TED’s Not Dead, But It Is Aging: The annual conference tries to reach out to a new generation, awkwardly

TED was born in 1984 as an underground dinner party for information designer Richard Saul Wurman and friends from the worlds of technology, entertainment, and design. This year, 1,500 people paid $6,000 each to attend the modern version of TED, held in the Long Beach (Calif.) Performing Arts Center from Feb. 9-13. Five hundred more paid $3,750 to watch a simulcast… Twenty-six years in, TED is showing signs of age. One of the most conspicuous is the makeup of attendees, diverse only in that TED appears to attract a white man from every street in Silicon Valley. … conferences… have struggled with similar issues, like: how to get more inclusive without sacrificing intimacy. How to keep loyalists happy while attracting a younger crowd closer to the headwaters of innovation. And how to get that younger crowd to pay six grand.

For a conference junkie like me, I do wonder out loud… (just a tad ironic that I’m returning from a conference, and #sxsw, the conference of conferences is happening right now in Austin) how can people get access? Are these events a good use of money? Words like “stewardship” are seeping into our venacular. Will people travel to gather for a different kind of event when there isn’t that formulaic production of keynotes and workshops? [update] cf. a set of Purpose-Driven regional events for small group leaders that describes itself as “a radical new approach to conferences”; a whole book about this concept= Conferences and Conventions: A Global Industry (Events Management), by Tony Rogers, has a chapter titled “The economics of conferences and conventions”

I’ll be facilitating a workshop about social media, sort of a different angle than most of the other workshops that are addressing specific ministry issues. So my workshop, titled “Wielding online tools for connecting and collaborating,” is more about online tools & web apps and how they can be used for ministry. My slides are online [created entirely using Google Docs]. Based on discussions that flow from the 2 sessions of the same workshop, I’ll update this post with more links & references.

[updated] Links to Resources mentioned in workshop:

• video: social media revolution
• Top 100 church blogs via churchrelevance.com
• How to get a domained website = domain name (e.g. Godaddy or Name.com) + web hosting (e.g. dreamhost.com or bluehost.com) + content management system (CMS; e.g. WordPress, Joomla, Drupal)
• free live-streaming web apps: ustream.tv & livestream.com
• • CD’s music : myspace.com/cuzcad + twitter @heyitscd + youtube.com/cd517
  • Kai’s food videos at youtube.com/ltkman
  • And, we launched The Khmer Palate in class! On twitter @thekhmerpalate and blog thekhmerpalate.wordpress.com and youtube.com/missnget

About the seminar topic, Pete Scazzero wrote in “Bridging Barriers: Next Steps for New Life Fellowship Church” ::

I soon realized that our evangelical discipleship/spiritual formation model was too superficial to bring about the kind of in-depth transformation we would need to live in authentic community. … Asians, with their rich legacy of love for education, had great difficulty in embracing high-school dropouts who now attended our youth group … We also had to consistently remind immigrants that they were now part of the American church.

And Drew Hyun wrote in “Thoughts on our Reconciliation Seminar“:

1) The Conversation of Reconciliation Needs to Address Personal AND Corporate Injustices/Sins; 2) There’s an Illusion that Building a Diverse Church Family will be Easy (or Formulaic); 3) Understanding (or at Least Trying to Understand) The Black Experience is Fundamental to Making Progress in the Area of Reconciliation; 4) I Have to Take Personal Responsibility; 5) We Need to Talk

Thanks to Drew Hyun for the video link.

Reading about this topic, again, it makes me wonder just how much these racial and cultural barriers stay embedded because some people deny their existence and sincerely believe that we live in a post-racial American society.

18 March 2010: Azusa Pacific University (Azusa)
Topics: Future of the Global Church; Race, Power, and Evangelism
Panelists: Brenda Salter McNeil, Brad Lomenick, Nikki Toyama-Szeto, Wes Stafford, Joni Eareckson Tada

30 March 2010: Fuller Theological Seminary (Pasadena)
Topics: Culture Making — The Role of Christians in the World
Panelists: Jim Belcher, Doug Birdsall, Margaret Feinberg, Michael S. Horton, Richard Mouw, Kara Eckmann Powell, Rich Van Pelt

14 April 2010: Generate at Crossroads Church (Corona)

14 April 2010: NewSong Community Church (Irvine)

10 June 2010: Saddleback Community Church (Lake Forest)

The second way to get engaged in these global issues is thru GlobalLink. Each GlobaLink site will have some live-streaming video of Cape Town events and additional conference materials. No locations have been announced yet, far as I can tell.

For those of you with an Xbox, you can win a free copy of the Bible Navigator X right here! How to win: add a comment and describe one creative way you would use the Bible Navigator X. Winner will be selected by random drawing from the commenters. Comment must be submitted before Sunday February 28th 11:59pm Central, when the weekend ends. One entry per person. Multiple comments okay, but only one contest entry counts per commenter.

Bible Navigator X: HCSB is the first app on the XBOX 360 that allows the user to read the entire Bible from their 360. All the essential Bible functions are there: easy navigation, bookmarks, search, concordance, and themess. HCSB = Holman Christian Standard Bible translation of the Bible; press release; watch video intro:

Prize is courtesy of Aaron Linne (a self-described video game aficionado with an entire room of his home dedicated to gaming.^[1])

“mentoring” – I’ve posted a handful of blog entries about this one already.

“authentic” – the word itself is all about the real deal. The word “real” gets jumbled in the same mix. The word _implies_ being transparent and vulnerable and unpolished. But, for some people, authentic means being non-transparent, not sharing their feelings out loud, not sharing their weaknesses, fears, and concerns, because that’s their being real.

“racist” – undoubtedly a loaded word. There’s the obviously intentional kind. And there’s the unintentional or blind-spot or passive or ignorant or systemic kind. Some people don’t think passive racism counts as racism. Some think any racial inequality and inequity makes for racism. Some are honest enough to say we’re all racists. We don’t live in a world with a level playing field. Race is a part of that dynamic. Race isn’t everything, and neither is it nothing. It’s also been used as a sign-off.

There are many, many more. The above are a few that came to mind during the composing of this post. Add a comment and we’ll add to the list.

This April 5-6, the Ideation Conference launches in Long Beach, California. Charles Lee is pulling together an amazing roster of people, who’ll serve up great content and valuable coaching for non-profit organizations. Rather than pay upwards of $10,000 a day for coaching, you can bring your non-profit staff for 2 days at $249 per person! (NGO/NPO rate) Watch my interview with Charles about the Ideation Conference experience. Your team will get valuable feedback and coaching plus team-building for your non-profit efforts for social good! I think the afternoon white board sessions will help non-profits tackle their biggest challenges and find solutions through coaching and collaboration. // [update 2/18 I’ll be one of the white board session facilitators! cf. my experience //

And, for people who are in the world of church planting, the Association of Related Churches (ARC) is hosting their annual All Access conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on April 27-29. Yes there’s the standard fare of plenary sessions with the likes of Hillsong United, Dino Rizzo, Craig Groeschel, John Maxwell, Chris Hodges, Stovall Weems, Tommy Barnett. What’ll be even better is the variety of App Sessions provide in-depth discussion of leadership, church life, and social justice — with the likes of Matthew Barnett, Greg Surratt, Bobby Gruenewald, Billy Hornsby. Since ARC is all about relationships–creating them and nurturing them–their All Access conference is going to be all about relationships too.

Remember, conferences can be life changing — choose the one that’ll get you access to the people who’ll help you along the journey of life.

After attending a few conferences, some people begin to discover the value of these gatherings extend beyond the keynote talks and seminar lectures. What’s even more life-changing are the people you meet and the conversations you have.

At the Verge conference in Austin last week, I met Ryan Rice, who is now church planting in Phoenix. Ryan explained how life-changing the one-time-only Innovation³ Gathering was. Watch this video of Ryan Rice telling how that conference changed his life:

Next week, I’ll point you to 2 conferences especially configured so there’s intentional structured time for attendees to engage in more conversations and not only listening to talks.

I got to interview Colin Wong, the CEO of Zoecity today. Watch the video interview below [powered by wetoku; pardon the echo]:

My “aha” moment during the interview was this: as Zoecity.com bubbles-up the most popular content, it may or may not be the most important, but I think it does indicate what is most influential, or at the very least, what’s been read and/or shared by the most people. By the way, in the interview, Colin mentioned 2 articles, “Ouija board a controversial toy for tots” and “Tebow Super Bowl Ad Leads Viewers to ‘God Story’“.

You’ll notice in the right sidebar here at djchuang.com towards the bottom is a Zoecity widget, which shows the top 10 daily articles. And looking over at the Zoecity front page, there is a comment link under each item. Almost all of them have “0 Comments” right now. (Maybe that’ll change?)

How do you think knowing what’s the most popular today, this week, and this month, would be helpful to you?

I’ll be there with the Verge Social Media Team, providing live coverage via various social media channels, and the team members’ websites + blogs + networks will host on-going conversations in a distributed fashion after the event.



The Verge team blog will link to all the latest — including announcement of the live video feed of main sessions. Live twitter tweets on twubs (below) + use official hashtag #verge10 + follow @djchuang247 for my live tweets.

Other intel’ about Verge ::

• [ Wednesday 2/3 @ 7:00pm ] #verge10 Tweetup, Kerbey Lane Cafe
  (13435 Hwy 183 N Ste. 415, Austin, TX)
• Deidox — great short films of compelling stories — is the official sponsor of the Cafe/Coffee Shop. They’ll have a booth and will be previewing several Deidox films, and giving away free Deidox DVD’s.
• [ Friday 2/5 @ 5:00pm ] World Vision Gospel Quest Dinner, BBQ Dinner by Rudy’s, Cost: $10. Limited seating.
• [ Saturday 2/6 @ 10:45am ] International Justice Mission Brunch with screening of new documentary, Cost: $10. Limited seating.

djchuang >> Good question. (And, in case you can’t tell, this question came in via a text message.)

The latest research on church attendance can be found in The American Church in Crisis by David T. Olson, with research based on data from 200,000+ churches. And, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, has analysis based on interviews with 35,000+ American adults.

Here’s some other statistics I found (so far):

Excerpted from this Christian Century 2008 article, Church-closing rate only one percent:

A new study finds that only 1 percent of U.S. religious congregations go out of existence each year, “which is among the lowest mortality rates ever observed for any type of organization,” according to an article to be published in the June issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Dave Olson’s research shows that in the 1990s about 3,200 churches closed each year–or 1.1 percent of U.S. Christian congregations. And, Olson added, “In the 2000s, it has been 3,700 a year.” [cf. graph]

American church statistics have reported [via Goodmanson]:

• In America, 3500 – 4000 churches close their doors each year
• Half of all churches last year did not add one new member through conversion growth
• Churches lose an estimated 2,765,000 people each year to nominalism and secularism

The 3,500-4,000 U.S. churches annual closure count is also cited by Ed Stetzer in “Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age.”

Excerpted from The Condition of the Church in America, complied by Andy McAdams [via #mmi, 2005]:

• 1,400 pastors in America leave the ministry monthly.
• Only 15% of churches in the United States are growing and just 2.2% of those are growing by conversion growth.
• 10,000 churches in America disappeared in a five-year period.

“Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.” [Source: “Death by Ministry" (slides + audio) by Darrin Patrick @ The Journey. It was re-published on Mark Driscoll's blog -- no longer available.]

One blog post attributed these findings to Shiloh Place Ministries (shilohplace.org), which drew its information from Focus on the Family, Ministries Today, Charisma Magazine, TNT Ministries, and other respected groups:

• 1,500 pastors leave the ministry permanently each month in America.
• 7,000 churches close each year in America.

This book lays out a very clear mentoring process to reproduce leaders of a particular type. Regi Campbell is an entrepreneural leader and knows how to get results in the marketplace. The book unpacks his value for being strategic with time, finding what works, and adapting principles from Jesus’ process of disciple-making, in order to invest in next generation leaders who have high potential to impact the world. I can see how this book will be very useful to develop mentoring programs for churches, especially with book royalties going towards funding this purpose.

What the author means by mentoring may not be what some people mean by mentoring. This excerpt contrasts the typical commonly-held meaning of mentoring, and what Regi means by mentoring:

Traditionally, the mentoring relationship is almost always initiated by the mentoree. He has something he wants… a felt need… for guidance, wisdom, advice, or help. Most often these conversations get started around job stuff. The younger man needs advice or access to the older man’s network of contacts. Sometimes it’s a crisis at home… a breech with a wife or child; and the less experienced person wants to confide in someone who’s “been there, done that.” …

Now, is this a type of mentoring? Yes. Is it what Jesus did? No. Jesus initiated the mentoring relationship with His disciples… [p.120]

I don’t know how many people have described what Jesus did with his disciples as mentoring. I have heard of many people who describe what Jesus did as disciple-making or discipling. Certainly what Jesus did with his disciples has changed the world forever. If the goal is to change the world through intentional formative relationships, the terminology doesn’t matter.

One reviewer of Mentor Like Jesus noted the confusion of terms:

It’s no secret that the word “mentor” is a loaded term and can mean something wildly different for people. Some may think of a mentor as someone who meets with them weekly to speak about their professional lives, others may imagine someone on more of an on-call basis who gets together a few times a year. What are healthy expectations in a mentoring relationship?

And that’s what it is. Get clear expectations on both parties, the mentor and mentoree — do you want mentoring in the traditional sense or mentoring in the disciple-making sense?

This is a great book to get everyone on the same page for mentoring as disciple-making, to have a reproducible process that you can “add water and stir” and run with it to pour into leaders who change the world.

• School of Spiritual Direction (via Larry Crabb)
• Renovare
• Dallas Willard on spiritual disciplines & formation
• TrueFaced (aka Leadership Catalyst)
• Institute for Spiritual Formation (Talbot School of Theology and Biola University)
• Cloud & Townsend
• the Association for Christian Character Development (ACCD)
• Soul Renovation Ministries
• Monvee
• SOULeader Resources

It seems to me that a slightly increasing number of church & ministry leaders are going after these spiritual & heart matters to help people be more like Jesus. Well, some of them say it that way. Others might use different language and terms. Each probably have their own “spiritual growth” model.

In my own thinking (at the time of this writing) I think there is overlap between any of these categories: spiritual formation, spiritual direction, personal coaching, mentoring, discipleship, sanctification…

And somewhat like brands of clothing, people may be fiercely loyal to the genre of spiritual formation that’s been most transformative for them. It’s not the kind of thing that people go comparison shopping for, and let’s hope it doesn’t become commoditized that way.

And, to let my own bias show, it’s not really about the content or exercises of a spiritual formation program. It’s about one’s response to the Holy Spirit, and more telling, the person’s willingness to give permission for (a few trusted) others to speak into their lives.

Why I think this to be the case — it’s an idea from Fierce Conversations, “All conversations are with myself, and sometimes they involve other people.” So when a person goes through exercises, even if guided, it’s all too easy to reinforce one’s own perceptions. Until someone else can call out and speak to the matters of the heart, and the blind spots, transformation rarely happens to the degree that it could.

As one of several social-services providers, I learned how Los Angeles Mission helps a homeless person holistically — by providing food and shelter to those who’d consider going through their restoration program, and by walking along side of each person for a year to equip them with work & life skills plus a spiritual foundation. I was particularly impressed by the quality of their approach to intentionally rehabilitate the desparate lives of so many.

I think Los Angeles Mission has so many great stories to share about what they’re doing, lives that’ve been changed, and how their staff and volunteers is giving hope and healing to so many every year. One way they do that is provide computer training in this amazing computer lab, designed by the likes of a NASA mission control room. I shot this video clip to show you how a well-designed facility can inspire good work :

Through the generosity of donors, Los Angeles Mission has been able to provide more than a soup kitchen or doromitories, though they do that. I’m glad to have had the opportunity to meet good people today who are doing meaningful work and treating people with dignity and care. And, they’ve also got this practical video, 5 Ways to Help the Homeless. Watch the video for what you should do when you see a panhandler who is asking for money. You can do something. But, don’t give cash.

[update] Homeless advocate Mark Horvath (of www.invisiblepeople.tv) has alerted me that the aforementioned video is offensive, so I’ve removed link to video. This opens the pressing question — how do you really help the homeless?