Our Common Endeavor

Have I pitched the Culture Center Summit to you?  You of all people should come to the Culture Center Summit.

By virtue of reading this blog, you’re pretty much the bulls-eye for this thing.  It’s very fun several times a week to bat around the kind of topics we do here as we meet each other in cyberspace.  That said, our ultimate dream is to fan into flame an ever-growing multitude of folks who experience and promote vibrant faith in great, secular places—throughout America and hopefully well-beyond.  This is something that’s pretty new and pretty fun…and does seem to require occasional face time, hence our heart for a yearly gathering of all of us who say “I’m in!” to this endeavor.

There will, of course, be inspiring and helpful things said—maybe even one or two by me.  We’d planned to have Chris Lowney join us last year, but his elderly mom’s bad car accident kept him from making it.  Chris wrote the favorite book I read in 2008—Heroic Leadership, a ripping good story of the development of the Jesuits as applied to leadership advice for today.  (We’ve often wondered if the Jesuits are among the best historic pictures of what we’re hoping to see happen today, for all their occasional missteps.)  He’ll plan to be here this year. 

But we’re realizing that, as important as inspiring and helpful and provocative words are, they’re really only part of the story here.  For one, they have limits.  (I’m sure every now and again as you read our friendly blog you have the fleeting thought that, as helpful and engaging as talk about stage and set theories are, clearly there’s more to life.  You quickly snap back to sanity, of course, but perhaps you carry that lingering memory…)  But a big, big part of what seems to be happening at this gathering involves who you actually end up rubbing shoulders with—and perhaps who you’ll rub shoulders with for years to come if you make this a yearly commitment.  One good friend of mine talks with excitement about the new friend she met at last year’s summit that she may someday plant a new church with.  One of my favorite congregations is looking to bring THIRTY of their top leaders to get them fully engaged with this conversation and network.  Folks from 13 states joined us last year, so you really can meet new partners from all over.

So we’re taking this network stuff much more seriously this year.  Two full afternoons will be spent with smaller groups of folks like yourself.  Casey Corum, who heads the Vineyard Music label, will be co-leading a track with Christopher Greco and David Linhart for musicians and worship leaders.  I’ll head up a pastors track.  There will be lay leader and SEEK leader and tracks.  There will be some pretty great chances to rub shoulders.

And, believe it or not, we do spend a good part of our year working behind the scenes gathering feedback and doing our best to generate resources for this endeavor.  So right at the moment I’m working like a busy beaver on one of the most-requested items.  Folks who buy into the things we talk about here have asked again and again, “Yes, but how?”  If, say, the point of view of Not the Religious Type is—for the sake of argument—fresh and helpful and a great start to all of this, how does one actually create a community (large or at Starbucks) along these lines?  Are there hidden pitfalls?  How does it look like other communities of faith, how does it look different, how do things interconnect…how does one do this?  I’ll have the first draft of a book on that subject for summit attendees. 

The other most-frequent request we’ve heard in the past year has been for SEEK DVDs.  About 80 people and congregations have taken a whack at SEEK at some level.  Some have gone very well and SEEK is now an established thing they do.  Others have said it turned out to be harder than it looked and that they think they could do it if they, say, could be a fly on the wall as a SEEK helper in a course I ran.  Given that they can’t do that, could we put together a DVD curriculum that they could lead in which I carry the talks the first or second or third go-rounds so that they can focus on the people present.  And then maybe they’d take over and do it live after that.  And could we include, say, commentary tracks with each talk that teach the nuances of how to attract people to SEEK, how to create safe and vibrant groups, how to move people forward once SEEK is done, and things like that?  So…sure.  We’ll have the start of that ready for folks at the summit.

By this point I’ll assume you’re sold, that, hey, whatever trifling obstacles have to be overcome for you to make this happen, you’ll take care of them and be there.  (I mean, in the big picture, don’t you want your life to be about these things?  So it’ll take a little work and planning—this is the sweep of your life we’re talking about here…)  So we’ll consider that done, which is awesome.  Two things come to mind.  One, just to say, the early registration deadline is Tuesday, so you’ll want to save a few bucks.  Second, I’d imagine you know people I don’t know who, frankly, should be at this thing.  They would love it and would jump right in, but first they have to hear about it and be encouraged to give it a shot.  So you’ll want to get on that. :)

I’d like to close with the Culture Center Summit cheer, but that would require writing one, and who has the time?  But I’ll certainly close with a hearty (and hopeful) “See you there!”