My Worship Revolution

This year we will be having our Harvest Festival on Halloween night instead of the Sunday before.  Now we are a little behind this year since the Children’s Director usually gets it rollin, which we are without right now.  But there is a volunteer in our church named Pam who has stepped up big time to pull off an awesome event with a corn maze, a horse drawn hay ride, petting zoo, games, trunk or treating, raffles and more!

Now here husband, Bill, got the entrance to the event set up this week which also serves as a great publicity tool on the busiest street in Santa Cruz.  Check out the picture of where people will enter the event:

About a 16 foot tall pumpkin, as you can see, and people will enter from the mouth into a corn maze to get to the event in the back.  There are orange christmas lights around the outside of the pumpkin and around the eyes that light up at night.  And there will soon be banners hanging near it with info on the event.

October 31st.
6pm-8pm.
Be there.

Man…I still haven’t posted this?  My bad.  Really busy week.  Here’s the rest of it!

Andy Crouch

Just picked up his new book Culture Making a few months ago.  He had some good stuff to share on the topic of culture.

• We tend to condemn, critique, copy, or consume culture
• We need to be cultivating and creating culture
• The only time culture changes is when human beings decide to create more culture
• Culture is always created together
• All cultural good begins with small groups, usually 3.  Then moves up to 40, then 120.
• When you get home, don’t just tell people about your time at Catalyst with your 3…ask them what they have created this week, cause they have been.
• What have you cultivated?  What have you created?  Who is in your inner creative circle?

Matt Chandler

I had never heard of this guy before, but I am telling you, he brought it!!  Awesome speaker.  I thought it was interesting when I read on Ben Arment’s blog that their only regret was not giving Matt Chandler more time.  Great Bible teacher with some great insights and I now am subscribed to his podcast.  Wasn’t a fan of his following on twitter who seem to be a bit arrogant and kept posting about not knowing why he would be at this conference and they’re glad somebody was there to bring the Bible to all those evangelicals, but whatever.  Felt like I had stepped back into my C.C. Bible College days for a moment.

He taught from 1 Tim. 4.  He opened by sharing about baptizing some people with dramatic life change stories at their church, a witch, a drug addict, and then also baptizing a baptist kid who had grown up in the church.  The baptist kid hit him the hardest.  The idea that this kid could grow up all his life in church, go to Sunday School, VBS, etc., but just now understand Jesus because religion had gotten in the way of understanding a true relationship with Christ.  And so his point was, we need to and can even reach the kid growing up in our church.  Here are some good snippets from his sharing.

• Somehow doctrine has become synonymous with historical fundamentalism.
• If you’re after Jesus because he’ll gove you a better marriage or a happier life, you are after those things.  You are not after Jesus.
• Truth and depth is what young people want today.
• The greatest revealer of our heart is how we spend our money and how we treat people.

Andy Stanley
Andy Stanley of course came out to close out the conference.  In doing so, he shared the five quotes/leadership principles that are hanging in his office and have been bothering him lately.  Here they are:

• “To reach people no one else is reaching, we must do things no one else is doin.” -Craig Groeschel
• “The next generation product almost never comes from the previous generation.” -Al Reis
• “What do I believe is impossible to do in my field…but if it could be done would fundamentally change my business?” -Joel Barker
• “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would he do?  Why shouldn’t we walk out the door, come back in, and do it ourselves?” -Andy Grove
• “When your memories exceed your dreams, the end is near.” -Michael Hammer

So many great things and quotes that Andy had to add to all those, but that really is plenty to chew on right there.  I do love the idea of hanging some quotes/thoughts that really hit home in the office.  I am the type of person who is very inspired by them.

So it was a great several days at Catalyst.  There were tons of little things, interviews, games, meals, etc. that I can’t post all of here.  However, I will say the best part, as is always the case with conferences I go to, was the relationship building and networking.  It was fun to not only hang with Ed and Brandon, but also to see a bunch of friends and family from SoCal and learn together with good friends I don’t really see very often.  Here is a pic of all of us in the preferred seating section before the last session.  And yeah, I was behind the camera, so I decided to do a real quick and horrible Photoshop job to be there with the crew!  Different resolution, different lighting, but hey, whatever!

Tim Sanders

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.

So, Rachel recently had the toddler Sunday School class at church start doing curriculum as opposed to just playing.  We realized with Caleb that he actually can start learning and interacting, so we should start teaching the kids some at that age.  Currently they are learning about who made the world.

So as I was changing Caleb's diaper today and asking him who made the world.  Here's how the conversation went:

Quick interjection here.  They haven't learned that one yet.  But I thought maybe if he kept with the same answer he'd get the point.  Continue story…

That's freaking awesome.

Time to recap the rest of day 1 from the Catalyst Conference…

Steven Furtick

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…

So here are some notes from the first full day of speakers at the Catalyst conference for you.  Not at all exhaustive, but just some quotes and ideas from some of the presenters.

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?

So I will catch up on some Catalyst posts this weak so hopefully you can glean a little of the knowledge, inspiration, and encouragement we did last week.  However, the report wouldn’t be complete without the morning prelude to the day.  The accident in our rental car.

However, I will say I can feel a little bit better knowing that it was nearly as bad as their accident.  We were rollin down Peach Tree Industrial Boulevard (and GA has got to get more creative with their street names…every other one has Peachtree in the name) at 0-dark-thirty in the rain.  We needed some breakfast and decided to hit the left hand turn lane to roll through Chick-fil-a.

We…err…I (yes, I was the lucky guy at the wheel) had to turn across 3 lanes of traffic.  The traffic was fairly heavy, and the 2 lanes closest to us stopped to let us through.  Just as I was slowly pulling across the 2 lanes, a lady came barrelling through the third lane and took off our front bumper.

As I stood in the rain by her car, the lady didn’t even look at me let alone roll down the window.  Cop came.  After all was said and done, I’m at fault and got a ticket for failure to yield on a left.  Rental car company said just bring the bumper back with us.  Wasn’t sure how we’d manage that since it’s larger than the car, but the thin plastic bumper actually folded quite nicely into the trunk, as you can see below.

And then it was off to our first full day of Catalyst conference speakers in the Gwinnett Arena…

Just thought you should all know that our new youth pastor, Brandon, has joined the real blogosphere.  (He used to blog on MySpace.  That doesn’t count.)

So go check out his blog and encourage him to keep it up!

Day one of the official Catalyst conference is over.  Again it's late.  My notes are in the car, and it would take too long anyway.  I'll try to post session notes tomorrow morning if I have time.  But in the meantime, allow me to share some of my personal journey over the last 24 hours or so.  How Catalyst is effecting me, rather than the content of the information.

I'll preface by saying I usually pride myself on being fairly transparent on this blog.  But I realized that I'm not as transparent as I'd like to think sometimes.  I didn't want to share my thoughts and feelings.  I'd rather hide the vulnerable stuff and show you the put together, ready to lead Bobby. 
But I will anyway.

Last night at the Deadly Viper session, Mike and Jud talked about the things we all have going on under the surface.  That we all have our conference face on.  But there's a lot underneath.  I didn't get that.  Till this morning.

As we worshiped, I realized a joy that I wasn't experiencing that I used to have.  I recognized a dryness inside me.  But I'm at a conference with other ministers.  I wasn't about to let it show. 
Then Andy Stanley got up and talked about moral authority.  He talked about our creed matching our deed.  One of the areas he specifically addressed is forgiveness.  It drudged up some places I have struggled inwardly more than I'd like to admit with forgiveness.  I don't want to deal with it.  But I have to.  It's the virtue at the epicenter of my faith.

All the speakers were amazing today.  But 2 stood out for where I'm at.  Stephen Furtick talked about the painful process that happens between the promise of God and the payoff.  It's a long process.  I really want to start seeing the payoff.  Like now God.  But I'm in the process.

However, one of my personal favorites, Craig Groeschel, pushed me over the edge.  Pushed a lot of us over the edge.  He talked about "it."  I remember when I first had "it."  When Jesus first rocked my world and I was sold out. 
The time I sensed God calling me to go to New York to minister and dropped everything to get a plane ticket before I even had a place to stay.
When ministry was so much more than a job.  In fact, it wasn't a job at all, but it consumed every part of my soul.  I felt myself thinking about my desire to not be in occupational ministry at times in order to rediscover the purity of that passion again.  Craig talked about getting "it" back.  God's desire to use us.
Us asking God to stretch us. 
But first to heal us. 
And before that, to ruin us.

I came to Catalyst expecting to get some great leadership principles.  Expecting to enjoy rockin good music.  But for some reason I didn't expect a serious encounter with God.  But God was already wrecking me.  Not in the hugest ways, but big enough for the pressure to be welling up behind my corneas as Craig shared. 
He invited those who wanted "it" back in their lives, who needed "it" back, to stand for prayer.  I can count on one hand the times I've responded to that kind of invitation from pastors at conferences.  And honestly, I didn't want the people I came with to see me stand.  I wasn't sitting with them, but I figured they could see me.  I stood anyway.

All that to say, God is stirring something in me.
Perhaps this passage from Revelation 2 sums it up nicely.

God, renew my passion for you.  Dive down deep into the recesses of my being and make me uncomfortable.  Stretch me and make me find my strength, my passion, my purpose in You.  Remind me of the faith I had at the beginning and take me back to that place of unabandoned love.  Help me to pursue You relentlessly, being willing to do anything necesarry to get just a glimpse of who you are and to see you work miraculously in my life and in the lives of others, recognizing that you are already pursuing me.  And use this to make me a more complete child of God, a more complete husband, a more complete father, and finally, a more complete vessel of your truth and grace to a world desperately in need of Jesus.

When I go to a conference, the content is actually only a very small part of why I like to be there.  My primary desire is to network, meet new people, and reconnect with old friends/ministry compadres.  Yesterday I had some great connections with several bloggers.

The highlight had to be getting a little face to face with another worship leader, Ben Abu Saada.  Ben was probably one of the first worship leaders whose blog I started following.  For the past 3+ years we have interacted by email and blog comments, so it was great to have some good conversation in person.

I also got to connect with Todd Rhodes and talk ministry for a little bit.
Touched base with Ben Arment after Jon Tysons session on the church planting track.
And at the end of the evening, I ran into Jonathon Herron, a church planter I respect highly and have been following since before his church launched.  He also has an adopted kid right around Caleb’s age.

And of course at the very end of the evening I got to hang with all my old ministry partners from Revolution.

How about you?
Do you have anyone you are “friends” with as a result of online communication?
What blogging friend would you like to hang with sometime?