This is only the second of my "Saturday is for Seminars," a new weekly feature about upcoming seminars, conferences, and events.

The picture does not really have much to do with these two conferences, but I thought the backdrop was pretty amazing so I decided to include it anyway. It is from the Dwell Conference, hosted by Tim Keller in Manhattan (you can download the audio of that conference here).

Next week on the road:

On Monday, I am flying in and out of North Carolina to speak for the North Carolina Evangelism Conference at Southeastern Seminary. You can see the whole program here. Marty Dupree, state evangelism team leader, has some great speakers with an important theme: The Great Commission Resurgence. It will be worth your time.

The conference is at Southeastern, illustrating that growing partnership between schools like Southeastern and their state partners.

I am also doing a Q&A forum with our students at Southeastern at 12:45pm. Based on recent developments, I think I can guess what the first, second, and third question will be, but we will see. I encourage you to come and "let's talk." I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

By the way, and off the record, here is info about another conference in Raleigh Durham coming up in a few months. You read it here first: Piper, Chandler, Driscoll, Akin, Greear, Stetzer, Mason, Chapell, etc. See the "not yet officially released" Advance09 website, but don't tell anyone. ;-)

I will be teaching a doctoral seminar at SEBTS that week and speaking at the conference and then John Piper, Mark Driscoll, and I will be doing a panel on Friday night. Consider being a part of both the class and the conference!

On Wednesday, I will be in Texas for the SBTC Evangelism Conference. You can see the whole program here and it looks to be an amazing conference. Don Cass and the Evangelism Team have done a great job and I am looking forward to Wednesday morning with John Bisango and Lee Stroebel.

The conference program was mentioned in the Dallas Morning News (you will note that I am in the category "among other speakers...").

I saw Ricky Skaggs at church a couple of weeks ago and we joked that, even though we see each other regularly at church, this is the first time we will be on the stage together!

I am pretty sure I am going to do a tweetup while I am there so watch my Twitter feed, and if you are near Euless and want to visit. And, I believe in "open communion" when it comes to Tweetups-- so all are welcome.

Coming Soon: The Exponential Conference in Orlando

As I mentioned last week, I am going to highlight a different conference each week. Thanks to the folks at the conference I have lots of info to share.

I have made an annual pilgrimage to the Exponential Conference (formerly the National New Church Conference) for the last four years. It has grown from a few hundred to a few thousand. It has become the must-attend church planting conference.

As I have been doing each year, I will lead the Best Practices forum (meeting on Monday) and speak in several of the others. We are also working on some research that may debut at the conference. (When that is official, I will blog on it.)

Also, Alan Hirsch and I will be doing a dinner with the Upstream Collective (www.theupstreamcollective.org) on Monday night April 20th at 6:30 pm. Details are forthcoming on our topic but rumor has it we are going to talk about what if Alan and I planted a church together-- what would our approach look like? The cost of the dinner is $10.00. Please email Larry McCrary at larry@theupstreamcollective.org if you are interested in attending. Space is limited.

The deadline for early registration is ending soon so let me encourage you to sign up today. Check out the conference web site at www.exponentialconference.com.

And here is one more picture from the Dwell Conference.

This second picture has nothing to do with Exponential Conference either. I just thought it was a unique setting. The church was once a congregation in the United Church of Christ, but today it is a meeting hall for rent on the East Side of Manhattan.

Perhaps I will be like Oprah and put my own picture on every cover. It could be "Saturday is for Seminars" with an "Ed photo" every week...

Nah... probably not.

But, if you like it, you can view the full image here. The whole facility was amazing. Thanks to the staff at Redeemer Presbyterian for taking and sending me these pics.

Back to the conference at hand... here are many more details from my friends at Exponential and some of the great working relationships that are being made there:

The Exponential Conference

The Exponential Network (www.exponentialnetwork.com) serves as the steward of the Exponential Conference. Steward? What does it mean to be the steward of a national church planting conference?

The Exponential Conference has exploded growing from 300 leaders to over 3,000 leaders in just 3 years. The conference has emerged as the largest church planting conference in the US (and possibly the world) and features one of the strongest lineup of national speakers anywhere to be found. The leadership of Exponential is committed to using this platform to advance the cause of new church work and not the agenda or mission of any specific organization.

The conference features over 75 national speakers (e.g. Francis Chan, Erwin McManus, Craig Groeschel, Tim Keller, etc), 15 pre-conference intensives, and 7 main tracks. Main tracks include missional, pre-launch, post-launch, spouses, multi-ethnic, reproducing churches, and nuts & bolts. For many leaders it has become the "must attend" conference on church planting. Imagine the energy of putting over 3,000 church planting leaders in one place.

Three years ago when taking the conference national, the organizers hoped that attendees would leave the conference asking "Wow! Who runs this conference?" Today, the "stewards of the conference" are pushing the envelope even further in promoting collaboration in the conference and creating the best possible environment for inspiring, equipping and encouraging leaders to take next steps in church planting. Their vision is to create an environment where any network or heritage can leverage the conference to advance their mission.

The strategy is to maintain a neutral and safe environment where a growing number of evangelical groups can connect for the common cause of advancing the Gospel through new church work.

Three years after taking the conference national, over 35 networks, denominations and ministries attend the conference. A growing number of groups are adopting the conference as their national planting conference. In fact, Exponential has become known as a key setting for cross-denominational collaboration.

Todd Wilson (a friend and champion of the cause of planting) notes that three years ago denominational and network leaders were skeptical, but they came and found it was safe. The next year they invited their national team leaders to attend. Now many of them strongly encourage their entire planting communities to attend.

For example, Steve Pike, the national church planting director for the Assemblies of God has decided not to run an AG specific conference opting instead to "adopt" Exponential as their own. Steve is encouraging their entire community of planting leaders to attend Exponential. Steve concludes its better stewardship to convene his team at Exponential rather than spending resources to duplicate the experience.

George Klippenes (Director of Church Planting for EFCA) has jumped in and EFCA is actually helping coordinate the multi-ethnic track. George encourages his national leaders and planters to attend.

In the spirit of collaboration, Exponential invites other leaders to help coordinate and run the main tracks. For example, Shawn Lovejoy and David Putman of ChurchPlanters.com run the post launch track. Ron Sylvia of the Next Initiative (previously PD Planting) is hosting the prelaunch track. New Thing Network is hosting / coordinating the Reproducing Churches track and Alan Hirsch (Shapevine) the Missional Track.

The theme of the 2009 conference is "The Art of Movements." For the past few years the conference has been heavily biased to the "science" or "mechanics" of church planting. This year the conference is broadening the view to the "Art of Movements."

Regardless of where you are in the planting journey, Exponential is designed to encourage, inspire, equip, inform and challenge your next steps. Nearly half of the attendees surveyed state that the conference helped them discern a specific next step in planting or inspired them to pursue a next step.

Approximately 25% of the 3,000 attendees are considering planting or are in the pre-launch phase. Another 25% are in years 1-5 after launch. Another 25% are considering becoming (or are) church planting churches. The final 25% are involved in leading church planting networks / organizations. Attendance represents over 35 different denominations and heritages. Over 50 leading service providers are also participating.

Worried about finances? The conference is a great value at $159 (early bird ends Monday - Feb 16th). In addition to keeping registration rates low, the April conference dates are among the least expensive weeks of the year for traveling to sunny Orlando.

I hope to see you in Orlando!