I spent today mostly huddled in front of my computer watching church leaders from around the nation give nine-minute exhortations to church leaders as a part of a conference called THE NINES. To build on a theme, it started at 9:09 a.m. on 9/9/09, and each leader was prompted with, ”If you had 9 minutes to say anything to church leaders around the country, what would you say?” They responded with 9-minute personal videos, much like you would see on a video blog.
I was really interested in what people would say. Many leaders I know and respect were slated to speak, and I was curious as to what was the most pressing thing on their minds; the thing they feel the very strongest convictions about. I figured this experience would be earth-shattering.
If I’m completely honest, I was pretty disappointed by the content on the whole. It all just felt really stale to me; maybe because I’ve been to too many conferences. Common topics included: character and integrity, mentorship, personal love for Jesus, caring for the oppressed, evangelism, management skills, and general church strategies. To be honest, I don’t think I can pinpoint a single thought from the 11+ hours of speaking that I hadn’t heard, personally experienced, or even communicated in some form before. It eventually got to the point where I just didn’t care much anymore. Tweeting about their hairstyles became far more entertaining to me than listening to their content; and that’s saying a lot coming from an idea junkie like myself.
But I want to point out two beautiful 9-minute bright spots in that leadership marathon that truly taught me something. Their names are Anne Jackson and Rick McKinley. I want to personally thank both of you for being an absolute breath of fresh air in a series of teachings that otherwise got stale for me. Anne has a really professionally airbrushed picture on her blog and twitter, but decided to speak to the leaders completely without make-up and with her slightly-groggy morning voice, appearing to have just risen from bed. You were even more beautiful than in the picture, Anne. She spoke of her desire to present herself this way in order to know God’s heart for her and walk in his grace because she struggles with image issues, and knew it would be magnified since people were tweeting about her publicly in real-time. It was beautiful. I encountered Jesus incarnate in that moment.
Rick spent his 9 minutes as more of a personal confession than any kind of composed teaching. He talked about how he had to come to terms with his church about being overweight because he turns to food as an outlet for his pain instead of to Jesus. He knew he couldn’t hide it, so he didn’t. He told 10,000 church leaders around the nation about his struggle. I soon found myself repenting of my own worldly outlets.
Throughout the day, pastors talked all about God’s grace and love and his heart for the poor, the list goes on. Many leaders had an intense irony about their teaching. They would dictate verbally that it was necessary for church leaders to live out the truth of the Gospel rather than just preaching it on Sunday mornings, but they offered only words about this. You can see why I tuned out. But I would have likely done the very same thing. Demonstrating the Gospel of Jesus in 9 minutes is way harder than just talking about it.
But Anne and Rick managed to use their 9 minutes as a demonstration rather than a lecture. Rather than talking about being examples, they simply let their brokenness and confession speak the truth of the Gospel directly into our hearts. They let truth go unspoken; it was more powerful seen than heard anyway. Filling in the blanks of what is true and right isn’t so hard when you witness something like that; it sort of hits you forcefully over the head. Hearing somone puts words to it would only serve to diminish the beauty of the moment. They demonstrated in the most dramatic fashion that they truly believed actions spoke louder than words. The talkers should be envious of their conviction.
I think Jesus did this too. He didn’t neglect verbal preaching and teaching, but half of his message to the world took the form of signs, demonstrations, and stories. Why weren’t half of the talks at THE NINES in this form? Because those were the very things that were giving me life during that conference; not the how-to’s. The twitter conversations throughout the conference bore witness to the fact that I was not alone in this.
I’m still not sure what this means for me and my teaching. I want even this blog to be a place where Gospel truth is communicated without being dictated; where it is known through story and example. I’m still figuring out how to do that, so bear with me. I realize there is a great irony in me even communicating this in a straightforward manner, but this is my space to process. This was by far the most valuable lesson I’ve learned from THE NINES, and nobody told it to me. But I have Anne Jackson and Rick McKinley to thank for teaching me the valuable lesson of letting my words be quiet and my example be loud in unforgettable fashion.
Here’s a look at their moments:
No related posts.
Wow. Thanks so much for this…so encouraging…Praying right now that God will continue to guide you in what this means…I missed Rick’s talk…must go back to watch that…sounds incredible.
(and I totally did wake up and do it….i was still in my PJs…that’s why it was SO close up on my face!) =)
Thanx for sharing this. I missed most of the sessions but am looking thru everyone’s notes. Yours stick out so far because they speak so clearly about that unspoken expectation I have of conference speakers. Do they live what they are teaching and can I tell from what they are teaching?
I think you’re right about Jesus teaching tacitly for lack of a better word. I am very drawn to the idea of communicating truth without speaking it.
Thanks also for processing so vulnerably here.
Thanks for mentioning those two. I was in and out during the day and didn’t get to see their videos. I think what I most remember that stuck out of all the things I heard from the ones I saw was @easum on twitter during his video who gave the quote from Whitefield that while he had more fruit from his ministry he would be forgotten compared to Wesley because he was leaving behind a legacy of preachers and teachers. I remember one speaker I was looking forward to hearing because I remember when they first started and was kind of disappointed in what was sort of turned into promotion for something. I saw many other tweets about that too and it wasn’t the best use of those 9 minutes. What I also did like though was seeing a real live example of how to put something in the light to the world that could be used for ministry. I’d like to see something done in this format, but instead of another how to one on leadership it would be neat to see one on a day of people sharing their struggles and how the Lord carried and healed them or where they are at in that process. Instead of them doing it in a preaching style – have them do it like a real one on one talk where they are being real with someone over coffee. I think that would be neat and minister to people who register, but also think of all the people on twitter who went to the video site yesterday outside church leadership.. imagine if they went there and instead of how to messages they heard real struggles, real stories and real examples of life with Jesus. That would be revolutionary.
I was in and out throughout the day, but was able to watch Anne and Rick’s videos. I agree wholeheartedly! They got real. Not that the other pastors/leaders were fake, but Anne and Rick let down their guards and pretense and shared from a place of beautiful humility.
Oh, that I may live my life in such a way!
Blessings,
Rob
Hey mike, I agree i really enjoyed that guys openess, it was refreshing and powerful.
However, i also enjoyed Rick warrens ending to the whole thing, wow, are we moving people from come and see, to come and die.
That is the whole ball of wax. I think we have been good at come and see, at least with the semi religious, but have they moved to “come and die” to the point, that they are a true light to the bulk of americans, who are post religious.
As we went on campus this summer in outreach, it was clear that most of the students and adults we talked to are post religious to anti religious, religion is the cause of most evil at worst, and at best irrelevant. Those people are not coming to new life, or any church and unless there are true disciples in their circle of friends who completely change their minds, they will never hear the truth, no matter how many multi sites, double sites, take place in america.