Dear Reader:

This is a side project blog that I started with the purpose of posting my perspectives and experiences from Catalyst conference this past year. I say perspectives in place of "notes that I collected" because anything you read here will simply be my highly subjective responses to the revolutionary thinkers and leaders who shared from the Catalyst stage. In a place where pieces of gold lie all over the place, I tried to find the nuggets which to me seemed the most valuable, stuffing my pockets full of 30 pages worth of shining jewels.

I regret that I must leave many gold nuggets for others to acquire, because my pen can only write as fast as my hand can move, which is not as fast as some of these fine people can speak. As Reggie Joiner said, Catalyst is like trying to take a drink from a fire hydrant. Your mouth can only hold so much, and you're lucky to fill your mouth up to the full capacity anyways because you get so blown away with the volume and power of what you've just heard.

The other regret I have is that a blog is not the same as a notebook, and though this will be slightly more visually and sequentially organized, it will be more difficult to understand the full meaning and concept reading from this blog. I have placed my thoughts here in the most organized and understandable way that I can think of without the use of the stars, arrows, circles, and boxes which cover the pages of my notebook. Despite this disadvantage, I hope that you will hear something new nonetheless.

I have written for too long here. Read on below and enjoy the Catalyst experience, or as much of it as I could bring home to you. Enjoy. Together.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

It - Craig Groeschel

The LORD said: It isn't too late. You can still return to me with all your heart. Start crying and mourning! Go without eating. Don't rip your clothes to show your sorrow. Instead, turn back to me with broken hearts. I am merciful, kind, and caring. I don't easily lose my temper, and I don't like to punish. I am the LORD your God. Perhaps I will change my mind and treat you with mercy. Then you will be blessed with enough grain and wine for offering sacrifices to me. Sound the trumpet on Zion! Call the people together. Show your sorrow by going without food. Make sure that everyone is fit to worship me. Bring adults, children, babies, and even bring newlyweds from their festivities. Tell my servants, the priests, to cry inside the temple and to offer this prayer near the altar: "Save your people, LORD God! Don't let foreign nations make jokes about us. Don't let them laugh and ask, `Where is your God?' "

Joel 2:12-17 (CEV - in honor of Ben . . . congrats)

  • IT: is that "something special" from God.
  • it is not ours to create
  • it is not about technology
  • it attracts critics and controversy
  • it is not the result of a service format or a worship setlist or any other way of doing things
  • it changes lives
  • for your church to have it, YOU must have it
  • for you to have it, you must have relationship with Christ
  • for you to have relationship, you must have DISCIPLINE
  • being in "the ministry" sometimes quenches it and beats it out of us
  • like a hole in the tire, it leaks out slowly until all of a sudden we realize we're driving off the road
  • YOUR church and GOD'S church are not the same thing
  • GOD does not attend First Presbeterian Church of Episcopalian Catholics
  • make sure that when you spend yourself for God's church, you are actually using yourself for His church, not yours.
  • if you are losing it while you work for God, you might want to double check your motives and objectives, and line them up with scripture
PRAYERS FOR IT

3) Stretch me
2) Heal me
1) RUIN ME
  • ruin me? Don't rip your clothes to show your sorrow. Instead, turn back to me with broken hearts. (Joel 2:13 - CEV)
  • NIV says "return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. REND YOUR HEART and not your garments."
  • break my heart for the things that break Yours
  • step into the emotion
  • when we are ruined, God gets the glory
  • when we are vulnerable, God's power shines brighter
  • when we step down from the Almighty Preacher Man persona (or whatever other persona), and let people know that we are just human, then the glory goes to God
  • ruin my addictions to adrenaline, energy, and people pleasing
  • people pleasing is idolatry
  • nervous cares more about what people think than what God thinks
This is going to be a DRAMATIC recovery, cause if it was easy, it would have been done a long time ago.

RUIN ME!
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