conference

right,
so 98% of the National New Church Conference rocked. I was totally excited and inspired and got a TON of great practical and theory ideas. The best part was being around so many people who were so passionate about reaching the lost for Christ, it was contagious. Paradoxically, missing a week of school gave me the inspiration to come back and really knock out this semester, it reminded me why I was in school.


I'll briefly address the 2% that wasn't cool.

1. I'm still a little queasy about printing the death certificate for the traditional American church. To the guys that are in LA, New York, DC, I can totally see you're reaching people that would never darken the door of a traditional church. But in some of the smaller towns, I'm wondering if it's not just siphoning off all the people who are really excited about being a part of the body of Christ. And the numbers emphasis gets a little concerning sometimes. Also, talking from a DiSC perspective, I pray to God that he has engineered teams around some of the PAINFULLY high D guys I heard at this conference that can mellow them out and reign them in a little. Seriously, is obnoxious like a job skill in this field?

2. Mark Driscoll video
so seriously watch it for yourself before you see what I have to say about it.

Honestly, it was kind of a slap in the face. After spending a whole week listening to these guys, being inspired by their stories, hearing about God's vision for reaching the lost and how the church is part of it, I was shocked. I thought, is this really what you think? That I have no place in God's vision?

What I heard from that video was: We don't want you, we don't need you, and there are too many of your type around here anyway. I was sitting back really trying to listen to what he had to say until: "60% of all Christians today are female. I'm glad that the ladies love Jesus. But if you want to win a war, you've got to get the men" At that point, I thought, nope, I'm not just a little annoyed at non gender-inclusive language, he really is saying he could care less about women as far as their role in "winning the war". So I was miffed.

This conference had representative from all sorts of denominations and I thought they did a fair job of being ecumenical. And there are some denominations that don't approve of women in leadership. Fine, I'm not applying for jobs with them. But this was more than a doctrinal disagreement, this just said we don't need women for anything but sex. (That was the only context in which women played a role in this call to arms).

Also, seriously could have done without the homo phobia and violent images. Yes, Paul uses soldier language, but the picture of the cocked handgun on the cover of the dvd that was handed out was a little much, especially the week after VTech. And yes, at least a few were handed out, (I got three handed to me, I guess because I'm a woman and REALLY needed to hear it) despite some belly aching and over-reaction (small note if you go read the over reaction, Wayne Cordeiro is half Asian, a quarter native Hawaiian and a quarter Portuguese. A least be accurate in your ranting and try not to show so obviously you weren't at the event you are blasting)

Then Bill Hybels, bless him, who I had never heard of before this conference and is apparently the church planting Billy Graham got up and said, "After that eight minute video, I would just like to affirm that women exist in the world, they have spiritual gifts and they are very useful to church planting" That's all. Some of the blogs say he "ripped into Mark" and that he shouldn't say anything because he's not on the front lines of church planting. Whatever. (Side note: the man cleaned up other people's vomit at 4 am on Sundays for 6 years so his church could meet in a movie theater that showed horror movies on Saturday night.) But in that very small statement, he told me that I did actually have worth as a human being.

So yeah, as an introduction to Mark Driscoll, I thought he was a jerk. But I don't want to leave it there, I want to find out more about him and what he is doing and hope to have a changed perspective

ok, on to the good stuff

did a pre-conference intensive with Mark Batterson and Brad Abare both very cool people I had to restrain myself from throwing resumes at. Learned a ton of practical stuff, but mostly was excited to see people excited about communicating God's message with integrity, passion and creativity. Quote of the session "There are ways to do church that no one has thought of yet".

Main sessions in the gigantor sanctuary of First Baptist Orlando, (it has its own zip code. I'm not kidding) Very, very cool. Good speakers, good worship, many different styles of both.

One brief interlude for snarky comment: The first worship guys were what I call nouveau punk for lack of a better term. See previous posts about architectural hair and skinny legged jeans. So you know that cool bell tone used so often by the likes of Coldplay? Usually done with a keyboard right? Well, I guess these guys decided to be more authentic and broke out what I can only call punk glockenspiel. You know the tiny xylophones we played in grade school? Yep those. But played by the lead singer with one mallet. He had two but the other was being waved around in what can only be described as a Mick Jagger marching glockenspiel dance. I couldn't help it. I laughed. Out loud. Everything he did it. Which was several. Smoking a turd in purgatory for that one.

If you go to the site, I did most of the workshops in the pre launch track, all very good with standouts being Jim Putman who has a phenomenal take on discipleship. It's a lot to say for a blog, but if you want the notes from the session, I'll be glad to email them. Quote from his session "That which is not intentional is irreproducible." I think that is such a small thing that is so key. At least for me, we did so much "relational discipleship" that in reality was just hanging out and that is REALLY important, but if it's all free form, how are our disciples supposed to learn how to make disciples? Food for thought.

Also Vince Antonucci totally couldn't do everything he does, but it works for his context. His was very practical. Best quote about setting up a church specifically targeted at people who hate church and are totally un churched :"Church is weird enough all ready. The Cross is weird. Communion is weird. Could we not set up the band like some kind of Chicago reunion tour and make it look like a real band? At least one thing would be less weird." You know what he's talking about. Line of 5 lady singers, three drum sets, a trumpet, all lined up across the stage. Also, if you get a chance, check out their videos, especially paco the disco gorilla. I'm serious. It's like church planting and campus ministry share a brain sometimes. They base a lot of their stuff on Letterman and Conan O'Brien, but that is the people they want to reach.

on the subject of cool videos, check out Community Christian Church Naperville. My favorite are the Christian/Christ follower, Mac/PC parodies. I don't think non-Christians get as wrapped around the axle about the term Christian as most "Christ-followers" do, but very very funny none the less.

A couple of the other speakers in the workshops gave great sermons, but not workshops and didn't necessarily talk about the subject they were slated to, so that was a little disappointing.

I was impressed with the overall message of the conference which was you can learn all the tips and tricks you want, but you've got to love God and love people or you will be an abysmal failure at church planting.

It was also very cool to spend time with Robert and Derlani and Rudolpho who would be part of the team if we decided to go to Portugal. And we stayed in a ROCKING house courtesy of Stadia. When they first said we could stay in the houses with their groups, I was picturing sacking out on someone's couch that they knew and I was totally grateful. But no, these were 4 bedroom rental houses with a pool. What a great surprise and blessing. Plus, since it had a kitchen we could cook ourselves and cut way down on the expense of eating. And Derlani cooked Brazilian food one night. Mmmmm... beans and rice *slobber*. So good.

So, to sum up: very very cool conference, totally worth going. I would recommend it to any one and I'm thinking about going back next year if we stay on this church-planting road that God seems to be leading us down.

conference-prequel

right, so went to the national new church conference last week, way too much cool stuff to post right now. I would have been all hip and tech savy and blogged through it, but when the church said they had wifi they meant they have wifi when 2000 tech savy church planters aren't visiting. Network wasn't big enough. Rats. Anyway, for those of you of the the church planted persuasion, peruse here and see who was there and what they were teaching on. They promise that several of the sessions and workshops will be there to download.

Seth's parents are in town, so we are going to hang out with them, but I promise more details later!