Last Thursday and Friday I attended the MinistryCOM conference in Phoenix, Ariz. I hadn't heard about this organization until I received an email about it. It's designed for church communications professionals, which is my gig in life. This was their second annual convention. I'll plan to attend every year.

Most of the attendees came from large, large churches which actually need someone to work fulltime in communications. Some had entire communications departments. This takes in a bunch of areas: marketing, graphics, the internet, public relations, information technology. The focus was more strategy than techie.

The level of competence, creativity, and commitment (three C's! I should write sermons!) was extraordinary. I gained something from every keynote session and every seminar (most conferences throw in at least a few losers).

We met at Christ's Church of the Valley, a 10,000-person church in Peoria, on the northwest side of the Phoenix metro area. My goodness, what a sprawling campus! The property at CCV, as it's known, featured many buildings; this being Arizona, you don't need hallways and enclosed walkways. The church holds four services each weekend--two on Saturday, two on Sunday. They promote them as "identical services." Off of the sanctuary was a bookstore, a nice coffeehouse (with wireless access), and a scramble-system food court. Scores of tables sat outside, most under umbrellas or open-sided enclosures. Southwestern architecture is my favorite, and this church uses it beautifully.

When MinistryCOM attendees identified themselves, they usually gave the size of their church, not in a pecking order kind of way, but for context. I concluded that churches below 2000 round off to the nearest 100 (nobody said, "We have 1750 people"), churches above 2000 round off to the nearest 500 (so there's no 5300, just 5500), and somewhere around 7000 or so, they begin rounding off to the nearest 1000. My size of church rounds off to the nearest 5 (do I say we have 120 people, or 125?). I didn't meet anyone in a church with less than 1000 people, but my experience, in our denomination, is that they round off to the nearest 50.

I learned a lot, and I'll inflict it upon my blog in the days ahead.