Archive for the ‘dialogue’ Category
If gathering the elites are exclusive
There’s a place for events being exclusive and invite-only. There’s a place to celebrate excellence. Yet when done in the public eye like a conference that’s priced beyond the pay grade of normal people, what kind of an impact does that have, especially for the next generation? This Business Week article describes an aspect of a possible dynamic between generations:
TED was born in 1984 as an underground dinner party for information designer Richard Saul Wurman and friends from the worlds of technology, entertainment, and design. This year, 1,500 people paid $6,000 each to attend the modern version of TED, held in the Long Beach (Calif.) Performing Arts Center from Feb. 9-13. Five hundred more paid $3,750 to watch a simulcast… Twenty-six years in, TED is showing signs of age. One of the most conspicuous is the makeup of attendees, diverse only in that TED appears to attract a white man from every street in Silicon Valley. … conferences… have struggled with similar issues, like: how to get more inclusive without sacrificing intimacy. How to keep loyalists happy while attracting a younger crowd closer to the headwaters of innovation. And how to get that younger crowd to pay six grand.
For a conference junkie like me, I do wonder out loud… (just a tad ironic that I’m returning from a conference, and #sxsw, the conference of conferences is happening right now in Austin) how can people get access? Are these events a good use of money? Words like “stewardship” are seeping into our venacular. Will people travel to gather for a different kind of event when there isn’t that formulaic production of keynotes and workshops? [update] cf. a set of Purpose-Driven regional events for small group leaders that describes itself as “a radical new approach to conferences”; a whole book about this concept= Conferences and Conventions: A Global Industry (Events Management), by Tony Rogers, has a chapter titled “The economics of conferences and conventions”
Practical steps for racial and cultural reconciliation
An important seminar on race and faith was recently hosted at New Life Fellowship, a multi-ethnic church in Queens, New York City. The seminar video, Next Steps in Racial and Cultural Reconciliation, is now available online.
The seminar was led by Pastor Pete Scazzero & Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, deepening an understanding of the complexity & depth of bridging racial & cultural barriers within our communities. The seminar also provide practical, do-able steps for each person to take to make reconciliation a reality.
About the seminar topic, Pete Scazzero wrote in “Bridging Barriers: Next Steps for New Life Fellowship Church” ::
I soon realized that our evangelical discipleship/spiritual formation model was too superficial to bring about the kind of in-depth transformation we would need to live in authentic community. … Asians, with their rich legacy of love for education, had great difficulty in embracing high-school dropouts who now attended our youth group … We also had to consistently remind immigrants that they were now part of the American church.
And Drew Hyun wrote in “Thoughts on our Reconciliation Seminar“:
1) The Conversation of Reconciliation Needs to Address Personal AND Corporate Injustices/Sins; 2) There’s an Illusion that Building a Diverse Church Family will be Easy (or Formulaic); 3) Understanding (or at Least Trying to Understand) The Black Experience is Fundamental to Making Progress in the Area of Reconciliation; 4) I Have to Take Personal Responsibility; 5) We Need to Talk
Thanks to Drew Hyun for the video link.
Reading about this topic, again, it makes me wonder just how much these racial and cultural barriers stay embedded because some people deny their existence and sincerely believe that we live in a post-racial American society.
Lausanne Conversation Gatherings on issues facing the global church
The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization is taking place in South Africa this October. While most of us won’t be able to travel to Cape Town, South Africa, to attend this Congress (which seems to be a much weightier word than “conference”), there are 2 ways for people to participate: (1) the Conversation Gatherings, (2) the GlobalLink. Looks like an impressive list of church leaders are meeting up.
The Conversation Gatherings are local FREE 2-hour events and anyone is welcomed to participate. Please do register online so they can know you’re coming. These are 5 dates scheduled in Southern California (see the list for all 12 locations):
18 March 2010: Azusa Pacific University (Azusa)
Topics: Future of the Global Church; Race, Power, and Evangelism
Panelists: Brenda Salter McNeil, Brad Lomenick, Nikki Toyama-Szeto, Wes Stafford, Joni Eareckson Tada
30 March 2010: Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena)
Topics: Culture Making — The Role of Christians in the World
Panelists: Jim Belcher, Doug Birdsall, Margaret Feinberg, Michael S. Horton, Richard Mouw, Kara Eckmann Powell, Rich Van Pelt
14 April 2010: Generate at Crossroads Church (Corona)
Topics: Christians and Their Impact on Culture, The Future of the Global Church
Panelists: Charles Lee (moderator), Tony Wood, Jeff Shinabarger, Margaret Feinberg, Rich Van Pelt
14 April 2010: NewSong Community Church (Irvine)
10 June 2010: Saddleback Community Church (Lake Forest)
The second way to get engaged in these global issues is thru GlobalLink. Each GlobaLink site will have some live-streaming video of Cape Town events and additional conference materials. No locations have been announced yet, far as I can tell.
[update] Also see Charles Lee’s 12 Cities 12 Conversations (A New World Church Conversation) which points to a whole website & blog www.12cities12conversations.com
same words. different meanings.
Words mean things. And different people use the same words to mean different things. This makes for either mass confusion or fierce conversations. The context of our own self-talk (internal conversations) colors everything we hear and read. These are some recent phrases that may be creating cognitive dissonance:
“epic” – I’m guessing this one is becoming a pop culture slang. It used to be, I think, about those movies with a grand bigger-than-life story, just a tad bigger than classic. Now it’s an above-average awesomeness; a recent referential pointer like “did you hear?”, a filler adjective.
“mentoring” – I’ve posted a handful of blog entries about this one already.
“authentic” – the word itself is all about the real deal. The word “real” gets jumbled in the same mix. The word _implies_ being transparent and vulnerable and unpolished. But, for some people, authentic means being non-transparent, not sharing their feelings out loud, not sharing their weaknesses, fears, and concerns, because that’s their being real.
“racist” – undoubtedly a loaded word. There’s the obviously intentional kind. And there’s the unintentional or blind-spot or passive or ignorant or systemic kind. Some people don’t think passive racism counts as racism. Some think any racial inequality and inequity makes for racism. Some are honest enough to say we’re all racists. We don’t live in a world with a level playing field. Race is a part of that dynamic. Race isn’t everything, and neither is it nothing. It’s also been used as a sign-off.
There are many, many more. The above are a few that came to mind during the composing of this post. Add a comment and we’ll add to the list.
Get real-time access to coaches and leaders
As we enter conference season, live off-line in-person gatherings are still very valuable, not as much for the content, and more so for the connections, conversations, and coaching. 2 conferences in particular are making room for more conversations between presenters and attendees.
This April 5-6, the Ideation Conference launches in Long Beach, California. Charles Lee is pulling together an amazing roster of people, who’ll serve up great content and valuable coaching for non-profit organizations. Rather than pay upwards of $10,000 a day for coaching, you can bring your non-profit staff for 2 days at $249 per person! (NGO/NPO rate) Watch my interview with Charles about the Ideation Conference experience. Your team will get valuable feedback and coaching plus team-building for your non-profit efforts for social good! I think the afternoon white board sessions will help non-profits tackle their biggest challenges and find solutions through coaching and collaboration. // [update 2/18 I’ll be one of the white board session facilitators! cf. my experience //
And, for people who are in the world of church planting, the Association of Related Churches (ARC) is hosting their annual All Access conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on April 27-29. Yes there’s the standard fare of plenary sessions with the likes of Hillsong United, Dino Rizzo, Craig Groeschel, John Maxwell, Chris Hodges, Stovall Weems, Tommy Barnett. What’ll be even better is the variety of App Sessions provide in-depth discussion of leadership, church life, and social justice — with the likes of Matthew Barnett, Greg Surratt, Bobby Gruenewald, Billy Hornsby. Since ARC is all about relationships–creating them and nurturing them–their All Access conference is going to be all about relationships too.
Remember, conferences can be life changing — choose the one that’ll get you access to the people who’ll help you along the journey of life.