brad lomenick

So we had another creative meeting yesterday for Catalyst. 

Really fun ideas generated during the meeting. Plus we discussed in greater detail the theme of “together” for this years event. We met at the global headquarters of BigStuf, in the heart of downtown Alpharetta, GA, just across the street from the headquarters of Passion. Included in the meeting- Kevin Sterner, Reggie Joiner, Ben Arment, Lanny Donoho, Brian Pirkle, Ken Coleman, Jeff Shinabarger, Brian Cole, Jeremie Kubicek, Sheila Shouldeen, Melissa Kruse and myself. It is always a highlight to get together and dream big and think outside the box with our creative team. The reason we are so intensely focused on this is very clear for me- God demands our best, and everything we do is with excellence. “Our standard for excellence is not measured against others, it is measured by our overall potential.” Thanks to Jeff Henderson for that quote. 

Thought I would provide a list of some of the highlights and major areas we discussed:

1. Speaker flow and overall lineup- the lineup of speakers this year is off the charts, and will provide a great mix of Biblical leadership challenge, practical application, and outside the box learning.

2. Big idea brainstorming- we already have at least 20 good ideas that will be really fun and totally out of the box (something we strive for), and this is only our first official creative meeting of the year leading up to October. One key part of a good brainstorming environment- the response to any idea is always “yes” or “yes and” and is never “no” or “but” or “can’t.” The technical producers and operations minded people always have a hard time with this one!

3. Ben Arment is a great addition to the team. Ben brought some new creative energy to the team, and also provided great insight from a church planter, blogger and innovator perspective. 

4. Theme discussion- the theme of “Together” makes for a great angle to provide some serious moments as well as really, really funny moments. There was smoke coming out of Lanny’s ears the whole time due to his wheels turning…. Let’s just say Lanny will be busy over the next several months working on some pretty cool stuff. Together is directly tied to the phrase “intentional about community” which is one of the 6 elements of a Catalyst leader, and so vital to the life and ultimate success of a leader. You can’t finish well if you finish alone. 

5. One of the very important angles to this entire year for Catalyst in general, and not just the event, is the reality that the power of the Catalyst community lies in those who are on the front lines of ministry. See the Catalyst Road Trip- the whole point behind traveling around the country visiting leaders is to hear their stories and allow others to learn from them. Many of these frontline next-gen leaders will never have a platform like the Catalyst stage, and we want to be a conduit for others to hear what they are doing. So if you’ve seen the Catalyst website or brochure or anything associated so far with this year, you might know that we are using almost 2,000 headshot pics from the Catalyst community to visualize this idea. So look for a continuation of this at the event- you will probably see your mug shot somewhere!

6. Overall experience- lots of discussion around the worship experience, the learning environment, creativity, and aesthetics, based on feedback from last year as well as what we are seeing and hearing currently. Look for a few surprises. 

and this serves as an official entry for the Thursday creative chaos over at Ragamuffin Soul. 

The most recent issue of Fortune has a good article on the power of good advice, and actually includes a number of insights from leading business moguls on the best advice they ever received. 

 

Was thinking about the best personal advice I ever received: probably a three-way tie between my mom, my dad and St. Francis of Assisi. My dad’s advice- “Never let someone out work you.” My mom- “present yourself with excellence, including your appearance, your cleanliness (cleaning behind your ears!), your clothing, and your words.” And St. Francis- “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” He actually didn’t tell me this one in person, and could be used by many others…. But it is such a good statement I had to include it. 

How about you? The best advice ever?

The cover story for the most recent issue of Business Week is on Apple and the growing amount of companies who are allowing their employees to use MACS for business purposes. For many years, the only MAC users within the corporate arena were in the designer areas or for advertisers and creative types. But this is changing. Exhibit A- our company. I finally am able to plug in my MAC Book Pro to our server and internal exchange server, thanks to Chris Ediger who joined us back in January and has greatly influenced our corporate policies towards being MAC friendly.

And what is interesting - Apple has up to this point mainly ignored the corporate world, and stayed true to the their ultimate customer and consumer- the home/personal computer user. This creates an interesting tension- the business world is asking for MACS in the office, but Apple is not necessarily meeting the demand. Ultimately, this has fueled more and more interest from the business world, as the law of scarcity is in full effect, and ultimately the mystery of the unknown for millions of PC users around the MAC. 

We’ll see if Apple will move more towards corporate sales and the golden cow that Dell has controlled the last 20 years. 

Here is the May edition of who should be on your radar screen- The Young Influencers List.

1. Bobby Triplett- pastor of a great church plant called Element Church in Lakeland, FL.

2. Jared Herd- great new young communicator. former associate teaching pastor at Rock Harbor in Orange County, and frequent speaker at Big Stuf Camps, Orange Conference, North Point, and other student ministry environments.

3. Shauna Niequist- The author of Cold Tangerines, daughter of Bill Hybels, and former creative director at Mars Hill Bible Church.

4. Chris Capehart and Micah Davis- founders of Roov.com in Dallas, an innovative new social network community.

5. Elizabeth Paul- have you seen the latest commercials with Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich, or Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson sitting together on a couch talking about solving the current global warming issues? Well, Elizabeth is involved in crafting those commercials.

6. Krish Kandiah- my friend over in Cambridge in the UK, who helps run the Evangelical Alliance in the UK, and is a budding author, speaker and thought leader for the global church. Started Slipstream which is a great network for young global leaders in the church.

Well the month of conferences continues- Q, ARC, Exponential, Orange, Drive and also a personal stop for some incredible worship at the Passion Regional event. It’s been a crazy month filled with lots of conversations, updates and new friends. 

Drive is happening over the next couple of days, and is now in full swing- 2 main sessions so far from Andy (really good stuff), and lots of breakouts with North Point staff. Ran into Carlos this morning, and disappointed I missed the bloggers get together last night. He’s got pictures of the whole crew who got together and hyperlinks to each of their blogs over at his site. Plus, he is twittering notes and fun things from the sessions. You can also check out Loran Lichty’s notes on the sessions. 

Wanted to post a few pics from Drive. Always fun hanging at the Catalyst booth…. you never know who is gonna show up. Got a visit from Kristian Stanfill last night, and then had lunch with Steve Fee today. Sidenote- Steve’s song “All Because of Jesus” is #1 on the charts right now. Congrats Fee Band! Saw Chrystina Fincher in the hallway after her incredible opener to main session 2 this afternoon, and then also had a stop by Todd Fields at the Catalyst booth this afternoon as evidenced behind Lanny below. And saw Eddie Kirkland last night as well. Kristian, Steve and Eddie on stage last night was powerful. I am wondering when any of these great worship leaders are going to ask me to join them on stage…. to bust out some Lord I Lift Your Name on High or some Blind Man. Just let me know when you need me…..

If you don’t know about One Prayer, you need to. This is a major initiative launched by Craig and Bobby at LifeChurch.tv, and they have hundreds of churches participating along with them, in an initiative that is beautifully representing a spirit of working together within the Church. The question being asked is, “If God would answer one prayer for the Church at large, what would you pray?” The series starts on June 7-8, and is a four-week series.

Get involved. Pastors. Get involved.

So the plan was to post notes and pics from each session at Orange this past week. However, things were hopping at the Catalyst Road Trip Van, and I also spent some time with some leaders who were in town, including Dave Kinnaman, Chuck Bomar, Carey Nieuwhof, Jared Herd, Steve Fee, Gabe Lyons, Lanny Donoho, and others. So didn’t really have the time to take notes.

You can get the notes from each session at Nick Carnes blog, who did a great job of capturing the sessions and keeping up with Louie and Francis! Way to go Nick.

Check out the new Catalyst TV channel on mogulus. We will be adding more live video and programming in the next several days, but this will give you a taste of what is in store.

We are launching a pretty innovative idea tied to Catalyst this year and our theme of “Together.”  One of the ways we want to promote a sense of unity within the body of Christ is to have ARTISTS from all different backgrounds and areas of expertise from all over the world submit their work that best represents the theme of together. Check out Corey Jamison’s blog to see the first submission that came in last week.

Find out all the details on the Catalyst blog. Artists- would love to have you involved. 

OK, who can remember the first concert they ever attendeed? Or better yet, the first Christian music concert you ever attended? I can remember the first Christian concert I went to - in Tulsa, OK at the Mabee Center, which is the basketball arena on the campus of Oral Roberts University- Carman and Farrell and Farrell in concert together. It was sweet! The song Let the Whole World Know by Farrell and Farrell was a favorite during my fifth grade year.

First general concert was Alabama- at the Tulsa Civic Center, with my family. I was around 8 years old. I remember them playing the song “Old Flame” and everyone in the entire arena got out their lighters and were waving them back and forth. It was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. Growing up in a small town in Oklahoma - it’s easy to be entertained!

Plus, can anyone remember the cheezy cover bands that used to do tours in schools/communities across the country, and would play cover songs from the popular bands of the time. Many of them were sort of undercover Christian evangelists, and would do some sort of a low level alter call at the end of their service. Some of these guys were actually pretty good musicians. I remember a wanna be Van Halen group coming through Bristow, OK and we all thought these guys were incredibly cool. I got to go backstage in their dressing room and meet them because my dad was the principal of the school and the concert was at the school gym. They had bandanas everywhere, terrible mullets, and spandex tights galore. I actually signed up to be part of their fan club, on the spot! My first real look at the behind the scenes world of entertainment!