Catalyst

Jon Acuff – Not Getting Lost in the Process

Jon Acuff spoke Friday morning. Here are a few of my notes:

Making things is a process. How do you not get lost in the process?

1. Remember who you are.

You are not the things you make. Your identity is not tied to those things. You are NEW. God makes you new.

Story about the prodigal son. He wanted to come back as a hired hand. The problem is that he couldn’t become a hired hand. His identity was son.

Don’t compare to others.

2. Remember who God is.

Sometimes we think, “If I make a bigger platform then God will get more glory.” God’s glory is not connected to your platform.

God will not be handcuffed by your failures or unleashed by your successes.

The older brother in the prodigal son story missed the story.

God fixed a problem with a party. Who does that?

I hope you make a lot of things, but don’t forget who you are. You are a son, a daughter, an heir of the King.

Andy Stanley – The Thing that Makes You a Leader

Andy Stanley, Pastor of North Point Church opened Catalyst. His message really make an impact on me. Follow Andy: http://twitter.com/andystanley. Here are some of my notes:

I want to talk about Make in the context of leadership. God, life, and circumstances make leaders.

Information and insigth alone do not a leader make. No matter how much good content you consume, it doesn’t make you a great leader. Leaders never really talk about podcasts, articles, books, etc.

What makes a leader is how they handle 3 things:

– Unexpected Opportunity – Leaders are rarely the first person see an opportunity, but they are often the first person to seize the opportunity.

– Unavoidable Adversity – How a person responds to adversity is what makes a person a leader.

– Unquestionable Calling – This is that untangible.

These things don’t make them a leader…it is how they respond to them. This is important because right now you are bumping up against one of these 3 things.

It’s a leader’s response to opportunites that makes a leader a leader.

Think about your favorite Bible story or business story. Aren’t these elements part of those stories?

These are part of your story right now. In the middle of these situations, you need to live a story worth living – respond well! The yonger you are the more important this is but the less consequential this feels.

You have no control over any of it except how you respond.

Here are moments in my life God has used:

Story 1:

As a kid my parents would tell me often: God has a plan for your life; you don’t want to miss it.

I heard verses like Ps. 32:8 “I will insturct you and teach you in the way you are to go and counsel you with my eye upono you.”

My dad refused to make decisions for me. He would tell me to pray about it. There was a sense of destiny that he spoke over me and my sister. He lived it out.

Speaking over me earlier than I can remember “God has a plan for your life…”

**The greatest thing you do as a leader may not be what you do. It may be who is watching you do what you do. Your son…Your grandson…Your niece….

Actions speak louder than words, sometimes the echo into eternity. What you do has more implications than you could ever imagine.

Story 2:

Sid Hopkins became youth pastor when I was in college. He asked me to lead a Wednesday night Bible study. He told me, “I have a title and a position. You have influence with the students. Influence is always more important than a title of position.”

This was the first time I was thrown into an environment when I didn’t know what to do. I was dependent on The Lord. There is something powerful, shaping and making when we are dependent on him.

God may choose to make you through an unexpected opportunity for which you feel totally unprepared.

Later, I came back as the youth pastor and had an opprotunity to preach on homosexuality. It was something nobody talked about. Nobody preached on any kind of sexuality. But there was a tension inside of me that while we were singing “Just as I am” but not really meaning it, more liberal churches had their arms open saying, “Everybody is welcome to come whorship with us.” It just didn’t sit right with me.

I learned…

**It’s better to make a difference than to make a point.

Pay attention to the tension you feel. Every once in a while you will be disturbed by something. Everybody else will be like “huh” but you will be disturbed. This is how a calling comes about. This is how a calling is birthed. He stirs our hearts, rattles our categories and you feel called to do something about it.

One of the things we say at our church is that we walk toward the messes.

Story 3:

Story about leaving FBA with wife, 2 kids in diapers and one on the way. We were just scared.

God gets more mileage out of adversity than out of any other context.

It’s fun to open your hands and see God put stuff in it. But there is something very shaping when God starts taking stuff out of it. You will become an open handed leader.

You have no idea what lays in the balance of your response. Your response will make you the leader God designed you to be.

Leaders are made one response at a time.

Bob Goff – Love Does

Bob Goff kicked off Catalyst Labs today. To learn more about Bob, visit www.restoreinternational.org. I don’t have a clear outline from his message, but it was very encouraging. Here are some of the thoughts:

Ephesians 4 says that we are to live lives worthy of our calling. What does it look like?

God called all of us to help the hurting.

We are called to lift people up.

We are called to love extravagantly.

We need to be picky about what we let in. Who has the microphone in your life?

Stop looking at all the stuff that ended up on the editing room floor. God is a creator, not an editor.

Title for Marriage Book: Don’t Talk about Stuff

Everybody wants to make a difference but they don’t want to be different.

Every Thursday I quit something.

My todo list: Love God, Love People and Do Stuff.

Quit looking at the stuff that is magnetic. The stuff that hits the floor.

Our faith is to be question marks and exclamation marks. That is where Jesus stands.

I clear the decks of my faith once a year. I decide what I put back in first, second, etc.

You are not who you used to be. We are looking forward to who God is shaping you to be.

We need to live our lives with our palms open, facing up. It is impossible to get angry with your palms open!

Reggie Joiner – The Missing Piece

The second pre-lab was led by Reggie Joiner, the founder of Orange. You can follow Reggie on Twitter or visit whatisorange.org.

Reggie opened with a competition for you 18 & 19 year olds by playing sounds to see if they recognized them: Dial-up Internet, Pacman, Percolator, Rotary Phone, Bewitched, and Typewriter. Most of them recognized 2 or less sounds.

Fuller Institute says that 50% of college students drop out. Barna says 60%. Lifeway says 70%.

Whatever stat you go with, the number is too high!

25% of our culture shows up to church while 75% don’t even show up.

What you do is so critical. The next generation is critical. But to reach them…

This gets messy.

Story about Frank in the bathroom at Lennox Mall who had a major accent and Reggie ends up helping him. He wasn’t excited about it. It was messy.

Sometimes leadership is messy. We have a picture of what we think something is going to be, and then it gets messy.

1. You can’t lead without getting messy.

Quit acting like you signed up for something and begin acting like God called you to do something!

2. There was no way for Jesus to do what He did without getting messy.

In Josh 6, Jesus got frustrated with people following him for the wrong reason. Jesus tells the crowd, “I can give you some bread that will make you never hunger again and water to drink where you will never thirst again.” As the crowd gets excited. Jesus then leans in and says, “I am the bread of life, if you want to eat the bread, you have to eat me.

“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life.” John 6:53-54

There are a lot of people who drop out of Christianity because they think it is supposed to be easy and instead find that it is messy.

The Missing Piece – Teaching that it is going to be messy. We have carpeted and painted christianity too much. We have romanticized what happened when Jesus was on this earth, including the cross.

What happened on the cross was much more horrific than we imagine.

3. There’s no way to make disciples without THEM getting messy.

If you track with Jesus through the New Testament, he didn’t always answer their questions. There was tension in the way that he talked.

He loved the people others didn’t love. They were the outcasts.

Sometimes we soft-sell what the christian life is going to be like. Maybe the goal is not for everything to work out. Maybe the goal is for Jesus to do a work inside of us.

What do you think you would discover about discipleship if you interviewed first century Christians?

Jesus did not die to make you HAPPY, Jesus died so you would be FORGIVEN.

Jesus did not call you to follow Him to SAFETY, Jesus called you to take up a cross and engage in a MISSION.

Too often we try to protect and isolate students that we forget to engage them.

Chose one:

a. You can protect the next generation.

b. You can engage the next generation.

The missing element of discipleship is engaging people in a mission that is bigger than them.

If you want this generation’s faith to COLLAPSE in a messy world, then just keep them in a room and teach them.

If you want to disciple this generation’s faith to THRIVE engage in a messy Gospel.

It commands you to love your neighbor.

Engage them in a messy Gospel that calls us to become one body.

The Body that Jesus died for is bigger than your church.

Engage in a messy Gospel that is paradoxical and mysterious.

They will never really UNDERSTAND until they EXPERIENCE! …so connect them to leaders, not teachers.

Connect students to leaders who will connect with them and lead them.

They will never really LOVE until they SERVE! …so give them consistent opportunities to do ministry.

Organize you ministry so that they have opportunities to serve. Why do we give them keys to 2 tons of steel and allow them to drive down the inter estate but don’t give them the keys to ministry.

They will never really LIVE until they GO! …so move them to a wider community and a greater mission.

When it comes to discipleship, it’s LESS about how many ATTEND your programs, and MORE about how many ENGAGE in the mission.

Perry Noble – 4 Things God is Saying to Church Leaders

Today I am spending the day at Catalyst Conference’s Labs. Today’s 1st pre-lab was taught by Perry Noble, Pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC.

4 Things I believe God is saying to Church Leaders
Joshua 1

Two things that helped set up this talk.

1 – Driving home from the church – I got home in about 7 minutes and realized that I did not even remember driving home. I have driven that route so much, that I didn’t pay attention.

That is easy to do in leadership. If we are not careful, we will put Sundays in cruise control.

2 – The second experience was going to the eye doctor and the doctor says, “Uh oh.” It was time to go to bifocals.

The older we get, the vision seeps out of us. We need to keep going back to God’s Word to see what God has to say for us.

4 Phrases that Stick Out from Joshua 1

1. Let’s Go.

Joshua followed Moses who led a big relocation project (Egypt to Promised Land). Here is how Joshua 1 starts out:

“Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying, ‘Moses My servant is dead…'”

This is the first thing God tells Joshua. Not, “You can do it!” But “Moses My servant is dead.” Why? God knew about Joshua and us that if he didn’t tell him that, Joshua would have formed a committee to try to find the body of Moses. We like to study what used to work instead of stepping into the new things that are working.

Where God is taking us to is always greater than where he is taking us from.

Here are some areas we need to let go of:

Programs. Are there any programs in your church that do not work. The way you know its not working when you have to manufacture energy around something.

Personnel. Is there anybody in your church that has a job that isn’t getting the job done? Do you have teachers that can’t teach? Singers that can’t sing?

Preferences. Churches are enslaved to the personal preferences of out of touch leaders. Andy Stanley says you can either fight or fund the next generation.

2. Get Ready

I am emotional. Some people wonder why I raise my hands at church. I tell them you raise your hands at a game. I worship a bigger God than you do. You worship an 18 year old wearing a costume (football player). It is ok to be emotional and excited about your ministry. If we are not excited about it, something is broken.

God really does want greater things for your church.

Joshua 1 continues… “Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel.
3 “Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses.
4 “From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory.”

God gave Joshua a big vision. We need to have a big vision and not apologize for it. Apple has a big vision. Disney has a big vision. They have a mouse, we have the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said that we are to go reach the world. Right now that is over 7 billion people. Our job is not to make Sister Sally happy. She is saved and not happy about it. Our job is to reach the world!

3. I’m Here

There are some messages in the scripture that we miss. One of these messages is God saying, “I am with you!”

5 “No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.
6 “Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.”

Sometimes people don’t step into what God has for them because we don’t lead them into it.

How do you know God is with you?

There is an increased desperation for His Word. When making decisions, etc., listen to the Word.

Increased love for people. Ministry is messy. There are jacked-up people coming to your church. If we have churches full of pretty people, God is not doing a work.

Increased love for the vision. I’m in. I’m in neck deep. If you have a resume on your control, use it or destroy it. If you are looking for something else, I want to release.

4. Let’s Do This

10 Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying,
11 “Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, saying, ‘Prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you are to cross this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God is giving you, to possess it.’ ”

Joshua was crazy enough to take God at his word. That is a dangerous leader.

The steps of faith never get smaller, they only get bigger.

If God led you to it, he will walk you thru it.

You do what God has called you to do.

Let’s change the world together!