Willow Creek Arts Conference 2007 (Part 1)

Last week, I had the amazing privilege to go to the Willow Creek Arts Conference in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. For those of you who do not know of Willow Creek, they are a mega-church oriented towards seekers (people who are investing the claims of Christ and the church), and providing conferences in the area of arts, leadership, and just about anything else that is essential for church leaders and members around the world.

I had never been to Willow Creek before last week, and I had heard a lot about the church, mostly negative things, and as I walked through the main doors and wandered through the lobby and main auditorium, those comments replayed in my mind as if I was hearing them for the first time. The lobby reminded me of a convention center. Waterfalls, escalators, elevators, television screens, book kiosks, coffee shops, bookstores, atriums, chairs and benches to sit in, and free wi-fi. When you walk into the main auditorium, it’s like you are walking into a miniature arena. Giant windows frame the stage as a fog machine pumps out enough fog to define each and every light. Three levels of seating provide enough room for thousands of people to be able to gather, while gigantic high-definition video screens provide everyone with the ability to see, with amazing clarity, what is going on. The whipped cream of this audio/visual sundae was the sound system, which easily rivaled anything that I have ever heard at the myriad of concerts that I have been to. As I pushed those comments to the back of my mind, I really wanted to be open to the experience of this place that I have wanted to visit and be open to what I hoped that I would learn and be reminded of: creativity, inspiration, and passion for communicating the truth through art.

My first thought regarding this conference was the impact that it had on me personally and professionally. Before I left, I was getting pretty tired, drained creatively, and unable to be passionate about the work I was doing. Through the keynote speaker Dewitt Jones and breakout session speaker Mark Miller, I learned that in order to continue providing creative and inspirational creative solutions I need to spend the time and energy to keep my creative toolbox full and if I don’t feel passionate or inspired that I should act as if I were passionate and inspired.

Now, it’s not that I didn’t know these things before, but when you open yourself up to needing to hear the truth, you’ll hear what you need to hear with an incredible clarity.

I’m going to continue unpacking the things that I learned on the trip, but for now, I’m pleased to know that I won’t be giving up anytime soon.