Daily Concern

Last year I had the opportunity to attend a brand new conference called Story. The focus was on effectively communicating the greatest story ever told. I was blown away at the creativity of the event. Everything thing from the website, promotion, atmosphere, hosts, music, drama and speakers was absolutely unique and inspiring.

I was so excited to hear that Story was coming back this year, this time I immediately signed up for two tickets, one for me and one for my wife. She’ll love the conference and we plan to stay a couple of extra days in Chicago as a weekend getaway. I’m also planning on sending another one or two people from my Marketing & Communications team.

If you a part of the communications, creative arts, web or video team in your church then do NOT miss this event. True to form, Ben Arment has re-worked this year’s conference to be completely different than last year – I can’t wait to see what he has in store for us all. Following are some exciting details regarding the event!

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STORY is a conference for the creative class in ministry on September 23-24, 2010 at Park Community Church in downtown Chicago. The purpose is to fuel the church’s artists, writers and producers in communicating the greatest story ever told. You’ll hear from some of the best creative practitioners in both ministry and the marketplace, from filmmakers and authors to actors and musicians. Presenters include:

• Dan Allender – best-selling author, professor at Mars Hill Graduate School
• Charlie Todd – creator of Improv Everywhere in New York City
• Princess Zulu – AIDS victim from infancy, advocate for the oppressed
• Jason Fried – founder of 37Signals, creator of Basecamp, author of Rework
• John Sowers – president of Donald Miller’s The Mentoring Project
• Shauna Niequist – former creative director at Mars Hill, author of Bittersweet
• David Hodges – formerly of the band Evanescence, award-winning songwriter
• Leonard Sweet – futurist, author of 40 books, professor at Drew University
• David McFadzean – creator of Home Improvement, producer of Roseanne
• Richard Walter – accomplished screenwriter and professor of film at UCLA
• Sean Gladding – member of Communality, a new monastic community
• Andrew Klavan – author of True Crime (Clint Eastwood) and numerous novels
• Gary Dorsey – founder of Pixel Peach Studio in Austin, TX
• Music by Vicky Beeching, Kari Jobe and Carlos Whittaker

Seating is limited to just 500 attendees, and the event is scheduled on a Thursday and Friday so you can enjoy the weekend in the city. Following its inaugural event in 2009, STORY is now a two-day, main-stage event with no breakouts or workshops; just an intimate audience with the top creative minds. You’ll be able to ask questions during the event and continue the conversation after it’s over. Visit www.storychicago.com.

It seems to me that many of the issues we face on a daily basis…

• issues at home, at the church, or at the office;
• issues between our family, friends and coworkers;
• issues with projects, deadlines and deliverables;
• issues with authority, responsibilities and commitments;
• issues related to misunderstandings, misinterpretations and mistakes;

… can often be traced back to poor, ineffective and untimely communication between one or more parties.

The capital “C” Church has struggled to master the art of communication – from within its four walls, from the Church to its congregation, from the congregation to the Church and from members to members. Technology in and of itself cannot fix these issues but it can provide a set of tools to enable, streamline, and promote good, effective and timely communication.

This is why I was so excited to learn more about a new tool being developed called SoChurch. It aims to simplify church communication by providing tools that will foster community without getting in the way.

I was honored when the SoChurch team asked to join the advisory board for this new venture that is backed by an amazing team of leaders, innovators and technologists that have an awesome heart for the Lord and the local Church. I believe that SoChurch may be the tool that can finally help bridge the communication gap that exists in many churches today.

To keep in the loop about SoChurch, be sure to follow them on Twitter or join the Facebook group.

Would you like to see a sneak peek at SoChurch?

SoChurch will also help facilitate member involvement in and around the church. The SoChurch team shared with me a screenshot of the application where individuals can help meet the needs of their brothers and sisters in Christ.

When I moved my blog back to being a purely personal one I started to put in the standard disclaimer that I see on many blog sites, especially those of Church IT folks, they always say “My views, thoughts and opinions are my own and do not represent XYZ church”. That sounds great, but it’s simply not reality. Through existing and emerging technologies like Email, Instant Messenger, Blogs, Text Messaging, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter we have more opportunities than ever in the history of the world to stick your foot in your mouth.

There’s a mound of evidence that no immunity necklace exists for personal blogs and their disclaimers, even if your content is purely personal in nature. Check out a sampling of the stories here, here, and here.

So you must be on guard at all times. When you talk about yourself, your company, your church, your co-workers, etc. then you are not just representing yourself, you’re also representing them to some extent. You are influencing their reputation, positively or negatively. 

Once it’s out there in the world wide Interweb you can’t take it back. I learned that the hard way in 1995. I was only a few years removed from college. Shortly after joining a telecom company, I was invited to a meeting with some executives from a budding start-up company. It was very cool to be a participant in the meeting. They shared their short-term and long-term roadmap, many innovative things that propelled them to lead the market through the next 5 years.

I couldn’t wait to get access to all of the new features. Unfortunately, I was still very young and naive. So I went back to my desk and used this new “tool” called the Internet that was beginning to explode. I wanted to share my excitement with others so I posted my thoughts on a “bulletin board” (it was the big thing back them). My post was quickly replicated around the world (who knew?). Within an hour I was called into a Vice President’s office as tech engineers in another room tried to figure out how to remove my post. Turns out that my company was under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the start-up company and I had inadvertently shared some corporate secrets. Doh! I thought was going to get fired on the spot. I tried to claim ignorance because they didn’t inform me of the NDA between the two companies. But they reminded me that ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Thankfully I was able to keep my job that day, but I’ve been extra cautious ever since.

God bless,

Curtis S