So if you follow me on Facebook, you may have noticed I was out of town on September 30th through October 2nd for a conference. The conference I attended was called Story and it was in Nashville, Tennessee at Crosspoint Church. I had never heard of Story before, but when my church asked me to attend as part of the Renaissance media team – I was happy to see what this shin-dig was all about.

This was actually my first trip to Nashville. And we drove the six hours down to Tennessee for the conference. That was a long drive and not the sort of drive I make very often. It’s been a couple years since I’ve gone that far away for a conference. And it was a lot more fun this time having people riding in the car with me instead of driving six hours by myself. We left at about 5 o’clock on the 30th, arrivin gin Nashville by around 11 pm. And then heading to bed so we could get up bright and early for the start of the conference the next day.

There were some great speakers at the Story Conference so I thought I’d take a few minutes to briefly talk about each one and what I took away from there talk.

Blaine Hogan
You may recognize Blaine from Prison Break or any number of his stage performances across the country. He is currently a creative director at Willow Creek Community Church, and freelances as a creative director for YouTube, U.S. Olympic Team, Google, Chic-Fil-A, and a number of other boutique brands. He is the creator of the online course for creatives called Make Better, author of Untitled: Thoughts on the Creative Process
, and blogs at blainehogan.com.

Blaine was the opening speaker for the conference. He did a really beautiful job of telling his story. He basically started by sharing his “highlights reel.” You know the lighter stuff… this happened and then this happened and then I started to have panic attacks… But he paused and said “You know, that is my story and it is true. But it’s not the whole story.” And he went on to tell us about the grittier, darker, less pleasant things that lead to him joining the seminary. And the truth is – those truths – those harsh realities – they make the story even more real and believable and meaningful. He said “good art joins things we don’t think can be joined. Art that mixes the beautiful with the broken, the grit with the grace… those are the things that speak to others and that can change the world.” So Blaine re-affirmed for me that sharing the realities of my life – even the non-rainbow-covered parts – is exactly what I need to be doing right now.

Jena Lee Nardella
Jena is the co-founder of an organization called Blood:Water, which she started in 2004 at the age of 22 alongside the band Jars of Clay. Following her vision and leadership, the organization has brought clean water access to more than one million people in Africa. She has contributed to numerous books and been feature in a couple films. She has had a myriad of honors like being invited by President Obama to pray on national television, winning an Epoch Award, and being one of Christianity Today’s 33 under 33 Christian Leaders.

James Rhodes
James Rhodes is a world renowned pianist. He has released James Rhodes: Five all of which have topped the iTunes classical charts. He has presented a Chopin documentary for BBC4 and had his own television series James Rhodes: Piano Man on Sky Arts. He has filmed a documentary that gave schoolchildren the chance to learn a musical instrument, presented and performed in Channel 4’s Piano Night, and interviewed celebrities like Benedict Cumberbatch and Derren Brown. His YouTube and Soundcloud accounts have over 10,000,000 views. His memoir, Instrumental, is a brutally honest, moving and compelling story that was almost banned until the Supreme Court unanimously overthrew an injunction in May 2015.

I found myself fascinated by James. We had just had a celebrity and a woman who founded a life saving organization on the stage… but there was something about James Rhodes real, raw, and genuine nature as he spoke from the podium that just kept me captivated. He didn’t dance around the realities of his life. He didn’t try to soften them and make them easier to hear. And he spoke on how it is far easier to deal with the dark realities of our life if we share them. They loom significantly less when we speak up. And we find that we are far less alone than we once thought we were. Yet again – I felt encouraged that I am on the right path.

Lunch Break
We had an hour for lunch and even though the conference had a slew of food trucks available for us to eat at – my team wanted to “experience Nashville.” So we headed out to downtown to find a spot to eat. Our pastor, Jeff, is on a burger kick right now so we decided Burger Republic would be a good place to stop. Obviously they specialize in burgers so their menu contained a variety of options of different burgers. All five of us ordered different ones. I ordered the 96 Burger, and I have to admit – my burger was incredibly delicious! Then it was back to Crosspoint for the second half of the day.

John Decuir
So John – was a surprise speaker. One of the original speakers wasn’t able to make it and John was there setting up the booth for Asbury University (a film school). Someone suggested to the staff that John would be a great speaker. And they were like “That guy? The one setting up the booth?” And come to find out John has been in the film world since the days of Walt Disney. He actually mentored under Walt Disney himself, watching the original artists make the translucent drawings for the classic Disney movies we all know and love. He has also been a production designer for films like: Top Gun, Fright Night, Turner and Hooch, Sister Act 2, and Ghost Busters.

It was fascinating listening to this man talk. His father was actually in the movie business too earning 11 Oscar nominations and winning three for The King and I, Cleopatra, and Hello Dolly. So John had story after story of amazing and awesome history. I wish he would have gotten to talk longer because his stories were so cool to hear. He was definitely another favorite from day one!

Amy Grant
I have a feeling there are a lot of you that will already know who Amy Grant is. Just in case you didn’t know – Amy Grant came into the Christian music world as a teenager and success just seemed to follow her as she grew in popularity. She was the first artist in Christian music to have a platinum record and went on to become a corssover sensation in the pop music world. She’s earned six Grammy Awards and numerous Dove Awards as well as three multi-platinum albums, six platinum albums, and four gold albums.

The thing is… Amy Grant was the BIG NAME for this conference, but I didn’t really go to hear her specifically speak. But I have to tell you, she is an incredibly genuine, soft-spoken, and captivating speaker. She has this way of talking that just makes you listen. The interviewer would ask her a questions, and she’d pause while she’d think how to answer it and then she’d just quietly and calmly start to answer the question. I can’t quite explain it but I would love to have that kind of serene and trustworthy and humble kind of spirit. It was really interested to hear her story. How she never really wanted fame or even to be a musician – it just sort of happened. To hear how her greatest desires are to give back and help others.

There were a few thoughts she had that I loved so much I had to write them down…
“You can succeed and fail, but you can never be lost.”
“A creative person is creative to the end”
& “You have to give yourself over to stillness”
I also loved this idea she spoke of… that have you ever noticed how sometimes you’ll have an idea for something really wonderful, and you’ll look it up online and see that someone else recently thought of it too. She likes to picture God just lobbing these ideas out over the earth and that the people who are quiet and listening and waiting are the ones who are graced with these truly brilliant ideas.

Jon Guerra
Jon is actually an Illinois native, growing up in Wheaton. He spent his younger years learning to play guitar and obsessing over artists like Rich Mullins and Bob Dylan. He is a multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter and you can find his most recent album here -> Little Songs

Let’s just start with Jon Guerra is an amazing musician! I loved everything he played for us at the Conference. And there was a mix of funny, cute stuff and beautiful lyrical stuff. His song Stained Glass is awesome and moved many to tears. I definitely got home from the conference and added his current albums to my Amazon cart. One thing he said that is very true is that “Creative people are so insecure. There are always so many people to please, but if you know God – you only have one person to please… And you already know what He thinks of you.”

Victor Saad
Victor Saad has been called a designer, strategist, and connector. He believes relationships are the most important engines for change. Through The Leap Year Project, a self-made Master’s Program and community project, he worked with an array of remarkable companies and individuals around the world. He staged his graduation at TEDxWindyCity, co-produced a book about taking leaps, and recently launched Experience Institute, joining forces with industry leaders from Leo Burnett, Stanford’s d.school, and a group of pioneering students to design a new type of higher education rooted in real-world experience.

So Victor was the last speaker I got to listen to on day one. I went in to my little break out session not really knowing what to expect and not expecting much actually. And in truth – this guy blew me away. Victor basically wanted to get a master’s degree but he didn’t want to have to go super in debt to get one. So what did he do? He created a new form of education through Experience. He went to work for a different company or individual every month for a year and told them – “In four weeks I will find a problem in your business and I will fix it.” At the end of his whirlwind year, he graduated on Ted Talk. And now his higher education system is it’s own school called the Experience Institute. The method of learning here is not to sit in a classroom and hear lecture upon lecture writing papers. But to go work with a company and gain real world experience to find your unique niche in life. I just think that’s so amazing and perfect and wonderful and I really could have listened to him talk for much longer.

So that was day one of our conference. We went out and grabbed some dinner after that and then crashed in our hotel room for the night. The first day was really great. I have had a few people tell me that I should stop sharing about our infertility struggle. That my posts are “full of despair” and that I need to move on since we aren’t pursuing IVF. But after day one I felt confident that the path I am on is the right one for me. That this openness and real talk is what God wants me to be doing. And it was wonderful hearing so many stories. Hearing the nitty gritty of these amazing people’s lives. The good and the bad and how it has shaped them into the unique people they are today. After all – it’s not the easy parts in life that define us but the trials and hardships that shape us into who we really are.