A New Kind of Conference

Last week in the metro DC area there was a conference for pastors and leaders called The Whiteboard Sessions. It featured 8 phenomenal leaders, each given 30 minutes to impart vision or their best practice to the attendees. I'm acquainted with a number of the speakers and new some of the attendees. Really, it looked great.

Just a little boring.

Call me quirky (it's been done) but I never learn as much from the heroes as I do zeroes. Losers are always more interesting than winners. If this were not true, there would be no country music.

So I'm proposing a new kind of conference that brings together guys who have goofed up in the biggest way, celebrates them, and learns where they shot themselves in the foot. Ladies and gentlemen, I propose the Blackboard Sessions.

This conference is for all of you who've ever gone to a conference and heard a message on "Ten Keys to Greater Effectiveness", only to return home to discover that those keys don't fit a lock you own. This conference is for all of you who leave the other conferences a little depressed....glad for the inspiration but in reality, you're looking to figure out how to get your worship leader to quit playing that dumb song or wondering if you fired the youth pastor, how many people would leave.

Hanging with Steve this weekend reminded me of his annual message "My 10 Biggest Mistakes". That was always a hit because it was fun to compare his to ours, and we did learn in the process.

Suggested session titles:

• The Doofus Driven Meeting.
• When John Maxwell is Silent.
• The Basics of Getting a Restraining Order
• Jesus Killed my Chuch*

So, take heart under achievers, frustrated pastors, regular joes who look less like the Ken doll and more like G.I. Joe after your sister pulled out his beard and ran him through the dishwasher. There is hope - even commiseration - for you!

The Blackboard Sessions. Coming soon.....

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Clarification - I have nothing against the Whiteboard Sessions. I'm sure it was great. I am serious about learning from the losers though. I have a ton of great ideas - it would really help me to have someone point out which ones they've already blew up and help me narrow the field!

*I've got dibs on this one.

And to save the email questions on where I cooked this up, I promise you I woke up at 3am thinking about this and started laughing so hard I thought I would wake up Zion...

Late night recap....

As those who Twitter already know, I took Zion to the beach today with some dear friends we met during our 05 stint in DC. That summer, Kevin and Sarah showed up on our doorstep with their youth group in tow and no clue what they were getting into. For the next two weeks those kids prayed and served their guts out. We hated to see them leave. It was fun to hang out with them today at Sarasota beach, even if I am now living proof that no human being should apply their own sunscreen. Enough said.

This evening, Steve clued me in to Tom Bihn, maker of tough and sophisticated laptop bags and accessories. I'm a sucker for this sort of thing, and Steve is the perveyor of all things cool.

Of course, I'm sold on my timbuk2, but to be honest, once I load it up, it becomes rather ungainly and dumpling-shaped.

Steve had just ordered some accessories and gifted me with the Vertical Freudian Slip. (Confession - it took me 5 minutes to figure out it wasn't a laptop sleeve.).

I honestly didn't realize how cool it was until I repacked my timbuk2 using this bad boy. Oh. My. Word. I could put SO stinking much more stuff in the bag now! Must...go....get...books....

Tomorrow, ZB and I are off to DC to join the rest of the tribe. I'm going to try and use the public transit from the Baltimore airport to Capitol Hill in DC. Pray. Midwesterners do not do well with public transit. I just need to remember....Bus B30 to the end of the Green Line. Green Line to the transfer station. Blue line to Capitol South. With four bags. And Zion. And my newly-svelte timbuk2.

Rumenations on Lakeland. BAM!

Zion and I have been in Florida for two days. We leave Sunday morning. We've had a ton of fun. He is a riotous (and righteous) child.

We've stayed with Steve and Janie Sjogren. I've already caught a couple of zingers from Steve that I'll need to unpack in the prayer room and apply directly to my head and heart. Of course, they were delivered while the tv was on, he was listening to internet radio and surfing the web at the same time, so my guess is he has no clue how profound they were, but he has surprised me before, so who knows.

Of course, we didn't come down just to see Sjogrens, although that would have been well worth it. We came to visit the Lakeland healing meetings with Todd Bentley. To be clear, any of my comments and views are my own and not necessarily reflective of the International House of Prayer, TheCall, any of the three or four organizations that I serve on the board of, the NAACP, AARP or Society for Wallpaper Hangers Local 24231. These are my own observations, based on two services, viewed through a discerning yet sometimes clouded eye.

There are a ton of hungry people.
Crowds on Thurs and Fri nights were in the 5,000 to 5,500 ranged. There were people from all over the world, including Finland, Uganda, and Texas. Not many Asians, but a lot of Europeans. Not bad for the 50-somethingeth night.

There are a ton of strange people.
As I twittered earlier, the convention center was hosting both the revival and a square dancing competition. It was not always possible to differentiate between the clientèle of the two events. I think the most eye catching was a woman in battle fatigues and boots, and a woman who had glued sequins all over her sweatpants, sweatshirt, and flip flops. Zion announced "Look - she bedazzled her clothes!" It is only fair to point on that you cannot control who comes to your meetings, nor would you want to, and there is very little in the way of flashing clothing on the platform. Jeans, black jackets and tattoos are the dress code it seems.

This is mostly God.
In addition to seeing two people tonight who I knew get healed in an undeniable way, I saw a parade of strangers with the same report. Were they all healed? I don't know, but I believe a lot of them were. If I had to put a number on it, I'd call this 70 percent God, 30 percent man, which beats my personal record by 20 percent. Yes, there is goofiness and humanity (perhaps that's redundant) but there is also a touch of the divine on it that I don't want to miss. Also, yesterday was Bentley's anniversary so he left the service to another guy who did a really good job, and his absence did not seem to make much of a difference.

Not all people are getting healed.
I watched a husband and wife wheel their daughter into the auditorium tonight. I'd guess the girl to be in her late 20's. I specifically noticed her because she looked like a former assistant of mine. This was a very professional looking family. The daughter wanted to be wheeled up right in front of the stage. I was gripped by this girl's plea and actually sat in tears praying for her. I hate to report that they wheeled her out when it was over.

There's more going on than you see.
In addition to a 10am teaching meeting every day, there are groups doing evangelism projects as well. There's way more going on than what you see on the God.tv stream.

Tonight's service closed with them praying for leaders. They sent us out to the hallways and lined us up, where Todd Bentley and his associates walked down the line praying for us. It was not a demonstrative prayer, not the FIRE! that many of us grew accustom to hearing in other revival days. Nevertheless, on either side of us, it looked like a bomb went off with people flying every which direction. When the dust and intercession cleared, Zi and I were the only ones standing. That said, we weren't pushed either, so I presume none of the others were.

God's at work here. Do I put my seal of Good Housekeeping on everything I see? Well, no one has asked me for that...so I see no point in passing judgement. I do know that I have more faith than before to believe in the miracle working power of God. I'd call that a good thing no matter the package it came delivered in.

too good to not post

via the Wild Ox

Randomonium - Thinkage Linkage Edition

I find Seth Godin's ability to write things that I've only thought in the far periphery of my brain to be amazing. This post talks about the nature and importance of meetings (or unimportance of meetings) and is a must-read if you run a team.

In my grand tradition of juxtapositional pilgrimages, in a couple of days I'm going to stay with this friend and visit this event. It's part of my ongoing campaign to confuse as many people as possible on both extremes. I keep hearing the words the Lord spoke into my inner man many years ago....you will go in and out of many camps and it will not be weird to you.


Unlinkable, but thinkable: Sat on a patio with good friends tonight, long after the sun went down....talking about life and mission and where we want to be down the road. Why is it the best conversations come out in the dark?

Who was that?

Thanks to all who made feeble guesses over the last few days regarding the fine young man pictured in the grade school photos.

No one guessed who it was, because most of my readers (I do prefer Twitter's designation, 'followers'....) are not from this area and rarely venture far on the internet.

What I loved was that Adam got the math right in guessing the year and his age, based primarily on the tie.

The boy in question is none other than Scott Hodge. I've known Scott for a while now, although for the life of me, I don't remember how. We were probably both making fun of the same thing or something.

As you can see here, he has kept his cool hair and threads as part of his persona. He fronts Chicago area rock band called The Orchard, and sorry ladies, is married with kids.

feels like summer...

All things environmental are pointing to summer.

• The Bohlenders made it to the 8:30am service this morning. Actually, this might point to the apocalypse. Anyway, it made for a nice long, warm day.

• The boys are effectively 'shirts off' unless they're in a restaurant. They run too and fro like a tribe of suburban savages. Game of the weekend - Spear Chuckin', with a cardboard target and a spear fashioned from an old rake handle. Lord of the Flies, baby. They've also taken up football, which is odd to me because I don't think I even owned a football as a kid. Our backyard features flags every ten yards and a 1/4 scale goalpost at one end.
  

• I'm sure he wasn't singing of this context, but I can't help but hear Springsteen's 'Girls in their Summer Clothes" when Zoe is playing on the deck, wearing her little striped sun dress. Today, she's sporting the most impish pigtails I've ever seen and manages to find a word for whatever she's trying to say.
  

• The other day, Jackson told Zoe "Give me a kiss!" and she retorted "No kiss. Just talk!" That's my girl - keep at it. "No kiss, bubba, just talk..." Gave me flashbacks to the Georgia Satellites. "no huggin, no kissin' 'till I get a weddin' ring..."
  

Time waits for no man.

Much less our friend, pictured here one year later.

The tie is gone, but the cool hair remains. He's sporting his wild print shirt and listening to Duran Duran on his walkman. And you still don't know who he is.

Don't be a hater...

So, so so much hostility in the comments section today. Mostly from the guy in the picture two posts down...I would have published his comment but it would have given it away, and the mystery is most of the fun.

I really don't think anyone has a clue. And I'm ok with that.

PS: direct all complaints to 555.555.5555.....ha! :)