I just arrived at the San Diego at the National Outreach Convention.

It should be a good week and I am not bitter that the folks at Outreach don't know where I work (click here, right under Len Sweet, and see the "North American Mission Board," my FORMER place of employment).

The Christian Post explained:

Thousands have converged in San Diego for the self-claimed single largest gathering focused solely on outreach and featuring much of today's most innovative and fastest growing churches in the country.

The National Outreach Convention (NOC), presented by Outreach Magazine, opened Wednesday at the Town and Country Resort & Convention Center...

This year's convention, under the theme "Converge: Where Mission Meets Innovation," aims at energizing and refocusing outreach efforts to help churches reach their surrounding communities for Christ.

Then they quoted what I am going to be doing in the session I lead:

But before local church pastors and other leaders jump on the bandwagon for innovative outreach methods, a panel discussion on Friday will address some of the dangers and the temptation of going from one new ministry trend to the next. The panel, led by moderator Ed Stetzer - director of research and missiologist at LifeWay - will provide "an honest deconstruction of the potential tyranny, superficiality and idolatry of ministry innovation in search of its true missional core."

Sounds like I am supposed to be the killjoy, but I hope not. And, "deconstruction of the potential tyranny" is quite a mouthful. Grin.

The good folks at Regal gave 200 copies of one of my new books, 11 Innovations in the Local Church (with Elmer Towns and Warren Bird), so I will be signing and sharing. (If you want people to sign up for your book signing, and you are not famous, you have to give books away! Thanks Regal.)

My focus will be on how churches engage their context in fresh ways.