My Reflections on the 2007 Buzz Conference

The 2007 Buzz Conference really snuck up on me. Leadership Network had asked me to research and write a paper for them on how churches are using social networking tools for kingdom impact. Mark Batterson agreed that it made sense to distribute the piece at this conference (now avail here) and LN was gracious enough [...]

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Buzz Conference – Friday 29 June 2007 – Mark Batterson

Mark Batterson of National Community Church in Washington, DC closed out the Buzz Conference with his final talk. Mark continued his earlier talk on The Spy Rules: Spy Rule #5 – Assume you are under surveillance. people will only be as vulnerable as their leader. the greatest freedom is having nothing to prove. don’t be [...]

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Buzz Conference – Friday 29 June 2007 – Q & A with Craig Groeschel

After Craig’s Friday talk, Mark Batterson interviewed Craig. Here are my notes from some of the exchange: Q: What’s the 20% of your job that you don’t like? A: Craig struggles with the organizational side of pastoring a multi-state, multi-site church – e.g. terminations, etc. Q: What do you do for sermon prep? A: The [...]

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Buzz Conference – Friday 29 June 2007 – Craig Groeschel

This morning’s talk by LifeChurch.tv’s Craig Groeschel was definitely one of the most powerful of the conference. It was, in fact, so good that Mark Batterson commented during this talk afterwards that he was struggling to focus on his message because he was still thinking about Craig’s! Craig called his talk “Confessions of a Pastor” [...]

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Buzz Conference – Friday 29 June 2007 – Bloggers’ Breakfast with Tony Morgan

Left Ellicott City, MD early this AM to make it to Ebenezer’s in Washington, DC by 8 AM to participate in the Buzz Conference Bloggers’ Breakfast with Tony Morgan, who is the Chief Strategic Officer at New Spring Church in Anderson, SC. It occurred to me before I went that he might want to know [...]

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This is the Truth

If you want to see something truly amazing, go to Granger Community Church’s site, then click “Media Player” in the upper right hand corner of the screen, then click on “Extras” then scroll down to the video that’s labelled “The Truth” – Vertigo – Series: U2 Christmas and play that video. It’s worth seeing and [...]

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YouVersion

Todd Rhoades, Warren Bird, and I had a chance today to chat with Bobby Gruenewald about the new version of the Bible that his team at LifeChurch.tv is launching. It’s called YouVersion and here is the site they’ve just announced. On Tuesday Bobby briefly described YouVersion this way: “YouVersion is a free online Bible that [...]

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Buzz Conference – Thursday 28 June 2007 – Craig Groeschel

Craig Groeschel, of LifeChurch.tv, also had some great things to share during his session. It’s a distraction to look longingly at the resources other churches have that you don’t have. “You have everything that you need to reach the people God wants you to reach.” Limited Resources + Increasing Passion = Exponential Innovation If someone [...]

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Buzz Conference – Thursday 28 June 2007 – Tim Stevens

Tim Stevens, of Granger Community Church, had some great things to share: Most churches don’t have buzz ’cause they’re not having any impact Impact derives from love. “Would our community be any different if our church ceased to exist?” Would anyone notice? Buzz comes from unexpected care. Using Pop Culture Five Ways to Respond to [...]

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Buzz Conference – Thursday 28 June 2007 – Mark Batterson

Great day at Buzz in DC today. Very thought-provoking and encouraging. I am starting to think that many quarters of evangelicalism are starting to get the balancing temporal and eternal concerns thing (aka as the social justice / gospel balance). But there’s another dynamic at work here too and that’s the incarnational / attractional balance, [...]

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