Anne Marie Miller

Blog

  • FREE Mad Church Disease Video Series

    Something I am SO excited about is…

    We are taking some of the core values from each chapter of the book Mad Church Disease and putting them on video so churches or staffs or groups of people can use them to help walk through the book and begin a discussion.

    Oh, and the thing I’m SUPER DUPER jazzed about is that they will be completely, 100%, no strings attached FREE!

    We start working on them next weekend, and before we do, I’d love to get your opinion on what makes (for lack of a better term) a “teaching video” helpful to you?

    If you haven’t read MCD yet, you can download a FREE chapter (which happens to be one of my favorite chapters) here.

    And I just got a case of books in a few weeks ago, so if you’d like a bulk discount on books (10+ copies) just shoot me an email. We’ll get ya hooked up.

    Have a great week!

  • Summer Speaking Schedule

    This summer I have the opportunity to meet some amazing people in some amazing places. If you’re near any of these churches, come out and say hi! I’d love to connect. And leave me a comment to let me know you’ll be there!

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    May 30-31, 2009

    Oak Leaf Church Weekend Services
    Cartersville, GA
    Saturday at 6 pm
    Sunday at 9:30 & 11:15 am

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    June 4, 2009

    Radio Interview with Chris Fabry
    Moody Radio
    2:00 pm CST – Listen LIVE HERE

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    July 5, 2009

    Turning Point Community Church Weekend Services
     Lubbock, TX
    9 am & 10:30 am

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    July 12

    The Oaks Church Weekend Services
     Red Oak (Dallas), TX
    9 am & 11 am
    Panel on Social Justice with Len Sweet & Pastor Scott Wilson

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    By the way, I’m not speaking, but my friend Tony Morgan’s Killing Cockroaches tour will be stopping by my digs, Cross Point Church in Nashville, on July 17. I’ll be there soaking in his brillance and hope you’ll be there too!

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  • Saying Goodbye to Facebook

    During Lent, I said “until next time…” to some of my online habits, including Facebook.

    It’s been a struggle and a season of readjusting since returning.

    I’ve been a member of Facebook for a while now – probably close to three years or so. It’s been a great place to reconnect with old friends from former lives, and to interact with people and ideas that were interesting and remarkable.

    Over the last several weeks I’ve been seriously debating shutting it down completely. I’ve sat on the idea for a while, consulting friends and my own soul. As I was drawing closer to my conclusion, I never felt convicted by shutting it down…yet I tried every reason I could to justify leaving it open.

    As of Sunday, my Facebook account is deleted. Not just deactivated. Deleted. Gone.

    And I have no doubt this was the right thing for me to do.

    Call me a purist, but I’ve lost my own innocence in it. And as such, I must retreat.

    I’ll leave you with these words from Nouwen’s Inner Voice of Love. Words from a meditation in his journal upon which I am reflecting almost every day.

    I pray they challenge you in the way they have challenged me. Wherever your old country, or your new country, may be.

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    You have an idea of what the new country looks like. Still, you are very much at home, although not truly at peace, in the old country. You know the ways of the old country, its joys and pains, its happy and sad moments. You have spent most of your days there. Even though you know that you have not found there what your heart most desires, you remain quite attached to it. It has become part of your very bones.

    Now you have come to realize that you must leave it and enter the new country, where your Beloved dwells. You know that what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by? You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country. That requires death of what has become so precious to you: influence, success, yes, even affection and praise.

    Trust is so hard, since you have nothing to fall back on . Still, trust is what is essential. The new country is where you are called to go, and the only way to go there is naked and vulnerable.

    It seems that you keep crossing and recrossing the border. For a while, you experience a real joy in the new country. But then you feel afraid and start longing again for all you left behind, so you go back to the old country. To your dismay, you discover that the old country has lost its charm. Risk a few more steps into the new country, trusting that each time you enter it, you will feel more comfortable and be able to stay longer.

    –Henri Nouwen

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  • BOOK GIVEAWAY – Less Clutter, Less Noise

    Fact: Kem Meyer has the coolest chick hair I’ve seen.

    Fact: She’s also given one of the niftiest presentations I’ve seen.

    Fact: She has a book that you need to read.

    Fact: Especially if you have no background in communication and you work in a church.

    Fact: Or even if you do.

    Fact: I have 10 to give away.

    Leave me a comment with either your biggest communications FAIL or your biggest communications WIN and you’ll be entered into the contest…next Thursday I’ll pick ten random people and you’ll get a copy of the book! Tweet this post below and you are entered twice!

  • Innovative Ministry Leader Launch

    So here’s something you need to know about.

    I’ve partnered with a new web-based video teaching/training site that launches next month called Innovative Ministry Leader. And the crazy kids over there are using my little video to launch things on June 9th! It was a great experience working with these guys. Even though it was the day Nashville got pounded by tornadoes, that didn’t stop them from doing the video shoot!

    imlshoot

    Following me in the month of June are videos from Jeff Deyo (Sonic Flood guy), Troy Gramling, Sheri Gould, Greg Stielstra, Doug Gould, Jonathan Lee, Dino Rizzo, Paul Jackson (no relation!) Tommy Kyllonen, Mark Batterson, Ross Parsley, Glenn Packiam, Skye Jethani, Carl Cartee, Jud Wilhite….and the list continues to grow.

    Innovative Ministry Leader is the world’s first complete web-based training center for today’s leaders. It allows EVERYONE from your team (one person or one million) teaching and insight from innovative leaders from around the world.

    IML has video teaching in the areas of leadership, worship, marketing, culture and technology.

    Every month IML features new web-based videos that range in length from 20 to 60 minutes. There are areas for people to engage in chat rooms as they watch the teaching and even has a “buddy list” of sorts so you can connect with leaders with similar interests.

    All videos are archived as well, so you can access them at anytime!

    It’s a monthly subscription and it is SO affordable…$34.99/month for unlimited access to everything. Again — that is for your WHOLE staff, leadership team, volunteers, whoever!

    **And…I’m happy to announce the first 150 people who register will receive all 8 of the Leadership Network Innovation Series books FREE!**

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    -Deliberate Simplicity by Dave Browning
    -Confessions of a Reformission Rev? by Mark Driscoll
    -The Multisite Church Revolultion by Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon and Warren Bird
    -Leadership from the Inside out by Kevin Harney
    -The Big Idea by Dave Ferguson
    -The Monkey & The Fish? by Dave Gibbons
    -Sticky Church by Larry Osborne
    -Servolution by Dino Rizzo

    So…click over, check it out, sign up…and can’t wait for June 9th when some Mad Church Disease teachin’ will be going down.

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  • Are You an Addict?

    One of my friends emailed me last week about the boundaries I’ve set for some of my online habits. He wanted to talk about them a little bit more, and jokingly said “I’m addicted to that stuff!”

    His remark sent me into one of those little ADD brain tangents I frequently find myself in…(to which he received the brunt of in my return email).

    We wouldn’t joke around about an addiction to porn, or to alcohol, but we do joke around about being addicted to technology.

    And so I wonder…are we?

    My friend Mike has a good, unofficial way of finding out. If you wonder if you’re addicted to something, take a break – cold turkey – for two weeks. See how long you make it. You’ll get a pretty good idea if you’re addicted or not.

    Could you imagine taking two weeks off from Twitter or Facebook or your RSS reader or…?

    More importantly, would you?

  • The Mike Foster & Anne Jackson Porn Show

    Statistics have shown that whenever I use the word “porn” or the word “boobies” in a title, multitudes of traffic will follow.

    And I don’t do it for traffic’s sake.

    I do it for the message.

    Really.

    About a month ago, my friend Mike Foster (co-founder of XXXChurch.com and Deadly Viper ninja) and I spoke at Community Christian Church in Chicago to about 600 high schoolers & junior high students (AND their parents….) about porn, sex, and we even threw out words like “homoeroticism” and “masturbation” and “boobs”…and there may have been talk about cows mating as well.

    CCC has made this video available online and I’d love for you to check it out – just click the image below to go to it.

    At the same time, I want you to know that both Mike and I are VERY passionate about discussing these issues within the church…whether it is within a StuCo setting, college, or yes, even adults, God has wired us to discuss the freedom that comes from healthy sexuality.

    Now, on to the show…

    anne-jackson-porn

  • Book Giveaway – SERVOLUTION!

    The cold rain was unusual for Baton Rouge in December. Yet even in the dark, we pulled the van in to the parking lot at the Alamo Motel. The same motel where drug dealers and hookers are the nicer people you’d meet. Where a 47 year old stabbed his 76 year old cousin to death. Where a serial rapist found refuge until he was arrested.? Where girls under the age of fifteen are raped or sold for sex.

    A group from Healing Place Church and I checked in on Miss Ella – a grandmother who was taking care of her six grandkids, and a dog, in a 300 sq ft motel room. If you could even call it that. She had a roof over her head and a few mattresses, but that was about it.

    During the time I spent in Baton Rouge with the people at Healing Place Church — one thing was for certain. This church was living out the message of love and Christ in their own backyard. From the places where they were rebuilding from hurricane damage, to Dream Centers that housed anyone from the homeless to the domestically abused to the kid who didn’t have anyone to go home to.? While we were out, we saw another van delivering meals to the widows in this community. We visited strip clubs to give flowers to the dancers and earlier that morning, set up tables full of a warm breakfast for anyone who needed it. And there were several hundred who were fed.

    Pastor Dino Rizzo and his team have been friends, encouragers, and champions in my own little ministry. I’m so green and new at this, but they don’t care. They challenge me, love me, pray for me, inspire me, connect me with others I can learn from, and they love to learn from others too. I don’t have much to teach them, but their attitude of openness and servanthood is beyond what I could possibly describe in a blog post.

    Pastor Dino has a book out called Servolution. If you could package the DNA of Healing Place Church this book does that. I am not exaggerating when I say every single believer out there needs to read this book. We are called to transform the world with the love of Christ and Dino has been so gifted to share what he has learned along the way.

    I have ten copies of Servolution to giveaway (although I highly encourage you to go ahead and just buy it).

    Here’s how you win.

    Leave a comment about how you have seen the church BE the church lately and you’ll be entered to win. I’m going to throw in something new this time. If you use the “Tweet This” button below and retweet this post, it will count as a double entry so you’ll have a better chance of winning, plus you’ll be spreading an important message that needs to be heard.? Next Thursday I’ll randomly pick ten people and Zondervan will contact the winners to get their mailing information.

    Ready? Steady? Go.

  • The Remedy for Shame

    Shame is a sickness…

    A disease…

    That keeps us hidden.

    The remedy for shame is grace.

    Grace that requires you to step aside when you know you’re right.

    Grace that requires you to consider others better than yourself.

    Grace that hurts and is dangerous.

    Someone around you needs that grace right now.

    Go give it.

    And give it freely.