A New Kind of Conference

Last week in the metro DC area there was a conference for pastors and leaders called The Whiteboard Sessions. It featured 8 phenomenal leaders, each given 30 minutes to impart vision or their best practice to the attendees. I'm acquainted with a number of the speakers and new some of the attendees. Really, it looked great.

Just a little boring.

Call me quirky (it's been done) but I never learn as much from the heroes as I do zeroes. Losers are always more interesting than winners. If this were not true, there would be no country music.

So I'm proposing a new kind of conference that brings together guys who have goofed up in the biggest way, celebrates them, and learns where they shot themselves in the foot. Ladies and gentlemen, I propose the Blackboard Sessions.

This conference is for all of you who've ever gone to a conference and heard a message on "Ten Keys to Greater Effectiveness", only to return home to discover that those keys don't fit a lock you own. This conference is for all of you who leave the other conferences a little depressed....glad for the inspiration but in reality, you're looking to figure out how to get your worship leader to quit playing that dumb song or wondering if you fired the youth pastor, how many people would leave.

Hanging with Steve this weekend reminded me of his annual message "My 10 Biggest Mistakes". That was always a hit because it was fun to compare his to ours, and we did learn in the process.

Suggested session titles:

• The Doofus Driven Meeting.
• When John Maxwell is Silent.
• The Basics of Getting a Restraining Order
• Jesus Killed my Church*

So, take heart under achievers, frustrated pastors, regular joes who look less like the Ken doll and more like G.I. Joe after your sister pulled out his beard and ran him through the dishwasher. There is hope - even commiseration - for you!

The Blackboard Sessions. Coming soon.....

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Clarification - I have nothing against the Whiteboard Sessions. I'm sure it was great. I am serious about learning from the losers though. I have a ton of great ideas - it would really help me to have someone point out which ones they've already blew up and help me narrow the field!

*I've got dibs on this one.

And to save the email questions on where I cooked this up, I promise you I woke up at 3am thinking about this and started laughing so hard I thought I would wake up Zion...