Beautiful Day Conference Session Notes

These are the notes for the sessions as well as my takes on each one.

Session 1: Jon Talbert
Session 2: Steve Clifford
Session 3: Reggie McNeal
Session 4: Dan Kimball
Breakout Session: Steve Clifford and Gary Gaddini
Session 5: Gary Gaddini
Session 6: Len Sweet
Session 7: Guy Kawasaki

BD Session 7: Guy Kawasaki

This is part of my notes from the Beautiful Day Conference.

This was the best session of the conference. I thought the others were great until Guy spoke, then they were all crap. Okay, they weren’t but you get what I’m saying? You can read a bio of Guy Kawasaki, subscribe to his blog, or buy one of his 8 books but his talk would have the most effect on me.

The Art of Innovation…or a Layman’s Perspective on How to Change the World.

1. Make Meaning – how will your organization or product make the world a better place – not just make money.

2. Make Mantra
Mission statements are to long and unmemorable. Make a 2-3 word statement that describes why you exist, repeat it often and everywhere.

3. Jump the Next Curve
If you really want to innovate, don’t look for just 10% improvement, look 10X improvement – even if it means radically changing what you already have.

4. Roll the DICEE
Whatever you offer or create, make sure it is:
Deep – lots of functionality, different uses, meaningful (Life Groups – leadership development, outreach, community, care)
Intelligent – thought through it, not archaic or there just because we’ve always done it or just there to be there
Complete – it’s wholistic, it doesn’t segment
Elegant – it’s nice, something to champion
Emotive – it brings out emotion in people, they connect their heart to it

5. Don’t worry, be crappy
If you wait until it’s perfect you’ll never launch it. Launch it then fix it/tweak it, update it, change it, modify it, evaluate it and jump the curve with it.

6. Don’t be afraid to polarize people.

7. Let a 1,000 flowers blossom
In other words, roll with it, stay positive. Your idea/product won’t be used the way you think. Thank God for that and learn from those who are using and make it better for them. They’ll be your evangelists.

8. Churn, Baby, Churn
Never stop evaluating by listening to your end user, don’t stay static, keep ploughing

9. Niche Thyself
Offer a unique service at a high value.

10. 10/20/30 Rule
When you have to “pitch” something, sell your vision – use 10 slides max, talk for 20 minutes max, use a 30 pt font or higher then shut up and listen to others.

11. Don’t let Bozos grind you down
You will have naysayers and basement people that will have all the reasons why something shouldn’t work or couldn’t work. Smile and do it anyway.

GE’s Take:
I don’t even know where to start. There are so many ministry parallels. Make Mantra, Jump the Curve, 10/20/30 Rule. I actually immediately implemented the 10/20/30 rule in my sermons. No, I don’t have 20 minute sermons BUT I do use only 10 slides or less. I speak for less than half the worship time (30 to 40 minutes).

Niche Thyself is another – we are an edgy, raw, authentic congregation that is going to bless our community – adopt schools, hold rallies for kids with a biker bar. That’s who we are, we see value in it and we’re not apologizing for it.

I’m actually going to take this talk to my Downtown Lunch Club guys for them to tackle.

BD Session 6: Len Sweet

This is part of my notes from the Beautiful Day Conference.

Len Sweet – what else can be said of him? The man writes a book about every month or so and comes up with some ridiculous cool title – Soul Tsunami, Soul Salsa, The Gospel According to Starbucks, Carpe Manana. And he’s the American version of Sean Connery. His voice…rocks.

Micah 6:8 – DO Justice but LOVE mercy. The church is not the District Attorney or prosecuting attorney of culture. It needs to be more like the defense attorney (mercy/love/compassion).

We’ll do justice but we’ll also sacrifice Justice (your opinion/judgement) for forgiveness (mercy/compassion). This is more like Christ.

We need to talk less about leadership (self focused) and more about followership (what we are called to be…disciples).

This plays out for us to be both more Global AND Tribal. We can be more unique/specific in our specific settings (Tribal) with an emphasis on helping humankind for the sake of humankind (Global). Evangelical Humanists.

Leadership is only in scripture 1 time…..follower is in the NT over 300 times. Making followers requires different disciplines – listening to God, connecting, discerning.

We have created in the church the same cultural consumption models that we talk negatively about in culture. We critique the busyness and consumerism then we create programs and ministries that support the “I consume, therefore I am” mantra. Example: a ministry for every segmented part of the family. The mentality of if you come to church and give and serve, then you are a “member”. A follower of Jesus is called to something more wholistic than that.

GE’s Take
I missed half his talk. I was there and I heard it…but one of Len’s answers totally cut me to the heart. He was asked something about making leaders or reproducing leaders. I thought at the time – “what a great question, can’t wait to hear Len’s take on it.” Of course it was so great of a question – I completely forgot and didn’t even write it down. Mainly because of how Len answered it.

“I’m so sick of hearing about leaders, we need more followers and lovers of Jesus. I’ve wondered if we’ve created a monster inside the church…” Then he went about how follower was in the New Testament over 300 times.

There will be some that blow that comment off. They’ll have to because they’ve built their whole life and ministry around the concept of “leadership.” But Len’s right on a significant level – if that leadership isn’t ultimately about following and loving Jesus, it’s vain, empty and pointless. In the hubbub of “reproducing leaders”, we’ve got to remember that we are all FOLLOWERS of Jesus. That’s the real leader.

It was a convicting few moments and one I’m still trying to process.

BD Session 5: Gary Gaddini

This is part of my notes from the Beautiful Day Conference.

Gary Gaddini is the lead pastor of Peninsula Covenant Church in Redwood, California. His grandfather was Al Capone’s driver. Just thought you’d like to know.

What is “the scorecard” for your church leadership? How does your church measure ‘wins?’ Changing your church culture starts with first changing how you define what is a win. Is it attendance? Giving? Is it life change stories?

The Chinese characters that are used to show “busy” = heart + to kill. Best way to kill your heart is to stay busy – keeping the ministry beast alive.

Leaders best leadership investment should be in the care of his/her soul, not feeding/running the ministry beast.

Matthew 5:13-16: “You are” salt & “You are” light is not singular, it’s plural. Jesus is speaking of a whole community being salt and light.

Externally focused church is about having outward focused programs. It’s about developing people, not perpetuating the building. We want fully formed followers of Jesus.

Biggest Complaints/Roadblocks in changing culture:
What about my needs?
What about our budget?
What about the Bible?
What about Sunday?

GE’s Take:
The ‘scorecard’ question is a great place to start. How do we define a win? I think a better way to answer it is to look backwards over staff meetings and elder team meetings – what did you spend the most time in your meeting talking about? Where did you spend most of your leadership energy and focus? That’s where and how your church defines a win – no matter what you say.

For Pinecrest – I’ve actually watched the transition (and we’re in the middle of it). At first it was about offering and can we make payroll? Pay the rent? Then it shifted to number of people in the seats and offering. Now we’re talking more about Life Groups and life change stories as well as can we make budget. To be fair, we don’t spend a ton of time talking about the budget/giving. We’re starting to talk more about leaders and how do we develop followers of Jesus, what does that mean, what does that look like. Yes, we still talk about the giving/budget but it’s 15 minutes of a 2 hour meeting.

We’re getting there.

BD Session 4: Dan Kimball

This is part 4 of my notes from the Beautiful Day Conference.

Dan Kimball is the founding pastor of Graceland that morphed/transitioned into Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California. He’s probably best known as an “emergent author”, his latest book being They Like Jesus But Not The Church.

Where do you spend most of your time as a leader? In the church doing church business or in the community? Your calender shows your focus and what’s important.

Compassion must be a natural part of the life of a church, not a program or ministry. A complete follower of Jesus acts like his teacher. Jesus lived out compassion all the time. If you don’t make it just as important as worship, prayer, giving, etc… then it becomes another program in the church. That’s scary and what I’m seeing happen now.

Church is NOT a building – it’s people. Yet by our calendar and our money we support the very view that they should “come to church” every week. We support the unhealthy view that the building and the Sunday morning service is the most important part of being a Christian. We ought to be saying and doing this – “We don’t go to church, the church comes to a building each week”.

You have to define yourself or someone else will – words matter.

Good shepherds meet needs and have good theology. Gospel is good theology AND good practice.

GE’s Takes:
First, Dan Kimball is one of the most unlikely ‘leaders’ in the world. He is an introverts introvert. When he talks – he’s not going to wow you with his performance or catchy phrases. Which…is a good thing. It’s his words and insight that matter.

As Dan was talking, I was struck by two things. First, he’s been unfairly and ruthlessly abused by the “evangelical” side of the fence. I lost count how many times Dan referred to Jesus and His story and Him being the Christ-Man, the God-man. In short, his speech was undeniably Jesus-centric. There was no mention of the post-modern culture or emergent church or anything of that nature. He seemed to be consumed by and for Jesus. A marked difference than those that critique him that seem to only quote culture and politics and not a lot about Jesus.

Second, he’s really wrestled with the theology of ‘church.’ He asked hard questions of us – is the building and what we do on Sunday morning the focal point of our ministry? If it is – why? What informs that decision? Good questions.

There was a guy in the Q & A afterwards that really pushed for no buildings, meet in homes, no paid staff approach to church because that was how it was and how it should be.

Therein lies the problem – no, it wasn’t always like that. The fact is the “church” has always had both – the home/cell/small aspect as well as the corporate, community aspect. A whole tribe in the formation of Israel couldn’t own land but rather had to trust the rest of the nation to support them as they worked for God in the Temple – Levi. So, it’s not that clear-cut.

The amount of extravagance that was poured into the Temple – by God’s command – would embarrass most of us now if we tried to build something like that. Yet – there it is – God did ordain and call for the building of it, if we are going to take all of the Scripture seriously. Even Paul has hints that there were some who were to be paid and supported by the local church.

The bottom line – it’s not clear exactly how we are supposed to balance the financial/building side of the equation with the missional side of it. All of us end up leaning one way or the other, some ping the extremes of each side.

I think on this level, the emergent church does have something to teach the rest of us – particularly Dan Kimball’s story. He started Graceland inside an already existing church. They used their facilities so that they didn’t reduplicate and waste money on something that was already there – a building. So they got the benefit of having a building without expending the energy and money of putting it up from scratch.

I’m still chewing on a lot of this.

BD Session 3: Reggie McNeal

This is part 3 of my notes from the Beautiful Day Conference.

Reggie McNeal is an author, church planter, and all around nice guy. The best book he’s done is The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church.

Most people want to grow, they just don’t know how.

I use the term People-Development vs. Program because the best discipleship is done IN THE MIDST of life, not secluded from it. Couple of problems most churches have – they’ve underestimated how busy life is. The culture is too packed for us to continue to have a “come and see” approach to discipleship. We must GO and BE. My wife disciples another young woman – while folding diapers, clothes, feeding babies, and picking up toys. Must equip our leaders to do life and discipleship IN THE MIDST.

As pastors you have to know that if left up to a vote, church people will vote to go back to Egypt.

You – personally, individually – have to BE what you want the church to BE and let that infect everything you do.

How to infect your church with the “others first” mentality? First and easiest thing to do is adopt-a-school. Bring people from the community in…interview them/pray over them. You have to start infecting your church with “the virus”…..in sermons, in the way you speak, in the place you focus your budget.

Over time, they will start to see that it is going to be part of the culture of your church. It takes time and is a slow process if you want it to be long-lasting. Flavor everything with missional ideas.

GE’s Takes:
I at first questioned the statement – Most people want to grow. I’m not sure of that – especially given the fact that if left to a vote, church people will vote to go back to Egypt. But there is some validity in that those people who come to Pinecrest and a Life Group probably DO want to grow. We’re hard to find, Life Groups aren’t convenient, they require some risk so that means those that come and are involved WANT something different in their life.

I love the term People Development. I realize it’s just a term but words matter and the emphasis is correct – on people not on the process or where the process takes place. Figure out a way to equip our leaders to do discipleship in the midst of life. Means that our ‘win’ may not be measurable by attendance on Sunday mornings.