Here is a review of The Passion of Christ at the church (Mars Hill) that is helping plant us. Mars Hill is also the church that my wife and I attended when we lived in Seattle. Mars Hill was a new church planted in October of 1996. It's amazing to see how much they've grown. When we began attending there was under 100 people and now (IN METRO SEATTLE) there are about 2,000 people attending!

Further, check out the new fancy pants website for the church planting organization we belong to, Acts 29. The Acts 29 Network consists of churches around the world called and committed to the Gospel through church planting. We believe planting local, missional, Christ-centered communities is the primary vehicle that God is using to bring His children unto Himself.

Acts 29's desire is to plant 1,000 churches around the world. God is leading them to many people with this same desire, and raising up leaders and starting works across the globe in places like India, Mexico, Brazil and Haiti. ItÂ’s a journey initiated by God that they humbly find themselves a part of, seeking to serve Christ as they follow God's lead.

Last night our church partnered with three other churches to go see "The Passion of the Christ". We rented a 600 seat theatre and were able to bring probably 500+ people. There has been a lot of controversy around this film. This controversy allowed us to bring a lot of non-believers who were curious to see just exactly who this Jesus is.

Granted, there were a lot of things in the film that Mel took 'artistic license' but when you get down to it, most assuredly you can use this film to communicate the gospel to those you take. I do not believe just taking people to the film and then having an 'altar call' (very Roman/Modernistic evangelism) but through relationships with the people who came we certainly can use this film (just like we use secular, non-Christian themed films as a communication piece) to further God's Kingdom. As long as we trust that it is God who does the saving and not a method like this film. We are preaching through Jonah right now and it is amazing to think of 600,000 people (REALLY WICKED PEOPLE) hearing just 5 words in Hebrew and repenting, putting on burlap sacks and throwing ash on their heads. In fact, Jonah didn't even want them saved instead of bringing the message God told him he basically said, "God is coming to destroy you" and he left out any hope or how they could repent to avoid this fate.....but God turned their hearts.

We just finished a four part series examing what it means to be a Biblical Man. The topics included looking at the state of man, the foundation of who God created man to be, examing how this works out practically in our lives, and then finally looking at wisdom from Proverbs.

I'm excited that we are moving into a new season after these teachings. Including 'actually doing something'. We are scheduled to take a trip on Saturday March 14th. On this trip we will be building or completing homes for people in Mexico. We are doing this through a ministry called Amor.

Check out the blog that seeks to discover how to pick a church in San Diego. Hopefully it will become a definitive San Diego Church Guide. http://sandiegochurch.blogspot.com/

We also are going to be moving into a new church building starting February 29th!! As a church we planted 10/02 with just 3 primary couples. Then we grew a core team to about 20 in a period of 6 months. After this we have been running about 60-70 people and have outgrown our old facility that seats about 80ish. (If you know about the 80% seating rules) The new church building would accomodate 350+, so we are praying that God is preparing us for this type of group. NO doubt this growth has been and will be a challenge, but our desire is to preach the gospel and have confidence that God will do the rest....

Here is a new article I wrote: Finding God in Abstract, Absurd and Postmodern Art It deals with (1) what is art and (2) how can we critique it. Lofty thoughts, but I threw my two cents at it.....We have an online forum where we can discuss, debate and dialouge about these types of things. So join in the conversation, what is art, what is good art?


Also, we are going to be launching a new website Kaleo Church and use our old url www.kaleo.us to write these types of cultural articles....engaging culture stuff..

Found a cool site discussing the missional nature of the church. A lot of great thinkers are there from GOCN and others: Allelon

Check it out!

Also, check out the new church building we are moving into: Kaleo's New Church We are excited to have something so rooted in history and it really has a sense of reverance when you enter it.