Chris Elrod

My New Store

After being encouraged by the Compass Point Monday night "Pub Club" and several dozen readers of this blog, I have put together a special ChrisElrod.com Amazon store.  It features books, compact discs and dvds that I highly recommend.  The first page of the store displays resources I'm currently checking out or have recently been featured on this blog.  You can also use the links to right to check out other resources that have inspired me or educated me in the areas of church planting and Christian leadership.

Politics Goes Viral

Political ads have finally gone viral.  Barack Obama's peolple are denying any involvement, but this video posted on YouTube is incredible.  Spoofing the original Apple "1984" video, someone spent quite a bit of time making it.  So far, no one has claimed "ownership" of the video, even though it's received tens of thousands of hits.

It's a new day in advertising...viral marketing is the future!!!

One More Video Post

As long as I'm posting one music video tonight, I might as well post another one.  I've only seen this one time on MTV years ago.  The way the art, animation and live shots are connected is just amazing.  It is my favorite music video of all time and I think it stands the test of time.  It doesn't hurt that it's also by one of my favorite bands led by one of the best vocalists in rock n' roll.

Congrats To Gary Lamb

Congrats to Gary Lamb and the leadership at Ridgestone.  They have made Slice Of Laodicea's "Hall Of Shame Award" this week for their Christmas Eve video.  I've always had a deep-seeded dislike for the bonehead that runs the Slice website and her mindless online dribble.  That fact that she voted Gary & Company as "shameful" only makes me like him - and the Ridgestone leadership - even more.  Rock on Ridgestone!  You're attracting way more unchurched folks for the cause of Christ that one woman with a microphone and a cheesy radio program ever did!

P.S. - Yeah, she hit a nerve!

MC Lamb & The Ridgestone Gang

If you guys have not checked out the Ridgestone promo video for Christmas Eve you are missing out on a great laugh - and a great lesson in marketing to the unchurched!  It's brilliant, hilarious, irreverant and is getting press!!!  They may be uber-white, but Ridgestone is a church that is getting it done!

Revolution

Beginning December 17th, I'm going to begin a fairly large undertaking - preaching through the book of Matthew.  I've been feeling led to preach strictly on Jesus for a few months.  Over the last two years I've really dug into commentaries on Mathew (particularly MacArthur's commentary) and was reminded of the fact that Jesus was quite the rebel.  Thus the title of series will be "Revolution" - focusing on the unconventional way that Jesus lived, taught and thought.

I'm really stoked because we'll start the series the week before Christmas with Christ's genealogy (He came from la ong line of rebels) and finish two weeks after Easter with His ascension.  It's the longest series we've ever done at Compass Point, however we have some pretty crazy things up our sleeve in order to keep it interesting.  Not that the life of Christ is not interesting enough.

Anyway, we started pumping it tonight by dropping the video commercial for it on YouTube and the MySpace sites of our regular attenders.  We've also got a Facebook campaign that will go out the middle of next week. We'll kick the video during the next two services also, as well as the podcast.  By the end of the week they'll be a buzz about it on the local college campuses.  It's crazy how marketing is done these days?  It's even more crazy how little cost is involved with reaching younger 20-somethings!

A Really Cool Video

I just discovered this link to one of the coolest videos ever made.  Watch the entire thing, even the credits!!!

This Week's Hot Topic

So what are 20-somethings in Lakeland talking about this week?  As usual, something on YouTube.

Two weeks ago it was the OK GO guy's treadmill video.  Last week it was the revelation that lonelygirl15 wasn't real.  This week it's the video from funtwo.

Apparently, funtwo is a South Korean student and guitar player that attends college in New Zealand.  Last year a friend shot a blurry video of him playing a shredding version of the classical piece "Cannon" on guitar.  The video has been floating around YouTube for several weeks, having been watched by millions of drooling guitar-god-wannabe's.  There's been a slight mystery about the guitarist because his face cannot be seen on the video and no one has stepped up - until this week - claiming to be funtwo.  Also, the guy - while hiting a few bads notes - is AWESOME for an amateur!!!

The really sad part . . . the kid has no aspirations to be a professional musician.  He's studying to be a designer of some sort.

Anyway, that's this week's hot topic.