What can I say?  Velocity was quite possibly the best conference I’ve attended in the past five years.  There’s just something very refreshing about the mix of speakers at the conference that makes it truly different.  Honestly, I was running around a lot during the main sessions but I heard enough of each to know that something genuinely special was going on.

Because of the podcasts I was recording, my experience at the conference was pretty unique.  I got to spend some quality time with some amazing leaders!  I’ll blog later about all that, especially lunch with Rick Warren.  Right now, I want to just talk about one major theme that the Lord kept stressing to me throughout the conference.

The biggest thing that I heard over and over and over was that we need to be who God made us to be and not just copies of other leaders.  Almost every person I spoke with, without exception, and in almost every session I attended, this idea was stressed.  Be yourself.  Don’t try to be somebody else.  Don’t wear someone else’s armor.  Don’t be a copy.  Be an original.

The truth is that we’re all tempted to copy the folks we think of as successful but you’re never going to be all that God wants you to be when you’re only following the path He designed for someone else.  God has a unique plan for each of us.  He has gifted each of us uniquely too.  It’s foolish and amazingly shortsighted to only mimic what He is done in and through others instead of exploring what He wants to do through you.

This idea resonated in me deeply because it was just an echo of what God has been pounding into me over the last 12 months.  More and more, I’m sensing Him calling me to be exactly what He wants me to be.  He’s challenging me to break free from the models, stereotypes and forms in which I has put myself over the years.  He’s prompting me to blaze a new trail by using every gift He’s given me to teach and lead and just do church the way He has wired me to do it.

I don’t see this as a license to cast aside the great work others have done.  Instead, I feel called to build upon that foundation and expand and extend it.  I feel called to add my part, the part only I can build.  I feel like God is telling me to step out of the shadows and follow Him and His plan for me with reckless abandon.  I’m not entirely sure what all that means or what will come of it but I do know He’s telling me it’s time to go.

Allons-y!