Innovate Day 1

I'm here in Lynchburg, VA this week for Innovate Conference. It's Thomas Road's take on a church conference.

In what has become a sea of church conferences I'm sitting here in my hotel room grateful to be attending this one. In the last year I've attended most of the major conferences and plenty of one-day seminars and I've spent countless hours listening to various MP3's from leadership gurus and strategists. To put it mildly, I'm conferenced out.

So why attend Innovate?
Because I knew what I'd get and I knew I needed it.

In my eyes the name was somewhat misleading. Usually when you hear 'Innovate' you think flashy, tech-heavy, fog machines and expensive. Today I have a new way to describe it. Biblical.

When every conference in every corner starts to run to be different and new... it becomes innovative to return to scripture.

When everything is about the latest and freshest... it becomes innovative to simplify and get back to the basics.

As we run to hear from the guys who've grown their churches to a million in under a year it becomes innovative to attend a conference held by a church with over 50 years of ministry.

One of the ways I like to review what God is saying to me is to kind of mesh together the various themes I've heard and apply it to my life. If I were to summarize today's varied talks I'd come up with this thought:

"Get focused on the vision God gave you like you have 30 days to live and quit looking sideways to see where you measure up."

In a world of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses-Christianity... that's pretty innovative if you ask me.

If you want to review notes from the conference just go to www.summize.com and type in #innovatechurch to see what others are saying.