Notes from 20 Years Ago: Trials and Tragedy in a Leader's Life

Trials are anything that cause you to question your faith.  James doesn't say "If trials come," he says "WHEN trials come."

"Suffering is a beautiful hermeneutic." - Dr. John Piper

We come to know God not in the blessing, but in the breaking.

Trials "hyper-stand us;" they train us like a muscle to be stronger in the future.

Too often we focus on the pain of the trial, not the product of the trial.  If you focus on the pain, you will become disillusioned with God and the Church.

Tragedy introduces us to our own heart - Jeremiah 17.9.

Trials reveal not God's absence but His presence.  Theme of 2 Corinthians = ministry is death.  Chapter 1 = the comfort you recieve from God makes you compassionate toward others in pain.

Trials knock down the things that we trust other than God. Idolatry-killer.

Godless leadership is leading from our own strengths & gifts (i.e. Samson).
Godly leadership is leading from our weakness (i.e. Gideon - prunes the pretenders away).

The man that God uses mightily He wounds greatly. 
Why would God take away your weakness when that's the trigger for His power?

Acts 29 20 Years Later: Notes from Dr. Ed Stetzer

Double-masters & double-doctorate church planter wizard Ed Stetzer shared some good insights on Biblical Missiology:

Balance Jude 3 & 1 Corinthians 9.22-23: Contend & Contextualize

Too many church planters plant in their heads and not in their communities!

Good theology leads to good missiology.

Church plants best break the cultural code.

1795-1810: largest church planting movement in American history led by the Baptists & Methodists in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana.  Thousands of churches planted.  All the while the east coast Episcopals, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists were complaining and making fun of the Bap’s & Meth’s. 
21st Century: the evangelicals are the east coast Christians making fun of the emerging, post-modern church planters...

Ecclesia semper reformanda: the church is always reforming

People aren’t ATTRACTED to other religions; they are REPELLED by ours!

Content without culture is irrelevancy.

Traditions are an obvious and frequent barrier, but technique is more dangerous.

Acts 29 20 Years Later: Notes from Ed Marcelle

Beware Sermon-tainment

Revolutionaries are so committed to truth that they will do ANYTHING to advance the movement.

There truly is nothing new under the sun.  If you are coming up with new things, you’re probably a heretic!

The real Jesus is complex, frightening, and powerful.  Matthew 16 - can you declare Jesus?

Don’t get bogged down by secondary issues.

The core of Satanic doctrine: worship anything other than God.

Our egos are a weakness to our purity.

You are not called to imitate; you are unique and only you can lead the church God is planting.

Don’t define yourself by something you’re not.

Acts 29 20 Years Later: Notes from Chan Kilgore

Notes from Developing Elders, Deacons, & Members:

Jesus is the Senior Pastor of the Church.  Check out Hebrews 3.1 & 1 Peter 5.4.  He plants, builds, & sustains the church, not you.

3 Reasons you do NOT want to be your church’s Senior Pastor -

1) You will try to control it.
2)  You will want all the glory.
3)  It brings security to you and your church knowing that Jesus is in control.

Elders/Pastors are the senior leaders under Jesus.  Elders are the senior male leaders of the church who are also synonymously called ‘pastors,’ ‘bishops,’ and ‘overseers’ throughout the New Testament.

Elders are brothers who will go to war with you.

Chan’s 7 characteristics of an Elder:

1. Christian - a man who loves Jesus (1 Timothy 3.6)
2.  Character - In the heat of battle, the character of Christ comes out, not some other character! Interview his wife.  Every husband should pastor his family.  Every man in your church should aspire to become an elder.
3.  Commitment
4.  Chemistry (Titus 1.8).  Men who will guard the unity of the church.
5.  Confidence - can teach Scripture.  Can refute false doctrine. Spend a year taking him through Systematic Theology.
6.  Capacity (1 Timothy 3.4) - manage home well.
7.  Courage (Titus 1.9).  Most men hate conflict; you need men who will stand up and fight for what is true.

Every church must deal with the tension between syncretism (too much culture) and
sectarianism (too much church-bubble culture).

“Missions is not something that happens over there; it happens over here.” - Leslie Newbegin

Catalyst 20 Years Later: Closing Photos

Coolest part of the conference this past week was getting to hang out with some of our staff at NewSpring.  I roomed with our Pastor of Outreach, Jake Beaty, and our Worship Leader, Lee McDerment.  Lee got a little crazy in the hotel room and posed for this pic, much to Jake's displeasure:

Perry also introduced me to uber-blogger Tony Morgan.  He's such a neat guy - I can't wait to come visit Granger next year.  Please note:  we are all wearing pink shirts:

Catalyst 20 Years Later: Andy Stanley Again

Gaining and Sustaining Momentum

Momentum: Confidence about the future created by a series of wins in the past.

Three components of Sustained Momentum:  New, Improved, & Improving.

New triggers momentum.  Negative circumstances are the fertile soil for a burst of positive momentum (new leadership/vision or direction/product or program).

Warning: New does not guarantee sustained momentum.  But new is an essential trigger for momentum.

Improved sustains momentum for the SHORT term. The new must be a SIGNIFICANT improvement over the old (cost $$).  Scrap mediocre to focus on new & improved.

Warning: Small, incremental improvements rarely result in sustained momentum.

Improving - Long-term momentum is sustained through CONTINUOUS improvement.  Look at your groceries: "New & Improved."  It shows that we're working on it!

Continuous improvement requires systematic and UNFILTERED evaluation (this is something I think we are achieving at NewSpring!).  Don't be OPEN to change - be COMMITTED to change!  Rip apart your service each week and make changes!

Warning: Success breeds complacency and complacency breed failure.

Great leaders are BOTHERED when things aren't moving!

Look for new ways to upgrade your presentations: God's Word never changes, how we present it must always change.  Ex:  We basically eat cow, chicken, and fish.  But we go to difference restaurants based on the presentation of their cow, chicken, and fish!  Same content, new presentation.

Catalyst 20 Years Later: Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell is the bomb - I studied his book "The Tipping Point" in-depth at a Group Youth Ministry Summit back in the fall of 2003 with the likes of Doug Fields & Jim Burns - if you haven't read this book, buy it today.  His recent New York Times bestseller, "Blink," was equally compelling - it's about how to make the right decision in the blink of an eye and for that decision to have been the correct choice to make.  He was a nervous speaker, but very respectful of his audience - even shared his Brethren roots with us!

Malcolm Gladwell - "Social Power"

80 years ago - Fight of the Century with boxer Jack Dempsey.  RCA Radio was new; David Sarnoff pushes RCA to do the world's first live radio sports coverage.  Huge success - radio takes off.  This is a revolutionary change - why did this happen?

1.  Dramatic change happens quickly (i.e. 9/11, the Berlin Wall all happened in one day!).

2.  Reframing - radio was about classical music & old news before the boxing event.  Why buy a 5 foot radio that cost half a month's wages when I can buy a newspaper for 5 cents?  After the fight - radio is reframed as being about LIVE news.  Movements begin with reframing (i.e. iPod).  Biblical example:  religion was about rules until Paul reframed it by saying it's about "faith, hope, and love."

3.  Social Power - Who was David Sarnoff?  New hire to RCA; 22 years old.  He had no economic power or resources or political power.  But he did have social power - he knows someone who knows someone...  eventually pulling off the live broadcast!

    Connectors - people with a large social circle who are essential to revolutionary change.  Example from "The Tipping Point:"  Paul Revere and William Dawes.  Revere is a connector and is remembered for stopping the British.  Dawes wasn't and is lost to history.

   Our society today = Rise of Isolation.  We are about circling the wagons (iPod, cell phone, cable tv, internet).  Example: Teens today are super-isolated from adults!  Connectors are super-important in today's world for this very reason!

  Also need Mavens - people with special expertise who help us cope with complexity in order for revolutionary change to occur.  When we get overwhelmed by stuff, we call a Maven(plumber).  Example:  Rick Warren is a Maven.  People who didn't understand the Bible were introduced to it's complexity via "The Purpose-Driven Life."

Catalyst 20 Years Later: Bill Hybels

Bill Hybels - Ephesians 2:  "You were dead...  But God who is rich in mercy..." 

Early on at Willow Creek, when his 3 closest friends rejected the vision for a new, Acts 2 church (eventually Willow), Hybels shared that God spoke to him these words: "I gave you this dream though none go with you."

The God who is rich in mercy will honor the vision and will come alongside you - do it!

In your relationship with God, are you skimming or communing?

"The rate at which I was doing the work of God was destroying the work God was doing in me."

And this is the best part - although he didn't mention Emergent by name, Hybels summed up my exact thoughts on the movement (sorry, "conversation"):  "Why is there so much anger in 20-somethings doing ministry?  Many 20-somethings (i.e. emergent) are impressed with the concept of community but are not actually living it in reality."