Greg Davis - Technically Speaking

I love that tag line for the Innovate 2008 Conference.  If you haven’t seen the new conference web site, you really need to - very cool.  They just added the trailer video clip for the conference (Sept 18-19) which you can watch from the registration page.

I’m looking forward to seeing the team from LifeChurch.tv as well as Steven Furtick and the top notch team from Granger itself. I made my first trip last year and found it to be incredible.  Very much looking forward to this year’s trip and all of the things God will do with what we learn there and what we can bring back and apply to Fellowship Church here in the Delaware Valley as we seek to elevate what we do and how we reach out to a community in need of Jesus!

Friday was the 2nd day of MinistryTECH 2008 conference in Oklahoma. It was a day that really messed me up!  It started when Terry Storch gave the morning keynote talk. He said he was lead by God to change the topic of what he originally planned to talk to us about and instead spoke about “Being an Idiot”. Terry used this opportunity to openly share with us his personal story of coming to Christ as an adult and God’s directing him away from the “Zuckerberg Dream” and instead into a life of ministry first at Fellowship Church in Texas and now at LifeChurch.tv.

To have the skills that Terry has and to see how he gave up a potentially very lucrative career to work in and serve the church is quite an inspiration. As Terry puts it, he was an idiot. His family and co-workers knew it was the only explanation for doing what he did. Who else gives up the kind of money that could be made in the secular IT world and the kind of fame that could be had. Who else trades a life of comfort and convenience for one of extreme challenges and anonymity? Only an idiot.

The church today is in the midst of a world undergoing a digital revolution. There are 6.5 billion people in the world and over 1 million of them are connected to the internet (and growing). The church today has an opportunity like never before to fulfill the Great Commission and idiots like Terry (and us) can help be a part of that.

3 characteristics of idiots that Terry discussed:

• Idiots embrace being idiots - following God often doesn’t make sense to the ‘world’ but to the idiot, that doesn’t matter. As a result we can do things that everyone would think are impossible.
  
• Idiots are comfortably uncomfortable - as technology guys we can easily focus on process and forget about the real goal of why we do what we do. We always need to ask ourselves ‘why’ and make sure we are not doing things just to make our lives easier and more comfortable.
  
• Idiots expose their weaknesses - Satan knows them and will use them to take you out. Acknowledge them, deal with them before God and do not allow Satan to use them against you. The unexpected reality - your will often find your biggest weaknesses in the areas that are also your strengths.
  

Some key suggestions Terry gave to help counter attack your weaknesses: setting priorities, making boundaries for yourself, and having accountability to someone.

While being an idiot is really stupid in the eyes of the world,  It can give you the opportunity to demonstrate extreme child-like faith. Some key questions Terry left us with:

1. What have you been holding on to that you need to let go of?
2. What are your weaknesses?
3. What faith jump do you need to make?

Of coarse this post does nothing to justify the impact Terry had in person and the way I felt God speak through him. I cannot describe the feeling I had that morning and the way it totally messed with me. I have been prayerfully considering what God wants next for me in my life. I have been doing SAP consulting for the past 10 years and volunteering as I could in technology and creative areas within the church, but I have felt his calling recently to something more, something different, something that He has in mind. I don’t know if there were others in the room in a similar position as me, but I believe God truly lead Terry to change his topic and it was one that He wanted me to hear.

Thank you Terry for being open to God’s leading with your talk. Thank you for being an idiot for Jesus and the mission of the church. Thank you for the friendship you showed me during these 2 days of the conference.  While the world may look on us as idiots, in the eyes of Jesus I truly believe we are warriors!

 

 

 

I had the privilege of seeing and hearing Tony Morgan give the opening keynote to MinistryTECH conference today which was on the “10 Reasons Why Techies Scare Me”. It was a good way to open the conference - give all of us geeks an understanding of how we are often perceived by ministry leaders (who are usually non-techie by nature). Admittedly, Tony is a “gadget-geek” and he is quite comfortable blogging and twittering, but doing things really technical or even mechanical is not his forte. This is still a man who used duct tape to hold down the hood of sweet Ford Mustang convertible that he was renting on his 15th wedding anniversary!

So it was good to hear first hand from the man who holds the title of “Chief Strategic Officer” of NewSpring Church.  With a title like that, you know the guy is not writing code or installing servers! But he is responsible, among other things, for the IT “department” at NewSpring and making sure that IT is serving the needs of the ministries there. The things that (sometimes) scare Tony about us techies are how we:

1. Assume everyone thinks like us (a techie)
2. Don’t like to bend on standardization.
   (We need to learn how to be more flexible and realize that sometimes God wants to bring about a change)
   
3. Hire (or recruit) the best geek rather than the best leader.
   (His boss, Perry Noble, has told them they cannot hire any more “doer’s” - they must hire “leaders”)
   
4. Always want more stuff
5. Always want more money.
   
6. Don’t document processes well.
7. Implement technical solutions without considering the strategic systems.
   (3 areas: Strategy, People, Technology - all 3 must be in balance)
   
8. Implement technical solutions without communicating with the (leadership) team.
   (good communication skills are often not a strong point for geeks)
   
9. Focus on implementation without creating systems for training and support.
   (We really need to be prepared to hold their hands and help them)
   
10. Let technology drive the ministry rather than letting ministry drive the technology.
    (Key questions: “What is the vision of the church?” and “What is the technology to help get us there?”)

Thanks Tony for the insights!  I think it will definitely help us geeks to ultimately be more successful and help ministry leaders to understand us better and ultimately help the church do its mission better.

I’m actually excited to be going to Oklahoma today (I can’t believe I’m actually saying that!)  I’m flying in to OKC later this evening for the MinistryTECH conference on Thursday and Friday (April 2-3). I’m pumped about the keynote speakers, Tony Morgan and Terry Storch as well as the breakout sessions.  The highlighted ones below are the sessions I’m planning to attend. I expect to be blogging about them and sharing my thoughts and impressions over the next several days.