I’ve had the opportunity to work with a few really good communicators.
I listen to great communicators via podcast and conference regularly.
So every time I teach, I feel like I need to hit it out of the park.
I need to teach with the passion of Matt Chandler and the focus of Andy Stanley.
I need to make sure people walk out of there ready to change everything right now!

Let’s not even get started on all the things that are wrong there.
But this morning I read a great article by Wayne Cordeiro from New Hope church in Hawaii. (HT: Ben Arment)

Last summer I played on a softball team, and I often wanted to swing for the fence.  Those balls usually got caught, and you probably won’t be surprised to know none of mine ever made it out of the park.  But when I got on base, I usually scored.

Good reminder for this week.
And oddly enough, it feels like taking that pressure off will make it easier to prepare and more likely to be a great hit after all.
Lookin forward to Sunday.

Day 2 of speakers at Catalyst started with a guy named Tim Sanders.  He’s the author of a book called Saving The World At Work.  He had some great thoughts about making a difference every day, being incarnational wherever we are at.  Here are a few quotes from him.

• You create abundance by giving, not by consuming.
• Good is the new great. (Which made me question if I should really try to be great like Jim Collins suggested.  Very confusing.  Just kidding by the way.)
• Tell your people to take their values to work.
• What you learn on Sunday makes you a rock star on Monday.
• If not you, who?  If not now, when?

Dave Ramsey

Man, this dude is fiery.  For some reason I was expecting some chill quiet guy, but I think Anne Jackson’s twitter said it best when she said he sounded like an angry Dr. Phil.  It was actually pretty awesome.  Rachel and I started reading his book Total Money Makeover right after we got married.  When I saw him on the list I assumed he’d be talking about money, but this year he shared some leadership principles from his organization.  Specifically the five enemies to unity.  Those being:

• Poor communication
• Gossip
  • Gossip is complaining to anyone about anything they can’t change.
  • Some of the biggest gossips I’ve ever met do it in the name of a prayer request.
• Unresolved disagreements
  • Happen when a leader doesn’t know they exist or avoids confrontation.
  • An indecisive leader is by definition, not a leader.
  • Nobody ever killed anything by saying, “Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim…”
• Lack of shared purpose
  • Caused when a leader doesn’t restate the goal, the vision and mission early and often.
  • Start by having a shared purpose in your family.
• Sanctioned incompetence
  • Team members eventually become demotivated when someone else on the team can’t or won’t do their job and a leader will not take action.

Of course after his talk on leadership there was a quick interview regarding the current economic situation.  Some great insights there as well of course.

• There is a spirit of fear being cast by media and politicians that is resulting in bad decisions, including the most recent legislation that was passed.
• The world should be able to look at us for hope and security but we’re just as scared.
• If you had been handling your money by God’s principles as we talked about last year, you wouldn’t have anything to worry about.
• Don’t buy gold!!!  The last time a fallen economy turned to the gold system after collapse was the Roman Empire.
• Keep putting money in your 401K.  If you take it out now, you will feel pretty stupid in a few years.

Great stuff from both these guys.  Notes from the last 3 speakers coming soon so we can move on with blog life.

I’ve followed his blog for quite a while now.  The dude shares some amazing leadership insights there regularly and it has been fun to see their churches journey from a distance.  Oddly enough though, I didn’t have super high expectations for this one.  But I was dead wrong!  Furtick blew the place up and ended with a standing ovation.

He had originally planned to speak out of 1 Samuel as printed in the materials, but changed his mind and spoke from 1 Kings 18…kinda.  To be honest, I don’t remember a whole lot from the scripture, but the sharing of his own story and his encouragement to all of us there was pretty awesome.  His point, as I mentioned a few posts ago, was talking about moving from the promise to the payoff.  Often when there is a promise from God, there is a part that is often not talked about at conferences like these and that is the long, often painful road of the process to get there.

Overall, I pretty much didn’t write down any notes from Steven’s talk, but just sat back and was encouraged and challenged.  Furtick reminded us that 2 years ago he was in “the nosebleed section up there at Catalyst” himself.  He encouraged the youth pastor struggling with 5 kids and the worship pastor who has to do the hymns he doesn’t even like and the pastor pulling teeth to lead his congregation to keep on trucking and to get up and preach like it was the last time ever and to lead to worship like you’ve never led before.  Thanks for the reminders Steven.

Seth Godin

Many of you may know of Seth Godin as a marketing genius and business blogger extraordinaire who wrote some great books, including Purple Cow.  Well at Catalyst Conference he spoke on the concept of Tribes, and then gave everyone there a copy of his new book, Tribes.  It was such an intriguing talk and the book such an easy read, that I’ve already read it.  (I also ended up with an extra, so who knows, there just may be a giveaway here before the week is over if anyone’s interested.)  Some notes.

• 
  Tribes matter…more than word of mouth.
• Interupting people is broken.  Proseletyzing is broken.  Now it is all about tribes.
• A crowd is not a tribe.
• Check out tribes.com.
• Positive deviants – find someone who naturally leads, who is challenging the status quo, and give them a platform to lead more.
• You have to do something people will criticize.
• If you’re concerned about being safe, you’ve already failed. No one wants to follow a safe leader.
• Tribes:
  • find people that are alone.
  • find people who always knew there were people out there like them.
  • put together people who would never otherwise be together.
• Be a heretic!
• Heretics don’t let the rules and religion stand in the way of their faith.
• 4v2 – Are you doing something for the tribe or to the tribe?
• Be inspiring!

Craig Groeschel

Hands down, the highlight of the conference.  I pretty much shared the impact of this with you here.  I’ll start by saying, I already had high expectations.  Graig is pretty much my favorite pastor out there right now.  He is the one whose podcasted messages I watch regularly.  There was a “sit together” section of preferred seating right in front of the stage for different groups of people each session.  I was sitting in the front row.  I’m not into the whole celebrity pastor thing, but let’s just say I found myself thinking several times, “No way!  Craig Groeschel is like 20 feet away from me tight now!”  Lame.  I know.  However, I must say it was impacting to be that close and experience the passion this guy was putting out up close.

The title of Craigs talk was, “Finding It When You’ve Lost It.”  It was based on his new book, IT.  The concept: they have campuses that all things considered are on level ground.  Same type of venue.  Same technology.  Same video messages.  Similar worship styles.  However they would visit one and come away saying, “They have it,” and from another saying, “They’re missing it.”  So what is it?  Buy the book.

He spoke out of Joel 2:12-17.  Here’s the notes from his talk:

• Saying “it” is the Holy Spir-it doesn’t work.  That’s insulting saying that the Holy Spirit is in one place and not the other when we know that it is in both places.
• The reality is there is a different manifestation of the Spirit dependent upon the work of God’s people in a given place.
• The most important ingredient to your church having it is that you have it.
• If you have lost it, you must do somethin drastic to get it back.  Cause if it were a small tweak, you would have done it already.
• Some of you have eaten your last meal for a while and you need to walk out of here and fast and pray and mourn until God shows up in a powerful way!!
• You need to ask God to stretch you.
• But before He can stretch you, He has to heal you.
• But before He can heal you, He has to ruin you.
• Who/what will stretch you?  Who/what will bring about healing in your life?  Now go and get yourself around that person.

That honestly doesn’t even begin to unpack all that was in Craig’s message.  But at least it gives you a glimpse into where it went.

More from day 2 tomorrow…

Andy Stanley

Andy started off the conference by speaking on moral authority out of Nehemiah 5:6-18.  Nehemiah was able to lead the way he did not because of his position, but his influence.  He had moral authority.  He had proved himself to the people over 12 years.  Here are some notes on what he said:

• Moral authority – alignment between your creed and your deed.
• As church leaders we MUST have moral authority in 3 primary areas of our lives:
  • Forgiveness
  • Family
  • Finances
• As leaders, we can’t carry into the future the junk of the past.
• If forgiveness is at the epicenter of our faith, we have to lead the way in forgiving, no matter how we have been hurt in the past.  And if you are a leader, you have been hurt and/or betrayed.
• Someday there will be another pastor at North Point Community Church, but my kids will never have another dad.
• For some of you, the boldest leadership decision you could make this week is to walk out of here right after this session and go home to spend time with a family that hasn’t seen you in weeks.
• Nehemiah spent 12 years not taking what was financially “owed” him, which gave him great moral authority when the time came.

Very challenging stuff to start out.  I know that my biggest struggle that I need to lay down is the forgiveness factor.  How about you?

William Paul Young

This was just a casual interview with the author of The Shack.  The most impressive part to me was his passion and authenticity.  His emotion as he talked about the people in our culture that are asking why God is putting them through things as he spoke passionately on the verge of tears made me want to tear up myself.  There was only one quote I wrote down from this one, but worth sharing.

• We have a group of young people coming up today and they have the best crap detectors I’ve ever seen.

Jim Collins

Collins is the author of Good to Great.  A book I have on my shelf that I’ve been wanting to read one day.  He spoke about several principles from his book.  His talk was simply a gold mine of leadership principles.  Which means I took lots of notes.  Good stuff!

• 
  The most important thing in your organization is a culture of discipline.
• Principle of the flywheel – it NEVER happens in one fowl swoop.
  • If you get too far, too fast…BEWARE!
  • Undisciplined pursuit of more is how the great fall.
• First ask who, then what.  Make sure you have the right people in your organization, then grow.
• The ultimate preparation for what you cannot predict is who you have on the bus.
• Signature characteristic of leaders of great organizations vs good organizations – humility.
• If it is about you, you will not build something great.
• A big difference between “level 5″ leaders and “level 4″ leaders is a willingness to make painful, difficult decisions.
• The true report card of a leader comes in after they are done.
• The presence of a To Do list without an equally robust Stop Doing list is a lack of good discipline.
• Do not spend 5 years getting 2 years experience.  You can decide who you work for.  Choose wisely.

He finished with a list of things to do in your organization this week.  Not sure I got them all, (I think there was supposed to be 10) but here’s what I did get:

• Go use the free diagnostic tool at jimcollins.com.
• Self assess – how are we doing at these things.
• How many seats are on the bus?  How many are filled?  What is the plan to get to 100%?
• Get young people in your face!
• Create a personal board of directors.
• In your church, build a counsel.
• Turn off electronics for a day.
• Ask yourself, “How do I commit myself to where I’m passionate enough to endure the pain of level 5 leadership vs. level 4 leadership?”

Lots to digest from his talk.  I think I’ll need to pick up that book soon.

I’ll let you chew on those three for a bit, with the final 3 from that day coming in a little bit.  Trying to keep these posts somewhat manageable on the reading level.

Any thoughts?

Ed Stetzer

One of the sessions I checked out was Ed Stetzer in the church planting track.  Many of you know this is a passion of mine and look forward to the day we get to embark on planting.  Ed is a great communicator and very inspirational.  As I listened I seriously wanted to go out and start tomorrow!  He talked a lot about the Kingdom of God and the keys to the kingdom.  Here are some notable quotes from his sharing.

• Make sure that Jesus is the focus of everything in your church, not your creativity or your pithy sayings.
• Many of you will go out and plant churches and you will fail.  God does not fall off his throne when that happens.
• When Jesus said “I will build my church,” he was talking to you.
• There are more verses in the Bible to support you having a concubine than for us forming a denomination.
• Reach the lost, not the found.  Changing from their denomination to your denomination is NOT reaching the unchurched!
• If you plant your church, and don’t plant again, you are not kingdom minded.  You are only concerned with building your own church kingdom.  Everybody says they’re gonna plant daughter churches, but they never do.
• You will never feel ready to multiply.
• Plant because the kingdom has birthed a church.

There was also this light hearted interaction that I thought was pretty funny:

Jonathon Tyson

One of the main reasons I wanted to check out the labs was to hear Jonathon Tyson again.  He was a highlight at Recreate for me this year, and was speaking on “In The City.”  He shared what he refers to a cultural acupuncture.  We need to find the nerve centers of our culture and reach them.  that is the cities.  Here is some of what he shared.

• There are 3 competing movements set on reaching the world:
  • Western Consumerism
  • Islam
  • Christianity
• By 2080 – 50% of worlds population will be in a city.  Move to cities and plant churches!
• Planting churches in cities is expensive.  You could dig a freaking ton of wells in Africa with the money it takes.  We as Christians need to have a both/and approach, but at the same time, Starbucks is giving lots of money digging wells in Africa.  What Starbucks is not going to do is pay to advance the Kingdom of God in urban areas.
• You can’t plant one church to reach a city.
• The neighborhood is the building block of a city.
• Parish Church model
  • Relational – Triad – Smallest building block outside of Jesus
  • Communal – Life Group – built of triads
  • Missional – Missional Community – built of life groups
  • Contextual Incarnational – Parish church – built of missional communities
  • Church – Network of Parish churches
• Islam is on their face trying to reach the world, industries are spending billions to spread consumerism, and Christians are trying to come up with cooler ways to do services.

The parish church would be a lot to really unpack, but it just makes sense to me.  I still think this guys a genius.

The night ended with an evening with the Deadly Vipers Mike and Jud, and that was an amazing evening.  Very transparent discussion about the assassin of Sprinting Headless Chicken and avoiding burn out as church leaders.  Very powerful.  I’ll just leave it at that.

My only beef at this point is that there isn’t free wifi at the Gwinnett Center.  And I heard a little rumor that the Catalyst team had them turn it off so it wouldn’t be used during speakers.  If that’s so, I’m extremely disappointed with the Catalyst team.  Another reason I love Recreate.

Anyway, time to crash.  Greatly looking forward to tomorrow…even if there isn’t internet access.

So I’ll make this short.  Looking forward to lots of great speakers, but right now I’m most looking forward to hearing from Jonathon Tyson again in the labs after being inspired by him at the greatest unconference in the church universe.

Also looking forward to meeting and/or connecting with good friends and blogger friends alike.  If you’re gonna be there, lemme know, and let’s connect!  And you can be sure to catch some live blogging over here during the week.  See ya!

Today I watched the opening sessions streamed live from the Purpose Driven summit at Saddleback.  Good stuff.  Rick warren has a great heart and while I'm not a huge "purpose driven" fan, I love to hear Rich share.  Here's some quotes worth sharing from this morning:

• Institutions NEVER institute change.  They are always the last to change.
  Don't look for institutions to change the world.  They are there to preserve the change of the last generation.
• If everyone leaves as soon as your service is over, you don't have a church, you have a performance.
• Never confuse prominence with significance!
• Decide early if you want to impress or influence.  You can only impress from a distance, and you can only influence by getting close and allowing others to see your flaws.
• If you have no friends who are not believers or are of disrepute, you are not living a Christlike life.
• The pastor available to everyone all the time isn't worth much when he is there.
• You have to be unselfish to grow a church.  It takes time and sacrifice.  Some churches would rather keep "their music" and let the rest of the world go to hell.

Check em out:

You know you are not leading when . . .

• You wait for someone to tell you what to do rather than taking the initiative yourself
• You spend too much time talking about how things should be different
• You blame the context, surroundings, or other people for your current situation
• You choose not to speak the truth in love
• You are more concerned about being cool or accepted than doing the right thing
• You seek consensus, rather than casting vision for a preferable future
• You aren’t taking any significant risks
• You accept status quo as the way it’s always been and always will be
• You start protecting your reputation instead of opening yourself up to opposition
• You sleep a little too sound
• You procrastinate to avoid making a tough call
• You talk to others about the problem rather than taking it to the person responsible
• You don’t feel like your butt is on the line for anything significant
• You think what you say doesn’t matter
• You ask for way too many opinions before taking action

A few head nods.
A few punches to the gut.
Bullet points 2, 3, 6, and the last one hit me.  Good reminders.
How about you?
How well are you leading?

(Or I guess if you’re not a leader, how well are you following?  Wow.  I think that might need to be a whole different post all of it’s own.  Stay tuned.)

Although this one is the least extroverted and the most intuitive of any I’ve taken in the past.

What are you?

HT: DT