Q Conference Afterthoughts - 2

Thursday

I recognize that on Thursday I was somewhat hung over from thinking so much. I was still on California time so getting up at what was 5 AM for me made it harder to be in the moment. But I gave it my best shot. The following are what stood out to me.

David Kinnaman, who is President of the Barna Group shared with the audience the initial findings about how the world sees Christianity. It was honestly sad to hear how we show up to people. They don't see us as people who are defined by love, but as people who are defined by judgment. That made me sad.

Andy Stanley shared about the value of impacting culture. I've never seen Andy before, but I loved his simplicity and style.

Shayne Wheeler, from All Souls Fellowship, and Chris Seay presented a great conversation on homosexuality. And this is when I got sad. Why is it so hard for people to love people who are homosexuals? Yesterday I was reading the verse in John 8 about the adulterous woman, and if Jesus showed up today, I think he'd probably choose someone who is homosexual. What are we afraid of? This conversation dominated the afternoon breakouts, and there was serious arguments that happened in the Q&A session afterwords. I don't get it. Are we going to change people's hearts with condemnation or love?

Sadly, at this point I was almost done thinking. The next three presenters spoke on the environment and I was not all there. I was worn down but liked what they said. I firmly believe in the stewardship of the environment, but nothing new hit me.

Jon Passavant from Model Home Project was really cool. He connected his friends in the modeling world to the simple act of love and this caught my attention. I met Jon afterwards and he was very genuine. I appreciated his honesty and love for God.

I ended up taking the trip to CNN, which was interesting but nothing special. I had assumed we would be meeting with people from CNN, but it was just a tour. Had I known this I would probably have taken the tour through the High Museum.

Rob Bell spoke that evening on the Eucharist. I've heard this idea from Rob at the Isn't She Beautiful conference and it was nice to hear him reiterate it. He was in such a sassy mood and I love that about him.

I went to bed and exhausted.

Friday

Today was held in the Fox Theater. I love Gabe's choices for sites. Both were very artistic and gave the gatherings an art feel to them. Nicely done.

Sadly, I just didn't get James Emory White or Clint Kemp. Nothing hit me and I found myself wandering. This may have been from my lack of sleep or being worn out. I also felt that the 3 minutes segment, where people shared their ideas was anticlimactic. Nothing hit me.

And then Rick McKinley spoke. I have to say that I love Rick for a lot of reasons. One is that he had helped me to understand what repentance can truly be through various methods and sermons. I love his simplicity and humility. He's a rock star that doesn't care that he's a rock star. He's rather be hanging with the homeless than sharing the spotlight. His message was simply to give away power, that within congregations are people who want to love and need to be released. He asked some really great "what if..." questions.

I said earlier that I think it was divine providence that he got bumped to Friday and I'll share why. I met a friend, Dr. David, at the conference and we were lamenting that it was sad that we all got together in this one place and weren't taking away or participating in some shared initiative together. There was a tremendous amount of influence in that room. Perhaps the ability to influence 100,000 or more and yet we were leaving disconnected. We had idea but there was no initiative. Rick perhaps provided that initiative. He shared how he was working on the Advent Conspiracy. It's a project to take the vast amount of money we waste on Christmas and solve the world's clean water problem. I instantly knew that I was on board.

I left Q knowing I'm coming back next year. Gabe said it would likely be in New York, which would give me a great reason to come back to NY. Love that city.

Initial Q Afterthoughts

I’m sitting at the Atlanta Airport thinking about Fermiproject’s Q conference. This is the first real opportunity I have taken to download my thoughts and take a look at what I’m really leaving here with.

Wednesday

Q was held in an old Tabernacle next to CNN. The location was awesome and really was inspiring for progressive thought. Whenever I looked around I felt like I was in a rock concert slash think tank. Each session was only 18 minutes, which created a rapid fire thought process. If a great idea came around, we didn’t have much time to think about it or we would miss the next presenter’s ideas.

What stood out to me?

For me, this was the best day in terms of new ideas and thoughts, which is like saying chocolate ice cream is better than chocolate chip ice cream. They’re both good. But my clear favorite was Catherine Rohr, with Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP). This is clear one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve heard in a long time. Catherine’s group restores prisoners by selecting the natural leaders in prisons, restores their dignity, loves them, and then prepares them for business when they get out. They’ve never had someone return to prison and the dropout rate was I believe 3%. To me Catherine was Jesus because she took a risk to love the unlovable. I dig that.

Andy Crouch broke down trends in culture and how we process culture. He helped language that process. It kind of felt like someone who helps you realize what you’ve always known but never had the words to describe it. He broke them down into postures over the last forty years (or so). First we condemned culture. Then we critiqued culture. Then we copied culture, and then we consumed culture. Each posture was simply an attempt to deal with how culture shows up. He then did something I really liked. He gave us a holistic approach to posture as people who love: create and cultivate culture, which is a reflection of our Father. Nice.

Rick McKinley, from Imago Dei, was supposed to be speaking today, but for some reason, which ended up being divine, he got pushed to Friday. More on that in a little bit.

Kevin Kelley spoke on the future. He was the former editor of Wired Magazine. I’ve never heard of Kevin but he helped encapsulate culture in a unique way. But one thing he said that struck me was the population growth will not continue. In fact, we will see it decline dramatically over the next generations. This caught everyone by surprise.

Donald Miller was as humorous and funny as he always is. But I’ve heard most of his presentation of narrative through articles and podcasts so it wasn’t new. It still was a joy to see him. He did have the most humorous moment of the conference that I think helped lighten the spirit of a leader’s conference, which can often get intense. The Q group chose to use a clock, which counted down to zero. At zero it pulsated, almost like it was coming out at you. So imagine for a second, two large zeroes pulsating, and Donald said, “My time is up. The boob’s are flashing.” Everyone laughed. Thank you so much for the humor Don. I love you for that.

Blake Mycoskie, from Tom’s shoes told his story, and if you don’t know about this guy, you should. It’s very simple. If you buy a pair of his shoes, he’ll give one to someone else for free. It’s that simple.

I’ve never heard or seen Chris Seay, but what he said caught everyone in the stomach. His conversation was passionate and somewhat angry, (which may have just been lunch) which made me wonder what other conversation’s he had about this. His point was that as a culture we are consumers, which was validated by data. No one could move or ignore what he was saying. At the end of the session we had a breakout to discuss how we could spend less. And the two guys next to me were stunned. It was clear this was a tough topic to look at. Chris’s point was that if we took a small portion of the money we spend frivolously at Christmas we could solve (yes solve) the world’s clean water problem. Think about that. What if we as a church got together to solve the world water problem? And this is why God pushed Rick McKinley to the end. You’ll see why later.

I got to meet David Batstone, from NotForSale campaign, which I’ve blogged about. He was extremely gracious and passionate about what he was doing. Human trafficking was a thick topic at this conference and I loved learning more about it.

If you’re getting the gist that the people just keep coming, realize that we’ve barely gotten past lunch at this point. It was almost too much to be honest. But I loved it anyway. It forced me to think and rethink, and rethink again.

Jeff Johnson gave a fiery dialog on the hip-hop culture. It was really cool to hear the true origins of hip-hop and how it all started. He did say that hip-hop was representative of the disenfranchised, But I thought Jeff missed an opportunity to connect everyone to a deeper point and that hip-hop is representative of the oppressed, the disenfranchised, people that we all are. Unless I misinterpreted him, which is always possible.

The highlight of the evening, which felt like the crown jewel of the day, was getting a private acoustic concert from Jon Foreman from Switchfoot. We got to hear a song he had never played before and was so beautiful. It felt like a great honor to hear him play.

I honestly went to bed numb. I’ll process Thursday when I get home.

Q Thoughts

We had coffee and dessert with a bunch of people after the evening session of the Q conference. There were six of us and we talked about what hit each of us. At a typical conference each person will have one thing that really stood out to them. A lot of the times, it is the same thing. What is interesting about this conference is that everyone had something different. It was like a firehose of thought and questions; ideas streaming at you all day long. That is why I came. To engage.

When I get home I will process more of each person.

Q Conference

I am at Fermiproject's Q conference right now. It has been an absolutely engaging experience listening to everyone present. The list of people is a whose who of speakers. (Andy Stanley, Rick McKinley, Rick Warren, Rob Bell, Chris Seay, Mike Foster, and more) It's been awesome. I'm in the CNN building right now waiting to tour the media giant.

The most interesting thing coming out of the conference is this idea of asking better questions, which the speakers are engaging us to do. I love it. I told my wife over the phone that this is the conversation that I need. I need people engaging my mind with new ideas and new thoughts. I'm an artist at heart, like my Father and I need new ideas.

More to come tonight after the tour.

Throught for the Day

Found this today:

“Christianity started out in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise.”

Sam Pascoe

Love As A Checkout Boy

This is honestly one of the coolest stories I have ever heard. So often we think we can't make a difference. But we can. All it takes is love.

What Love Looks Like In Darfur

This is a letter I received from Oxfam President Raymond Offenheiser. Maybe this is our opportunity to experience loving someone.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Darfur has been on our minds for far too long.

Despite the world's attention, the situation continues to deteriorate. Violence is mounting, making relief work more dangerous, and the sheer scale of the crisis is almost incomprehensible – four million people now rely on outside aid.

But Oxfam's help is getting through. We are assisting 530,000 people, providing vital clean water, building latrines, and distributing water buckets, soap, ground sheets and blankets. Your immediate support will enable us to meet the growing challenges in Darfur and Chad.

Click here to make a donation and allow us to step up our response to the Darfur crisis.

I want to give you a picture of what's happening on the ground, where Oxfam's relief teams are struggling against violence to provide immediate aid.

Darfur has become more lawless and volatile than ever. In the first two months of 2007, more than 80,000 more people fled the ongoing violence. Many of these people have had to flee for the second, third or even fourth time as they desperately seek refuge and protection.

Humanitarian workers and operations are being targeted on an almost daily basis. Vehicles are being hijacked and robbed; staff assaulted and intimidated while carrying out their work; and offices broken into and looted.

Oxfam is one of the few aid agencies working in all three states in Darfur and in neighboring Chad. The violence means we need your help more than ever – you can still make a difference.

And in addition to providing immediate lifesaving supplies like water and shelter, Oxfam is there for the long haul. Our hygiene education and mosquito spraying programs are helping prevent the spread of disease in the crowded camps, and we are introducing new stove technology that is reducing the time women need to spend at the dangerous task of gathering wood. Meanwhile, we are advocating for increased pressure on all parties to the conflict to stop attacks on civilians, stop targeting humanitarian workers and operations, and make meaningful efforts to return to the political process.

Much has been given, but much more is needed. You can help. The more donations we receive, the stronger our ability to bring aid to the innocent people who desperately need it.

Please donate to the Sudan Crisis Relief and Rehabilitation Fund now.

We can't forget our promises to the people of Darfur. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Raymond C. Offenheiser
President
Oxfam America

What I've Done

I think Linkin Park is one of the most influential bands of the last ten years for a lot of reasons. They have a new album coming out May 15th. It's called "Minutes To Midnight." The first single is a song titled, "What I've Done." Nice.




Here are the lyrics

In this farewell,
There’s no blood,
There’s no alibi.
‘Cause I’ve drawn regret,
From the truth,
Of a thousand lies.

So let mercy come,
And wash away…

What I’ve Done.
I’ll face myself,
To cross out what I’ve become.
Erase myself,
And let go of what I’ve done.

Put to rest,
What you thought of me.
While I clean this slate,
With the hands,
Of uncertainty.

So let mercy come,
And wash away…

What I’ve Done.
I’ll face myself,
To cross out what I’ve become.
Erase myself,
And let go of what I’ve done.

For What I’ve Done

I'll start again,
And whatever pain may come.
Today this ends,
I’m forgiving what I’ve done.

I’ll face myself,
To cross out what I’ve become.
Erase myself,
And let go of what I’ve done.
What I’ve done.


Forgiving What I’ve Done.

Only the children got it

In our every day lives how often do we stop and smell the roses? This is the question a researcher asked recently. He took "one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made" and put him in a Washington Metro station to see who would listen. The hypothesis was that people would stop and notice, taking in the beauty and respond by giving handsomely to the artist for his art.

No one noticed.

Only a handful of people stopped, with one exception: the children. "Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. and every single time, a parent scooted the kid away."

Maybe children get it better than we do because we're so intent on getting somewhere. Maybe children realize that to do so is to miss all the beauty along the way. Or maybe they haven't bought into the confused mass appeal of the games we play that have devastating consequence.

Why did we lose so much of our focus on beauty? Why don't we stop and take in the beauty of the music that is there but often drowned out by the noise in our lives? My only hope is that I would be one of those who stopped.

Here's to 40

Scholars say 40 is a magical number. The number has so many representations in Scripture that it's significance is deeply noted. Noah first spent 40 days and 40 nights in rain that almost ended humanity. Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness looking for an alternative to the future God had already given them. Jesus fasted for 40 days before beginning his ministry. These are significant events in the story. They have meaning.

40 seems to be about cleansing, about purification and finding something deeper in the story. For Noah, it was cleansing the world from evil. For Israel, it was a purification of faith. For Jesus it was about finding reliance on His Father.

Yesterday I turned 40. I've now spent 40 years in this thing called life. I've spent 40 years in this world, twisting and turning the corners of life. I've enjoyed a lot of it. I've discovered the love of a good woman. I've known the bliss of my children. I've seen the heights and depths of friendship and community. I've known the joy of finding my calling in life and experienced it's pleasures. I've known the love of my Heavenly Father that astounds me. I've seen the Sistine Chapel, Central Park, Wrigley Park and the Botticelli's Primavera. I've read the Bible, Good to Great, No Future Without Forgiveness and Blue Like Jazz. I've tasted great wine, and enjoyed the world best Tacos. I've met great people and served some of finest human beings that still live on the streets. Life has been full of wonders and my heart has enjoyed so many of them.

I've missed out on a lot too. I was too scared during my teens to really enjoy my friends and discover what made them so great. I missed out on a stepfather that loved me more than I ever knew. I didn't get to play professional sports, even though I'm OK with that. I've never seen the seven wonders of the world. I've never been to the Alps. I still want to see the Great Barrier Reef, the Eiffel Tower, the Wailing Wall, and the Great Wall. I want to live to see my grandchildren and love them with a lasting legacy of hope and freedom to love. I want to find my Calcutta and show those who are lost that they are still part of God's creation and are deeply important to this world.

A lot of my friends have told me that 40 is when they began to settle into their shoes, enjoying the person they have become, as if the first 40 seemed to burn away the remnants of incompleteness. At 40 they discovered how much they had worried about the wrong things, and now could focus on the right things. At 40 they suddenly discovered that life really was about family and people and community. It wasn't about the stuff they could accumulate.

So here's to 40. I raise my glass to this magical number and hope that I can live up to the billing.

A Glorious Moment

I just want to draw attention to this moment in history. After spending so many years stuck in mediocrity in my fantasy baseball league (it has been almost five years since I've cracked the top five), I'm now sitting in first place. I'm enjoying this moment, the view from up here. It's good. It's fertile. The soil is so rich. People are throwing large dollar bills at me and the women are all beautiful. The sky is always blue and the champagne actually tastes good. So this is what all of you spend countless hours in front of your computer screens for, searching out the latest stats on the guy who hit .300 in AAA. I now see why you lose sleep. As God himself said, "It is very good."

Wait. What is that sound?

What? The ground is slipping out from under me. What do you mean Glavine's arm fell off? He's 10 from 300. What do you mean Gary Matthew's Jr got indicted? That was not supposed to happen. What do you mean Uggla was a one year wonder?

Oh well. It's fun while it lasts.

100 Equals Love

Every once in a while I run across an idea or a group of people who are doing something really great. My first response is to smile and my second response is to write about it, which I'm doing right now. I found this post through a random clicking process of blogs from people I know ending up on people I don't but I wish I did. And when it is a woman I smile and realize that our female counterparts do things way better than us men.

Katherine Siebert started Edeva, which means, "beautiful gift." She came up with this really great idea for a love project to get one hundred people together to buy the land for a trade arts "co-op" for a group of women in the Dominican Republic. Instead of asking a bunch of people to give her $100, she asked 100 women to give two dollars every week. Who can't do that. The idea is brilliant. You can read the story here.

Thanks Katherine for the inspiration. I hope you don't mind if I steal your idea. I promise to give you credit.