Emerging Conservative

I say day one because the conference part started today. Yesterday was the pre labs….

It was a full day and I must admit, I probably should have waited to blog on all this when I got home after I rested and processed. I will do that later but here’s a quick overview before I fall asleep.

So we travel into the conference center which yesterday held about 1500 people but today is packed with about 12,000. We took in the sights as much is going on from a more artistic and experience oriented conference. There are multiple vendors, performers in the halls and outside, signs and other items of visual interest, a girl riding on the shoulders of a guy telling us the conference is about to begin, others passing out candy, and so on and so forth.

Inside, we find more great worship and speakers….

Andy Stanley got the ball rolling and was interesting as he usually is (a compliment). He spoke on Nehemiah and focused on the importance for spiritual leaders to be of moral integrity to maintain positive influence in the lives of others. Andy is the pastor of  Northpoint in Georgia and one of the founders of this events which started 9 years ago. His most recent book is Making Vision Stick.

After that, there was an interview with the author of the Shack which is a controversial fiction book that has been kind of an accidental best seller. I’m about half way through and thought the talk was done pretty well. (On any of these, if you want more details, let me know and I’ll give you more thoughts.)

After that was Jim Collins who is a facts and date man. He did an interesting study of what makes good church into a great church. His book on the topic is called (are you ready?) Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap and others don’t). It produced a couple good questions for us to talk about as a leadership team but it was also pretty dry. I had try to read his book but it had the same effect on me. I guess I’m not as in love with data as Jim.

Then came Brenda Salter (A Credible Witness). I have to admit it started a little slow as it took a little while to build her base and she was covering some points that I had heard before by others who went deeper. However, at one point, it was just like the Spirit hit her, she did not become so dependent on her notes and she found her groove. The last half was very powerful as she went deeper into being willing to get messy and creating relationships outside of your norm.

Probably the surprise hit for me was Pastor Steven Furtick from Elevation Church. He is a young pastor and though he had a church of seven families 2 years ago which is now a church of 5,000, I was a little skeptical. It just seemed he was young and not a lot of time to gain the experience that would be looking to from a speaker at a conference like this. However, this guy just took the house down. His perspective was dead on and the faith walk he described was incredible. He had brought those first families that started the church with him to honor them for what they had done. When they signed on, they had no idea where the church was going to be (in the country) yet were willing to submit all to follow God. It was pretty cool and I hope to see more from him.

Next was a short interview with a 14 year old kid named Austin who had a heart when he was 9 to help orphan kids in foreign countries. He started a basketball fundraiser which is in it’s fifth year that has raised over $400,000 for those kids which has already built a school for them and now building a medical center to help the parents who have AIDS. He did this work through Compasion International. Great testimony!

Seth Godin, the marketing guru was next. Though he is not in the “church” arena, he had great insights on how marketing no longer works for church (and other areas) but how relationships build community. Actually, he talked about how we work in “Tribes“, his new book. Very well done. He has the most popular business blog of all times and is best known for his book “Purple Cow“.

Craig Greshel (It) finished up the day with an incredible talk that was challenging and touching. He focused on Joel 2:12-13 and talked about, as church leaders, the need to be broken, healed, and stretched by God. Many pastors came to the Lord for renewal tonight expressing the need to receive their first love back in their ministry. It was a very powerful night.

The worship was great as well today with the lead singer from Switchfoot and the worship band Fee.

Well, I think that’s about all the energy I have left. Good night and more will be to come.

For bios on all main stage speakers, go here.