Okay, forgive us if you are a big conference/event organizer, but I am 95% done coming to your event. Why? There is a better way to learn that is customized to your context…watch-and-ask-over-dinner learning. If you go to a big conference, you are getting good stuff in a shotgun fashion which you may or may not be able to contextualize on your own. Instead, try this. When you have something to learn, find out who excels at it. Call them up and ask them their favorite NICE restaurant and ask them if there is a time you can buy them dinner and get a face to face with them to talk about how you do X or Y. You have to get out of the “McDonald’s mindset,” be willing to go somewhere  nice.  It is still cheaper than the conference fee. See their stuff in context and then ask them questions afterwards over dinner. Explain your context briefly to them over dinner and then start asking away.  Listen more than you talk and have your questions written down. Here are some examples of how this worked for us:

We were considering doing a video venue. North Coast was a prime mover in this field. Instead of paying the 300+ dollars each to attend the conference I simply dialed up their worship pastor, explained who I was, and asked if I might come out and watch a Saturday night service and take him and his technical director out to his favorite restaurant (which was a nice steak place).  We were able to pepper them with specific questions for the entire dinner.  We didn’t need some of the stuff their conference taught (such as selecting a camera).  The meeting was so productive that we radically changed our mind’s against a permanent venue and instead did more of an overflow type room temporarily.  (That is another post in and off itself).

We didn’t want to lose our ethos and missional DNA as we move into our new auditorium where it would be easy for us to fall into a “show up for the Sunday event” church because of our size.  So on the way home from a Vietnam project, we hopped over to Abba Love in Jakarta.  They run 30,000 in sites all across Jakarta (not an easy place to work) with 40+ services (non-video venue mind you) and have incredible percentage of members serving in a small group and in ministry. This was one of the coolest experiences we have ever had.  We went to 3 different types of services, an encounter retreat, a cell group, and spent interview time with all different levels of leader.  I walked away with 27 pages of notes.  We radically altered our newcomer’s process to push our DNA stronger as a result of the trip. (Okay, this was a little more involved than dinner). 

We are calling up Russ at Irving Bible. We are soon going to watch a service technical meeting and a service, then sitting down with him and his technical director to ask questions about their transition into their new building as we are about to transition into ours. What mistakes did they make?  What did they do well, etc.? We also have a meeting planned with their communication/media team.

We’ll be glad to sit down with you.  By the way, my favorite restaurant is St. Emilion’s.