Clearly

I have only one complaint about Atlanta, IT WAS TOO HOT! I have become accustomed to the great weather in S.W. PA. Catalyst is CLEARLY (the title of Catalyst) the best conference I have ever attended. The speakers included:

Andy Stanley
Marcus Buckingham
John Maxwell
Jeff Foxworthy
George Barna
Rick Mckinley
Louie Giglio
Kevin Carroll
Donald Miller

God really spoke to me through Rick Donald, lead pastor of a church in Portland. One of the statements he made which shook me to my core was: “We need to start an authentic desire in our churches to get outside the walls. Our church has to be on mission, missional.” I thank I, like many of us, am afraid to get my hands dirty. I have had countless opportunities to get involved in the lives of people in need and have sadly shied away. God really spoke to me concerning who I am targeting. Rick wrote a book which I have just started reading entitled The Beautiful Mess. It discusses practicing the presence of the kingdom of God. So far it is great. When I finish it I will let you know what I thought.

The awesome thing that I love about being where we are right now in our church plant is we can implement many things right now. We are free to try and do what we feel God is calling us to do.

The worship which was lead by the band from North point was phenomenal. I was also blown away to find out that Jeff Foxworthy was a born again believer. He obviously kicked it with some redneck jokes but stated “Leaders, we need churches which will accept rednecks. In my years of life I have left dozens of churches because I wasn’t accepted as a redneck.” I thought that was awesome! I could go on forever. Maybe I will have a chance to share with some of you more of what God said to me through Catalyst in the future.