– Developing and preparing for a Bible lessons is hard; showing a DVD is easier.
– Inviting your co-workers to church is hard; inviting them to lunch is easier.

When we make things easier, we remove obstacles that keep people from investing in their sphere of influence, or from connecting with God.

Sometimes, all it takes is showing people the most obstacle-free path. Jon Dilley, who leads the Life Lessons group at Synergis, provided a great example of this in the email he sent to his group’s participants. Like many leaders do, he put the link for the MP3 of their most recent message in the body of the email. The brilliant part was adding the following sentence, which appeared just below the link:

      Tip: If you have a smartphone, just open up this E-mail on your phone, tap the link and it’ll play (great for the drive to or from work). Enjoy.

And just like that, Jon made it easier for people to catch up on a message they may have missed. Ordinarily, when people see the link, they may subconsciously identify the obstacles. “Maybe I’ll download the MP3, load it into iTunes, and put it on my iPod… if I have time.” “Maybe I’ll listen to it online tonight… if things aren’t too crazy at home.”

But thanks to Jon’s tip, some of those people now see an easy way to listen to the MP3 tonight on their way home. Thanks for sharing, Jon!

How do you remove obstacles for your Life Lessons participants? Add your comments here.

What was your favorite series of 2011? Was there a specific series that your group really enjoyed?

1. Time of Your Life
2. Life Apps
3. Game Plan
4. It Came From Within
5. Thrill of Hope
6. Your Move
6. Why Worry
7. Five Things God Uses to Grow Your Faith
8. Balanced
9. Destinations/Boulevard of Broken Dreams
10. White Flag

A Rabbi, an Atheist, and a Wiccan High Priestess walk into Macy’s….

This is not the beginning of a joke; it’s the story of my Monday.
One of the cool facets of being the “workplace ministry guy” for an organization like North Point is that it presents some interesting opportunities. This week I had the chance to be a panelist for a lunch-and-learn event hosted at Macy’s Systems & Technology. The topic of the event, sponsored by the company’s Council on Diversity and Inclusion, was “How does your faith/belief system empower you to be a good human being.” They invited panelists from seven different faith perspectives reflecting the beliefs of their employees:

• Atheism

• Hinduism
• Wicca
• Islam
• Christianity
• Baha’i
• Judaism

Participating in this panel was an incredible privilege… and quite a challenge. Engaging the listeners, addressing the prescribed questions (about faith and being a good person), and sharing the key message of Christianity with a largely non-Christian audience—all in five minutes—was even more difficult than I expected. I reasoned that “being a good person” largely comes down to following the two greatest commandments (Matthew 22:36-40) and how having a relationship with Jesus Christ provides both the motivation and the ability to put others before ourselves. But from my perspective, when it comes to Christianity, the critical point to understand was this:

The most important thing about being a good, is that being good is not the most important thing.

Closing my presentation with this thought afforded me the opportunity to offer everyone in the audience a Christmas gift. I had brought enough copies of Andy Stanley’s book How Good Is Good Enough? for anyone that wanted one. What was amazing was that 60 people made a point of coming up to get the books.
What a gift! Not the book, but rather the invitation from Macy’s Systems & Technology to essentially come share the good news of Jesus Christ with more than 100 of their employees.

If you had the chance to talk with a non-believer about the idea of faith and “being a good person,” what would you say? Add your comments here.

Over the past couple of years, Life Lessons Over Lunch has experienced tremendous growth.

One of our ministry goals for 2012 is to develop stronger connections with our Life Lessons leaders. So in addition to handling of the administrative side Life Lessons Over Lunch, Jill will join me in providing coaching and ongoing support to our leaders. In particular, she is going to serve as the initial contact point for groups that are primarily led by women. There are a couple of ways we think this will help us better serve you. One is that we’ll be able to be more proactive, rather than just reactive, in our communication with you. Another is that we think it will allow us to visit many more groups than we have in the past—enhancing our knowledge of what’s happening “on the ground,” and increasing the likelihood that we can visit your group this year. And finally, it will allow us to have more one-on-one meetings with leaders—something I haven’t been able to do at all with our female leaders.

Jill’s email address is jill.thornton[at]northpoint.org and her number here at the office is 678-892-5567. You can read more about her on the new Meet the LLOL Staff page. The lifelessons[at]northpoint.org email address will go to both of us, and the Life Lessons main number 678-892-LLOL (5565) will ring at both of our desks. My direct number will change to 678-892-5566. I will continue to serve as the Director of Life Lessons Over Lunch and am still available to you as well, but you no longer have to rely on just me.

I have an incredible job.

But there are two aspects of my job that I really love:

One is that I get to hear the stories of how the environments you create are drawing people closer to God.
The other is that, several times a year, I get to baptize people who have put their faith in Jesus Christ and have decided to go public with that decision.

Perhaps the best day on the job in my two-plus years as Director of Life Lessons came on July 24th, when those two things came together with the baptism of Brian Wilson. For those of you who don’t attend a North Point church, whenever we have someone who comes to be baptized, they first record a video where they briefly share with the audience their spiritual journey and why they want to be baptized. Here are Brian’s story and his baptism:

Brian Wilson-072411 from NP Baptism on Vimeo.

Rank	Chg.	Message Series	Pvs. Rank	Q1 Orders	Q2 Orders	2011 Total
1.		Time of Your Life	#1	14	9	23
2.		Game Plan	#2	8	11	19
3.		Your Move	#37	1	10	11
4.		Why Worry	#19	2	9	11
5.		Life Apps	[new]	-	9	9
6.		Five Things God Uses	#19	2	7	9
7.		Faith, Hope & Luck	#4	6	3	9
8.		Guardrails	#5	7	2	9
9.		Taking Responsibility for Your Life	#19	2	6	8
10.		Listen & Learn	#19	2	5	7

What about you? Which have been your favorite series? Add your comments here.

Today, June 23rd, marks a personal/professional milestone for me in that it marks my second anniversary as Director of Life Lessons Over Lunch. We have also hit some significant milestones as a ministry recently. Yesterday, Michael Jaber and Todd Burkhalter launched a new Life Lessons group in their office complex (The Gates at Laurel Springs, in Suwanee), becoming the 150th Life Lessons group. And just last month, our total participation hit 4,000 people across all Life Lessons groups.

But why are these numbers (2 years, 150 groups, 4000 people) important?

In and of themselves, they’re not. There’s nothing magical about anniversaries or round numbers. But they do serve as a reminder of where we’ve been and where God has brought us, and those things are important. It’s often easy to forget what God has done, particularly in seasons where we can’t see what God is doing now.

God knows this about us, and throughout Scripture we see examples of God instructing people to create reminders of his past faithfulness. In Joshua 4, the Israelites stacked 12 literal stones as a reminder of God bringing them across the Jordan river into the promised land. Tonight, I have the opportunity to participate in a New Testament kind of remembrance when I help serve Communion at North Point Community Church.

Not only do milestones serve as a reminder for us, they also provide an opportunity to tell others about God’s faithfulness. That’s what God had in mind with the 12 stacked stones in Israel.
“He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God.” —Joshua 4:21-22,24

When the Life Lessons group at Orlando Regional Medical Center hit their third anniversary earlier this month, leader Darryl Bridges sent an email to his leadership team, marking both the event itself and how far God had brought their group.
What about you? How do you celebrate what God has done? Who do you share that with? Share your thoughts here.

We live in a culture that is crazy for “apps.”
Android or BlackBerry, iPhone or Palm—in the world of smartphones, apps are everything.

Interestingly, when it comes to biblical principles, the same holds true: application makes all the difference. That’s what the newest message series for Life Lessons groups is all about. The DVDs of Life Apps hit the shelves today. In this six-part series, Andy Stanley and Gwinnett Church campus pastor Jeff Henderson look at five specific concepts—forgiveness, confession, rest, trust, and encouragement—and how we can put these “life applications” into practice.

We just finished this series at North Point in April, and I’m really excited for what it could mean for Life Lessons groups. There are three reasons this series is particularly well-suited to Life Lessons groups:

1. The principles are incredibly practical and helpful. Every listener will walk away with at least an idea of how they could live them out.
2. They’re for everybody. Regardless of where your audience is spiritually, they would be hard-pressed to argue that applying these principles wouldn’t make a meaningful difference in their lives.
3. There’s a disclaimer for non-Christians. Andy and Jeff explain that each “life app” represents a command… for Christians. While they make the case that everyone would benefit from applying the principles, the Bible only describes them as expectations for those who are pursuing God. This can ease the tension for those who are afraid they’re going to be “preached at.”

Visit the Life Apps series page for the MP3s, or go to the DVD Order Form to request your copy.

What did you think about “Life Apps”? Share your thoughts here.

In honor of the Top Ten lists, here, presented in countdown format, are the top ten most-requested DVDs for the first quarter of 2011.

10. Taking Care of Business – A Life Lessons classic.  Just be sure to check out the Notes For Leaders on the series page.

9. Three Shadows of the Passion – Makes sense, since this is the only Easter-specific message series we have.

8.  Playing God – This one also saw an uptick, due in part to the fact that part 4 was the Easter message in 2007.

7. God Is Great, God Is Good – Has been popular ever since the economy starting turning a couple of years ago, but it spiked recently after the tragedy in Japan.

6. White Flag – We can all learn something about surrender from the most famous of runners. Not Pheidippides, not Steve Prefontaine. Jonah—the man who ran from God.

5. Balanced – It’s a law of economics: the economy goes down, and the request for financial curriculum goes up.

4. Faith, Hope and Luck – They say it’s better to be lucky than good. They also say ya gotta have faith.  What do “they” know?

3. Game Plan – The newest series available for Life Lessons groups. Still popular, even though the football-themed graphics seem out of place in April.

2. Time of Your Life – Another new-ish series, this was the 5th-most-requested series of 2010.  It appears to be gaining on the #1 series of 2010:

And the #1 series of the first quarter of 2011 is…

1. Guardrails – When combined with its predecessor Take It to the Limit, these two margin-themed series are by far the most-requested series in Life Lessons history.

What about you?  Which have been your favorite series? Add your comments here.

In the wake of a natural disaster we come face-to-face with the reality that the world is not as it should be. The jarring images of indiscriminate destruction on the news beg the question, “Why God?”

“Why did this happen?”
“Why would you allow such meaningless suffering?”

While we default to “Why?” perhaps we should be asking another question – “Who?”

“Who is this God?” In the face of tragedies and atrocities, are we to believe in a God of judgment or a God of love?

[God is Great, God is Good] sets out to answer the question of who God is by spanning the Bible from creation to re-creation. Along the way you will discover what went wrong with our world and how God has been at work fixing it.

The text above comes from the back cover of God is Great, God is Good, a series Andy Stanley preached just a couple of weeks after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.  Once again, a natural disaster has raised questions for many people about God and His intentions for us. 

While the media attention has died down considerably over the past couple of weeks, the questions your co-workers have about God and whether He can be trusted… those questions linger.  For many of the people who attend your groups, Life Lessons Over Lunch may be the only place where they get a Biblical perspective on who God is. As they wrestle with their questions, perhaps your Life Lessons group can point them toward some answers.

Better yet, you can point them toward a loving God while also being a tangible expression of God’s love. Make this a special two-week Life Lessons event. When showing God is Great, God is Good, offer to provide lunch but ask attendees to donate the equivalent value of their lunch, pool the money, and give it to an organization providing relief to Japan (such as this or one of these). Encourage your regulars to invite their co-workers who may not normally come to Life Lessons. Those who don’t consider themselves “religious” may be more inclined to attend something that looks at “why” questions and also demonstrates compassion for others.

God is Great, God is Good is available for free to all Life Lessons Over Lunch groups. Click here to request a copy for your group. If your group is already engaged in another series but you still want to share God is Great, God is Good with them, they can stream and/or download the MP3s from the following URLs:

• http://www.lifelessonsoverlunch.org/mp3s/Godisgreatpart1.mp3
• http://www.lifelessonsoverlunch.org/mp3s/Godisgreatpart2.mp3