Dream In Soul – Creativity for the Kingdom:

Here’s another conference geared toward creatives in ministry, from artists, filmmakers, musicians, authors and designers, among others – the STORY Conference in Chicago, Sept 15-16, 2011.

From the amazingly eccentric website, created by a design studio that continually inspires me, Pixel Peach, to the list of speakers, I’m mesmerized and hoping I can attend in the future. If the audio clips on the website (of last years speakers’ presentations on creativity and story) were not enough to satisfy your curiosity, check out photos from 2010 and a recap here.

I was really inspired seeing some of the works of some of the visual arts who are working on STORY, check out some of their projects here.

STORY is a conference for the creative class in ministry, held at Park Community Church in Chicago for two days of inspiring sessions and helpful content from creative practitioners.

Theme

The theme of STORY this year is Imagine Nation. It’s based on Exodus 28 where the creatives of the nation of Israel came together to imagine a place for God in the desert. The artists, sculptors, engravers and weavers all came together to make a beautiful place for God. There were an Imagine Nation.

2011 Speakers

Here are some of the presenters this year:

• Kyle Cooper – founder of Prologue Films, leading VFX company in Hollywood
• Tom Ryan – CEO of Threadless.com
• Ed Saxon – producer of The Silence of the Lambs, Adaptation, Philadelphia
• Santino Stoner – principal of Dot&Cross, director of Nooma film series
• Esther Havens – humanitarian photographer for orgs such as Charity: Water
• Ed Dobson – author and advisory editor for Christianity Today
• Lauren Chandler – musician, mother, blogger and other half of Matt Chandler
• Ian Morgan Cron – Episcopal priest and acclaimed author of Chasing Francis
• Ann Voskamp – best-selling author of One Thousand Gifts, farmer and blogger
• Mark Pierson – New Zealand author of The Art of Curating Worship
• Skye Jethani – author of The Divine Commodity, mg editor of Leadership
• Darren Whitehead – teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church

More speakers will be added in August

Musical Artists

• John Mark McMillan – singer & songwriter from Charlotte, NC
• Daniel Bashta – worship pastor at RiverStone Church in Atlanta
• All the Bright Lights – ethereal band from Charlotte, NC
• Sons & Daughters – worship duo from Nashville, TN
• Listener – unique “talk music” performers
• Meredith Andrews – worship artist at Harvest Bible Chapel

Festival Envrionments
This year, STORY will feature three unique environments for conversation:

• Naima Lett – producer, writer and actor in several major motion pictures
• Gary Dorsey – co-founder of Pixel Peach Studio in Austin, TX
• Ted Dekker – New York Times best-selling thriller author
• Nathan Corrona – super-8 filmmaker and one half of Mars Ill
• Matthew West & Angela Thomas – authors of the The Story of Our Lives
• Kate Schmidgall & Abi Byrd – creators of Bittersweet Creative & Zine

Click here to read more about some of the visual artists behind STORY.

To find out more about the conference and to register visit http://www.storychicago.com/11.