Innovate - Day One - Part One

Holy moley! The opening of the conference was INCREDIBLE!!! There was a pantomine group "in glo-lights", the music was awesome, and DC laid it DOWN! (didn't even know he rapped) They're definitely "bring UP THERE DOWN HERE!"

SESSION ONE

Mark is bringing the opening talk... no matter when this guy speaks or what he's talking about, it's incredible:

* Sometimes the Church talks too much... we need to stop talking so much, and ENGAGE our culture!
* Never forget the desperate need of the masses... THERE'S AN URGENCY! And people are waiting for us to STOP TALKING and START DOING!
* PRAYER: do we know how to STOP TALKING when we pray, knowing that He's God and knows how to handle our situations without our advice? What if, while we're praying (yapping), we heard God say, "Child, please hang up." Sometimes, we need to STOP TALKING.
* Mark is an incredibly gifted (and funny) storyteller... :-)
* There are people around us who are going through life with no vision, no guidance, no wisdom... and they're heading for a major crash... they matter to God, and they don't even know it... and we need to STOP TALKING and DO SOMETHING to help them navigate through the storms of life and avoid the crashes!
* Who wants to be BALANCED? Balanced is static... you can't make progress without leaning. If we're going to move forward, we have to lean into what we're doing!
* Eccl. 4:9-10
* You want safety, stay balanced... you want success, lean in!
* There is no one else in this world lined up to do what God's called us to do!
* NOW, Mark says, we're about to begin! :-)
* Good point of insight from Beeson: from "hal-stock", John Mark's mom was a believer; his dad was not. Tradition says that Mark's father was Roman. Interesting when you realize that his gospel was written primarily to the Romans...
* Not quite sure I understand where Beeson's going... I want him to cut to the chase! :-)
* Mark uses the word "immediately" over and over in his gospel...
* We live in a culture that wants something to happen immediately!
* The challenge is to use story, image, and song
* Vision without action is only a dream!
* We need to take next steps, and begin to change in order to reach our culture with the life-transforming good news of Jesus Christ!
* We must immediately diagnose reality. Our world is driving hell-mell down a road, not realizing they're headed for a major crash. We need to wrap the truth in story, engaging culture, reaching people.

SESSION TWO - Shawn Wood

* Shawn kinda looks like this guy!
* Over 90% of questions he gets are how to get HELP to do creative stuff, more stuff, less stuff...
* We TOO OFTEN let the "stuff of God" become the objects of our affection... instead of keeping it in perspective that the only reason we even HAVE the stuff (creative elements, music, programming, etc.) is to make Jesus famous.
* Brand schizophrenia - when we focus too much on the "stuff" instead of keeping our focus on Jesus... and we don't know who we are anymore.
* Chasing excellence - becomes who we are and what drives us... we perfect our brand, instead of focusing on effectiveness.
* If this isn't about JESUS, we need to go get another job... this has become a HOBBY!
* Where are we driving? What's the goal? Is where we're trying to go going to make a difference in the lives of others?
* We can be excellent, but not effective.
* Some of us are spending alot of time trying to be something that God hasn't created us to be... so we can do things that don't reflect the uniqueness that God created us for.
* Brand - the aftertaste left after a person has had an encounter/experience with you.
* I totally zonked out for about 15 minutes... not Shawn's fault, though. Can't sit in the cafe doing this... :-)

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