Cup o Joe With Anthony Coppedge

Had a pleasant surprise, yesterday when I received an email from the all time great church media guru, Anthony Coppedge. He had stumbled upon the Compass Church website, and sent me a very nice hello.

Well, it turns out we were able to connect today at a new coffee shop in Watauga called "Lynn's Coffee House." (Cool Coffee shop, by the way. Couches, Big TV, about four computers with free high speed connections, and nice atmosphere. There was also free wi-fi, I believe. I'd provide a link, but believe it or not, they don't have a website, yet!)

Anthony arrived a few minutes before I did and so my first image of Anthony when I walked through the door was of him stepping away from the computers to greet me. How stereotypical but cool is that?

We had a great conversation and I discovered that Anthony is a great guy with a good sense of humor and a very good handle on technology! Yes, the rumors are true. Anthony knows his stuff. He's had an amazing journey in ministry, and I really enjoyed hearing his story and hanging out with him, today.

On a side note, it was slightly surreal to find that we had common connections in blogland. As we talked, we were bringing up different names of people that we had never actually met in person, but only in the wonderful land of blog. (Maybe there should be a new movie called, "The Wizard of Blog." Hmm...) It is kind of weird talking about people that you feel like you know but whom you don't "really" know, and realizing that they have become a part of your life and way of thinking. There has to be a term for that. Blogality? Natural Bloggression? Blogfluence? Psychosis? Ok, I'm blogging down here, but you know what I mean.

One more thing. Those of you who've read this blog for a while already know this, but I've had to par back and become McGyver with technology over this past year for a number of reasons. Some are financial and some are just because I'm radioactive or something. So today when Anthony was checking his Blackberry, I was fumbling around with my "old school" spiral notebook because my Pocket Pc bit the dust months ago. Pretty honkin' embarassing!

Planning to get together with Anthony again, in a couple of weeks. Maybe he'll agree to a quick audio post, a la Steve Dilla? Who knows? Just have to wait and see.

Check out Anthony's Cool Church Tech blog here.