The Innovative Church Conference is going big this year. The numbers are way up, and it looks like we’re easily going to set a new record again this year. Very cool. Today’s the final day for early bird registrations if you’d like to jump on board and save a few dollars. All these registrations make me think we made a wise decision by inviting Mark and Perry to join us this year.

By the way, we were talking about the opening to this year’s conference this morning with the arts team. They have some fun stuff planned. It’s going to be something you won’t want to miss!

UPDATE: Lindsay and Jami from the WiredChurches.com team just came in with some great news. The registrations have been rocking today. With everyone that’s signed up today, we’ve already set the record for the most registrations for an Innovative Church Conference. Yes! That’s really big news considering the event is still a month away. I absolutely can’t wait for this conference! The early bird rates will be good through tonight, so make sure you register online if you’re planning on attending.

In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m really excited about this year’s Innovative Church Conference. (By the way, Monday is the deadline for receiving the early bird rates.) In addition to seeing a number of my blogging friends, I’m looking forward to connecting with several ministry partners we’ve met through the years. Here are the organizations that will be joining us at this year’s event:

• ACS Technologies
• Architechture is Fun
• Aspen Group
• Aspire!One
• Bank of the West
• Clark ProMedia
• Cogun
• eChurchessentials
• Faith Highway
• Feed the Children
• Fellowship Technologies
• InJoy Stewardship Services
• Labrosse,LTD.
• Media Shout
• Outreach
• Pastors.com
• Purpose Driven
• Rev Magazine
• Willow Creek Association
• YourMembership.com

If you can’t tell, I’m really started to get pumped up about this year’s Innovative Church Conference. It’s going to be all that and a bag of chips. The conference will be beyond the bomb diggity. (I love my new Urban Dictionary. It helps me stay hip with today’s street slang. That’s important for me and all my homeys in Indiana.)

Check out this year’s lineup for breakout sessions:

Creative Teaching. People are engaged and inspired by pastors and leaders just like you. Learn some fresh teaching techniques.

First Impressions. They matter. Learn the basics of creating a “wow” first impression when someone steps foot in your church.

Leading Artists. They’re creative and passionate and um…interesting to work with. You can lead your artists and help them maximize their gifts.

Multi-site/Theater Church Ministry. Wondering about multi-sites, or how a church can flourish in a unique setting like a theater?

Student Ministry. Teenagers. They’re the church of NOW. How can you engage them in the story Jesus has for their lives?

Web Strategy. Gotta have a church Web site. Gotta make it clean and easy to navigate. Gotta bring people back to it. Wondering how?

Blogging. Get a handle on the basics of the blogosphere and how it can impact your ministry.

Groups. Whether they’re small or large, learn how to create group environments for people to connect.

Kids’ Ministry. Find ways to create an interactive environment to reach kids for Jesus.

Leading Worship. Get a fresh perspective on engaging people in worship.

Missions Outreach. How can your church impact the world? We’ll share some strategies.

Staffing. How do you find and keep great people? They’re probably already attending your church!

Don’t miss your chance to experience these break out sessions and more at the ICC 2006, September 21-22. The speakers are weapons grade…that means they have ninja skills. Get the Early Bird Rate now.

It’s not what you think. That’s the theme for this year’s Innovative Church Conference. Since the early bird deadline (August 21) is just around the corner, I thought I’d share the inside scoop on what you can expect…though it’s still not what you think.

Session 1: Just who do you think you’re talking to? — Mark Beeson, Granger’s senior pastor, will talk about our ministry strategy to reach people who are unchurched and encourage them to take their next step toward Christ.

Session 2: What’s buzz? What’s worthy? What’s buzz-worthy? — Tim Stevens, Granger’s executive pastor, will explain how we create buzz at Granger to attract a crowd and tell them about Jesus. Among other things, Tim will unpack the details surrounding the PureSex series that ended up receiving national attention.

Session 3: Breakouts (more details in an upcoming post)

Session 4: Is anybody listening? — Rob Wegner, one of Granger’s teaching pastors, will talk about the power of story in helping people embrace God’s Word.

Session 5: The Granger experience–by design.  — This session will take you from start to finish through the weekend service experience at Granger. It will be filled with samples of music, drama and video used in recent services.

Session 6: Breakouts

Session 7: We’re not alone. — Mark Batterson from National Community Church in Washington, DC and Perry Noble from NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC will share their stories, their strategies and their passions for reaching people in their unique communities.

Session 8: Are we up to the challenge? –  Mark Beeson will be back to reflect on lessons he’s learned in the last 12 months of leadership and ministry at Granger. This session will be full of real, live insights from someone who is actively engaged in leading the church in a rapidly changing culture.

For more information about the sessions and other conference details, you can visit WiredChurches.com.

I’ve already told you about our guest speakers at this year’s Innovative Church Conference (Mark Batterson & Perry Noble), but I’ve not mentioned our special musical guests. This year, we’ll be joined at the conference by Shane & Shane. Shane Everett and Shane Barnard are recording artists with Inpop Records, home to other notable acts like Newsboys, Superchick and Tree63. In addition to touring, they’ve started a video game development company called Media Juice and released four CDs and a CD/DVD combo called An Evening with Shane & Shane, which features favorites such as "Psalm 145," "The Answer," and their dynamic new hit, "Arise." And, the best part about Shane & Shane is that they sing a lot better than Mark & Perry.

Yes, the rumors are true. Mr. Buzz himself, Mark Batterson, the senior pastor of National Community Church, will be joining Perry Noble as one of the guest keynote speakers at this year’s Innovative Church Conference. I absolutely can’t wait for this year’s conference. It’s shaping up to be our best event by far. And, even though we’re still four months out, the registrations from throughout the country are starting to roll in. That gets me pretty excited.

In the coming weeks, I’ll share the inside scoop on our guest artists, give you some specifics on the sessions that we’ll be offering and tell you about an event that we’re offering for the very first time in conjunction with the conference. This is going to be more fun than we should be allowed to have in Granger, Indiana! Hope you’ll join us.

I have some cool news to share regarding WiredChurches.com. We recently announced our new partnership with Outreach, an online resource for church communication tools. This partnership will make Granger’s series graphics packages available through Outreach’s website and catalog. Outreach will be able to print and customize promotional materials for individual ministries. Additionally, Outreach will be able to provide banners, bulletins and other pieces featuring the designs of WiredChurches.com.

I’m really excited about this step because churches today are looking for culturally relevant, easy-to-use tools to reach people in their communities. We believe that making our series graphics available through Outreach will get Granger’s ideas in the hands of more churches to reach more people for Jesus. That’s our primary mission as a ministry.

In turn, Outreach will be linking to Granger’s message resources that are available on WiredChurches.com. Those include message subscriptions and transcripts, leadership downloads, small group materials, music, graphics packages, multimedia productions and more.

Though Outreach will be adding more WiredChurches.com graphics in the future, they have started by caring the series graphics packages for "Desperate Households."

Just in case you haven’t had a chance to listen to the most recent Simply Strategic Show podcast yet, here’s the big news: Perry Noble will be one of the main session speakers at this year’s Innovative Church Conference. Perry is the senior pastor of a little church of about 6,000 people in Anderson, South Carolina. After planting the church just 10 years ago, Perry has an amazing story to share about what God has been doing at NewSpring Church. I can’t wait to have him here in September, and I can’t wait to tell you who else is coming for this year’s conference.

Do you sense my excitement? I’m not sure if it’s possible that I can be giddy, but I’m pretty positive I’m close. I have news regarding guest artists and speakers for this year’s Innovative Church Conference…only I’m not allowed to share the details quite yet. I can’t wait to start name-dropping. You know and love these people. They’re really groovy. Man, this is going to be fun!