So humbling, and very, very exciting all at the same time. The reviewer (who, come to find out, was on the Biggest Loser) calls it 3 resources in 1!

You can read the review here.

You can also purchase the DVD and its Participant Guide at a discounted rate here.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

My publisher just put a huge discount on Amazon for my book on Kindle, lasting the whole week after Christmas! So for you new (and veteran) Kindle owners after Christmas, my book is

now only $2.99!!!

You can buy it here.

Read the Introduction to my award winning book for free here.

Thank you to everyone who has bought, read and passed along my book over the last two years. The stories we continue to receive about the impact the book has had over the last two and a half years, have been quite overwhelming. I believe my book is on its 9th printing and about 50,000 copies sold in the different formats… which is amazing to think about when I didn’t even know if anyone would read my book in my first place. And once again, 100% of the profits from my book go directly to support the work of The Marin Foundation.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Much love. And have a great Christmas!

www.themarinfoundation.org

So when the mail got dropped off at The Marin Foundation’s office today there were 3 huge boxes. The sender was Zondervan. I thought… Here it is! The DVD Curriculums are here! So give me some grace and view the excitement with me of opening the very first copies of our new Love Is an Orientation DVD and Participant Guide.

It officially releases on December 13th.

You can pre-order the DVD and Participant Guide combo pack here.

You can pre-order the DVD by itself here.

You can pre-order additional Participant Guides by themselves here.

I’m popping it in my DVD player right now… Can’t wait to watch it myself as I haven’t seen the final version yet. Awesome!

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org 

So exciting! It’s almost release day for our new Love Is an Orientation DVD Curriculum which is set to release on December 13th (for those of you not in North America it will release January 1 through your respective Amazon sites and the Zondervan website).

This new resource will be for any church, university, non-profit, organization, clinic, community center, small group of friends or individuals interested in what it means to not only elevate the conversation between the LGBT community and the conservative world, but also culturally engage each community through our Living in the Tension (LITT) gatherings—as there will be an entire session devoted to building and sustaining your own LITT group. We are so, so pumped about this new resource and pray it has a huge impact in continuing to spread this bridge building movement! The six sessions will include:

1) Love is an Orientation

2) Building Bridges between Conservatives and the LGBT Community

3) Theology of Bridge Builders

4) Answering the Tough Questions

5) Teens and Sexuality

6) Living in the Tension Gatherings

We also interviewed six LGBT people from around the country, coming from all different theological, social, and political perspectives, so you can get to know them and where they’re coming from by hearing their stories from their perspectives.

We filmed in a dozen locations around Boystown and the city of Chicago, and we’re just really proud of how everything is turning out.

You can pre-order from Amazon here (DVD), here (Participant Guides) and here (Combo Pack).

Here are a few pics from our time filming. I’ll be posting many more from all of our different locations and our different interviews soon…

Looking forward for you to all have a chance to engage with it. Please feel free to post this anywhere you want to start spreading the word!

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

A few days ago the BBC World News featured the work of The Marin Foundation in written and audio form! Above is a screenshot I took of the BBC’s home page on their website… And that’s us as the feature story! It’s been crazy since it went live. We have gotten tons of folks reaching out from all over the world. This impact of our story is being felt! It’s such a humbling thing to have happen, and it’s definitely surreal to know that our bridge building message is getting spread across the globe through the most internationally trusted media company in existence. Just unreal.

You can read the full article here

You can listen to the 30 minutes segment the BBC ran on us here (and you have about 30 days to download it to keep it if you want)

Yesterday I got an email from the BBC and they gave me the following, crazy, update about our stories since they went live:

—Our radio segment (which has also been featured throughout America on NPR) is the most listened to segment of any from the BBC World Service

—Our radio segment is the most downloaded segment of any from the BBC World Service

—Our article is the 2nd most shared article of any story on any of the BBC websites

—Our article is the 3rd most read article on any of the BBC websites

I have to thank Christopher Landau so very much. He was the producer of the segment, as well as the writer of the article. Christopher was the one who fought for this story to be done! Even after some higher-ups said no to his initial proposal, he kept at it over almost 1 full year (!!!!) before they finally said yes. And now look what is happening! Brenda and I first met Christopher while I was speaking in London earlier this year. He had read my book when it first released in 2009 and as he said, “kept it in the back of my head to do a story on it for just this time.”

I’m not the most trusting person when it comes to media folks… They never seem to quite tell the truth in how they are going to present or edit something. But Christopher did exactly what he said he was going to do. A stand up man. A balanced journalist. And now a person ever so dear to not only my heart, but the millions his work has reached around the world.

Just absolutely amazing what the Lord is doing with this.

No matter the outcome, faithfulness always wins out.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

The past few days we have been finishing the filming for our new DVD curriculum. You can find more details about it here. Pictures from the behind the scenes of our time at the different locations with our different teaching sessions, intros and interviews, will be posted soon! Here is one that was taken yesterday from my phone, by Kevin, while filming parts of the 2nd Session.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

Note – This is a completely fun and unscientific analysis of Amazon

Every author will tell you they don’t look at their Amazon ranking for a number of reasons like:

–Ranking only takes into account the books (print or digital) sold on Amazon, and not in book stores or on Google Books or iBooks or the like;

or

–Because there are about 6 million books on Amazon the coding that determines the ranking takes into consideration tons of little things that don’t determine your book’s sales, but only how your book compares to others sold on Amazon;

or

–There is no definitive number of books sold that equates a certain overall ranking number

or

–Because your agent, publisher and other authors all tell you not to pay attention to Amazon rankings because their agent, publisher or other authors told them that too.

Yet, every single person with a book or product on Amazon checks their Amazon ranking. It’s just a fact. Even as authors’ check their ranking they actively tell other authors or people not to check it for any one of the aforementioned four reasons. As William Wallace from Braveheart said

FREEEEEDOOOOM!

There it is. I’m now free… I check my Amazon ranking! Sometimes once a week; sometimes once every other day; sometimes twice a day. I don’t know. There’s no rhyme or reason. Some of it is just the shear shock that people still want to read my book

Anyway, the other week I noticed that on my book’s page it said there were

“18 books left in stock — more to come soon”

It was 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon and my overall Amazon ranking was 21,648 out of the 6,000,000-something books on Amazon. I figured that would be a fun barometer to see how long it took to sell those 18 books.

Wednesday afternoon at 3pm it said there were 14 books left in stock, and my ranking was 17,237. 4 books sold in one day made my book jump about 4,000.

Thursday afternoon at 3pm it said there were 7 books left in stock, and my ranking was 12,894. 7 books sold in one day made my book jump about 5,000.

Friday afternoon at 3pm it said there was 1 book left in stock, and my ranking was 10,945. 6 books sold in one day only made my book jump about 2,000.

Saturday afternoon at 3pm my book was fully restocked and the ranking was back up to 18,545… and I was back to not knowing anything. Here’s what I concluded from my happen-chance three day experiment:

I definitively sold 17 print books in a 72 hour period (average of 5.7 books sold per day), and that lowered my overall Amazon ranking by about 11,000. Now once again, that ranking is dependent upon how all of the other 6,000,000 books sell, but at least I can deduct this:

By that equation (which I can guarantee you is not accurate to Amazon’s actual coding) every book sold lowers the ranking by about 647 positions in Amazon’s overall ranking based on about 5.7 books sold per day, which, by my ranking in Year 2 of my book’s existence, is a pretty consistent fluctuation of the overall rankings of where my book sits (usually between 10,000-28,000 overall ranking).

Thus, my guess–in my book’s current pace–is that if my overall ranking is around 10,000-12,000, I’ve probably sold about 15-17 books in the previous three days; or about 5 or 6 books per day. If my overall ranking is around 20,000-28,000, I’ve probably sold about 8 books, or 2.5 books per day. If it’s around 50,000 it’s about 1 book per day; 100,000 1 book every other day; and so on.

So go on, continue checking those Amazon rankings and one day you too will know how many books you sell-ish. Kind of. Well, not really. We’ll never know the code. I just thought this was fun and like my deductions – even if they’re totally wrong

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

The Marin Foundation team is very excited to announce that we have officially signed a contract with Zondervan Publishers to produce a six session DVD, with a Participant Guide, on building bridges!

This new resource will be for any church, university, non-profit, organization, clinic, community center, small group of friends or individuals interested in what it means to not only elevate the conversation between the LGBT community and the conservative world, but also culturally engage each community through our Living in the Tension (LITT) gatherings – where there will be an entire session devoted to building and sustaining your own LITT group.

We are so, so excited about this new resource and pray it has a huge impact moving forward to continue spreading this bridge building movement! It is currently scheduled to release in January 2012, and I will be keeping everyone up to date on our progress throughout this new experience. We are blessed to enter into this partnership with Zondervan Publishers, who have been the driving force behind making this resource a reality. They are the publishing leader in producing high quality, mass-market DVD curriculums (Rob Bell’s NOOMA series, NT Wright, Tim Keller and Gabe Lyons among others), and we are humbled they believe so strongly in us and our bridge building work. We have a conference call with them next week, and will be solidifying the scheduling, session titles and content. So stay tuned for the breakdown for all of that.

In the meantime, is there anything you would like to see us cover in the DVDs and participant’s guide? We want to make this as practical as possible and would love your thoughts.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

I just received an email from my publisher alerting me to the fact that Love is an Orientation is now available in the Google eBookstore! That means that you can now electronically buy my book for your:

Android phone

iPhone, iPad and iTouch

On the web on your computer

Nook and Sony’s e-readers

Sweet! Here is the link to Google’s eBookstore and here is the direct link to Love is an Orientation. I’m really pumped about this as many people have been asking me about it. I pray this makes our bridge building message that much more accessable.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

Since Love is an Orientation started to get some notoriety I have been asked quite a few times to endorse people’s forthcoming books. I have learned that there are three main philosophies on giving endorsements, and I list them in descending order from most popular philosophy to least popular:

1. Endorse every book asked of you to get your name/book/website out there as broad as possible—hey, you can always find something nice to say about a book

2. Endorse books only from your friends—that way you won’t have to read the books, you can just say something great about the person you already love

3. Endorse only what you read and fully believe in, whether you know the person or not

As with everything else in my life, I can’t help myself but to choose the least traveled road; even if it does cost me. Therefore I have turned down every endorsement I have been asked to give for a book because when I read the book in full (which I do every time), whether I know the person or not, if I don’t 100% believe in it, I won’t endorse it.

The first book I have ever endorsed is Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality by Michael Spencer, aka the Internet Monk. Over the last few years I have gotten to know Michael, on a personal level, very well. Even before we met, he believed in me and my work stronger than anyone! And our relationship just continued to grow.

We spend countless hours talking trash to each other about the Reds and the Cubs (yes, I wore that shirt in the picture on purpose!). We supported each other. We prayed for each other. We encouraged each other. We loved each other. He even volunteered to be my body-guard! And then Michael got diagnosed with a very advanced form of cancer and he passed away a few months ago.

Yet his words, his message, his dying plea to the Church lives on forever through his first, and now only book, Mere Churchianity.

Not only did I believe in him, I believed in his passionate message of claiming a Jesus-shaped spirituality in this post-evangelical wilderness we find ourselves in. Michael was saying that long before any of these other “cool Christians” who are now saying it and claiming it as their own. That is why I wrote the following endorsement for Michael’s book (when asked me to do so the summer before he fell ill. I wrote this when Michael had not yet passed away; how strange the message holds true whether in life or death):

“Michael Spencer has been the voice of a generation as the Internet Monk. And now in his highly anticipated manifesto, Mere Churchianity, Spencer writes for a new generation of people that are struggling to figure out what it means to live a real Jesus-shaped spirituality—one that has finally been released from the oppressive burdens of the dominating religious, political and cultural norms that suffocate our everyday existence. Mere Churchianity not only delivers, but its message will live on forever through the lives that can’t help but be irrevocably changed by reading this book.”

I literally meant every single word I wrote about it. Please, if there is anything I can ask of you, please buy Michael’s book. Not only do I promise you will love and be challenged by every page, but this is also the way that you will be able to financially support Michael’s wife and children. There is a bigger message and impact than just the $9.44 you will pay for this book!

I urge you to please join with me and help Michael’s legacy live on for generations to come!

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

This is just amazing! I just found out that Love is an Orientation just won its 5th national book award. Outreach Magazine gave Love is an Orientation their Culture Award for the Outreach Resources of the Year. You can see the release here.

As I was writing this book during May and June of 2008, I earnestly prayed that each and every sentence would be given by the Lord, and used for God’s ultimate purposes in everyone’s life who reads it. My goal was, and always is, impact; not units sold. Yet the Lord has given both – and these 5 awards that my book has won is more than anything I could have even imagined. The impact is being felt, and I couldn’t be more humbled and literally taken back by this whole thing.

I love you all so much for believing so strongly in this bridge building movement. ‘Thank you’ just doesn’t do the intentions of my soul justice.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org

Wow. This one’s a big one! The widely read and extremely respected publication Leadership Journal has just announced that Love is an Orientation won The Golden Canon Leadership Award for being selected as one of the Best 10 Overall Books of 2009. Here is the release.

I’m speechless. For real.

Thank you all so much for your overwhelming love and support. This is humbling beyond expression for me right now.

Much love.

www.themarinfoundation.org