Confession time: I’ve been unfaithful. I didn’t mean for it to happen … it just … happened.

My blog and I have simply grown apart. I can’t truthfully say that I don’t love my blog, I’ve simply been spending more and more time with Twitter. Twitter really understands me. Understands my short attention span; my need for constant attention; my insatiable desire for sticking my nose in other people’s business; strokes my ego and allows me to be someone I could only wish I were; and fulfills my longings for connecting with other like-minded church communicators smarter than me. Turns out that just about everyone I follow is far smarter than me … So I’m really lucky that way.

Anyway, if you twitter and we aren’t already following each other, click the fancy “Follow Me on Twitter” link to the left and let’s hook up and hang out online. I love the collaboration, conversation, and connection I’m getting from everyone there. You all are helping to make me more infinitely smarter than you could ever know.

Don’t misunderstand me. This blog isn’t going anywhere … we’re staying together. In fact, I’ll be giving some previews of some breakout session goodness slated to happen at this year’s MinistryCOM Conference coming up in September – IF the economy doesn’t put a damper on travel plans from Dallas to Chicago … a real threat right now.

Thanks for hangin’ with me. Twitter with you soon.

It’s official. I am really excited to have been asked to present a breakout session at this year’s MinistryCOM Conference in Chicago, September 10-11.

If you are unfamiliar, MinistryCOM is “the only national organization dedicated to recognizing and supporting ministry communications professionals.” But it’s not only for churches. Many other ministries, non-profits, and parachurch organizations can benefit from the wealth of knowledge, information, networking opportunities, and resources available year-round.

What’s the topic of my breakout? Here the breakout description:

Advertising Doesn’t Work

Advertising is often a mysterious, intimidating, frustrating, and expensive notion. It’s been said that, “The most expensive form of advertising is the kind that doesn’t work.” The ugly truth is: Advertising doesn’t work. And it doesn’t matter whether it is television, radio, billboards, newspapers, phone books, online, or direct mail.

But there is good news: The whole truth is that it isn’t the advertising medium that’s working or not, it’s the offer you make that either succeeds or fails.

This session will begin with answering the all-important question, “Why advertise?” From that solid foundation, you will quickly learn how to build a framework of success for your advertising through real life dollars-and-common-sense examples and case studies. You will also learn that regardless of your budget, you can develop a winning strategy, minimize your risk, see results, and maximize your church’s impact in the community.

About the Presenter

Roland has a varied professional communications background spanning nearly 20 years in both secular corporate and Christian organizations. As a video producer, a portion of that time was with Bluefish TV. Roland’s marketing and advertising experience was gained in the radio business from his years as a Promotions Director in the DFW Metroplex for Christian Talk Radio KWRD 100.7 FM and KLTY 94.9 FM, “America’s No. 1 Christian Radio Station.”

Roland has since answered the call to “help the Church matter” leading people into a life-transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. He has served as Director of Communications at Firewheel Church in Garland, Texas. He is now on staff as an Art Director at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas. Roland, his wife Beth, and three children live in Garland. A proud native Texan, he is anything but a redneck.

If you’re planning to attend MinistryCOM this year in the ‘Windy City,’ let me know (even if you don’t plan to attend my breakout). I’d love to connect. Keep in mind that Early Bird pricing ends in May. See you there.

Missed the Innovate ‘08 Conference at Granger Community Church (GCC) in Granger, Indiana last month? Bummer. We didn’t. It was an awesome two days of inspiration, motivation, worship, and practical takeaways. See my review post.

But there’s good news! Wired Churches is coming to the Dallas area this Thursday, October 23. These workshops are for pastors, staff, ministry leaders, and volunteers at all levels.

Springcreek Community Church in Garland is hosting three intensely focused simultaneous workshops. Kind of like bringing the best information, trends, insights and ministry strategies from the Innovate Conference to you. Three of GCC’s finest are coming to deliver three power-packed workshops.

Tim Stevens, author of Pop Goes the Church, will teach “Simply Strategic Volunteers;” Mark Waltz, author of First Impressions, will teach a workshop by the same title; and Kem Meyer, soon-to-be-published author of Less Clutter. Less Noise., will teach on Communications.

It isn’t too late to REGISTER yourself as an individual or as a group. I’ll be there and I can’t wait.

There’s so much to report. There’s so much to implement. Here are some highlights from the Innovate 08 Conference.

Awesome worship team primarily volunteer fueled

Granger’s Senior Pastor Mark Beeson launched with a call to action. “We are in a culture that wants something to happen.” “The church can talk too much and do too little because we’ve disengaged from a world in desperate need.”

Seacoast Church’s Experiences Pastor Shawn Wood, author of 200 Pomegranates and an Audience of One, said, “Be careful. Managing your brand, perfecting your brand, pursuing excellence, making better art, better “stuff” can tend to compromise your authenticity.” “We may be excellent, but could be ineffective.”

Granger’s Rob Wegner brought a compelling session called Missional Moves that challenged us to move from “flashlight to laser focus.” When we just talk, talk, talk, “some are confusing the Great Commission with the great commotion.” Narrowing focus dramatically increases impact.

Roland (L); Kem (R)

I even had Kem Meyer, Granger’s Communications maven stop me to get a picture … uhm … OK, well … I stopped her. I’m pretty sure she has absolutely no idea who I was.

Other awesome speakers were an encouragement and inspiration. I’m definately adding Steven Furtick of Elevation Church to my blogroll.

We closed out the two-day conference with a close-up guided tour of the behind-the-scenes workings of the Granger campus … a surprisingly small space for such a large attendance for multiple weekend experiences.

I’m really diggin’ the idea of returning to Granger next year for Innovate 09 already scheduled for September.

My very first Coney Island dog

So my HPPC Communications homies – Jon, Chris, Zack, and me – spent the better part of the day today travelling to the Innovate 08 Conference at Granger Community Church.

We flew out of DFW this morning into Ft. Wayne, IN. Once we got there, we stopped through downtown Ft. Wayne (Jon’s hometown) and landed in Famous Ft. Wayne Coney Island.

Note the Coca Cola in a bottle. Nice touch.

Could not resist this "crappy" caption in Stoner's window

After lunch, we strolled across the street to Stoner’s – an incredibly unexpected treasure of novelty items, costumes, and magic tricks.

I’m not sure how they got their name, but if their clientel is any indication …

One two-hour car ride later, we arrived to check-in to our hotel … only to discover we didn’t have reservations there. Doh! The issues did get resolved, though. We’re across the street tonight and back at the original place tomorrow and Friday.

Anyway, we’re all really looking forward to an awesome conference and connecting with old and new friends. I’ll be posting some session notes and pics here. I know all two of you are anxiously awaiting …

“Stop talking. Start doing.” That’s the theme of this year’s Innovate Conference coming up at Granger Community Church in Granger, IN.

If you don’t know much about Highland Park Presbyterian Church, only drawing on an outsider’s perspective, I can see how it would be easy to think that a conference called “Innovate” would seem an ill fit. I would have probably thought it out loud.

As an insider now myself, however, I can tell you that we in the Communications Ministry are uber excited about heading up to Granger September 18-19.

Two months on staff at HPPC has revealed to me the heart of a church that beats with compassion, local impact, global evangelism, and missional purpose. Not completely without faults, we’re a body working toward unity to ultimately glorify God.

I’m anxious to bring back tons of education, insight, motivation, and inspiration to help lead HPPC, through excellence in communications, into a new era of innovation and impact. It’s time to shut up … and put up.

Who’s with me?

I attended a fantastic breakout session by Phil Cooke named after his most recent book of the same name, Branding Faith: Why Some Churches and Nonprofits Impact Culture and Others Don’t. I have to admit, though, that his book hasn’t yet moved from my “want to read” list to my “books read” list. But it will soon. I promise. Here are my notes from the breakout:

• We are bombarded by somewhere between 3,000 to 5,000 advertising impressions every day.
• Ultimately, branding is about perception. And perception is reality.
• Who you are matters, but not as much as how you are perceived. If you don’t control your perception, you will always remain at the mercy of others’ perception of you.
• Branding (defined): A compelling story about a product, person, or organization. These principles of branding can be applied to your own life and career, too.
• Branding permeates everything you do.
• Branding is also about how you get noticed.
• In a media-driven culture, visibility is just as important as ability.
• You cannot brand a lie. Be who you say you are.
• Being different is everything. Uniqueness is paramount.
• Four important questions to ask yourself in order to define your brand: (1) Why am I doing this? What’s the point? (2) Who are you? What makes you ‘you?’ (3) What are your skills and talents … now? Not skills or talents you wish you possessed. Find your niche. (4) What makes you different from any other church in town?
• Five practical things you can do right now to get started: (1) Understand the power of a name. (ex., Mid-West Baptist Bible College doubled enrollment within one year of changing their name to Covenant University … your name is extremely important). (2) Speak the language of design. (3) Be careful with humor. What’s funny in the south may not be funny up north. (4) Find your overarching theme for your life/ministry. (5) Answer the question: What’s your ultimate calling? Ironically, focusing on what drives you crazy can be profoundly eye-opening to discovering your calling.
• Phil then pleaded with us to eliminate flags, doves, flames, and globes from all our communication pieces and logos. They no longer have the same symbolic strength they used to. Phil humorously told of a pastor who once confessed after one of his talks to violating all four simultaneously on one business card.
• Phil also introduced the emerging birth of what is termed the “Open Media Revolution.” In our current age of FaceSpaceTwitterBlogTextIMosphere, people are achingly aware of their need for a voice.

To illustrate the need for each of us to have a clearly defined vision of our brand, he told a story about Walt Disney (one of my favorite visionaries of all time). Before the construction of Disneyland in California was even completed, Walt had already set his sights to building Disneyworld in Orlando. Unfortunately, he died before it was completed and open to the public. His wife however, was there for the Grand Opening celebrations. A Disney Corporation employee commented to her that he thought it a shame that Walt wasn’t here to see it. Without hesitation she replied, “Oh, he saw it. That’s why it’s here.”

Since learning of him a couple of years ago, I’ve respected and valued Brad Abare’s contributions to our field through the Center for Church Communications and Church Marketing Sucks. So I was real excited at the chance to hear him speak. Here’s my notes from his session on “Organization as Soul Provider”:

• The Church used to be people’s “soul provider.” But along the way, we (as churches) have lost our soul. We need to put ourselves back into that role.
• What does it mean (look like) to lose our soul? (1) Drift. We forget what really matters. (2) Fragmentation. Split up and focus on smaller matters. (3) Narcissism. We are all that matters. (4) Conflict. We can’t agree on what really matters.
• Our soul is directly tied to our desire to be known.
• Brad suggested four reasons why “organization as soul provider” is so important. (1) Globalization. (2) Options. (3) Branding. (4) Disruption.
• What it looks like to have a soul: (1) Loyalty. (2) Identification. (3) Trust. (4) Recognition.
• The first step in finding our soul is re-discovering our roots. Complete the blanks of the following exercise: “We are a __(role)__; serving __(who)__; doing __(what)__; to accomplish __(result)__.

Despite running short on time and needing to rush through the presentation, Brad did a great job introducing the concept of “organization as soul provider.” An idea I certainly hadn’t spent any energy, or gained perspective, on before.

I became a huge fan of Donald Miller after reading Blue Like Jazz … like everyone else. I’ve also read his other subsequent books and look forward to more. But I hadn’t as of yet heard him speak. Wow. This guy’s obviously a deep thinker and modern-day philosopher with lots to say about a lot of things. This post of my notes from this session won’t do justice to the genius that is Donald Miller … but here goes anyway:

• “I struggle with the problem of futility. But life just feels more meaningful in art (especially music) … an escape … and the elements of story.”
• ‘Story,’ in its most basic form, is a character who wants something and is willing to overcome conflict to get it. That’s a narrative – which goes back to creation. The story of creation. That’s narrative. Narrative engages the human mind.
• “I wonder if there’s a difference between random experiences and stories.”
• But not just any character will do. The character needs to care more about others than himself. That’s the ONLY difference between a hero and a villain. What they want matters. They can’t be selfish.
• The consequence of not getting what they want needs to be big (matters of life and death).
• The test of a good character is: If the character dies, what dies with him? Will 1,000 water wells in African not get dug? …
• What’s true? Are you who you are out of what you do OR what you do out of who you are. Miller believes the former …
• This is how we write the story (or stories) of our own life.

We were all left with a compelling charge to write better stories … for our churches, for our families, our relationships, for ourselves. To attempt further commentary would be an exercise in futility … you would just have had to have been there for yourself.

Todd Wagner is the Lead Pastor of Watermark Community Church here in Dallas, hosting the Echo Conference. Session Two zeroed in on our absolute need to do what we do using media with excellence in church communications … but not for excellence’s sake alone. Here are my notes from Todd’s talk:

• People don’t think in “words,” they think in images.
• Quoting an author, he said, “The most powerful force in the making of history … is metaphor.”
• The power of ’story’ changes people
• Entertain (defined): To hold someone’s attention. Using that definition, we are to indeed entertain people. Amusement (defined): Action without thought. We are not to amuse people.
• Create media, not just to honor God, but to move people toward God.
• Peer-to-peer advertising (a.k.a. word-of-mouth) is the most sought-after form of advertising for a successful campaign. This is something the Church has known all along …
• Search and listen for the ‘proverbial sentence’ to communicate a single message
• You have been given gifts. “You HAVE to do this!”
• From Matthew 5:16, “Let your light shine before men …” and 1 Peter 3:15-16, “You must BE this.” Live your own life in such a way that reflects His glory.
• “You must not do this alone.” Seek out mentors in your life to spur you on to excellence.

Following the general session were back-to-back breakouts. I attended Brad Zimmerman’s “Creativity on a Budget” and obtained the list of all lists of FREE resources and tutorials websites.

From there, Gary Molander of Floodgate Productions presented “Media as a Teaching Tool.” Another great chance to get an insider’s take on video vignettes and their effective use.