Thanks to my sister giving me a little inside-information, I heard that the introduction of Francis Chan was going to be worth recording, so I was sitting on the front row as these moments took place:
Archives For Ministry
As I end this day at Exponential I’m reviewing all that I’ve heard/felt/tasted/thought/etc…
I took notes both on my computer and in my journal – and looking back over those notes here before I go to sleep, I find the need to post some of the highlights of what I’m garnishing here on the blog.
My pre-conference workshop this morning was put on by Dave Ferguson and Jon Ferguson of Community Christian Church and founders of the New Thing Network. This morning’s workshop was initially lead by one of their apprentices, Dave Dummit (@davedummit). The one-thing I took out of that session was the importance of church-brand – not so much what people know your church as “branding”-wise, but the thought and process that goes into building that brand – that identity of your church – questioning what the essentials are and what the non-essentials are. Dave was talking about the multiplication of church campuses, but it plays over into all church-branding, I think – realizing that “brand” is much more than just a logo and that much time/energy/prayer/brainstorming needs to go into the identity you are giving a ministry.
After the pre-conference workshop, I enjoyed sitting on the second-row for “plenary” (fancy word, isn’t it?) session 1 began.
First up was Mark Batterson – a favorite author and communicator of mine. He spoke powerfully for what seemed like only 10-minutes about the ‘back-story’ and just how important it is to know it and celebrate it. His story focused on the story of Balaam in Numbers 22 and the idea that “God is more concerned about who you are becoming than where you are going.” Another quotable, “Thank God that sometimes He gets in the way!” This rang true especially at this transition in my life – I so desire for God to direct our next-steps!
Louie Giglio was up next this afternoon in our main-session. His talk reminded each of us that while we each should be pursuing ministries that model the “Acts 2 Church”, the ‘actual’ church in Acts chapter 2 had no ‘model’ or ‘idea’ of what church should look/feel/taste like. They had only three things: 1. The teachings of Jesus. 2. Eyewitness accounts of the Resurrection. and 3. The Power of the Holy Spirit.
Praise the Lord – we have the same three things! (eyewitness testimony to the ‘dead’ being ‘born again’!) My personal prayer was echoed in Giglio’s words: “Lord, free me from walking by sight!”
After the main session we were able to attend two more “work shops” in the afternoon.
My first workshop was with Kem Meyer – she is the Communications Director at Granger Community Church in Northern Indiana. She gave a great workshop on using Social Media in Ministry. I didn’t learn anything “new” per se, but I did gather some powerful statements that should encourage church leadership to understand the power and influence of Social Media in ministry settings. She posted her PowerPoint slides from her workshop on her website here. My favorite Kem-quote was, “What you put online should be an extension of who you are!” – to me, this meant to be the same guy in real-life that I am on Twitter, Facebook, etc. – not to try and be something different in my offline/online worlds – but to allow my online interactions to be an extension of the real-me. I think I already do this – I just was reminded to continue keeping that as my standard.
After Kem’s workshop we ran across campus to Tim Stevens’ workshop, “Pop Goes the Church” where he encouraged the use of popular culture in media-settings. This idea has polarizing opinions so it was fun to work through some of the issues associated with the opinion.
Tim reminded us that the Apostle Paul used “popular culture” of the day in a few instances to influence the culture and share the Gospel. While I respect the desire to not be influenced negatively by all-aspects of our culture, I also acknowledge the ability we have to re-interpret some of what our popular culture has to offer and use it for furthering the Gospel! I want to be guilty of doing this in wise, relevant, and outside-of-the-box ways.
After our workshops I hit up as many vendors as possible, signing up for numerous freebies and iPad drawings. I also gathered the free resources that were available. I also joined a few dozen Wesleyan Church planters and staff for a relaxing dinner together thanks to Chris Conrad.
I’m looking very much forward to what tomorrow holds for me and my already-overwhelmed brain!
I love my GPS. I affectionately call her “Genevieve” – because naming your GPS is becoming more and more trendy (and I gave her a British accent). Our current dash-mount GPS is the second we’ve owned as a family and I realized this week how much I rely on ‘her’.
On Monday we drove to Pittsburgh for a hospital visit in the early afternoon. I had been to this hospital before on a few occasions (using the GPS each time), but I still punched in the location to allow Genevieve to guide my way yet again even knowing I could have probably made it there on my own without her help.
After my visit, Jess had requested that we stop at her favorite make-up store in Pittsburgh, so with a few touches of the magical GPS, we were on our way. We’d been to this store before, but never from our current location – neither of us even knew if it was North of where we were or South, East, or even West – but Genevieve pointed the way and we were rocking. We arrived at the store, enjoyed an afternoon in the Shadyside Shopping District and then made dinner plans with friends. Another few touches on the GPS and we were on our way to their apartment on the other side of the city.
It was while we were driving through the city that I realized just how reliant I am on this wonderful piece of technology. There we were driving through downtown Pittsburgh in the 5 o’clock traffic relying COMPLETELY on Genevieve to navigate me through the narrow streets that I had no understanding of. That’s when the GPS started misbehaving. The buildings, you see, block the GPS signal from the satellite to our minivan – they distort the signal in such a way that Genevieve began telling me to make u-turns and turn here or there – but thankfully I had taken a look at the GPS map on-screen before these mishaps – and I knew my route was to stay on the current street until I got out of the city and onto the bridge. So I stayed the course, kept ignoring Genevieve’s insistence to GO THE OTHER WAY and we made it. As soon as we were away from Pittsburgh’s skyscrapers, Genevieve re-synced with her space-traveling counterpart and we were ‘back on course’.
There’s a lot of Spiritual-application in this story – and the obvious thing to do is to point out all the ways this plays out in my walk with Christ. I’m thankful that my Lord doesn’t get “out of sync” when directing my path. I’m grateful for 100% reliance in God who promises to never leave me (Heb. 13:5).
I’m not content with Genevieve 2.0 (my second in-dash GPS). There is already better technology available than the model we currently have. Eventually we’ll upgrade. I’m glad to know that the same is NOT true with our God. I take comfort in knowing that I serve the same God that allowed the children of Israel to walk along dry-ground between the parted Red Sea. I’m glad to know that my God is the same God that sent fire from heaven and consumed Elijah’s altar in front of the prophets of Baal. God directed Moses. God directed Elijah. God directs me. Same God. No upgrades. No new-model. No change.
Stumbled upon this great animated info graphic entitled, “The State of the Internet”:
JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.
Great pics from our Easter Egg Hunt last Saturday. Over 100 kids were a part of this community event!
