Kendall Payne
What a fantastic voice! It’s always great to hear a new singer/songwriter that is full of passion. The depth of her soul was poured out in a mix of tender lyrics and driving melodies. She claimed she had a cold, but her voice didn’t lack any of the range I expect from a seasoned musician. In fact, I’m going to iTunes to buy some of her songs right now – especially the one called Pray! You should too!

Brad Abare
Founder of Church Marketing Sucks
Where do we get our identity from? We used to get our identity from our heritage or history. Organizations provide peoples identity now. What you wear, who you work for, where you shop, etc.

Symptoms of this:
1. Drift – sliding away from what really matters
2. Fragmentation – dividing up in disunity
3. Narcicissm – we are all that matters
4. Conflict – can’t agree about what really matters.

Reasons why we’re allowing organizations to define us:
1. Globalization
2. Options
3. Branding
4. Disruption – we prefer shortcuts and convenience.

Church needs to be the identity/soul provider
1. Loyalty – we’re committed
2. Identification – we belong
3. Trust – we lack fear
4. Recognition – we’re noticed

Ways to find your identity/soul
1. Figuring out your roots
We are a… (role)
Serving… (who-relationship)
Doing…(responsibility)
To accomplish…(result)

11am – breakout 3
Church 2.0
Greg Atkinson
Technology/New Media book
Commenting is the new value. Not the monologue, but the conversation
Lots of resources were shared-all to help us navigate the web 2.0 web. Big open source advocates.
Reccomendation: Read the Starfish and the Spider.

12pm – lunch
By the time we got out of the church 2.0 breakout, Dan and I realized that there could only be one proper way to end this conference – Buffalo Wild Wings. So we skipped out on the last speaker (to have some family time together at the Dallas zoo) and headed to the local spicy sauced mini-buffalo wing and leg vendor. Mmmm…

What a great conference. The Echo staff and volunteers were very helpful and provided a valuable experience for all of the church techies that attended.

Fun facts:
1. There were so many people Twittering during the conference, that Echo made the Twitter front page – right behind Olympics and Michael Phelps. Amazing!
2. I’ve never seen so many iPhones in one place. Of the 350 or so attendees, I would bet at least half of them flashed their iPhone bling at one time or another (yours truly included).
3. We met some guys from Faith Lutheran Church in Oakville in South County, St. Louis and the design team from Elmbrook church in Suburban Milwaukee who were all very awesome!

10:45 – breakout 1
Mark Frazier
Post email generation.
Web 1.0 – point and click
Web 2.0 – collaboration
Web 3.0 – virally sent micro-applications. Open source – hosted apps – google apps

There’s an inherent problem with the administrative nature of communication. Only so much time & resource.

Key concepts from The Long Tail – Chris Anderson.
98% of songs get at least 1 time per quarter.
Content will have an audience if the content can be found.
Aggregating content is the key.

Rule of 150: 150 is the breaking point when it comes to having meaningful relationships – we can only have so much interconnectedness.

Trust is the new currency in web 2.0.

People support what they help to create.

Breaking the broadcast model of communications means putting the tools of production in the hands of the people. No more gatekeepers. Everyone becomes a producer – and they support what they create.

Talent then becomes the differentiator.

Archive is a must. A key.

12 pm – lunch
My first foray into the world of Chik-fil-a. It’s a tasty world.

2:00 pm – breakout 2
Tim Stevens
We’ve read through Tim’s book, Pop Goes the Church a while back here at Faith Emergence. Here he is now speaking about how weekend services get planned at Granger. Here are his key points.
Plan in advance. The senior ministry team plans topics and each week’s big idea 10 weeks ahead of time. *wow*
The three elements in planning service experiences.
1. Decide on a relevant topic-listen
2. Cultural theme-show up-the gift wrap
3.Biblical truth-Jesus
Make sure to give room for the artists to create

Strive to create powerful points in a service.

4 pm – keynote 3
Matthew Paul Turner
Read an excerpt from his unpublished book: Jesus needs new PR. Hilarious! Read his new book, Churched.

5pm
Dinner – Mesa grill
Oh my! Steak & Chicken fajitas galore. Yum yum!

7pm
Donald Miller
Experiential futulity
What’s the meaning in it all? Not an intellectual problem or spiritual problem, but an experiential problem. Art is my escape from the problem of futility.

Story is the solution.
Narrative is the best way to change thinking. People want something and are willing to overcome some conflict to get it. There’s a difference between random experiences and story. The human mind engages one and not the other.

Who we are is what we do.
What we want matters.
Who we become is the result of our story.
How would you write your story right now?

9pm – going home
Donald Miller was awesome. I spent the rest of the evening mentally sifting through all the ideas he brought up.

See you tomorrow!