Day 3 :: Q

I’m back in Cleveland sitting on my recliner catching up on e-mail. The last day of Q was great and Bryan and I were able to catch an earlier flight and I made it back 5 hours ahead of schedule. What a day! Here’s some highlights from today’s talks.

Jim White (president of Gordon-Conwell Seminary) :: Serious Times
“The Kingdom was meant to come… The real Christian is ALWAYS a revolutionary.”

Clint Kemp :: Sacred Space
“As pastors we like to integrate things very quickly. That is very dangerous. We must return to the mystery of God and how that interacts with us as a whole. We must first come to an awareness, then spend time in reflection, enter into a conversation and finally end up with integration.”

Rick McKinley :: Divine Imagination
“Why aren’t there great stories of culture change happening in our congregation?… As pastors we’d rather be teh guy than the pastor of the guy.” (ouch)

3 Minute Stories :: The Q people invited some of the attenders to share 3 minutes of what’s happening in their communities

Kevin Kelly :: Where We Go From Here
The church has values that should NEVER change but everything else is flexible and should adapt to the times. As a church we can either adapt and flourish or fade into the background.

Mike Foster :: Be the Change

All in all I would say that this was THE BEST conference I have ever attended. It was well put together and thought out in amazing ways. The guys at Q didn’t miss anything as they were planning. For instance they had a couple of different people talking about environmental issues and the way the church could respond, but they didn’t just talk. There were decisions made to have each participant get a “nalgene type” water bottle so that there wouldn’t be 7,000 plastic bottles sent to a landfill or they asked us to each donate $10 so that they could purchase energy efficient light bulbs to give to locals that would then make the whole event carbon neutral. I have never been to something that was so thought through to the point that it would be hard to poke holes in the presentation.

As I hear more about how you can get your hands on the materials presented at Q this week I will put it up here and when they release dates for next years conference I will let you know as well.

I will be working through all my notes in the next couple days and will probably post some personal action steps tomorrow. The one thing that I’ve realized personally taht I will share right now is this…

You and I, as part of the Body of Christ, we were made to shape culture… we were made to impact it… we were made to redeem it. The world can change and we can be a part of it because the Kingdom was meant to come… and we have been left as ambassadors. It’s not good enough to live well… we must move!