What’s the big idea?
This last weekend I experienced a fantastic conference called “The Idea Camp” that was conceived and led by my friend and colleague Charles Lee. This was a phenomenal event. I could go on and on about why I think it was great. For instance: participatory dialogue; no “talking heads” on the platform, rather interviews; a really good—but not arrogant—use of technology; an intense but focused schedule of a day and a half; pre-event, during the event, and post-event interaction with the presenters and facilitators; no product sales; the conference was totally free for everyone!
But this blog is about something else. My 8 year old artist son texted me (through my wife) and said “Dad, are you having fun at the idea camp? Can I go to that someday so I can come up with new ideas for my cartoons?” Participating in something called The Idea Camp should have cultivated some ideas, right? Here are a few that floated to the surface for me.
1. Listening: Erwin McManus was great (as usual). For him, ministry does not come down to tools or technique, but at its heart it is learning how to really listen to people and listen for what God is doing and saying in their lives. That is the role of a pastor. Challenging…I need to learn to listen better.
2. Using Technology Wisely: The emerging generation is constantly on Facebook, twitter, and their cell phones. If we are not engaging them through those technologies, we are missing out on a whole swath of their conversation space. The church needs to engage people where they are at; and where they are at is online. Not only is it relevant, but it can be hugely effective and save the church organization quite a bit of money, if it is processed correctly.
3. Marketing the church: Marketing is simply reflecting who a church is so a larger group of people can understand it well. Marketing starts with the mission, not the other way around. So the question is: “does the vision and personality of our church come across in our efforts to communicate who we are?” The session on communicating the identity of the church was actually the beginning of a conversation about discovering and articulating that identity and finding the core…and the discussion never really made it to marketing (which is fine). We can’t hope to communicate what and who we are if we don’t really know who we are, first.
4. Caring about people: The subtext to the whole event was compassion in action. Yes there was a lot about technology, and some really cool people with really great ideas, but the goal was not to be cool, the goal was using these ideas and conversations to encourage one another to touch our world with Jesus’ love and grace. I loved that there was nobody trying to talk people into this kind of compassion; it was just understood that it is what we all want. We spent the weekend collaborating together and challenging one another regarding how to do it better.
So, it was good. Real good! It inspired me and challenged me. More than that, it supported some radical change that the Lord has been doing in me at just the right time. I’ll look back on this weekend and know that it was a defining moment for my life.
If you are interested in seeing some of what was said at The Idea Camp, check out the Vimeo site : The videos of the main sessions are posted there, and each presenter only shared about 15-20 minutes. Bite sized enough to spend some time watching; powerful enough to wreck your world.