Second, I apologize for taking so long to respond. I am not ignoring anyone. Here is a glimpse into why its taken me so long. My family left town almost 3 weeks ago. Since then I have signed a contract to build a house, leased a house, and sold a house we owned. That’s three houses to juggle. Craziness.

I have also moved from house to house and cleaned two houses. All of this has happened while also having several meetings for the new church, choosing a church name, trying to meet people in the community, and establishing 501C3 status, getting accounts set up, etc.

Oh, and I don’t have an internet connection because AT&T stinks.

So, forgive me for not replying fast enough.

Third, I confess my ignorance and I apologize to all of the designers out there who are hacked about this. My intentions were certainly not to upset anyone. I chose to do this at the advice of a good friend who owns a very reputable design / website company who was already slated to design us a logo. He even thought it was a great idea.

Also, I had my own design business for churches for almost 5 years. At the peak I had 36 clients in 16 states…not the big time I realize, but not too shabby either for a pastor with a laptop and Macromedia Studio 8. Oh, and I charged $250 to do logos…

Designers and creatives, please understand that I love you and value you a great deal. I myself am a creative. I also served as Executive Pastor / Creative Pastor at a church plant for almost 5 years working with creatives who all loved this idea of a logo contest. This will not be our last logo. Shoot me your design company’s info so that I can keep it for future reference if you are a designer.

Fourth, to the guy who threatened me on twitter, bring it. I will not tolerate threats on my life and I don’t care how manly you think are sitting behind your computer and haggling people on twitter. Do you always threaten people for having contests? Have you threatened Ed Mcmahon? Are you the leader of some designer mafia? Ridiculous. You have been reported.

Fifth, the thing that really makes me feel bad is how we’ve all acted here. Sheesh.

And finally, the contest will continue. With over 85 submissions, I can’t pull it down. BTW many of those submissions are people who own and operate design companies and were excited to be a part of this. And we’ve already received some INCREDIBLE logos. I am blown away by the creativity out there!

Thanks to everyone working on logos to help us as we begin our journey of reaching people here in our community.

And thanks to everyone else for sharing your thoughts. The one thing I admire most is when people stick up for what they believe in, whether I agree or not. And I REALLY admire those who can do it in a way that is not mean-spirited or detrimental to the mission that all Christians are called to.

I’ll just remain big in Japan, eating my chocolate Jesus