Wednesday, September 30, 2009 @ 9:26 am by Josh Burcham

The three guys are starting to hit their stride in this two part series, Religious No More, they answer the question, is being religious okay? And we might gather from the title of this weeks podcast which way they are going to lean. Our hosts worked through Matthew 15 as they answered this question and look forward to hearing your thoughts. Additional Truth: Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 12:1-14, Matthew 25:31-46, Mark 12:28-34. Click here for some more resources.

Now post or email in your questions and thoughts. Email Us Here.

Three Guys and a Bible Podcast is a weekly video podcast that talks truth when answering your questions and responding to your thoughts. We’re ordinary guys, serving an extraordinary God.

Head over to ThreeGuysPodcast.com and watch the most recent episodes or Subscribe to Podcast over in iTunes.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009 @ 7:56 am by Josh Burcham

Let me start here and it might sound funny at first, but stick with me. The Bible, God’s written word to us, has some power – Hebrews 4:12, but keep in mind it’s God speaking to us. The power isn’t found in the words or the book. The power is found in God. I might be crucified for those last couple of statements, so let me prove my point. I’ve seen too many people have great habit of reading their bibles everyday, yet never see Jesus in their character. It is as if the Truth has no power in their life. Now, why is that? I credit it to a hard heart, but that is another post all in it self. When reading the Bible we need to keep in mind that Truth’s power comes from God. You can spend your entire life reading the Bible, living a good life by obeying what it says to do, but completely miss it’s power. Now slow down and really read this next part. You’ve heard it before, but think about what it means…The Bible is God written word to us. The creator of the Universe wrote Truth to you! Now that’s cool.

On to the Red Letters, Matthew 4:1-11: the temptations of Jesus:
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009 @ 2:39 pm by Josh Burcham

Original post from Perry Noble of Newspring Church. Most of the time we don’t set out in creating these is conceptions, they usually come from our comfort with life. Being comfortable usually scares me, it means: I have probably stopped seeking Jesus in my life. Are you comfortable?

We get things messed up from time to time…especially the words of Jesus…here is what He did NOT say…

#1 – “They will know you are my disciples by your theology, and the arrogance that accompanies it.”  (John 13:35)

#2 – “Dream really small dreams and make sure you never ask for anything big!”  (John 14:12-14, Psalm 2:8)

#3 – “If someone doesn’t believe just like you believe…make sure to do all you can to attack, criticize and beat them down as much as possible.”  (Mark 9:38-41)

#4 – “Be tolerant of everyone…I am one of the many ways to God.”  (John 14:6)

#5 – “Make sure you make the church about you…that you are served well…please, don’t do anything that might cause you any type of inconvenience.  My goal is for you to be happy!”  (Matthew 20:28, Luke 9:23-24)

#6 – “Please, whatever you do, DO NOT tell people the good news…keep it to yourself!  The reason I died on the cross is so that you could get into really small groups of people and talk about ‘deep things’ that aren’t going to help anyone when it comes to eternity.”  (Matthew 28:20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:48, John 20:21, Acts 1:8, Romans 10:14, Romans 10:17)

#7 – “Don’t EVER try anything new…don’t ever take a risk…don’t ever take a step of faith.  Be AVERAGE!”  (Isaiah 43:18-19, Hebrews 11:1, Hebrews 11:6)

#8 – “You can follow me and it will not impact your money at all!”  (Matthew 6:19-24)

#9 – “Pray a prayer to get out of hell…and then live however you want.”  (John 14:15, John 14:21)

#10 – “You can do it without me!”  (John 15:5)

#11 – “I don’t expect you OR your church to be fruitful in any way.”  (John 15:4)

#12 – “Isolate yourself from the world!”  (John 17:15)

#13 – “Make sure there is a time when you question my word because it will one day be no longer relevant.”  (Luke 21:33)

#14 – “Stop crying out to me in desperation…can’t you see I’m busy.”  (Mark 10:46-52)

Read this post and future post at PerryNoble.com.

Thursday, September 24, 2009 @ 4:37 pm by Josh Burcham

Author and church planter, Vince Antonucci is launching a new church on the strip in Las Vegas. God used Vince’s book, I Became a Christian and all I Got was a Lousy T-Shirt, in big ways in my journey in loving God and love People, as a Christ-follower should. If Jesus walked on this earth today, He would be in Vegas, not because of all the “sin” there, but because the people need Jesus’ love, His hope and His salvation.

500 people, $100, days from Brightbulb on Vimeo.

Straight from Vince’s mouth, or more like his finger tips:

We have an unbelievable opportunity to get an amazing space as the permanent, 24/7 facility that can be home to our church services, seminars, food co-op and all we’re doing for the church we’re starting here in Vegas. So if we can get this space it would change everything for us, in an awesome way. The problem is that there are expenses to get into the building, and so we need to raise $50,000 – and the way we’ve chosen to do that is $100 at a time. To make this happen, we need 500 people who will give $100. Would you please be one of those people? To learn more, and to give, go to www.verveventure.org. Also, 500 is A LOT of people, so would you please let your friends know about this, put it on your blog, Facebook it, Twitter the web site, send smoke signals, whatever you can to help us get the word out. Thank you SO MUCH for considering this – you have no idea how much it means!

So they’re going to do it $100 at a time. They’re looking for 500 people who would give $100 each. Would you consider being one of those people? Join me in giving $100 bucks. To learn more, and to give, go to www.verveventure.org.

Monday, September 21, 2009 @ 2:52 pm by Josh Burcham

Three Guys and  a Bible Podcast posted their next episode in iTunes. Three Guys and a Bible Podcast is a weekly video podcast that talks truth when answering your questions and responding to your thoughts. Three guys podcast, tag line: ordinary guys, serving an extraordinary God. The three of us, John, Erik and Josh, have been meeting for the last year as we have journeyed in becoming true Christ-followers, loving God and loving people. We had the idea of bringing others into that experience of growth, but putting a camera in their bible study. This idea birthed into a podcast.

All three host our in the studio (Josh’s Living Room) for week two of the podcast and with Erik just getting back from a quick trip to Vegas with his wife of three years the on-the-spot question of “is gambling a sin?” is answered by the guys. Three guys would love to hear your thoughts on the topic.

Now submit or email in your questions and thoughts. Email Us Here.

Three Guys and a Bible Podcast is a weekly video podcast that talks truth when answering your questions and responding to your thoughts. We’re ordinary guys, serving an extraordinary God.

Head over to ThreeGuysPodcast.com and watch the current episode, “Sinful Slots?”

Saturday, September 19, 2009 @ 11:48 pm by Josh Burcham

I’ve meet with a group of guys every Tuesday for the last eight months for accountability and bible study. We’ve journeyed together as we learned how a true Christ-follower’s life was too look, by loving God and loving people. We’ve read through a couple of books that helped in that process, but we came to a point where we hit a plateau and needed a change. We tired a new location, didn’t work. We meet at a different time, still no help. And then an idea hit. We would start a podcast. Share our experience that God has used in our lives over the last year through a video camera. Three Guys and a Bible Podcast was born.

We are at a point where we need to give back and share the knowledge and truth that we’ve have learned over that past couple of years. Open our hearts and let you, our listeners, see us as we are.

It hasn’t been a pretty start and we have a long was to go and a lot to learn, but we’ve start. Don’t they say that starting is the hardest part? It is raw and un-cut. What you see is what you get, problems and all.

Now here is where you come in: head over to the site and post your questions and thoughts or you can email them in at questions@threeguyspodcast.com. We need your questions, they drive our show, email away. It could be anything. Really, anything goes.

Subscribe to the Podcast in iTunes.

Thursday, September 17, 2009 @ 10:58 am by Josh Burcham

I’ve talked about what makes a great site and showed you what some great sites look like, but what about why people go to your site in the first place. Your site might crash and burn if you created it with the focus of signing members up for ministry and the majority of your visitors are non-members there to check out what the church had to offer. This list was created by Digital Sanctuary titled: Top 10 Website Features on Church Websites. Results come from a survey they assessed on top features/reasons visitors visited church sites:

(Rated from top reasons to bottom.)
1. Find service information (times, directions, etc).
2. Listen to/download Sermons (audio recordings).
3. Learn about the church’s Beliefs/Mission/Values
4. Connect with other members.
5. Read/download Sermons (text transcripts).
6. Join and/or interact with a home/bible study group.
7. View weekly information/calendar/news/events.
8. Find serving opportunities at the church.
9. Post prayer requests or needs.
10. Read articles or other content.

Now go out there and building some amazing sites for His kingdom. If you need some help and/or advice. Email me at hello (at) joshburcham.com

Wednesday, September 16, 2009 @ 2:36 pm by Josh Burcham

We learn lessons about life from both good and bad experience. This is a lesson that I’m still learning to practice. Don’t sweat it. Now this lesson has a story. I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not to post it and have come to this conclusion: this is my blog where I’m willing to share my heart for others, as a tool to help them grow. From time to time I share things that are Truth and in turn upset some people. It is never my intention to hurt people, but a lot of times people are hurt because of their convictions. Know this post is written out of love with no ill feelings from me. I’ll leave it at that.

You can’t control how people view you. You can’t control what they think or don’t think you are doing. When I decided to plant Ridgepoint Church, rumors started to fly. People started to talk. Saying things like, “Josh doesn’t believe in the Bible” or even better “Josh is trying to steal people from other churches.” Things that never came out of my mouth. Things that were never my intention.

I left a church that I loved. I left a church that I poured my blood, sweat and tears into. I left because God called me to leave and if I had to make that same decision again, I would do the same. Because I got out of my comfort zone and traveled into the unknown, Jesus taught me how to follow Him as a true Christ-follower. Something I wouldn’t of been able to do unless I left. It had nothing to do with the church I was at, it’s an amazing church in so many ways, but it was my comfort zone and God had to move me out of that comfort zone.

A hand full of people at a church of just under a thousand were able to destroy my reputation and burn bridges between that church and me. Now here was the part that hurt, these were people I trusted, people I looked up to and people I served along side for years. These people were friends.

Did I make all the right decision during this time of my life? No. I’ll be the first to tell you my mistakes. But we need to learn how not to sweat things we can’t control. I can’t control how people view me. I can only be how God has called me to be and continue to grow as a Christ-follower. But people will always talk and sometimes those people have a lot of influence on others. Don’t sweat it. Be true to your Creator and let life be life. And remember, Christ never promised an easy life, He showed us that it would be quite the opposite.

When we sweat over these things we can’t control, they start to reak havic on our lives. I became bitter over this experience and though I tried to hide that bitterness it showed itself.  And I had to come before Jesus and let it go. He had to show me how to not sweat it.

Stay true to Christ and the God-size dream He has placed on your life. No matter what happens keep chasing that vision. No matter what is said, keep your focus on Christ. And don’t sweat it.