Myself, Kristin and Sarah from Vintage Faith Church were over in San Jose Wednesday at the Compassion Unleashed Conference. My friend Jon Talbert hosted it and the focus was on outward focused thinking and serving our communities. I spoke in the morning in the main session and talked about Jesus' compassion that He had for people from Matthew 9:35-38. Charlie (a female with that name) was an artist drawing while each speaker spoke - you can see her blog and her conference experience here. This is one of the things she drew out when I was speaking. It wasn't the typical kind of art, but sort of a storyboard format which was really intriguing. Sort of professional doodles while someone speaks she calls "graphic facilitation".
(The photos here are from Tony, who was there at the event.)
Jon asked me to include some of the things I have been talking about with the They Like Jesus But Not The Church observations so I included some of the thoughts about Christians leaders and being in social relationships with people outside the church. Last night I met up with my friend Penny who is someone outside of the church and she is in the They Like Jesus But Not The Church book. We had a good chat and and we talked all about what I do at conferences and even show the video clip of her speaking. She did a great job articulating her thoughts and hope her heart helps us see things from a different perspective. I love getting to meet up with Penny and I learn a lot from her when we meet. As Penny and I talk it is a funny thing, that I am going around showing video clips and talking about some of my friends here who aren't part of any churches and I use them for examples and show them speaking at the conferences I am part of.
The Compassion Unleashed conference had Guy Kawasaki speak who was incredibly fascinating to me. He gave a talk more about marketing and mission, but I could have listened to him for another hour. Guy was the original "evangelist" for Apple computers and one of the early founders of marketing for Apple. He shared with everyone at the conference that he is a Christian and he talks about his faith in every talk he ever gives to any kind of audience, business or not a business audience. He even prayed at the end of his talk, which was fascinating because it was a marketing type of talk, but he still committed it to God and prayed at the end. I got to briefly meet him, I wish I could have talked longer with him. he did make an exceptionally large amount of jokes about PC's, which were humorous even though I was sitting there typing on a PC as he spoke.
As part of the conference Jon and I interviewed Len Sweet via Skype. Len was his usual genius talking about things and using words that I sit in amazement at someone can articulate things like that. I got to see Christine, and Ursula, and Steve Clifford and Kurt Jones - all friends I have served with on staff back at Santa Cruz Bible Church years ago.
We are packing tonight, as Becky, Katie and Claire and myself are all heading up to Seattle on Sunday morning. All next week I will be in class for the last in-class week you are all together for the Doctor of Ministry degree I am getting at George Fox Evangelical Seminary. Once a year everyone meets for a week straight, and this is the last one. We are going to Orcas Island, which is where Len Sweet lives. So it will be fun to have Becky and the girls there at this one. We are staying at Len's cottages/houses that he has there which look really beautiful and are right on the water.
Then going to Mars Hill Church next Sunday morning after the school week is over with the family - and meeting up with Mark Driscoll after their morning worship gathering. Becky and I went to Mars Hill many years ago and went out with Mark afterwards for dinner, but this is the first time Becky will be back at Mars Hill and it is quite different now. When she was there last it was around 300 people and now I think around 6,000. So.... working on what I need to prep before going there for the week. We have to do some prep work in advance and bring it with us. The girls are running around the house right now wearing Cinderella type outfits and they put these tall hats on which they call "pope hats" which is quite funny. That is what is happening here in our tiny home in the orchard where we live - and also about 3 miles away from our house there is a very large fire going which has smoke over everything around us, but that is another story.
