I got the incredible opportunity to attend the Story Conference at the Paramount Theater in Chicago, Illinois last week. It was a great conference and I learned a lot.
Sorry for the delay of this post but things have been a little crazy around here lately.
I will share JUST A FEW things from each speaker/workshop leader that I walked away thinking about.
ED YOUNG:
- Everybody wants to reach people until you start reaching people.
- Church work is BRUTIFUL
- Don’t chase the people who leave your church.
- God smiles when we use our passion for purpose
DAVE GIBBONS
- We’ve limited our story because of our budgets.
- Develop a theology of discomfort.
- When there is personal revelation of weakness, it releases the Holy Spirit to work.
- Love is a choice. Jesus didn’t WANT to go to the cross.
CHRIS SEAY
- We love the Bible because it points us to love.
- We are not tired from doing too much, it’s because we are doing the wrong things.
JOHN ORTBERG
- Don’t quit dreaming. When you quit dreaming, you die.
- Quit asking God to fullfill your dream. Just ask Him to be a part of the bigger dream.
STACY SPENCER
- Tell the story and let Jesus be heard through you.
- In communicating, introduce dilemma to the text.
- Illuminate the redemption.
MIKE FOSTER
- The struggle of now is more important than the struggle of past.
- People don’t get you when you constantly project success.
- People only want to follow someone with a limp.
DON MILLER (who had the flu and STILL killed it!)
- A story is when there is a character who has to overcome conflict to get something.
- Character matters more in a story than success.
- The world says we shouldn’t have conflict…why should the church?
- In Genesis 2 Adam is lonely…that’s conflict.
- Adam didn’t meet Eve in a bar and chicken out of getting her number…she didn’t exist. That’s conflict.
SKYE JETHANI (My personal favorite of the entire conference)
- You have the chance to educate or illuminate, teach or preach, inform or inspire.
- The world says for every problem, there is a pill, program or person to solve it.
- The ESSENCE of life is unmet desires. The PURPOSE of life is to meet those desires…through Jesus.
- Jesus has become the MEANS to the end rather than the end.
- When you have the vision, the means take care of themselves.
- Nothing of scripture makes sense if our vision is locked on the reality of the consumer world view.
- Enter into the realities of scripture THROUGH their imagination.
TONY MORGAN
- You can’t just listen to God, you have to actually DO what he says.
- The pace of ministry sometimes supercedes relationship with Christ…that’s not good.
- Let leaders learn by doing the wrong things.
- Don’t get stuck DELEGATING tasks rather than LEADING volunteers.
- We experience fear when we think we are in conrol
STORY was a great conference and I can’t wait to see what is in store for next year!
