BibleTech09 – Points East

Right: Me, Center: Antoine from mobile ministry mag, Left: Greg from Accordance

All I can say about BibleTech09 was that it was some of the most fun that I’ve had in a long time.  I met a lot of new friends, many of whom are based near the Philly area (or travel there every now and again).  So I’m really looking at keeping up with a lot of the people I met even beyond the conference.  As I sit here in Denver Airport I just wanted to take the time to make a few points.

• I like hanging around geeks.  The tweeting going on during the sessions really help deepen the conversation even when the presenter wasn’t a gifted public speaker. One of the best tweets of the conference was, “[soandso] it the classic example of an extroverted nerd.  When he talks he looks at YOUR shoes.”
• I’m not smart enough by far.  Many of the people speaking at the conference were just plain brilliant.  I’m a geek and I pride myself on being one, but I’m on a different track than these folks. On the other hand, while they would tend to try to hack a fix in machine code to fix a problem I’d think to pull the plug out of the wall – so it’s not all bad.
• I was deeply honored to be included as a presenter at this event.  Really, my thanks to JD for convincing Logos that I wasn’t just going to try and teach people how to use *cough* powerpoint.
• I learning something about myself.  I dislike the thought of traveling – but when I am traveling I enjoy the adventure.   This doesn’t mean that I think to take blind shots into nowhere (I need people like Greg Ward from Accordance to convince me that walking around a strange city can be fun) – but it I think I wouldn’t mind going to one or two conferences a year just to get out of my introverted shell for a few days.  [so if anyone wants a self-important geek-pastor to talk about tech and pastoral ministry, that would be cool….]
• I was gratified to be confirmed that how I use the screen for presenting really is rather unusual.  There weren’t any presentations that did what I did (oh the bullet points, which I had too – but I was doing it to show a direct contrast, so there), and people seemed at least intrigued by the possibilities.
• It was a bit upsetting that no one fell for my Jedi mind-trick.  But they did laugh when I called them Tidarians – so that was cool.
• There were many times during this trip where I could only say, “This has been good for my soul.”  There’s precious few of those in a year – I’m grateful to have had the experience and I hope I’ll be a better servant having gone and come back.
• I made the pilgrimage to the first Starbucks.  How cool is that?
• I miss my family, and I can’t wait to see them.

So, that’s my quick thoughts.  Hope the BibleTech09 folks will keep following my blog!

Antoine and I marvel at the place where the empire began.