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#cultivate09 and #story09 initial thoughts

This week I attended to brand new conferences, Cultivate and Story. I can only say the teams in charge of both events did an exceptional job. I was especially happy with Cultivate because it was a format I'd never seen before. It was driven almost completely by conversation - presenters shared for a brief amount of time and the rest of the session was driven my questions and comments from the attendees. I'd say it was a huge success.

I took several pages of notes from both events. Rather than post my notes I decided that I'd take some time next week and process what all of it means. That's probably a more useful exercise and certainly more interesting to read than my random notes.

If you happen to want to know what happened at the events this week, my friend Tim Schraeder (from Park) took and posted some outstanding notes. You can also follow the key points by searching through twitter for the hashtags #cultivate09 and then #story09.

My initial takeaway from both events is that through the modern era the Church has generally increased in communicating the what of faith while sharing the why of faith less effectively. As people have become more overwhelmed with marketing messages and quick access to information our ability as leaders in the church to translate information into story, helping to express the why, is more critical than ever. It brings us to a decision: do we tell the story of faith and why it matters in compelling ways or do we just bury people in more useless junk?

Five Spring Lessons

I've learned a lot this spring. Not all of the lessons have been fun, but they're all important. I thought I'd share a bit what's been going on in my life.

Lesson One: I don't have time to take two classes. Last spring I did fine with two classes, but as the courses get more difficult and my pastoral role gets more demanding taking two seminary classes at once is more than I can handle. This semester it caused me to not sleep as much as I'd like, not see my wife as much as I'd like, not plan and write as much as I'd like. Take away: no more than one Asbury class each semester.

Lesson Two: I love meeting people that I've connected with online. I've always maintained relationships online, but this spring I got the opportunity to make some cool new friends that I later met in person. If you've been reading this blog or following me on twitter and we've never met, see the next lesson.

Lesson Three: Prioritization matters. I've booked some speaking/training engagements in the later part of the year and I really want to control how much time I'm away from home. The schedule filling up means that I need to make a short list of events I really want to attend this year. After a great week at Q I've made a list. Right now I'm planning to be at:

• Cultivate (October 27) - Where culture, innovation and communication meet. I'm excited to see where this conversation based event leads me.
• Dirt (November 10-11) - Creative conference looking to break the mold of creative conferences for the church.
• I'll also be in Wilmore, KY for the week of August 10 for a class at Asbury.

    Events that are on the list, but still not 100% on the calendar:

• MinistryCOM (September 10-11 ) - Probably not going to make it to MinistryCOM this year, but I might still squeeze it into the schedule.
• Innovate 2009 (September 24-25) - I've loved going to Innovate for the past several years. I've got another event on the 25th and 26th which means I'm probably not going to Innovate this year.
• Story (October 28-29) - Ben Arment's latest project looks really interesting. How do we tell the greatest story ever?
• MAX (October 4-7 ) - I think I've only missed one of these (counting back to the 1997 Macromedia UCON). I love the designer/developer community/content at this event and it's great creative inspiration from the marketplace. It's a bit spendy though.

Lesson Four: I feel better when I eat right and exercise. This is absolutely a no-brainer, but I've found that the busier I get the first thing that goes is exercise followed by good eating habits. I'm slightly embarrassed by the number of days this spring my lunch has been a bag of chips or some cookies.

Lesson Five: Relationships matter more than tasks. This is one that is a real challenge for me. I'm incredibly type A and very task driven. The more stressed I get the more likely I am to let relational/emotional intelligence issues slide. I'm really thankful for a group of friends and coworkers that both understand how my personality works and are willing to tell me when I'm being a jerk.

Bonus Lesson: There's nothing quite like being able to work from a patio in 75° weather. I'm glad that it's an option some days.

What have you learned this spring?

Q 2009 - Initial Thoughts

I've been in Austin this week for Q, a conference that brings together leaders to discuss how the church, culture, future and Gospel all relate. The event brings together people from numerous spheres of influence, slightly more than half were primarily connected to the church. Over the course of three days we heard 18 minute presentations on topics ranging from the narrative of Scripture to nuclear  disarmament to neuroscience. Interspersed with the presentations were a lot of opportunities for conversation. This is one of the first conferences I've been to where absolutely every session sparked something for me. It was also great to catch up with friends I haven't seen in awhile and meet a lot of new people.

Alan Hirsch gave a great opening presentation and I had the opportunity to have several follow up conversations with him about a missional approach to church, technology, ethnography in a digital world, and how age-specific ministry fits with a both/and attractional/missional ministry model.

Probably most important takeaway from this session was that discipleship is much more important than conversion. Hirsch uses the example of the disciples in Scripture, who by modern "baptized by the spirit" standards weren't converted until Pentecost, yet were still disciples. It's about the direction of your life and learning to follow Jesus than getting people to a statement of faith. The church should be more about helping people grow than about trying to convert them. People who are being truly being discipled (as described in Scripture) will come to faith because their lives are moving in the direction of God.

Some other thoughts:

• The church has gotten really good at extracting people from culture but is not very good at keeping people in cultural relationships once they become Christian.
• Holiness has been defined negatively (by what we don't do) rather than the way Jesus exhibited holiness redemptively.
• Christianity should be about redeeming the world, not fleeing from the world. How can we ensure that discipleship isn't an isolationist activity.
• Current church models will realistically only connect with 30-40% of the population. What models need to be developed to reach the other 60-70% of people?

I'll write some more about other sessions, but now I have to get on the plane.

MAX 2008

I had a great time at MAX this year. It was probably the best conference Adobe has put on in several years. Each year I make claims that I may not come back next year because of disappointment. After this year I have no plans to miss MAX next year (although I don't like it being in LA). Usually I have the experience of skipping sessions to hang out and network with people in the Community Lounge.

The main educational value coming from one or two sessions that blow me away. Sometimes it's hard to make a schedule for the conference. I always have a couple of can't miss sessions, but the others usually seem lackluster. This year was totally different. I only had four slots that didn't have a good fit for me. Most of the sessions had several presentations that interested me. I found it hard to pick between several good topics - an ideal situation in a conference. My big complaint is that a lot of the sessions were only offered once. The sessions are all supposed to be posted on Adobe TV so hopefully I'll be able to catch those I wasn't able to see at the event.

My favorite sessions:

• Anatomy of a Video Player
• Hands on with Flash Catalyst (Thermo)
• Using Flex and Adobe AIR to Automate Creative Suite 4 Workflows
• Creating Effects with Pixel Bender
• Programmatic Animations in After Effects with Expressions and Scripting
• Both Keynotes were also really good

If this pattern holds, MAX getting better every year, next year should be great. This year it had the same feel I remember from the Macromedia UCON days. Great job Adobe!

Las Vegas!

I got into Vegas last night around 9pm. MAX officially starts today with preconference activities - I've got the User Group event this afternoon. Not sure what the plan is for the day, but I don't have to be anywhere until about 4 pm. I know there's fasion show mall about a block away, so I can do some shopping. I have to eat some good food while I'm here this week.

Last night Jeff & I tried to go out. No luck. We ended up the the Romainians (formerly Interakt, now Adobe) and a group of 10 guys has a really tough time getting into a club. Tonight we're eating at Tao and will probably just head up to the nightclub from the restaurant. I'm seriously wanting to do some dancing this week.

MAX 2005 - Anaheim

I've been getting ready to leave for a week of learning, networking, and fun at what will probably be the last Macromedia conference. I've been going to Macromedia conferences for years (several in San Francisco, New York, Salt Lake City, New Orleans, etc) -- actually the only one I've missed in a LONG time was the Orlando one after the Allaire merger.

I'm hoping that this will be a great conference. I'm especially excited about the Flash platform (mainly FlexBuilder 2 aka Zorn) and Flash Lite -- I've got a Flash enabled phone now.

I'm also hoping there will be some good Southern California food to be consumed. If you have SoCal eateries to suggest let me know. I'm mainly going to be in Anaheim and Orange County, but I may have a car so LA isn't out of the question. I'm pondering trying to find some good BBQ.

Acme Oyster House

Last night we went to Acme Oyster House for dinner. We started out as a group of about 12 MMUG managers, but ended up with about 19 of us. Acme is a New Orleans establishment. It's your classic oyster bar and cafe with reasonable prices and good food.

I started out with some raw oysters and then had the New Orleans Medley. The oysters were great. Not the best I've ever had, but close. The cocktail sauce served with the oysters was not quite as hot as I would have liked, but the quality of the oysters easily made up for it. The medley is a sampler that includes seafood gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, and smoked sausage. All I really need to say is tasty. The only lackluster part of the meal was the french bread which was quite tough.

If you're looking for oysters Acme is a great place to get them.

Finally in New Orleans

Going to grab a quick bite to eat and then try to get some work done on the costume before tonight's festivities. Hoping tomorrow won't be too rough on me given the party tonight.

Rob has posted great commentary on Bayona. It's one of the places I'd like to try and eat while I'm here. Unfortunately there's not enough time to eat everywhere.

SGF Wifi & TSA Searches

I'm currently enjoying the free wifi network at the Springfield-Branson airport. I've got to say this is a much better experience that going flying out of a bigger airport (and a nicer airport than Columbia).

Most people seem to be sailing from check-in to the gate in about five minutes. I was unlucky enough to be one of the "randomly" selected people for full checks. Possibly because I'm not checking any bags?

So the TSA needs a bit of a wake up call when it comes to people with orthopedic implants. I've got four screws and two plates in my spine from breaking my back about 10 years ago. They don't set off the standard metal detectors, but the hand wands sure go crazy over my back. The search I was subjected to was one step shy of a strip search.

I'm glad this didn't happen in a major airport and I think I may check my bags on the way back.

All that aside I'm about 30 minutes from my flight to Dallas and then 4.5 hours from New Orleans. I've got several hours of television on the tibook and a bunch of candy to make the trip more enjoyable.

Next post, NEW ORLEANS!

Leaving for MAX

I'm leaving this morning for MAX. Should be to NOLA by about 2:30! A group of the MMUG managers are getting together this evening in costume for some Halloween festivities. If you feel like joining us post a comment here and I'll get you the details.