The Orange Conference 2011 is a few short weeks away. I’m looking forward to a couple days of absorbing, growing & connecting with some amazing kidmin, stumin, & fammin people. (Did I spelll that right??)

Last year I attended Orange Conference 2010. Day 1 set the tone for a great conference when Nancy Ortberg took the stage. Nancy is a proven team leader that knows the value of building leaders. The first time I heard her speak was when she taught on the book Silos, Politics & Turf Wars. I soaked up every bit of it.

Nothing changed this time around. Ortberg did not disappoint. Here are a few of my favorite thoughts…

*The power that gets unleashed when a leader knows a team is unmatched. What is the condition of my team? Are their things going on personally they need help with ? Would your team choose a team meeting over a movie?
*Give your people challenges. Conflict is fundamental to a healthy team. One of the best crucibles for spiritual formation process. Yet churches tend to avoid it.
*Environment of relationships. There needs to be some point of relational so that challenges have a context in which to work through.

Just rewriting these notes reminds me that I should have Nancy Ortberg quotes pasted to my walls. These are fundamental truths for building a great team. And I want to build a great team. (Read more of Gina McClain’s notes from Orange Conference 2010 here.)

JC agreed that this was the best breakout for him as well adding these thoughts:

Nancy Ortberg taught a breakout called Dysfunction and Death. I was completely intrigued. I remember sitting there with my business school hat on and thinking everything she was saying was right. The difference, I hadn’t seen it in a church environment.

She talked about how church people sometimes shy away from conflict for the wrong reasons like fear or shame instead of engaging the issues to find the heart of the matter. I don’t remember if she said this in her breakout or in her main session but she said this:

In order to do conflict well you have to give people permission to do it poorly.

Are you allowing those that you lead to participate in conflict? Are you immediately solving the conflict? In order to be effective at anything we need practice but are we allowing them to practice the difficult things.

I think that conflict management is one biblical principle that I see handled better at corporations rather than churches, why?

*We define cowards as peacemakers – Matt. 18 teaches us about conflict resolution. Verses 15-17 look very different than the definition that we give to peacemakers. Peacemakers manage conflict and don’t avoid it.

*Conflict more clearly defines our outlook on God – we can see our trust in Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice by the way that we handle conflict. Do you really feel as though God accepts you and there is no condemnation in those who love Christ? If so you will handle conflict very differently than those who don’t.

*Conflict is hard – it’s easier to do easy things. It’s hard to do hard things. So avoid hard things. Unfortunately this is how we approach the subject of conflict.

Nancy knocked this session out of the park. She recommended the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Death by Meeting as two books that you need to have read if you lead meetings or people or both.

If you want a taste of the Orange Experience dont’ forget the Orange Tour Online next week– it’s FREE! And if you want the whole enchilada including killer breakouts like the one above, don’t miss out on the Orange Conference. There’s a special deal right now to get $30 off registration plus a $50 credit toward curriculum. But you only have until Feb. 17th!!!