I am spent, but wanted to share my notes with all of you out in the blogosphere who weren’t able to attend Granger Community Church’s Innovate Conference this year. I hate to say it to you, but if you weren’t there, you really did miss out.
This was the fourth time I’ve attended Innovate and I have to say it was another home run by the Granger team and all of the guest speakers.
In years past I’ve practically written transcripts of my notes from Innovate, but this year I decided to go with bullet points. Hope that’s ok!
I’ve got notes from Mark Beeson here and here… Shawn Wood from Secoast here… Tim Stevens here… Steven Furtick here… Rob Wegner here… and the LifeChurch.tv team here.
The theme of this year’s conference was “stop talking… start doing.”
A lot of times in the Church, we do a lot of talking, analyzing and strategizing… and while we do all of that, the world outside is waiting and searching. We have the answer. We need to stop talking and start doing.
All of the speakers and sessions were home runs, and the theme rang out clear througout every session and breakout: find out who God has made you (and your Church) to be, and DO SOMETHING!
And, being at Granger is always an inspiration and encouragement. Their team and volunteers do an amazing job of pouring themselves out and serving everyone who attends.
Some personal highlights from the conference for me include:
- getting to hang with Shawn Wood
- chillin with Tim Stevens
- having ‘therapy’ with Kem Meyer and a couple of other communications directors
- counting how many times Mark Beeson said “Oriental mindset” (I think he meant Eastern)
- playing Simon
- singing Happy Birthday to Billy Graham (via video)
- the Granger Film Fest (sponsored by Jarbyco!)
- the Schwan’s Ice Cream truck
- Chick-fil-a
- hanging with my friends Zach and Jeremy
- playing “guess their denomination” while people-watching
- being totally blown away by Steven Furtick’s energy and passion for God
- the video that made me cry
- being only 1.5 hours away from Granger!
Anyway, it was a total blast and I hope my notes will help you get in on some of the experience!
