Life After the Buzz

It’s been a few days after the closing of the Buzz Conference. While I like attending conferences, they almost always feel like brain washing sessions. I’m convinced this is because we’ve been immersed in one topic for days or a week straight, and just start accepting everything the speaker says as the ultimate truth. Because of this, I always like writing my notes immediately, but then reflecting for a few days before getting out and trying to change the world based on what I learned.

So, the Buzz has begun to wear off, and I’m still seeing the world differently.

First, let me say I was a bit surprised at what I got from attending. I had thought this would be a great conference to talk about creating a buzz about church and changing the lives of people. Ways that include using technology, scripture and old fashioned hitting the streets.

I got there and was surrounded by pastors. Have you ever been in a room and felt like you were the dumbest person there? Ok, this wasn’t that bad, there was a 4 year-old girl there with her parents, I’m pretty sure I know more about church and preaching than she does.

Seriously though, there are 300 people around me, and each one I talked to seemed incredibly interesting and incredibly intelligent. They pastured church which were multiple times bigger than our church. They were all staff. One was a great man from Australia who is currently planting a church.

Heck, the people I talked to were bloggers who you just knew had some really insightful things to say about church and life. People who must have a ton of people reading their blog regularly. Me, I have about 14 subscribers (and one of them may be me actually). I do have some friends reading, like Melissa who offered to help with sermon series graphics (she is creative and just and awesome person, I’ll be taking her up on that offer).

The conference ended up being more about how to give really good sermons, and how to focus the church on visitors and people who don’t know Christ.

So, what is the main thing I took away from all of this? It was simply this, “that’s how I’m going to do it when I become a priest”. I can do some of it now with youth ministry, and supporting Rob. Really though, I can’t wait to have a church of my own, where I can make some real changes, pushing the technological envelope as well as driving a parish to be open and willing to invite people in.

There have been two things I took away from this conference that keep sitting in my mind. I may write more on them later. Basically the four key points are:

• I can actually be a priest, and could be a pretty good one.


• Creativity isn’t simple, we need supporting people and supportive practices to make it happen. But, everything you can imagine IS possible.


• We need to build the people up around us. Never speak negatively of someone, do you think God sees you in a negative light?

I know I’ll be writing more later. Especially about those top three items. Heck, I’m already in the middle of a blog entry relating to them.

I’m beginning to listen to more sermons online too. I’m also planning on setting up Rob’s sermons as a podcast, no more requiring people to use RealAudio.

For now I’ll leave you with this quote from Mark Batterson paraphrasing J.R.R. Tolkien

"Maybe a lack of faith is really a lack of imagination"

Do you have the imagination to believe?

Peace,
+Tom/Bob

posted by Tom at 10:36 PM