Greg Bell

Keynote Address  Greg Bell Sunday, February 13 ~ 11:15 a.m.  - 12:15 p.m. Greg Bell, author of Water The Bamboo: Unleashing the Potential of Teams and Individuals, is a recognized thought leader and founder of the Water The Bamboo Center For Leadership. As a student and keen observer of highly successful people and teams, he distills his findings into the Water The Bamboo methodology. Water The Bamboo is a metaphor for individual and team success. If you water giant timber bamboo in the first year, nothing happens. In the second year, nothing happens. In the third year, nothing happens. But when you water bamboo in the fourth year, it will rocket up an astonishing 90 feet in only 60 days. Do you and your team have the kind of vision, faith, patience, persistence and focus to achieve what you want? Those who catch the spirit and understand the principles of the bamboo farmer will see their visions suddenly explode into reality — seemingly out of nowhere. Greg has brought the principles of Water The Bamboo to over 500 clients and associations and tens of thousands of individuals, to transform leadership and spark much-needed change. Every team, organization and individual is unique. Greg brings a toolkit of practical exercises, inspirational stories of triumph and lots of interaction to customize programs that entertain, challenge and motivate participants. Greg is a two-time Inspirational Player of the Year for the University of Oregon basketball team, successful attorney and entrepreneur and the force behind Coaches vs. Cancer, which has raised over $50 million dollars for cancer research. Greg founded the Water The Bamboo Center For Leadership to inspire and motivate teams to achieve their own remarkable results. Visit http://waterthebamboo.com/

Len Sweet

Keynote Address  Leonard Sweet Monday, February 14 ~ 10:45  - 11:45 a.m. “One of the church’s most important and provocative thinkers." “No church leader understands better how to navigate the seas of the 21st century.” “A writer of vast imagination, poise and charm.” “I can’t imagine a Christian leader in America who hasn’t read one or more of Leonard Sweet’s books.” “Some statistician-types will drown you in doom and gloom. Sweet’s message is uplifting, hopeful and relevant.” These are but a sampling of responses to Len’s three-ring mission: as a historian of American culture; as a futurist/semiotician who "sees things the rest of us do not see, and dreams possibilities that are beyond most of our imagining" and as a preacher and writer who communicates the gospel powerfully to a postmodem age by bridging the worlds of academe and popular culture. In 2006 and 2007, Len was voted by his peers “One of the 50 Most Influential Christians in America” by ChurchReport Magazine. Currently the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew University, Madison, N.J. and a Visiting Distinguished Professor at George Fox University, Portland, Oregon, Len has been Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Theological School at Drew University for five years. Previous to Drew Len served for 11 years as President and Professor of Church History at United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio. Prior to 1985, Len was Provost of Colgate Rochester/Bexley Hall/Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York. Involved in leadership positions in the United Methodist Church, Len has been chosen to speak at various Jurisdictional and General Conferences as well as the 1996 World Methodist Congress in Rio de Janeiro. He also serves as a consultant to many of America's denominational leaders and agencies. He is a member of the West Virginia Annual Conference. Author of more than 200 articles, over 1,200 published sermons and dozens of books, Len is the primary contributor (along with his wife Karen Elizabeth Rennie) to the web-based preaching resource, sermons.com. For nine years he and his wife wrote Homiletics, which became under their watch the premier preaching resource in North America. In 2005 Len introduced the first open-source preaching resource on the Web, wikiletics.com. Visit http://www.leonardsweet.com/