Mark Steele spoke at the final session of the Echo Conference. Here are my notes...

• We are called to be "parable makers."
• The path of reaching people is changing quickly. We keep trying to get better at doing the same things, not realizing that we need to change what we are doing...not how we are doing it.
• The way the world looks at the church and Christians has radically and irreversibly changed.
• The building of the tabernacle (Exodus 35:30-36:1) was the first artistic expression of God's plan.
• In the church, we are not doing anyone a favor by putting them in a role they aren't gifted to do-just to help them find themself.
• Why do people think Christians are irrelevant--because the church has been putting out sub-par garbage. It's because we are putting non-gifted people into roles they aren't skilled for. When we do that, it hurts our evangelism potential.
• God gave Moses the instructions for the Tabernacle. But Moses didn't hang on to that information or try to do it himself. He turned it over to the creatives who had the skill to carry it out.
• If we want to change the world's perspective about Christians and the church, it's going to come from the artists in the church.
• The unreached artists of the world are the only unreached people group in the world who have the ability to reach every other unreached people group of the world. And the artists in the church are the only ones who have the possibility to reach the unreached artists of the world.
• Excellence in our skill is incredibly important, but not the most important. More important than our skill is our story. Not a story, but your story with all its' brokenness.
• My favorite TV show is LOST. Because LOST is a huge puzzle, and the pieces are the stories of the characters.
• Your life is not broken. Your life is a piece in a broken puzzle.
• We need our artistic communities to share the rough stuff, because life doesn't skip the rough stuff. Sharing our story is what heals us.