Thursday Schedule

When the arts and teaching are integrated in a Sunday morning experience, the congregation is taken on a journey from beginning to end. Planning these services is more challenging for both the pastor and the arts team – but the results can be very powerful. In this workshop we will explore examples and a multitude of ideas for weaving various arts forms with the teaching. In addition we will engage in honest dialogue about what kinds of processes are needed to create these services.

Nancy Beach
Nancy Beach is a speaker, author, visionary leader, and champion for the power of the arts and artists in the local church. She served for over 20 years as the Programming Director for Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago, a congregation known around the world for creating culturally relevant, biblically based services that make full use of the arts. Dedicated to creating opportunities for artists in the church to use their gifts for effective ministry, her role at Willow included supervision of all aspects of the arts—including worship, music, drama, dance, photography, production, video, and design. Today Nancy continues her role as a teaching pastor at Willow Creek, while also serving as the Executive Vice President for the Arts at the Willow Creek Association, a not-for-profit organization serving over 12,000 Member churches and others, representing 90 denominations in 35 countries. This new responsibility allows her to focus the majority of her time on serving other church arts leaders and their teams in the U.S. and around the world, building a community of Christ-following artists seeking to serve God as they create transformational moments in Sunday morning church services. A sought-after conference speaker, Nancy uses her teaching gifts to inspire, motivate, and cast vision, while skillfully relating themes of soul transformation with every day people and experiences. Her book, The Hour on Sunday, expresses Nancy's core vision and values for effective arts ministries. Nancy and her husband Warren live in Barrington with their two teenage daughters and a cat named Elphaba.

Spiritual formation is defined as using spiritual practices to form people in the likeness of Christ. What many people don't realize is that public worship can be used as a form of group spiritual formation. This session will identify ten ways to think about worship as spiritual formation and discussion on how they can be used in your particular context. Bring a copy of your church's service order or liturgy in order to evaluate its elements.

Brian McLaren
Brian McLaren is an author, speaker, pastor, and networker among innovative Christian leaders, whose teaching is stirring people all over the world to think in fresh ways about Christian life and faith. He has also authored numerous books, including his most recent, Everything Must Change.

Equipping a team to be more creative requires a leader who models creativity. In this session, Will Flora teaches skills any leader can practice and shares best practices for arranging one's life to be a leader who inspires creativity. Walk away with an action plan to replicate this session with your team.

Will Flora
Will is Senior Manager in Training and Development for Chick-fil-A, Inc. — a national quick-service restaurant company with over 1,375 restaurants in 38 states and Washington, D.C. He draws upon his creative skill in leading the team responsible for the creation and production of training resources, including video and print, used by 50,000 team members nationwide. He currently chairs the Board of Directors for Asian Athletic Institute, a ministry serving ethnic minorities in Thailand, and is involved on the Global Missions Strategy Team at his local church. Will lives in Peachtree City, Georgia with Melanie, his wife of 26 years, and two of their three boys.

This session builds on the The Rest of God session but can also stand alone. Mark Buchanan explores a model of "seasonality" for spiritual formation and maturation. If the goal of discipleship is to bear much fruit, then it is vital we know the seasons of our own heart and, beyond that, the seasons of our ministry or church. We will look at what each season looks and feels like, and what is appropriate, and inappropriate, for each.

Mark Buchanan
Mark is an author and pastor living on Vancouver Island with his wife, Cheryl, and their three children, Adam, Sarah, and Nicola. Mark graduated from the University of British Columbia's Creative Writing Department and he holds a Master's degree from Regent College in Interdisciplinary Studies. He is the author of Your God Is Too Safe; Things Unseen; The Holy Wild; The Rest of God; Hidden in Plain Sight, and has published numerous articles in magazines and periodicals. Mark and his family love to bike and walk together and Mark also fishes, scuba dives, gardens, and reads widely.

It takes intentionality and discernment to recognize and develop leadership potential, encourage healthy expression of gifts, and develop people in their areas of ministry. Learn how to lead, disciple, and integrate young leaders in your worship/art community. We'll cover identifying leaders, coaching them in accountability, and the power of leading and teaching from a position of humility.

Ross Parsley
Ross is the worship pastor of New Life Church. He is also the founder and president of the New Life School of Worship, and committed to training and equipping young men and women to lead worship in local churches. Ross enjoys teaching on worship at conferences and seminars, and is also the worship leader on the Integrity Music recordings "My Savior Lives", "I Am Free", "More Than Life", "Around Your Throne", and "Lord of the Harvest". Ross and his wife, Aimee, were married in 1992, and they have five children: Zachary, Taylor, Grace, Ethan, and Owen.

The Big Idea practicum is a hands on experience designed for churches interested in developing a strategy to implement THE BIG IDEA in their own context.

Learn how to creatively present one laser-focused theme each week to be presented in the weekly services, and discussed in families, children's groups, student groups, and small groups. You will walk away from this practicum with a customized strategy to implement THE BIG IDEA in your church.

The BIG IDEA Practicum is designed to help your staff formulate goals and action items to implement The BIG IDEA at your church. We recommend attending with your key staff leadership team including the Creative Arts /Worship Director and the Senior Pastor.

Eric Bramlett
Eric Bramlett is the Creative Arts Director for Community Christian Church in Naperville, IL, and has been since 1996. Eric's background is in the professional theatre, with degrees in acting and directing. CCC represents Eric's first ministry experience, and he hopes to be at Community for a long, long time. He is responsible for overseeing all large-group experiences from intensive artistic vision through production, and anything else he can think of overseeing. Eric has continued to be involved in the Chicago Theatre scene, most notably as an Artistic Associate for Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago, a theatre company he has been involved with since its inception in 1995. Eric loves his wife Kristi and their three kids, Sadie, Dillon and Anna.

Dave Ferguson
Dave Ferguson and four friends from college launched Community Christian Church (www.communitychristian.org) in the west suburbs of Chicago, a church passionate about ""helping people find their way back to God."" Community Christian Church has grown to over five hundred leaders with more than 5,400 people in attendance at ninesites every weekend. Dave serves as a resource for churches and leaders seeking to expand through multiple church sites and provides visionary leadership for the NewThing Network (www.newthing.org), a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches. Dave lives in Naperville, Illinois, with his lovely wife, Sue, and three children, Amy, Josh, and Caleb.

Jon Ferguson
Jon Ferguson is a Co-Founder of Community Christian Church in Naperville, IL. Jon plays a key role in identifying and developing small group leaders, coaches and staff personnel. He also serves as a Teaching Pastor, leads and directs all Community Ministries (small groups-children through adults). Jon is the Co-founder and Executive Director of NewThing Network, a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches and serves on the board of the Church Planting Network, Institute for Community and Stadia East. He resides in Naperville with his beautiful wife, Lisa and two children, Graham and Chloe.