As promised, the live simulcast of “The Nines”, a landmark event featuring some of today’s most well known Christian leadership commences.  Watch here live all day (Wednesday) to see 9 hours of 9 minute interviews with some of the United States’ most influential Christian authors, pastors, bloggers, scholars & communicators.

Special thanks to Catalyst & Leadership Network for giving a dozen of us bloggers the opportunity to simulcast this event!

Here’s a partial schedule: (all times CST):

9AM — Troy Gramling, Mark Beeson, Anne Jackson, Dave Ferguson, Scott Hodge

10AM — Perry Noble, Stacy Spencer

11AM — Dino Rizzo, Nancy Beach, Steven Furtick, Reggie McNeal

12PM — Craig Groeschel, Leonard Sweet, Greg Surratt, Jon Tyson

1PM — Margaret Feinberg, Larry Osborne, Matt Carter, Pete Wilson

2PM — Neil Cole, Reggie Joiner, JD Greear

3PM — Mark Batterson, Dan Kimball, Mark DeYmaz

4PM — Jud Wilhite, Brian McLaren, Bob Roberts, Rick McKinley, John Ortberg

5PM — Alan Hirsch, John Bishop, Toby Slough, Ed Stetzer

6PM — Mark Driscoll, Darrin Patrick, Brad Powell

7PM — Darrin Whitehead, Brian Bloye

8PM — Eric Bryant, Nancy Ortberg, Rick Warren

We are just two days away from The Nines, a 100% online, 100% free, conference for church leaders this Wednesday, September 9th, 2009.

Catalyst is partnering with Leadership Network to provide us with this first time ever free event.

Todd Rhoades of Leadership Network &  Monday Morning Insight answered some of our FAQ’s recently on The Show, and you can get a teaser video about social media changing the landscape of Kingdom influencers with Todd & Pastor Charles Lee below:

Charles Lee // Social Networking and Influence from Todd Rhoades on Vimeo.

Check back in here on Wednesday morning for the simulcast and to enjoy over 60 presenters, including:

Reggie McNeal (Leadership Network)
Perry Noble (NewSpring Church)
Leonard Sweet (Author/Speaker)
Ed Stetzer (Lifeway Research)
Mark Batterson (National Community Church)
Alan Hirsch (Forge Mission Training Network)
Dino Rizzo (Healing Place Church)
Greg Surratt (Seacoast Church)
Sam Chand (Sam Chand Ministries)
Jon Tyson (Trinity Grace Church, NYC)
Reggie Joiner (CCO, reThink)
Nancy Ortberg (TeamWorx2)
Mike Breaux (Heartland Church)
Pete Wilson (Cross Point Church)
Neil Cole (Church Multiplication Associates)
Jenni Catron (Cross Point Church)
Noel Heikkinen (Riverview Church)
David Foster (The Gathering)
Mark Bankord (Heartland Community Church)
John Bishop (Living Waters Church)
Rick Rusaw (LifeBridge Church)
Geoff Surratt (Seacoast Church)
Jim Tomberlin (Third Quarter Consulting)
Anne Jackson (FlowerDust.net)
Naeem Fazal (Mosaic Church)
John Coulombe (First Ev Free Fullerton)
Teresa McBean (NorthStar Community Church)
Jason Cusick (Faith Church)
Bambi Encarnacion (First Ev Free Fullerton)
Ken Fong (Evergreen Baptist Church)
Judy West (Windsor Crossing Church)
Scott Wilson (The Oaks Fellowship)
Amy Hanson(Author/Speaker)
Toby Slough (Cross Timbers Church)
Troy Gramling (Flamingo Road Church)
Scott Nickell (Flatirons Community Church)
Jorge Acevedo (Grace Church)
Matt Williams (Grace Church Greenville)
Bob Roberts (Northwood Church)
Dave Ferguson (Community Christian Church)
Matt Carter (The Austin Stone Church)
Lawrence Aker (Cornerstone Baptist Church)
Dan Kimball (Vintage Faith Church)
Ken Fong (Evergreen Baptist Church)
Bill Easum (Easum & Associates)
Bryan Carter (Concord Church)
Jim Burgen (Flatirons Community Church)
Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church)
Chip Henderson (Pine Lake Church)
Jeffrey Johnson (Eastern Star Church)
Jim Sheppard (Generis)
Brad Bell (The Well)
Brian Bloye (Westridge Church)
Steve Robinson (Church of the King)
Stacy Spencer (New Direction Christian Fellowship)
Bil Cornelius (Bay Area Fellowship)
Margaret Feinberg (Author/Speaker)
JD Greear (Summit Church)
Scott Hodge (Orchard Valley Church)
Greg Holder (Windsor Crossing Church)
John Ortberg (Menlo Park Presbyterian)
Darrin Patrick (The Journey)
Michael Trent (Third Place)
Scott Williams (LifeChurch.tv)
Steve Robinson (Church of the King)
Nancy Beach (Willow Creek Church)
Keld Dahlman (European Church Planter)

and believe it or not, many more.   Each presenter has nine minutes or less to present based on this thought: “If you could sit down one-on-one with a handful of church leaders, what is the one thing you would want to tell them?”

At last count over a week ago 6,000 leaders had already pre-registered for this one day online event, so make sure you register today.

In addition to being available to those who pre-register, The Nines will be simulcast on these other blogs and websites too:

• Leading Smart (Tim Stevens)
• Tall Skinny Kiwi (Andrew Jones)
• The Digital Sanctuary (Cynthia Ware, yours truly)
• TonyMorganLive (Tony Morgan)
• ChurchCrunch (John Saddington)
  
• Shaun in the City (Shaun King)
• Bruce Reyes-Chow
• Ed Stetzer
• Big is the New Small (Scott “fist bump” Williams)
• bob.blog (Bob Hyatt)
• Bill Kinnon
• Terrace Crawford

At each of these simulcast sites, including here at The Digital Sanctuary, you can watch The Nines online.

Today is a “Mass Blogging Day” for those of us who are meeting in Los Angeles at Biola University on September 11 – 12 for the Christian Web Conference. If you have any interest in the dialog about online faith communities (can digital be incarnational?), this will be the place to have your questions explored.

One of the highlights of the conference is a debate on the virtual church taking place between Andrew Jones (Tall Skinny Kiwi) and Matthew Anderson of  Mere Orthodoxy.

Since I’m never one for debate, thank you Andrew for representing the affirmative argument.

But The Great Debate is only the beginning….  check out this who’s who of a speaker list and their topics!  It’s gonna be incredible:

• Tim Challies: Tweeting the Truth with Love
• John Mark Reynolds: Christian Ideas in a Hostile Environment
• Jon Acuff: Three Ways Satire is Changing We Talk About Faith Online
• Charles Lee: New Media and the Development of Compassionate Justice
• Joe Carter: Medium-Sizing the Message
• Abraham Piper: Serving Your Audience by Getting Out of Your Own Ideas
• Mel McGowan’s walking tour: Walking in Walt’s Footsteps
• Drew Goodmanson: Internet Strategy: What does the gospel have to do with Social Media?
• Anne Jackson: Changing the World One Blog at a Time
• Marcus Goodyear: New Ways to Listen?
• Rhett Smith: Twitter: Collaborate, Connect, and Resource via Your Story
• Paul Watson: What will it take to plant the Gospel in every population segment represented online?
• Dr. Dave Bourgeois: Developing a Philosophy for New Media Ministry
• John Carley: Seven Successful Strategies for Web 3.0
• Yours Truly: Envisioning the Future of Faith Online

And here’s a partial sponsor list:

• Torrey Honors Institute
• High Calling
• Desiring God
• VOXBIBLIA
• Monk Development
• Internet Evangelism Day

This is a good video clip summarizing The Idea Camp and what it was designed to achieve.

The entire event (free, of course)is  still openly challenging all of us who are used to paying for conferences to see speakers we can listen to rather than those we can collaborate with.

And yet, Generation “We” seems to clearly resonate with a new set of values.  Open source cross-pollenation, dynamic conversational collaboration, elevating innovation, celebrating creativity, participating, dreaming, designing, doing.

A taste of things to come.

Within two weeks, those of us in Southern California will get to experience a new kind of conference.

For many reasons conferences in general are becoming increasingly unpopular.  Some of the reasons conferences are loosing their momentum have been discussed previously here.  Most conferences are organized around the old broadcast model of communication.  A single (often dynamic) speaker talking to a large group of passive listeners would be typical, then breakouts based on this same model would follow.

But there are a good handful of new conference models springing up.  For example, I’ve gotten to participate in the two Church Tech Camps (Pasadena & Dallas) which were structured more like conversations with up front moderators but lots of interactive dialog and breakouts that allowed for many individuals to share ideas and insights.

The Idea Camp is similarly structured.   Philosophically open source, The Idea Camp purposefully juxtaposes ideologies, personalities and ministry styles for a diversity of dialog rather than a lecture-based structure.  I, myself, am looking forward to hearing from those I don’t necessarily agree with.

Additionally, there’s a sweeping list of moderators, many of whom use a-typical or pioneer approaches to their ministry endeavors creating a unique setting for both inspiration and the exploration of practical ministry tools.  In fact, although everything is set up open discussion style, the goal is not just talk.  Ideas to implementation would best describe the point of the gathering.

New Song Church in Irvine, California hosts The Idea Camp and it’s free to all.  (But please sign up by creating a profile on The Idea Camp site so we can see who participated!)  And, yes, there are some stellar unannounced guests coming.

Brad Abare www.thinkpersonality.com / www.churchmarketingsucks.com
Greg Atkinson www.gregatkinson.com
Tony Ferraro www.tonyferraro.com / www.360hubs.com
Mike Foster www.ethur.org
Dave Gibbons www.davegibbons.tv
Brent Gudgel www.deidox.com / www.chronicleproject.org
Todd Hiestand www.toddhiestand.com
Scott Hodge www.scotthodge.org
Mark Horvath www.invisiblepeople.tv
Penny Hunter The Revolution
Zach Hunter www.loosechangetoloosenchains
Greg Russinger www.just4one.org
Jeff Shinabarger www.jeffshinabarger.com
Cynthia Ware www.thedigitalsanctuary.org / www.digital.leadnet.org
Rich Kirkpatrick www.richkirkpatrick.com / www.tehillamusic.com
Charles Lee www.charlestlee.com
Dave Mahanes www.chronicleproject.org / www.deidox.com
Shah Afshar www.shahshankedredemption.blogspot.com
Dwight Watson www.surgance.com / www.dwightgwatson.blogspot.com
Eric Bryant www.ericbryant.org
Spencer Burke www.theooze.com
Chad Mayer www.sharefestinc.org
James Pearson www.jamestravels.com
Dan Portnoy www.portnoymediagroup.com
David Ruis www.davidruis.com
Chris Cannon www.kingsharbor.org
Dawn Carter www.decarter.wordpress.com / www.360hubs.com
Eugene Cho www.eugenecho.wordpress.com
DJ Chuang www.djchuang.com / www.digital.leadnet.org
Keith Kall www.worldvision.org
Henry Zonio www.elementalcm.com
Tony Wood www.generatelife.com
Robert Yang www.kindlejoy.com
Dawn Nicole Baldwin www.aspireone.com /
www.dawnnicolebaldwin.typepad.com

Join Rich Kirkpatrick and I for a Social Media in Ministry breakout to share implementable ideas.

The Idea Camp is a free hybrid conference for idea-makers to share, network, and implement ideas.  The Idea Camp will gather some of the most innovative and creative leaders from around the country to share ideas, intentionally network, and move collaboratively into idea-making.

Whether your passion is church leadership, non-profit work, social entrepreneurialism, technology, media, creativity, culture making, church planting, spiritual formation, compassionate justice, etc., this is the conference for YOU!

Here’s a beta list of the facilitators at The Idea Camp:

Brad Abare (http://www.thinkpersonality.com / http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com)
Shah Afshar (http://www.shahshankredemption.blogspot.com)
Greg Atkinson (http://www.gregatkinson.com)
Eric Bryant (http://www.ericbryant.org)
Chris Cannon (http://www.kingsharbor.org)
Dawn Carter (http://www.decarter.wordpress.com)
DJ Chuang (http://www.djchuang.com / http://digital.leadnet.org)
Mike Foster (http://www.ethur.org / http://www.deadlyviper.org)
Dave Gibbons (http://www.davegibbons.tv)
Keith Kall (http://www.worldvision.org)
Charles Lee (http://www.charlestlee.com)
James Pearson (http://www.jamestravels.com)
Matt Russell (http://www.myvcc.org/uturn)
Greg Russinger (http://www.just4one.org)
Jeff Shinabarger (http://www.jeffshinabarger.com)
Cynthia Ware (http://www.thedigitalsanctuary.org / http://digital.leadnet.org)
Tony Wood (http://www.generatelife.com)
Robert Yang (http://www.kindlejoy.com)

The Freeze Project, a movement designed to bring awareness about social injustices via creative means, will converge in Santa Monica today at the 3rd Street Promenade. 

The project will be held in conjunction with Just One, One Voice to End Slavery, and new media award winner Stop the Traffik.  All the details are on the website & Facebook.  

In case you're wondering what in the world does an event like this have to do with new media & the Church, it's an example of how collections of individuals are leveraging online technologies for drawing attention to their causes.  These online promotions are gaining momentum, especially with non-profits and especially targeted at youth. 

Additionally, we see that such online connections bridge chasms.  The new media break down traditional communication barriers (i.e. geography) and reassemble individuals in groups based on interests, beliefs, values, and other commonalities. Furthermore, as in this case, they can mobilize individuals into groups and result in action.

Next thing you know, believers will be meeting in flash mobs to pray.  I mean, it is LA.  

HT: Charles Lee