Austin has more to offer than good music. The GCM Collective Conference is coming October 28-30. You need to be there.
If you are unfamiliar, GCM stands for "Gospel Community Mission." From the website...
The GCM Collective exists to promote, create and equip Gospel Communities on Mission. A gospel community is a group of believers that lives out the mission of God together as family, in a specific area to a particular people group, by declaring and demonstrating the gospel in tangible forms. Regular people, living ordinary lives, with great gospel intentionality.
GCM Collective's online community for discussion and sharing resources is quite helpful. Again, from the site...
Over a thousand missional leaders and thinkers are gathered together online to share insight, experiences, resources, prayer and more to help you in your effort to lead a local community on mission. Engage in meaningful conversations with others from around the world or who live near you.
But the conference is what I want to highlight. I'm going to be there. I want to encourage you to come.
The list of speakers is solid. Ed Stetzer, Steve Timmis (author of Total Church), Jeff Vanderstelt & Caesar Kalinowski (Soma Communities), David Fairchild & Drew Goodmanson (Kaleo San Diego) and Jonathan Dodson (Austin City Life Church).
I was in a breakout group with Vanderstelt and Kalinowski at Verge in February and it was some of the most thought provoking, encouraging stuff I've heard on practical, local church life. I was in a breakout with Timmis for an Acts 29 boot camp which was very helpful as well. And these aren't just thinkers, they are practitioners. We often go to conferences for big names giving big talks. GCM Conference is going to be very different, and I think transformational.
Jonathan Dodson recently posted "4 Reasons I'm Excited about GCM Conference." These are some of the same reasons I'm excited for this conference.
(1) Practioner-tested Missional Community Training
(2) Top Notch Theological Reflection on Mission
(3) The Collective Experience
(4) The Centrality of the Gospel in Mission
Go read Jonathan's post for more. And join us in Austin in October for the GCM Conference.