On the Journey

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!

Just hung out with The Fee Band backstage at Orange. Steve, Matt, Heath, and Brandon are great guys and have huge hearts and a major passion for leading people in worship. In my opinion, Steve is one of the top worship leaders out there, and their album Fee is one of my favorite worship albums in the last couple of years. Also, the opener for Orange was sweet. They put together a string of great quotes from prominent pastors and church leaders over the past several years, and then strung together the entire list of churches who are represented at Orange through some cool animation. Major props to Jonathan Bostic for the motion graphics and to Eddie Kirkland for the musical score. Very powerful. Reggie Joiner opened with a great talk on the power of the church. Pictures and notes to follow tomorrow. 

Will be over at the Orange Conference the next couple of days. Orange is put on by the team at reThink Group, good friends of mine and also of Catalyst. I will plan to post some pictures and thoughts from the conference, plus some highlights of speakers and sessions. I went over to Gwinnett Arena to see their stage set up, and it looks really cool, with an innovative ribbon board in the middle of their backdrop made out of myStrips- a visual effect that I don’t recall seeing before. I also just saw Reggie Joiner, founder and family ministry extraordinaire, with some kickin new orange nikes on, plus an orange track jacket. I see Reggie quite a bit throughout the year, and I don’t think I have ever seen him without something orange on. He really carries out the orange principles! Also ran into Lanny Donoho, who is Reggie’s sidekick and also co-host of Catalyst. Lanny was trying on an outfit- can’t reveal what character, but you will know soon if you are attending Orange. Let me know if you will be here- would be fun to connect. We will have our Catalyst Road Trip Van out in the front lobby. 

Glenn Beck, CNN star of his own talk show, had on Joel Rosenberg, the wildly successful author of several political end time books, including the most recent hit Dead Heat which is #11 on Amazon’s current bestseller list, along with several other end time and political thriller books, including Epicenter. Joel is an evangelical Christian, and sounds like a pretty legitimate guy. Interesting that Glenn Beck would have him on- not necessary that Glenn would invite him on, because I think he is a Believer, but that CNN would allow this conversation to happen. A topic that can backfire quickly on a TV Network. By the way, Joel used to be an end times strategist for Israel, and is currently consulting with the White House, Congress, the Pentagon, and many others on the End Times and prophetic interpretations from the Bible. I guess the Bush administration is okay with Joel giving insight into End times prophecy, but I wonder if the next administration will see the need to hear from Joel? 

So here is a breakdown of the books and magazines that are currently on the ole nightstand:

1. Fast Company- the best magazine out there for innovative business ideas. Period.

2. Starfish and the Spider- a great read focused on the difference between a hierarchial organization and one that is decentralized. 

3. They Like Jesus But Not the Church- from my friend Dan Kimball. Provoking, inspiring, and great for discussion among peers. 

4. The Wisdom of Crowds- Similar in many ways to The Tipping Point, but some insightful thoughts on how crowds can lead, learn, and provide hints on the way things work.

5.  The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive- a classic from Patrick Lencioni. 

6.  Know How- by Ram Charan. Ram is a genius when it comes to execution and creating solutions for getting things done. 

7.  Simply Christian- by NT Wright. Been reading this one for quite a while. It is an instant classic. 

What are you reading? 

Got to meet Vince Antonucci earlier this week, and it was a pleasure. If you haven’t picked up Vince’s book, I Became A Christian and All I Got Was this Lousy T-Shirt, you need to immediately. It is a refreshingly good read. 

Check it out. Stuff Christians Like. I need to meet Jon. 

Check out the video interviews at Scott Hodge’s blog with Rick Warren and Ed Stetzer in the green room at Exponential. You’ll also see my ugly mug in the interview with Ed. As I mentioned yesterday, the plan was for me to do a short interview with Scott and Todd, but there were lots of distractions in the green room, and plus I didn’t have much to offer compared to the other speakers who were there, and when Ed walked in the room, I just simply moved over and allowed him to sit in the interview chair. Good move for sure. Ed has a lot more to say than I do. Fact. 

Ed shares more insights into the recently released research from Lifeway on the attendance decline in the SBC. And Rick shares all kinds of thoughts. Tons of good stuff. And comedic moments as well. 

I am here in Orlando with the Catalyst team at the Exponential Conference. We are doing some interviews with some of the speakers and leaders who are here for upcoming Catalyst podcasts. There have been some pretty fun and interesting moments here over the last two days. Have been hanging out with Mark Batterson, Todd Rhoades, Scott Hodge, Chris Elrod, Jay Hardwick, Ed Stetzer, Dave Ferguson, David Putman, Vince Antonucci, John Burke, Bobby Triplett, Efrem Smith and many others. 

Was looking forward to hanging with Matt Chandler later today but some unfortunate things happened with some folks in his church and looks like he won’t be able to make it down. 

Obviously, lots of influential bloggers here at this event. We had some fun this afternoon doing some live video feeds with some of the speakers. Planned to actually do an interview myself, but we were so engaged with other speakers and authors in interviews that didn’t get around to doing an interview with me. 

You can find alot of fun behind the scenes stuff from Exponential on Scott’s, Todd’s, Chris, or Jay’s blog. 

Wow. You will want to check this out- brand new research from Ed Stetzer on the current realities of the Southern Baptist Convention churches and where things are going. You definitely need to check this out. 

Got to spend some time on Friday of last week with Patrick Lencioni, best-selling author and management expert. Pat was speaking at Maximum Impact on his most recent book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job. 

So Ken and I decided to take a few minutes on the upcoming edition of the Catalyst Podcast to discuss what we would consider our most miserable jobs. I only mentioned one on the broadcast, but thought I would list a few more here. 

1. Hay Hauling during the summer in Oklahoma.

2. Building/fencing fence in Oklahoma, Colorado, and all points in between. Especially barbed wire fence. And sidenote- I was struck by lightning while working on a barbed wire fence in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. 

3. Sandblasting oil tanks, and then repainting. Again in Oklahoma in the summer. The problem with sandblasting on hard surfaces is that the sand actually kicks back off of the hard surface and onto your skin. Not good.

4. Stock boy at Reasor’s Grocery Store. It actually wasn’t that bad, but definitely despised having to close the store, which meant you had to mop the entire floor, by hand. No motorized mops- all by hand with an old fashioned mop and broom. Misery. 

5. Poop scooper upper- while working at Lost Valley Ranch in Colorado. When you have 150 horses, 200 head of cattle, and a lot of alfalfa and grain, lots of poop gets formed. And the only way to clean it up in the corrals and in areas where guests walked was by rake and shovel. 5 years of poop scooping every day. Wow. 

What about you? 

Spent the morning on Saturday with some great folks from Essential 2 Life, a very worthwhile organization focused on serving urban youth in downtown Atlanta. Kevin Carroll spoke to around 50 inner city high school students, each whom have been invited to be part of a special leadership program called Fifteen. Kevin actually stayed an extra day after Maximum Impact so he could spent time with these kids. My good friend Vince Hungate founded the organization several years ago, and is doing great work. In fact, many have taken notice, and the entire public school system of Atlanta wants to incorporate programs from Essential 2 Life in high schools all over the city.

Yesterday was a great day of speakers and leadership training. Maximum Impact: Advance was held here in Atlanta at 12 Stone Church. It was a change for me- the last 4 years, I had directed the event, but was able to enjoy the event this year from a whole different perspective. Some of the highlights from the day:

- spending more time with Kevin Carroll, who we had at Catalyst a couple of years ago and was a big hit with the Maximum Impact audience as well, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd. Kevin is doing some incredible things around the world through sports and play. Specifically, his involvement with the Homeless World Cup, which this year will be held in Australia in December, is pretty incredible. 

- meeting Dick Vitale, the longtime hall of fame college basketball broadcaster with ESPN. He was an inspiration. I have long been a fan, and his work with the V Foundation makes him even more inspiring. 

- Bill Taylor, the founding editor of Fast Company, and co-author of the book Mavericks at Work. Bill is a great guy and had some really great things to say- very practical content. 

- John Maxwell was great, as always. He also interviewed Dan Cathy, the President of Chick-fil-A, and got to spend a few minutes with Dan backstage and of course, he had a plethora of Chick-fil-A sandwich cards to hand out to folks. I love being able to walk in to the local Chick-fil-A restaurant and hand the person at the register a card for a free chicken sandwich signed by Dan Cathy. It makes the conversation interesting. Dan did mention that the cookies and creme milkshake has 800 calories, and it takes me running 7.5 miles to burn up those calories. Yikes!

- Always great to see and catch up with Valorie Burton, who did the “coaching moments” at the event and interviewed a number of the speakers backstage after their talks. Valorie is a great author, speaker and communicator. 

- Andy Stanley spoke on Making Vision Stick, and also did a short Q and A during a lunch with some of our Catalyst VIP’s who we had invited to attend. It is always engaging to spend time with Andy. We talked about a few ideas for Catalyst this year, as well as the one day leadership training events we are doing over the next couple of years with him and Craig Groeschel. 

- It was fun to meet Andy Andrews, who is a very popular speaker, writer and entertainer. He is hilarious. 

- Spencer Tillman was the emcee of the event. I met Spencer three years ago for the first time, but I have known him for a long time, since he was an All-American running back at the University of Oklahoma and a hero of mine growing up, plus is the current college football analyst on CBS Sports during the football season. Spencer was at OU when I was in middle school, and I can remember watching games on TV and a few in person during Spencer’s career at Oklahoma. Most notably, his touchdown run against Nebraska, as well as his incredible play against Penn State in 1985 National Championship game in the Orange Bowl. He has become a good friend. 

- Patrick Lencioni, the best selling author of many leadership and management books, did a great job of speaking on the Three Signs of a Miserable Job. He also got a polaroid picture in the Catalyst Vanagon as the Roadtrip made a special stop at Maximum Impact for a few minutes to catch up with a few of the attendees and speakers. 

- You can download starting Monday the executive summaries from the speaker sessions on the Maximum Impact website. 

If I had 10 minutes with 5 people, choosing from anyone currently living, who would it be? You may be surprised.

1. Billy Graham- I would love to know how many times he has presented the Gospel over the course of his life. 

2. Michael Jordan- We would definitely play a game of horse, or hit golf balls on the driving range.

3. Larry King- who is his greatest interview ever. 

4. Tiger Woods- the current most famous athlete in the world, and one who has defined my generation.

5. John Wooden- I’ve actually spent some time with him before, but would love to spend more. Maybe the greatest coach ever. 

Check out this post in Newsweek from Eboo Patel, who is Muslim, runs the Interfaith Youth Core out of Chicago, and was a speaker at Q last week. It was a stimulating session to say the least.

Also, another bit of coverage from Q on the Portfolio.com website, managed and owned by Conde Nast. This coverage includes a short video as well.

You can find a summary of each session on Scott Hodge’s blog. He took major notes from each session. I tried for the first 3 sessions, but couldn’t keep up. Scott- you deserve a starbucks gift card for that!

Saw a great story on ESPN this evening on the E:60 documentary style show that features several notable reporters who go behind the scenes with famous (and sometimes not so famous) folks. One of the profiles this evening was on Steve Williams, the most famous caddie in all of professional golf. Steve caddies for Tiger Woods, and has been on the bag with Tiger for 12 majors, and over 50 PGA tour titles in 9 years. Pretty impressive record. Interestingly, they work well together, but also are really good friends away from the office (or the course in this case). Steve is a no-frills, shoot straight kind of guy, which I am sure helps in working with and trying to give direction and assistance to the most famous sports figure in the world. He keeps Tiger grounded. 

I think we each need a Steve Williams in our life, a caddie to tell us when to back off a shot, someone to tell us to hit the 7 iron instead of the 6 iron, to trust it, and that you are the best in the world and have made this 8 foot putt before, so no problem, just sink it. 

So had a great discussion today with some of our team around the topic of leadership. Even though we are a leadership development company, it seems that the word leadership is old and outdated, especially among Gen Y and Millenials. The challenge is there really isn’t a word that has surfaced to replace it, at least not yet. We are working on one though…..

What is interesting is the fact that the term Leader still has very strong connection and meaning among the Millenials and Gen Y. And us Gen X’ers, we are just stuck in the middle, so we can go with the flow anyway. But being a leader is still seen as a favorable motivation, while becoming a leadership expert, not so much. A gathering of leaders is powerful and creates mystery, intrigue and interest, while a leadership conference seems bland, traditional and boring. Interesting….

Stopped by the Passion Regional event in Atlanta tonight to say hi to a few friends as well as catch some of the evening session. Wow. Being a part of 10,000 people passionately worshiping God in an unbelievably authentic way is powerful. Louie Giglio is leading an incredible movement of college students who are changing the landscape of campuses all over the country. And now they are launching out to take the Passion experience to cities around the world. What is just as powerful is the way students are stepping up to help fund the World Tour as well as fund wells for clean water built in Africa. It just proves that college students can have an impact, and don’t have to wait till later in life to make a difference.

So a couple of comments on the Masters:

- Tiger is lurking; even though he is 7 shots back, definitely don’t count him out.

- Mickelson is sitting in a great spot; three shots back but playing well, and a fairly hot putter.

- I have Justin Rose in the office pool, and up until the 15th hole today, was liking my chances, since I also have Stewart Cink. But after the dreaded snowman on the 15th for Rose, my chances of capturing the office pool championship are slim, slim, slim.

- Very disappointed that I won’t be there this year. Have attended the last 4 years in a row. But I am still holding out that someone will come through with a ticket for Sunday….

- Wonder what Trevor Immelman is feeling right now, sleeping on the 36 hole lead. It’s gotta be tough. I would definitely need some Tylenol PM to make sure I didn’t toss and turn all night.

it is amazing to me that American Idol has created such a consistent strong following, particularly among 18-25 year olds. But I think the two biggest things that have attracted people from all over the world is Authenticity and Community. Reality TV thrives off the concept of authenticity- live, raw and unfiltered. We all have something within us that longs to see what people sound like, as well as what others think of. And when it comes to “others,” I think that is what draws people to American Idol more than anything else- the idea that I am part of a club, that I can help choose the winner or have a say, even though there are 30 million of us and we all have some sense of connection and value to add to the conversation. And we all connect around someONE within the competition, which also creates community. Survivor over the last 10 years has done the same thing.

Authenticity and Community give Idol a proven angle for connecting to the next generation. And Idol gives Back is just another step in the right direction for creating community.