Satellite Conference

Yesterday and Today I went to a conference called The Leadership Summit. It's put on by Willow Creek and has quite a stacked list of speakers. I quite enjoyed most of it and walked away with some good insights.

However, here are some of my nitpickings, haha....

1. The actual conference happens in Chicago. We got to watch it via Satellite at a large church in Langley. Yesterday there were a number of times when the audio did not sync with the video. That was very distracting. Especially when we're trying to sing along with their worship team and their mouths are not moving to the words.

2. It is really weird singing while being led on a big screen with no actual band before you. Our crowd has no real interaction with their crowd. We are being led in worship by no one actually present. It was almost robotic. Not sure how else to describe it. And at one point I realized everyone here is singing praises to a giant tv screen. We are all facing forward looking at people that cannot see us. No one is actually looking into our eyes. We are all drones facing forward. Another weird thing about it was the volume was quite low, so sometimes I couldn't even really hear the band except for the drums. That was really awkward whenever they sang a song not many people knew.

3. People would clap. Why? Why do people clap? I often clap because I want the speaker to know I agree with them or that they have done an excellent job. The speaker cannot hear us clapping, so why are people clapping at our satellite sites? I can kinda understand at the end of a speech, because you're emotionally enthused and want to express that. I get that. However, it baffled me when people would clap to introduce a speaker. Once again, who is hearing your clapping? Haha.

4. There's a time delay. Chicago is in a different time zone. Essentially we are not watching this live, we are watching a taped version of what happened earlier that day. There is a lot of hype for us seeing this the same day, but whatever. And when you think of the time delay you realize, this band leading me in worship isn't even playing instruments or singing right now. We are being led by a video.

5. K, this next one is a bit tricky. I understand this is a big conference and you want people who are qualified to teach about good leadership. So every Pastor that was a speaker or guest came from a fairly large church. In fact, most had the church attendance number beside their name. Why? This to me says, a Pastor of a church of 100 is not a successful leader. They don't have what it takes to speak to me about Leadership. That bothers me. Well, they say a successful church grows...umm, hmm. Man, there are some incredible Pastors that have small congregations and I really think they need to be honoured and put on the same level as the megachurch Pastors. That's all I'm saying.

Thanks for listening to my negativity. Now here some good stuff:

1. At first it sounded like they were going to say structure your churches after big business, but I quickly realized they were saying we need to be innovative like many companies are today. Many companies today are thriving on a flat, grass-roots model that is not hierarchical like things have been for the past while. They also talked a lot about flipping your perceptions, changing conversations, and simple solutions. That surprised me.

2. I needed to hear many of the things said. I was shaken and inspired. I have some fresh ideas for this next year of youth ministry. I learned some things about myself that I need to work on.

3. I forgot I would probably see people I knew at this thing. It was really neat seeing a lot of people I hadn't seen in a long time.

4. The food was excellent.

Will I go next year? Hmm, I didn't want to go this year, so I'll say probably not. But who knows...