Humana 2.0 summary

It was a pretty amazing time. Not just the speakers, but the friends that I went with, the old and new friends I met face to face and the whole atmosphere of the event.

::: Some Rough Notes
Alex McManus - Humanity in the 21st Century: Where and When Are We?

Characters in Scripture acted on - dreams, visions, impregnated, intuition - instead we are now overly dependent on rationality
Instead of what you are saying, what are you doing that requires explanation?
People don't change simultaneously in sync - there are those that get it but are unwilling to go.
Innovation is always desynchronized with the perceived present

Gerardo Marti - Idols and Avatars: How Leaders Manifest Spiritual Movements

The future of evangelicalism is assured but do we want to base the future of Christianity on the megachurch - less than 1% of churches today?
bureaucratization of the sacred
weary of churches only concerned with Sundays
Idol - concrete expression of communal worship
Luke 10 - the 70 were dependent upon strangers inviting them into their houses - do strangers welcome you into their lives? Can you survive outside the Christian bubble?
Avatar - physical embodiment of the divine
The future of Christianity is dependent on each person moving out and being an avatar of social change

David Arcos - Creative Sweat

unchurched people don't understand what we are saying
fierce imagination
creativity is the essence of our soul
3 points to unleashing more creativity
- clarity
Adam innovated to name all the animals from nothing
- space
reactive to reflective - savoring the moments of life - crockpot: need space for ideas to cook
- audacity
challenge convention - dig inside yourself

passion - you may not love it enough to create
love is the greatest motivator for creativity - it must be done
Most people live an imitative life - we are supposed to live an original life
Art is a matter of life and death for our friends

Alex McManus - Humanity in the 21st Century: Who and What Are We?

aged of connectedness - Acts - book about motion - not the book of Deeds but the book of Acts - book of Immigrants

the Gospel is moving - overcoming hurdles - culture to culture - expansion
The Gospel comes to us on the way to someone else - it is not about us and for us

Thorsten #5
[I was totally disconnected during this one - long story...
But it was something about house churches.]

Erwin Mcmanus - Leadership in the Mosaic Future

We've stopped speaking to humans. We've trained ourselves to speak to Christians.
The question is not what kind of church - the question is what kind of future are you creating.
Not about a successful church that has no effect on history. It's about becoming that kind of transformation agent in culture.

The human imagination is the most powerful instrument God has given us.
We are so fragmented we can't even make friends.

Not a Revolution [reference to Barna] - this is a disullsion. It isn't a revolution until things change.
Intimacy - Meaning - Destiny - every great film or story has all three themes.

We have given so much credence to Bible knowledge, we give a pass on character.
["Step Up" - message on the stage floor - Alex's subversive message to 'not tank.']
The danger is that we reach a level of influence where we are afraid to risk everything.
We experience God most profoundly when taking risks that matter.
Creativity needs boundaries. Boundaries are the friends of creativity. People with limited resources are extraordinarily creative.
[Erwin refers to Mosaic as "She". That is cool.]

Story of Dave Auda - will fight tooth and nail if he doesn't agree but once Erwin decides, will work even harder to implement so that it will be successful and that you would never know he was against it - be your leader's best implementor

The key to leadership is not that you know what you are doing. The key to leadership is knowing that you will prevail.

ps - read that last line again a few more times.

::: New and Old Friends
Old friends first time face to face:
Sam and Rachel - planting a Mosaic church in England
Stephen and Elizabeth - youth pastors in Chattanooga
Dale Swinburne - the Strengthsfinder Swami

I also met what seemed to be a different species of human - church planters, missionaries, etc. In our first round of 'speed dating', I met:
- a lead pastor who planted a church in Iowa, after serving a ten year stint in Bangladesh
- a couple who had spent around four months in the heart of the 10/40 window, amazing story which I'm going to tell you more about
- a retired pastor/missionary who had been in Japan for a while before and after planting [just a few] churches
- some guys getting ready to plant a church in Seattle
- Ted Law, serving a community in Houston

And of course, going to the conference with my old friends BalancingKiwis and LeslitaB.

I'll be posting more thoughts in the next few days.

Photo: Alex McManus, via Ted Law