Elephant Room Takeaways

I attended and liveblogged the Elephant Room conference a couple of weeks ago – I was really impressed with the event, the participants and the overall experience. Being at a satellite location, I was wondering if it would translate across video but I thought the event was incredible valuable and worth the participation.

Thanks to my notes and links from other sites, LOTS of people (it peaked at about 10 times my normal readership) have been visiting my blog consistently since the Elephant Room happened. One commenter asked why Iattended – I answered in the comments but I thought I would post this here as a separate entry.

Here you go – my Elephant Room takeaways:

I went for really three reasons – first, I thought it was a great opportunity to hear from some pastors I respect; second, I went with three other staff members from my church and I love spending time with them; third, I wanted to see if an event like this (live in one location, video streamed to other sites) would be as effective as I thought it would be.

Takeaways? I am generally a long processor but here are a few –

1. There were too many conversations. Like I said in my notes, I don’t think they had anyone there as an opponent to multi-site strategy so they could have just canned that session. Taking it down from 6 to 4 (the session with Driscoll and Laurie really didn’t go anywhere, either) would have been better.

2. The pace of the day was very quick and I think we lost some opportunity to dig a little deeper in to some of the things that were said. Again, going from 6 to 4 questions would allow this.

3. I would have preferred a non-participating moderator. There were too many times when the moderator became a participant.

So that’s mostly on HOW the event was run. As far as content? Like I said, I’m a long processor, but on the way home (about a 90 minute drive) here are the things we were talking about –

1. The conversation about money went in a direction I’d never heard and I respect the willingness of MacDonald to push back and Platt to hear that and respond with conviction. James’ idea of a fuller understanding of a theology of joy is probably better said as a theology of enjoyment.

2. Furtick is the real deal. I’ve not always been his biggest fan but I thought he was sincere, biblical and faithful to the gospel.

3. Jesus is worthy. Probably more than anything, I came away with a new excitement to see Jesus and the gospel “adorned” in our church when we gather on Sunday. I’ve known that and we do that but it was a good encouragement for me to continue to do that.