About a month ago the Leadership Network hosted the Nines web conference on Sept. 9, 2009. It was a day-long event of over 70 leaders sharing lessons via nine minute videos. Leadership Network has posted those videos online to watch at your convenience.
There’s loads of great content, including Shawn Wood talking about managing creatives, Anne Jackson going sans makeup to talk about authenticity and many more. We wanted to highlight a few of those videos and summarize their lessons, but there are 77 videos on the site, so we’re just scratching the surface.
Scott Williams: Church Diversity Sucks
Scott Williams, the campus pastor of the Northwest Oklahoma City campus of LifeChurch.tv, starts things off with a challenge: “Church diversity sucks.” Talk about finding a place in our hearts! He goes on to talk about the importance of diversity within the church and quotes Martin Luther King Jr. talking about Sunday morning being the most segregated hour of the week. In a perfect world race shouldn’t matter, but were not in a perfect world and it does matter. Church diversity sucks, but it doesn’t have to.
Skye Jethani: Finding Our Identity in God, Not Accomplishments
Skye Jethani, managing editor of Leadership Journal and author of The Divine Commodity, talks about where we find our identity. He says people seem to think we either lack the proper strategies or the proper motivation. But Jethani claims it’s a deeper issue: “We’ve equated large with legitimate and I just think that’s eating our souls.” Rather than judging legitimacy based on the outcome of ministry, we need to base it on who we are in God—that we are all sons and daughters of the Father.
Jenni Catron: We Can Change the World
Jenni Catron, the executive director at Cross Point Church in Nashville, spoke about churches stepping up to tackle poverty around the world. She shared a quote that challenged her: “We have shrunk Jesus to the size where he can save our soul, but we don’t believe that he can change the world.” As her church considered doubling their giving she struggled with whether or not it would make a difference. Seeing organizations make a difference one person at a time and a quote from Richard Stearns’ The Hole In Our Gospel challenged her to reconsider: “Don’t fail to do something just because you can’t do everything.” Catron shares the final conclusion she came to: “God is big enough to change the world.”
Brian McLaren: What Gospel Are We Preaching?
Brian McLaren, former pastor of 24 years and current author and speaker, has what is probably the most creative approach to the nine-minute video. Instead of talking directly to the camera, McLaren talks on the phone and we hear his half of a conversation about what he should share. He ends up explaining his idea to the person on the other end of the phone, and by extension to us as well. It’s a disarming approach that works well for his subject: What is the gospel? McLaren claims that the gospel is not mere information about how to get into heaven, but a message to transform the world around us. As he says: “The gospel is not an evacuation plan, it’s a transformation plan.” He says that something is wrong when churches are getting bigger but social indicators are getting worse. “The measure of the church’s success is not how many people are inside, but what difference we’re making in the world around us.”
Check out the other 73 videos yourself and tell us which ones are your favorites and why.
Klreed189
October 5, 2009
There were a couple that really stood out to me:
1) Steven Furtick video
2) Bil Cornelius on Mentoring
3) Darrin Patricks video (probably because he is my pastor as well, but the talk was awesome)
Sean Salter
October 15, 2009
Scott Williams has a Mason’s emblem on his vest lololol.