and lead congregations that are effective in their God called tasks.

This month, the folks at Barna Research shared the results of a survey of Christians and their understanding of spiritual gifts. Interesting stuff. It's the kind of survey that leads me to ask a lot of questions, and I would love to hear your thoughts. You can, and should read the whole thing here. Let me share just a few things worth thinking through and I invite you to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Rick Meiggs is the Blind Beggar at Missional Tribe. He and Brother Maynard both encouraged me to begin my "Meanings of Missional" series you can find on the right side of the blog. And, special announcement... Meaning of Missional will kick back up within 2 weeks to become a 10 part series. More on that soon.

In the meantime, check out the interview below. Rick asked me a number of questions and I shared some thoughts on the missional nature of the church, cooperation, and the need for less armchair missiologists, and more real-life practitioners. Check it out below and be sure to stop by Missional Tribe.

This is only the second of my "Saturday is for Seminars," a new weekly feature about upcoming seminars, conferences, and events.

The picture does not really have much to do with these two conferences, but I thought the backdrop was pretty amazing so I decided to include it anyway. It is from the Dwell Conference, hosted by Tim Keller in Manhattan (you can download the audio of that conference here).

Next week on the road:

My friend Mark Driscoll has been in the news a bunch as of late. We talked yesterday and he told me that he would be on CNN this week. He has been in the NYTimes and on ABC's Nightline as well. That is a lot of coverage in the secular press and there has also been much in the Christian media.

In case you missed it in Outreach Magazine, here's my article from the most recent issue and it's on that oh-so-popular subject of "culture." If you are not a subscriber, well, why not? Grin.

Here is the article. Feel free to comment below.

This Sunday at my church I talked about sharing Christ. As always, you can listen to my Sunday messages here.

I included a video clip that went around a while ago. In this case, it was from Penn (of Penn and Teller) talking about proselytizing. I told the church I would post it here today so, if you have not already seen it, check it out:

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL (outside of Chicago) is a great school. There are a number of reasons why Trinity is a great choice for graduate and post-graduate work, but I'm short on time so let me give you one reason you should enroll: I would love to see you in my D. Min. class this Spring.

I know it is Sunday, but I wrote this on Saturday! And, that is the name I plan to use for this new (and ongoing) feature.

Anyway...

I spend a good chunk of my life speaking at seminars, conferences, and retreats. And, some of them are amazing and encouraging. In most cases, I teach and speak to pastors and church leaders.

Typically, I do one seminar a week. So, with travel, that is about half my work week.

Often, my friends ask me to mention something on the blog about an upcoming seminar. At times, they want me to say where I am going... at other times, they just want to get the word out about their conference seminar.

I have, up till now, resisted (with the exception of one that was one of my most widely read blog posts of 2008). In that blog, I responded to an email from my new friend, Ben Arment, asking me to blog about his conference. And, I really did not want to so I tried to do so in a humorous way. I even said in the blog that I would not do it any more. I did not want my blog to be a commercial for my speaking. So, I have not "blogged" about seminars. But, now I have changed my mind.

Last week I spoke at the Innovation3 Gathering in DFW. I have already posted my main session notes here.

I also co-led a breakout session with Matt Wilson who is the Executive Director at The Message Trust, a youth and community ministry based in Manchester, England. We talked about European church planting, a subject on which he is far more of an expert that I would ever claim to be.

In preparation for my session, Larry McCrary, Caleb Crider, and I prepared this paper (handed out at the conference). It tells some of the European story. I have posted it in its entirety below.

Editors from Leadership Journal have constructed something like a Missional Family Tree that traces the influence from "The Missional Church" edited by Darrel Guder. The chart accompanies an article by Alan Hirsch on "Defining Missional." It's an interesting visual. Share your thoughts in the comments.

I've been blogging about The Upstream Collective and their Jet Set Tours happening this Spring over the last few months. In case you missed it, here's an explanation from Upstream Collective.

The Jet Set Tour isn't your typical mission trip. Then again, the people you'll meet won't be your typical missionaries.

Jet Set Tours, hosted in various cities in Europe, provides a week-long opportunity for you to experience a European culture, not only through tourism, but by learning about the people. Prayerwalk the streets of Barcelona's Gothic neighborhood. Meet with artists in Rome. Talk to a Christian businessman about what church is like in Zurich. Ask a professor in Madrid about the worldview of the students he teaches.

Continue reading The Beauty and Brokeness of Rome.

I just returned from vacation and then several days of travel. The vacation was needed and is what prompted this post. Donna and I went on a cruise and had an excellent time hanging with some old friends and decompressing a bit. It was a welcome respite from the cold weather back home. In Nashville it was frozen, but in the Caribbean it was very warm.

I love getting away with my wife, and we work hard to invest in our relationship. Why? Because it pays dividends.

People often ask me how I balance work and travel. Sometimes it is really a question. Other times, they are just reminding me to be sure to do that. By no means, do I think I have it all figured out, but my wife says she thinks we have a good balance.

When I invest in relationships it is the same as putting money in the bank, and that's important because I have to make frequent withdrawals. I travel a lot, work a lot, and am probably not easy to have as a husband or father. Those withdrawals demand frequent deposits.

With that in mind, and knowing that I am not the perfect example by any means, let me share how I try to make relational deposits in the life of my family.