MY DAY WITH KEM MEYER

Thanks to one of my new Tyler pals, I was able to attend the WiredChurch.com Regional Conference (sponsored by Granger Community Church.)

The conference was hosted by Spring Creek Community Church in Garland, Texas.

Sheesh...with the links.
I attended the "Communication" session led by Kem Meyer.
I've followed Kem's blog and twitter feed for awhile and I was excited to get to learn from her in person.

I can honestly say that I learned a ton of stuff. Seminars like this are always fun, because you spend the day in assessment. It's fun to find out what you're doing well and what needs improvement!

So, we show up about thirty minutes early. I grab a table near an outlet (so I could plug in my computer,) and start getting all my stuff together. I turn on my computer and see there's wifi! Yay! So, then I decide to Mogulus Broadcast the seminar. I fire up my webcam and start broadcasting. After a while, I've got a few folks watching, one of them being Ross Strader. I notice over on TwitterFox that Ross sent a message to Kem that his worship pastor was in the seminar.

I broadcast the first session which was VERY good. During the break, Ross is online and I start talking to him about what I'm learning. Just before the second session starts, Kem Meyer walks over to me and says,

"Are you Todd Wright? Ross sent me a twitter message!"

So I start talking to Kem. I didn't know that Ross had mentioned that I was doing the Mogulus thing. She asks me about it and I tell her that I am broadcasting video and audio.

Here is where I have to give her props. Because Kem uses a lot of personal stories, she offered to adapt her teaching so that none of that stuff would go out over the internet. I was so impressed...she could have very easily said, "Please don't do that" because I completely understood her respect for protecting her stories and the folks they involved. But she was very gracious and I totally knew where she was coming from. I thought she conducted herself with such grace in that situation.

I was happy to turn it off - I didn't want her to have to adapt her stuff. So I killed the Mogulus broadcast. And to make it even better...now Kem and I are Twitter friends. YAY!

My second great story has to do with lunch. The lunch break was an hour-and-a-half, but our fearless leader George wanted to forego the box lunches and hit a restaurant called "Mia Cocino." It tooks us a good while to get there. Once we sat down, we realize that we're not going to be fed in time. And that's when George pulls our waitress aside and says,
"If you can get our food out here in ten minutes, I'll tip you $10."

We got our food in twelve minutes. George Montalvo, ladies and gentlemen.

We headed back for the last two sessions...they were great. I encourage anybody who's involved with communication to check out Kem's blog. She's got a lot of hard-won wisdom and yet still serves with humility. There's a lot of good tips for church communication and the resources are incredible.

After the sessions we ate supper at this great Italian place that looked like an upscale Mafia-joint. It was long meal with lots of laughter, q & a, and processing of the day's events. After the meal, we piled into the truck to head back home. Got home around 9pm. I was able to see Jonah and put him in bed. After he went to sleep, I ran on the treadmill, showered, then packed a bit for our trip to Lufkin on Friday.

One of the things I love about working at Bethel is the obvious passion that my co-workers have for the Word of God.

I've said it before and will say it again. These men and women that I work beside know the Word and find their joy and contentment in study and application.

I'm so honored to attend this conference next April. The Gospel Coalition Conference is going to be jam packed with insight into scripture and I'm really looking forward to it.

You can go here for more information.

Blogging from the Mariott Residence Inn in the Woodlands. Spent the day at the Smart Growth Church Conference at The Woodlands UMC.

A few notes about the day.
Opening Worship - Zach Hendrix, one of the worship leaders on staff, led worship with a female vocalist and a second acoustic. The second acoustic player was obviously an electric player, complete with Gibson Jumbo run through 5 or 6 pedals into the system.
They opened with "Forever." In B! It was really high for most of us and early in the morning at that! Then they went into "Blessed Be Your Name," which was nice. They closed with the Tomlin version of "Everlasting God," which was pretty dead on but, again, way too high in C#.

Then we heard Mike Slaughter from Ginghamsburg Church in Ohio. It was phenomenol sessions. I was so impressed with his heart, his honesty and the bold steps he's taken in leading his church.

Then I headed to a session on "media" for the Loft. The Loft is TWUMC's "alternative" service. The session was pretty lousy - it was a bunch of tech guys who, while being very smart, seemingly had done so little to prepare. We did tour their media offices and I got to see their new recording studio. It wasn't finished, but it was laid out really well. They let us hear some stuff from an upcoming Matt Brouwer Christmas record. It was pre-mix, but it still sounded nice.

Went to lunch at Macaroni Grill with the staff, then back to the conference to hear my old pal Leonard Sweet, who totally killed. His session reminded me why I like him - because he's brilliant and bold and willing to say what needs to be said.

For the next session, I headed back to the Loft to give them one more chance. The session was led by The Loft's pastor which was very cool. It's a pretty programmed service (which always has its ups-and-downs) but I commend the dude for being honest and backing up his ideas with scripture.

After that, we grouped up and headed to the hotel for snacks, resting and a little blogging!

There's a Blue Like Jazz performance tonight. Apparently, it's a drama now.
We opted to skip the Blue Like Jazz performance. I believe it is a wise decision.