Gearing up

The Drive '06 conference geared up today and boy are we having fun. Why would a bunch of pastors at a pretty successful church spend their time and money to come to a conference like this? Great question. We want to do what we do ed. Ibetter. We really believe that the local church has the most important story to tell and it is a matter of life and death. So we while we don't take ourselves too seriously, we take what we do very seriously. We want to be challenged to improve and excel. And Drive has not disappointt is quite a challenging place to be. Here are some highlights...

What I did today
I went to a session by Lane Jones called Communicating for a Change. It challenged us as pastors not be information disseminators by life-changing communicators. In the Q&A Lane talked about how Andy Stanley spends a typical week...quite insightful. Then I caught Getting Singles Engaged by the Singles pastor Joel Thompson. It wasn't so much about engagement it was more about ministry (sorry to disappoint) but Joel candidly shared the successes and struggles of their very successful ministry. Tonight in the general session Andy Stanley challenged all churches to consider how we might be making it difficult for people to connect with God. How we as the church in the way we do things might actually be an obstacle in the way of non-Christians coming to Christ. It is a humbling but healthy set of questions to ask.

Favorite Quotes
"Relevance is not giving people information they don't need." Lane Jones
"Be more committed to reaching some than keeping others." Andy Stanley

Here are a few shots to show you that we aren't working too hard