Dynamic Church Conference 08: Day 2

It's official: my body does not like to change time zones.  I stay up late and then *try* to get up early.  So when I wake up at 6am in Dallas my body reminds me that it's 4am in SoCal.  Pain...and a snooze button.

Today is day two of the conference, it's been a great day.  I'm sorry to say that I missed Curtis' keynote opening (sorry Curtis, see the opening paragraph to this post), but did get here in time to catch Cynthia Ware's second presentation of the New Media.  Again she did a great job.  I think one of my favorite quotes from this session was "there is no longer just a broadcast message to the congregation, there is now interactivity".  So true!  So many churches just haven't figured that out yet however, and I'm afraid it's hurting them.

Right after Cynthia came Terry Storch with a talk titled, "LifeChurch.tv - The Here and Now, and the Future".  What a powerhouse presentation!  Terry not only talked about LifeChurch (in my opinion and many others, *the* innovative church in terms of how to leverage technology to spread the gospel), but he waxed poetic about several social networks, attitudes of church leaders and what technology (Web 3.0) may hold for us. A few highlights from his talk:

• Regarding YouVersion, "I love my job because I'm not constrained to build things that are only for our church...we can build things and give them away to everyone that wants them."
• Regarding the internet campus, "What is the point of a building? God doesn't just exist in the building. What if we don't worry about the building anymore? What if we can no longer count attendance?"
• "My bandwidth bill would blow you away".  Priceless quote! He was bragging about the bandwidth consumption of their resources (up and down) and rightfully so, they give a lot of stuff away!
• Regarding OnePrayer, "Craig's vision behind OnePrayer is to make us one...to make The Church one body".
• Regarding an always-on, 24x7 internet church campus, "Why isn't prayer available 24x7? Why, if someone is going through a divorce...is hurting in some way...do they have to wait for the weekend service on Sunday?"
• "What if people could create groups on their own and it didn't require the use of church staff?"
• He implored us to read The Starfish and the Spider.  My buddy Rhett has been pushing this to me too, so I guess I should give in and pick it up. The concept?  Organizations that insist on controlling information from the head only (or two or three heads) are doomed to fail now.  The economy of conversation has changed.  You can no longer control information, you can only guide it and influence it.
• Terry's life verse, Ephesians 3:20, (paraphrase) "God can do anything you know-far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams".

He wrapped it up by saying something that he closed his talk last year with as well, and I could not agree more.  He said,

"Technology is no longer and opportunity, it is our responsibility.  If you think about it as another opportunity, you are already too late.  You have a responsibility to use the best tools available to share the message that God has given us in the greatest book ever written."

Amen!

Comments

[Rhett Smith]

Starfish and the Spider. That was the watershed book for me...changed everything.

A MUST READ!!!

I don't know how anyone in church land or secular corporate world is not making that required reading?

rhett

[Dan Valeri]

dude your vlog rocks

[Winnetta Byford]

Matt,

So great to meet you at the conference this year. We had so much fun putting it together. Time zones notwithstanding, I hope you can make it back out next year.

Winnetta