Live from WFX!

by Brian Blackmore

As expected, Rex Miller challenged, encouraged, tweaked, offended and edified the WFX audience all in the hour-long keynote address this morning.  You have to hear Rex talk to understand what I mean.  He goes out of his way to try to engage the audience.  And he’s not ashamed to tell his audience that if they don’t understand, or choose not to believe that times are changing.  If the audience chooses not to engage, or believe that times are changing --- then some can wish that they had put on their hard toe’d boots, as Rex pulls no punches.

He told me before the presentation that the book “The Long Tail” was his “lens” for this presentation.  So the realities of the secular business environment certainly have a direct impact on the state of the church. 

Rex Miller really needs a few hours or maybe a few days to truly communicate his passion and his opinion about the state of the church in this changing world. 

This morning’s keynote was well attended, with nearly 1,000 in attendance.

The show floor was lighter than yesterday, but there were no complaints, as what it may have lacked in quantity it made up for in quality. 

It’s obvious that the WFX attendees are so engaged, and involved in trying to do new and different things to engage today’s culture for God’s purposes, but I LOVE the fact that SO MANY of the WFX exhibitors are here for the same purposes. 

The event closed at 4:30 PM. But one team of attendees, who happened to be from Nigeria, wanted more.  They corralled “Church Production” Editor, Mark Johnson into going back on the trade show floor (the show floor was closed to attendees by that time), and convincing one exhibiting company representative to come back out into the lobby to tell the rest of this Nigerian team more about a particular product or service. They wanted just a bit more information before they flew back to their home church on another continent. 

Besides the 70% of attendees that were from middle America (the Midwestern United States), it was very satisfying to know that, through WFX, God was working in foreign lands as well.