You walk into the room. You've never been here before. The room is completely foreign to you. And yet somehow you feel completely comfortable here.
You look around. Out of the fifty or so people in the room, only a couple of people look familiar to you. Everyone else mills about chatting freely and comfortably, seemingly completely at ease, seemingly friends with everyone they see. And yet somehow you don't feel like an outsider.
Why? What is it about this group of people that makes you feel so comfortable, when the lack of familiarity in this situation should make you feel like running from this place to find a more familiar environment? Why does this group already feel like family?
You look around. Out of the fifty or so people in the room, only a couple of people look familiar to you. Everyone else mills about chatting freely and comfortably, seemingly completely at ease, seemingly friends with everyone they see. And yet somehow you don't feel like an outsider.
Why? What is it about this group of people that makes you feel so comfortable, when the lack of familiarity in this situation should make you feel like running from this place to find a more familiar environment? Why does this group already feel like family?
Last week we talked about what a normal Christian conference looks like. Except for content, most Christian conferences look incredibly similar to any other conference. Large, loud, full of big-name speakers and big-name bands. Calls to action but very little actual practice. A lot of listening to experts, not a lot of listening to Jesus. And the entire thing costs thousands (if not millions) of dollars to put on, and hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of planning by more experts.
This week, we're exploring why the recent LK10 conference was a different kind of conference. And part of what makes it a completely different kind of conference is that, in order to host one, you don't have to be an expert. You don't have to have a lot of money. You don't have to hire big-name speakers. You don't have to hire big-name bands. You don't have to be a master planner.
Sound extraordinary? That's because it is. Watch the video (click on the picture above) to hear John describe the main reasons it works, but here's the "cliffnotes" version.
First, it works because it isn't "come one, come all." In this conference, we aren't inviting people to come learn about LK10. We're inviting people who are already practicing church with us to deepen their practice with others who are practicing church in the same way. As John says in the video, "this is a conference for practitioners." This means that when someone is planning one of these conferences, they don't have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to get everyone on the same page, or place a lot of emphasis during the conference on helping people get caught up.
Second, it works because it doesn't have to be big. In LK10, we aren't hung up on the mega-church fallacy that "bigger is better." In LK10, family is better. Paying attention to and following Jesus is better. "Bigger is better" is another type of idolatry, and we've sent it packing along with the old way of putting on a massive show of a conference. So we will be doing another large conference next Labor Day (this year there were 50 people, maybe next year there will be 100), but it would be easy to host a similar regional conference in your living room with far fewer people. Maybe 20. Maybe 10. Maybe 5.
As you can tell, we are pretty excited about this, and we want to know if you are excited too. If the idea of hosting a regional conference excites you, please let us know. And as always, come over to the Facebook group for more conversations!
Sincerely,
Rosten Callarman
LK10 Communications Coordinator
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