MinistryCOM/Drinking from the Firehose

I just got back Friday night from MinistryCOM and it’s still hard to put into words what I experienced there. As the rest of the weekend was consumed with Sara Ann’s Homecoming dance and after-party sleepover for six girls, I’m just now getting a chance to really think through the whole thing.

Terry Storch of Lifechurch opened the event. I have Terry’s book, The Blogging Church, and fully intended to take it to the conference and have him sign it, but forgot. His talk was as amazing as I expected it to be, and he is clearly as close to the bleeding edge as one can get without falling off. He made the point that never in our history have we had more opportunity to reach others — the Internet, cell phone technology, blogging, youtube, twitter, facebook, and others — and highlighted how this “coincides” with the largest population (and growing) in history. More people and more ways to reach them. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

After a full day of talks and discussion on technology, Church Marketing Sucks’ Brad Abare challenged us to strip it all away and examine what is left. What if all the lights went out, no video, no Web, no Web 2.0 … no tech at all. What is the point if it’s not about Christ? Wow. It’s hard to put into words, but after a day in geek heaven it brought me back down to earth and made me think about the Purpose of it all.

Shawn Wood talked about brand schizophrenia — and the thing that stuck with me is that the brand is the emotional aftertaste. He also talked about expectations and how one careless mistake can make the difference in whether our readers’/church visitors’/customers’ experience meets their expectations or creates a lingering bad aftertaste.

Kem Meyer closed the two days with her reminder that others’ perceptions of us don’t necessarily match what we think they think of us. She used some of the most moving video clips I’ve ever seen and I’m still trying to explain the last one — with the crawling text — to my husband. She has always been one of my favorite bloggers and one of the people I most looked forward to hearing.

I can’t wait until next year — I’ll get to Oklahoma City even if I have to fly!