[psalm63adam]

So, I'm here in Chicago at the Willow Creek Arts Conference, and I thought I would let everyone know what I learned and what I experienced, so hopefully it can be a help to you as well.

Today is Day Zero, which means the conference hasn't started yet. But I had two cool things happen. The first is that the car rental company screwed up my reservation, so they gave me a Sebring convertible for the same price as my crappy economy car.

Also - I found that there is a ClaimJumper Restaurant a mere five minutes away from my hotel. I have missed this restaurant, they don't have them in Ohio. I am a happy camper.

You can also check out my report on my blog at www.psalm63adam.blogspot.com where there will be pictures and stuff.

[gtrdave]

Most excellent report.

Keep us updated as the days go on...and did you get the NEW Sebring or last year's Sebring?

I just found out yesterday that Seminars 4 Worship are coming to Lancaster, PA in October so, being only an hour away from me, I'll be going to that conference this year.

[psalm63adam]

Day One: Part One

Well, the conference started out with a bang.

First, David Crowder came out and he and his band sang a few songs. Here are the songs they played:

1. Coming Toward (instrumental)

2. Here Is Our King

3. I Saw The Light

4. (a new song, pretty good)

5. O Praise Him.

They then left the stage, leaving me wanting more.


But the first speaker for this conference was amazing! His name is DeWitt Jones, and he was a photographer for National Geographic for over twenty years. He had some amazing stories, and then of course showed us some of his stunning photographs. Here are some of the notes I took during his session:

- "The best way to give of ourselves to God is to give of ourselves to one another."

- "Creativity is that moment when we look at the ordinary yet what we see is extraordinary this time."

- "I could either do what I love, or I could love what I do."

He told a story of how he was asked to speak on creativity to some workers in New Jersey, people who only thought of the bottom line - money. It wasn't going that well, and then he had them do an activity. He had them take out a piece of paper and write down five things that fill their cups up, in other words things that give them joy. Then he had them write down the last time that they did any of them. One man stared at his piece of paper for fifteen minutes and then just broke down sobbing. He didn't have anything to put down.

He told another great story of a photo shoot for a scotch company in Ireland where he went out to the "Highland Games" and took photos of these big Irish men throwing stones. The biggest man of all was actually just sitting there, and so he started a conversation with this man. He found out that he used to win the Highland Games all the time. DeWitt asked if he could take some pictures of him at his house, so they went and he took a picture of him throwing a stone, the first time he had done that in many years. Well, that picture became one of the advertisements for this scotch company, and underneath the picture it talked about how this guy still practiced throwing stones all the time (which of course he didn't). It became an award-winning advertisement. Well, this old Irish stone-thrower asked DeWitt to come out again and he showed him that advertisement that he had framed, and on the back were all these signatures. DeWitt asked him where they were from, and the man replied "Well, all these people started calling and writing me to see if that really was me throwing the stone. They wanted to see me in action, so they all showed up, and we had our first family reunion in 200 years!"

Next post will be about the second session, which was some weird urban dance number, Nancy Beach (she works at Willow) and a great song from the worship leader at Mars Hill Bible Church.

[anathema]

Originally Posted by psalm63adam

He told a story of how he was asked to speak on creativity to some workers in New Jersey, people who only thought of the bottom line - money. It wasn't going that well, and then he had them do an activity. He had them take out a piece of paper and write down five things that fill their cups up, in other words things that give them joy. Then he had them write down the last time that they did any of them. One man stared at his piece of paper for fifteen minutes and then just broke down sobbing. He didn't have anything to put down.

Incredible...

[psalm63adam]

Day One (Part Two)

Session 2 started with a whimper (in my opinion) and ended up with a bang.

The first part of the session was an urban dance troup. I didn't mind the whole urban dance troup idea, but when one of the vocalists starts the song out by saying, "Let's get the party started", and the only thing I can understand for the rest of the song is the phrase "freak show", I start thinking, is this supposed to be worship? Performance? Breakdancing for Jesus? I didn't get it. But that's okay, it's not all about me. Maybe 92% about me, but not all.

Anyway, Nancy Beach came on after to speak on "The Audacity of Hope". She admitted she stole the title from a certain Barack Obama, but since this was a Christian conference, no one has probably read a book by a Democrat, so...

Okay, so I'm watching Last Comic Standing right now, which is why I'm trying to tell a lot of jokes. I'm going to stop now.

One of my favorite parts of Nancy Beach's message was the excerpt they showed from Bill Hybels' interview with Bono. And I became extremely jealous of Nancy as she described going to Ireland and sitting down with Bono at dinner and stuff.

Here are some of the quotes I wrote down:

- "We must not gloss over the difficult questions. We need to live in the contradiction."

- "Life is not problem to be solved, but a mystery to be entered into."

- "Cynicism lacks courage."

- "If we don't cling to hope, our souls will die."

And then, Nancy almost lost me because she mentioned she was going to play a Nickelback video. I hate Nickelback. Actually, I only hate one of their songs, which would be all of their songs, because they all sound the same. But the video was actually really good.

But the best part of the session (except for maybe the Bono part) was the last song of the session, which was written and performed by the worship leader at Mars Hill. Some of the lyrics say:

O God give us new eyes to see
Give us new skin to feel
Give us new lungs to breathe
The wonder underneath

Faith like a mustard seed
A holy naievete
To swim in Your mystery
We need to be free

It is a great song, and it was a great song to end the session with.

[nate95366]

Originally Posted by psalm63adam

a great song from the worship leader at Mars Hill Bible Church.
__________________

If you're talking about the Mars Hill in/near Grand Rapids, Michigan, I'm pretty sure that the worship leader also just happens to be Bill Hybels' son-in-law, unless he's taken a different job. Is that how he was introduced?

My "Willow" connection: My dad graduated from high school with Bill Hybels.

Nate

[psalm63adam]

Originally Posted by nate95366

If you're talking about the Mars Hill in/near Grand Rapids, Michigan, I'm pretty sure that the worship leader also just happens to be Bill Hybels' son-in-law, unless he's taken a different job. Is that how he was introduced?

Is Bill Hybels' daughter named Shauna? Because that's who she's married to - Aaron Niequist.

I'm working on Part Three right now, should be up soon.

[psalm63adam]

Originally Posted by nate95366

My "Willow" connection: My dad graduated from high school with Bill Hybels.

Nate

That can't be true. I was told that Bill descended down from heaven to Chicago and immediately planted Willow. He has no beginning and he'll have no end.

[psalm63adam]

Day One: Part Three

I went into session three, very excited. Excited for several reasons. First, Dan Kimball was going to be the speaker for the session. I really appreciated his two books "Emerging Churches" and "Emerging Worship", because not only did each book help me get on this "missional/incarnational" ministry path, but also because each book helped me understand what the usual church's foundation is built on (the Sunday morning service(s)) and what a missional church's foundation should be built on (the mission that Jesus calls us to live out as both individuals and as an ecclesia (gathering of Christ-followers). I touched on this concept, based on what I read, here and here.

Secondly, I knew that after Dan spoke, that there was going to be a panel of people to discuss some of what is in Dan's new book "They Like Jesus But Not The Church" as well as implications in our churches today. The panel was made up of the following people: Dan Kimball, Nancy Beach (Willow Creek), Efrem Smith (a church pastor in Minnesota), David Loveless (pastor of Discovery Church in Orlando), Shauna Niequist (on staff at Mars Hill Bible Church and wife of aforementioned worship leader Aaron Niequist), Sally Morganthaler (author of Worship Evangelism), and the one and only Brian McLaren. I knew that this was going to be an interesting conversation.

Let's go back to Dan. He was a little different than I expected, not in a bad way - I just thought he was more of a "tough surfer" type of guy based on his picture than what he really is. He's definitely more artsy in his speaking approach. Again, not in a bad way, just different. Dan talked mostly about things that are in his book, and I thought he made a really good point. He showed a slide that illustrated two present circles in our culture - the modern circle, which we're all used to and which is in some ways slowly eroding and in other ways quickly eroding - and this is the circle where the church was mostly at until the last forty years or so. The first circle is what I'll call the "Judeo-Christian values" circle, which means that in the past, even if someone was agnostic, they knew about church, they knew about Christian values, etc. The second circle is the postmodern/emerging generations circle, and in this circle there is a growing percentage of people who did not grow up in church and who do not share the same "core values" as those in the first circle. The problem, according to Kimball, is that in the last forty years (or even perhaps less time), the church has made its own subculture bubble that it is hiding in and has been hiding in - a culture with different music, language, ways of approaching life, etc.

The good news, according to Kimball, is that there is a growing interest in Jesus. The bad news is that there is a growing disinterest in the church and "Christianity." Kimball says that one of the reasons this is happening is because the only voices that this second circle - the postmodern circle - are hearing, are those who are the most vocal, the most confrontational, and the most controversial. These would include street preachers, T.V. evangelists, etc. They aren't hearing from the rest of Christendom, because the rest of the church is hiding in this subculture bubble that has been created and does not know how to relate, converse with, and do life with the postmodern culture. Kimball showed a video that his church did where they went out and asked ordinary people what they felt about Jesus and what they felt about the church. The comments were very encouraging about Jesus and were very discouraging about the church. However, fourteen of the sixteen people interviewed did not have any significant relationships with Christians. Which means that their impressions of the church are again based on those confrontational, vocal Christians. I thought this was a great observation and one that made me think for a long time last night.

Kimball listed six things that came out of these conversations with regular people - six common thoughts about the church:

1. The church is all into right-winged politics.

2. The church is judgmental and negative.

3. The church is male-dominated and oppresses females.

4. The church is homophobic. (the comments that Dan had on the screen based on this theme were heart-breaking.)

5. The church arrogantly believes that they are right and all other religions are wrong.

6. The church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally.

Of course, some of these things aren't that bad, really. Some might actually be good things. However, the way that Christiaan represent some of these thoughts might be what hurts people the most.

Then he listed some things that these people wished about the church:

- I wish churches were not just about the sermon.

- I wish the church would respect my intelligence.

- I wish the church was less programmed.

- I wish the church was a loving place.

- I wish the church cared for the poor and the needy.

- I wish the church taught more about Jesus.

As I said, after this there was the panel. Unfortunately, I didn't write down much of what was said, but I know someone who captured it on audio, so sometime in the future, I will list some of what was said. However, I did write down two things: one was something that David Loveless said:

"In Ephesians 2, it talks about how Jesus removed the walls of hostility between us and Him. I need to ask myself, 'Where am I rebuilding those walls? Where is my church rebuilding those walls of hostility? And how can we tear them down again?"

And then something that Brian McLaren said at the end of the panel was great. It was something to the effect that Dan's next book could be titled "The Church Likes Jesus, But Not Us" - obviously referring to the fact that churches aren't very good at loving others.

After the session was done, I went to heaven. First, I went to Claim Jumper Restaurant and had my favorite pizza, and then went back to Willow Creek for their New Community Service. The David Crowder Band led worship, and Don Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz, To Own A Dragon, and other books) spoke. Which means that my whole evening was heaven. Claim Jumper, David Crowder, and Don Miller? Excellent!

[psalm63adam]

Day Two

This is going to be a short one. Day Two consisted of four breakout sessions, and I chose sessions that were very practical to what I'm doing now. Here's the brief synopsis of each:

Session #1 - Basic Lighting

- I learned a lot about lighting and where to place lights and stuff. This is practical for the new building.

Session #2 - Programming Moving Lighting

- I realized quickly that this session really wasn't for me. So I went and updated my blog, and did some praying and reading.

Session #3 - Advanced Scenery Design

- This was not what I expected, because it was mostly about fabric and stuff, but it was certainly interesting. I got a CD with a lot of pictures of what Willow has done in the past.

Session #4 - More Than The Service: Designing The Guest Experience

- some interesting quotes from this session:

"Research shows that emotions are as twice as important as facts when making a decision. Emotion leads to action; reason leads to conclusions."

"Get everything telling the same story."

"Don't invite them to the experience - begin the experience."

The speaker had some interesting thoughts on color and on using the five senses in order to design a great guest experience.


That was about it. I'm looking forward to hearing what Don Miller and Erwin McManus have to say tomorrow.

[psalm63adam]

Day Three (Part One)

It's very hard to explain what took place today. I am completely overwhelmed and amazed!

The first session of the day started out with me not being there on time as usual. So I sat in the coffee bar area for a few minutes before sauntering in. I wish I would have gone in on time, because it started out with a very moving story of a couple of worship leaders from Willow Creek and who are married to each other. They have a child who I believe was born deaf. But through some implants in the baby's ears, he could hear his parents' voices for the first time. Boy did I sniffle at that one. It was very moving, and then they sang the song "You Never Let Go" which of course brought a whole new meaning to the song for all of us.

Don Miller came up and spoke next. I got to hear him speak a couple of nights ago, and I was hoping he didn't speak on the same thing. He didn't, which was good. The basic theme of his message was that when the Enlightenment happened, truth and meaning got separated, mystery was abolished or abandoned, and the written word became the only vehicle by which truth was given and understood. The brain, which consists of three main parts - the left brain, the right brain, and the amygdalae, which is the emotional center of the brain - were separated by placing the emotional center, not physically, but in every other way, in the heart.

The problem with all this, according to Miller, is that the artistic part of Christianity was relegated to the background, and narrative expressed through creative expression no longer held a prime spot in how truth was "learned". Donald Miller was the second person this week to talk about the book Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton (the other person was the worship leader from Mars Hill Bible Church, Aaron Niequist), and the basic idea of what Chesterton talks about in the first chapter of the book is that mathematicians are the ones who go insane, not poets. "A mathematician tries to build a bridge to the infinte, the poet swims in the sea. The mathematician tries to fit heaven in his head, the poet is trying to fit his head in heaven." My amygdalae tell me that he's right.

His last part is about Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (not the movie, the actual play), and how the play is an allegory of the Protestant/Catholic war that was happening during the time that Shakespeare wrote it. It was a very interesting point, and it climaxed with the balcony scene (it didn't end with the balcony scene, that's plot for you.) with the fact that Romeo during the balcony scene "switches from iambic pentameter to free verse because what he's saying IS TRUE."

[psalm63adam]

Day Three (Part Two)

The conference ended in a great way.

Erwin McManus and Mosaic did an amazing presentation called "Scribbles" - it involved some saxophone playing, professional dancing, comedy, the spoken word, and more. Now some of those elements I'm not the hugest fan of. However, the presentation blew me away. I'm not sure that I can even do it justice trying to describe it, so you will just have to imagine it. However, as usual, I leave you with some quotes from McManus:

- "When you live your life through the eyes of God, you will see something new everyday."

- "Create a future. What kind of church should we become is a wrong question to ask. What kind of future do we need to create - now that's the right one."

- "I was once asked, 'Erwin, if you were stranded on a desert island and only could have one book besides the Bible, which book would you take?' I told this person, 'An empty book - so I could write in it my adventure.'"

Erwin quoted Isaiah 43, a passage that has been very interesting to me and I felt confirmed many things within my own heart (or should I say, my amygdala). Here is the passage:

18 "Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.

19 See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.

I would break into Nu Thang by DC Talk, but then I would be very angry at myself.

All in all, a great conference. Learned a lot, experienced a lot, missed my family a lot. Didn't get to see a Cubs game, but that's okay, I'll live.

[bread man]

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like a great conference.

[JPBronsin]

I just read about your experience, it sounds great. I'm going to pick up Kimball's book because it definitely sounds interesting. Thanks =)

[psalm63adam]

Originally Posted by bread man

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like a great conference.

It was a great conference, very inspiring.

Originally Posted by JPBronsin

I just read about your experience, it sounds great. I'm going to pick up Kimball's book because it definitely sounds interesting. Thanks =)

I have the book but I haven't started reading it yet.