Greg Bowman, Bill Donahue and I spent the last couple of days doing Advanced Training on Small Groups here at Willow Creek. If you want to know why this is so much fun you can read about it here. Chris Bowman (Greg's son) snagged some shots for us... you can view a larger image by clicking on it.

Here is a shot taking in a good chunk of the room. The group of pixels just below the screen are a really tiny Bill Donahue.

This experience re-defines WORKshop. A lot of collaboration, brainstorming and flipchart-writing. Over the two days most participants feel like they are drinking from a fire hose.  Nonetheless, the experience seems to require a lot of coffee and water.

Beth Leonard is one of our awesome facilitators... we had 14 more, but I don't have good pictures of them!

More photos to come...

We just finished two days of working with over 100 church leaders from across North America, asking tough questions about their vision and strategy for building community in their local church. It was an amazing and encouraging time for me.

I've been working at this small group thing for 25 years now and at times I wonder. Have people forgotten the simple truth that by God's design we are created for community? Have they lost sight of the fact that what we are trying to create here is modeled by God himself in the trinity? That it is a high and holy calling? Have they moved away from the value that life change happens best in community?

Even at the risk of sounding like Elijah's pity party under the broom tree, I still must confess that these thoughts cross my mind.

So I am thankful to be around people who are in the trenches of building community in a local church. People who are wrestling with tough questions. Trying to fight our culture that tends towards independence and isolation. People who are engaged in and winning the battle for community. I am inspired by their tenacity and challenged by their creativity. I love being around them.

It gives me hope that the vision is still alive. That the cause is still worth the battles. That the dream can be realized.

So what does that for you? What keeps your fires stoked, your vision alive? How has it been since you've been encouraged?

I have a pretty cool job. My title is “Director of Ministry Development for Adult Ministries” for the Willow Creek Association. Most of my co-workers still revert to the former title and call me the “Content Guy.” My job is to transform blank sheets of paper into cutting-edge training experiences for innovative church leaders. Working with Greg Bowman and Bill Donahue, I help create the sessions, choose speakers, and craft the content for conferences like the Ancient-Future Community. I help put together highly targeted events like the “Small Groups Advanced Training” (SGAT) that is on campus here in South Barrington this week. We’re working on some new stuff like blogs and podcasts for training small group leaders, and on-line video conferencing to enable cohorts of networked Point Leaders and Pastors.

The SGAT is one of my favorites. This week’s event has 109 small group Point Leaders from San Diego to Seattle to South Carolina. We’ve got Hoosiers in the same room with cheeseheads.  Baptists and United Methodists and Presbyterians sitting at the same table. It’s a preview of heaven without the fear of height. Every church that came with five or more got their own table with a world-class facilitator. Everyone else gets to join two or three other churches and learn from each other as well as their facilitator.

I enjoy facilitating mixed tables. The guy on my left is Staff Point Leader from a church in Southern California with 4,000 attenders and over 100 small groups. Across from him are two ladies (both volunteers) from a mainline church in Indiana with about 30 groups. They have the same passion and some of the same problems.

Here is what I love about these events. Over the two days I get to present some of my best teaching on Leadership training and development. I get to listen to point leaders explain their situation and help them troubleshoot and brainstorm solutions. Often the best ideas don’t come from me… they come from some guy from Cornfield, Iowa who worked through a similar issue and came up with a creative solution. I get to listen to my heroes… Russ Robinson, Bill Donahue, Greg Bowman, and others, as they teach some of their best stuff. I get to hang with some good friends whose passion for small groups and “community” has led them to vocational ministry. Bill Search (Southeast Christian), Kaleen Marshall and Steve Yarrow (Christ Community), Beth Leonard, Jana Swenson, Ben Lockyer (a Canadian, to give us international representation) and more.

And I get to do it again today.

Do you love your job?

I have this great quote on the wall of my cubicle:

"Even if the voices aren't real they have some good ideas."

We all have voices playing in our heads. Some are encouraging words offered by friends or are simply good advice offered by teachers, mentors, or parents.

Mom: "Don't stick your tongue on the flagpole."

(You often confirm the goodness of advice by ignoring it.)

My favorite voices are the ones that speak to me from books and blogs. As I read, I imagine the person's voice speaking the words, and if they say something particularly interesting or challenging it's their voice that I hear repeating the words in my head.

If you don't know what an author actually sounds like you can simply make up a voice you think suits them. Sometimes this works... but later when you attend their workshop and hear them speak for the first time you wonder if you're in the right room.

Most confusing are books and blogs written by multiple authors. You don't know who you're listening to unless they print subtle warnings in the margins or insert bylines at the beginning of the post. This blog has three authors: Bill Donahue, Greg Bowman, and Dave Treat. Here's how to tell us apart: if a post is particularly brilliant and intellectually stimulating, the voice you should associate with the words would be Dr. Donahue. If you find it insightful, practical, and immediately applicable to your ministry... that would be Greg. The rest of the time, it's Dave.

If you want to hear what we sound like, subscribe to the Group Life podcast starting later this week. Then when you read the blog you can associate the right voice with the words.

Best of all, when you attend the Ancient-Future Conference in September, you'll know if you're in the right room.

In the movie What about Bob? Bob Wiley (Bill Murray) is a patient of psychotherapist Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss). Leo tries to help Bob overcome irrational fears… like elevators (“...baby steps get on the elevator... baby steps get on the elevator...”) and medical catastrophes (“What if I'm looking for a bathroom, I can't find one... and my bladder explodes?”) What’s so irrational about that? I have the same thought every time I go to Mexico.

At the same time, Bob tries to help Leo’s son Sigmund overcome his fear of diving, head first, into the water.

Siggy: I mean, my dad just dropped me in the water. He let me go with no warning. I mean, I nearly drowned. My whole life passed before my eyes.
Bob: You're lucky you're only 12.
Siggy: It was still grim.

I have an irrational fear of diving into the Blogosphere. My life passes before my eyes, especially the part where I flunked college English 101. Three times. That’s where I learned that all rules of grammar are logical, except where they’re arbitrary.

Like Siggy and Bob, I’ve been standing on the shore watching great bloggers do their thing, but hesitate to jump in myself. After all, I can’t match Guy Kawasaki’s sense of humor or Seth Godin’s insight. When I read Scot McKnight (The Jesus Creed) and Andrew Jones (Tall Skinny Kiwi) I feel unworthy of swimming in the same ocean. But, God gave me a passion for small groups and community life and I just have to blog about it. He gave me an unprecedented opportunity to learn from and work with the best... Russ Robinson, Bill Donahue and Greg Bowman. He also helped me overcome my fear of writing when He created spell check.

1… 2… 3… Jump.

Comments? Dive in head first. Even if your name is Bob.