Advertising & Conferences

I am on a bunch of different email lists for different Christian ministries and so I get invited to a conference about 3 times a day. I got another one today inviting me to come to something that said, “We feel this could be a very key meeting for the future of our nation and many other nations of the world.”

I’ve heard it once if I’ve heard it a thousand times that THIS CONFERENCE will be THE ONE that you need to be at. I’m all for conferences, love em, but sometimes I feel like the church cheapens their product by using advertising the same way the world does. Making us feel like we are missing out if we’re not there.

I don’t necessarily have a solution to this, but I wrote this cause I’m just tired of hearing that if I’m not at some particular conference then I’m totally missing out on God. 

I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on how to advertise better. 

Catalyst – Andy Stanley (2nd Time)

There is a reason they give him the mainstage twice at a leadership conference. Cause when he teaches leadership its like hot butta. He shared 5 Random thoughts in leadership. Theses are 5 sayings that he has collected over the years and hung in his office. They are…….

1. “To reach people no one else is reaching, we must do things, no one else is doing.” – Craig Groeschel

• Ideas that push the envelope are always going to meet resistance
• Become preoccupied with those you haven’t reached as oppose to those you are trying to keep

2. “The next generation product almost never comes from the previous generation” – Al Reis

• We must let young people lead and take the reigns.
• Be a student, not a critic
• Critics rarely learn anything, because they think they know everything.

3. “What do I believe is impossible to do in my field, but if it could be done would fundamentally change my business?” – Joel Barker

• Pay attention to people who are breaking the rules
• Its the rule breakers who are often the problem solvers

4. “If we got bought 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

• We fall in love with the way we do ministry and therefore do not want to change.
• No pain, no change
• Acknowledge whats not working and own up to it. Ask yourself why you are unwilling to do anything about it
• Ask, “Where are we manufacturing energy?” Where are we having to push and push and keep doing it but for no real reason? If you don’t make the changes, the next person will.

5. “Where your memories exceed your dreams, the end is near” – Michael Hamner

• I want to be at the epicenter of how to do ministry in the future, not in the past.
• Don’t let success overshadow your vision
• “Success breeds complacency and complacency breeds failure” – Andy Grove

Once again, I have never heard Andy Stanley give a bad message on leadership. That brotha is a deep well. He oozes leadership.

Catalyst – Matt Chandler

I think Catalyst may have found themselves a new regular. He was great. He just preached through 1 Tim. 4:1-16. If you can just read these notes out loud and yell, it will give more of a Matt Chandler like experience as you read them. So stand up, take a deep breath and……..

• Our churches are filled with people who do not know God
• If you are using Jesus to grow a big church, YOU are an IDOLATER
• Jesus is not something you use, but rather the object of your affection
• If you have been at a church for more than 4 years, where your church is weak, you are weak.
• You can tell what is going on in people’s hearts by how they use their money and by looking at their relationships
• God gives you people in your ministry so that you can be their slave, NOT so that they can make much of you.
• If you leave Jesus and the cross out of your message, you are nothing more than a Rotary Club.

Great message, powerful. He is the second guy I would have loved to hear more of. Maybe next year. Please Catalyst, pretty please……..

Catalyst – Andy Crouch

This is one of two guys I wished could have gone longer. He talked about “Culture Making.”

The church has historically had several postures towards culture, they are:

1. Condemn culture
2. Critique culture
3. Copy culture
4. Consume culture

In case you don’t know, so far these are all not good. The last two are good and they are:

1. Cultivate culture, this is keeping something that is culturally good, culturally good.
2. Create culture, this is creating new culture

Here are some of the random nuggets from his talk

• Creating culture is hard
• Critiquing culture is easy, creating it is hard. That is why most people just simply condemn, critique, copy or consume.
• Creating culture is in the heart of God
• In Revelation 21:2, 26, the Bible states that the nations will bring their glory and honor into heaven. This is culture, we will not be just souls but rather, we bring our culture with us into heaven

Powerful, thought provoking stuff. I would like to read his new book called Culture Making, he obviously expounds on this stuff a lot more.

Catalyst – Ed Stetzer

I’m not gonna really share the notes on this session but rather refer you to Dr. Stetzer’s blog @ www.edstetzer.com. If I ever was boys with him, I would call him either Eddy Stetz or Stetzballs or even better, Dr. Stetzballs. Don’t know why, I just like it. He said he would put his notes up, so don’t get mad at me if he doesnt. He just presented new research about young unchurched peoples.

Unfortunately he had to go right afer lunch which means everyone is tired, half the people are there and we are talking about statistics. I think that’s why the guy down the row from me was snoozing. But I actually loved it. It was insightful stuff from a great man of God about the current state of the unchurched young person.

Catalyst – Franklin Graham

This was a cool moment, Billy Graham recieved the Catalyst Lifetime Achievement award. He has preached to approximately 215 Million people in over 180 countries. That is straight up redonkulous. There was a video montage of Billy preaching over the years which was awesome. He was on the cutting edge, unifying ethnicities, utilizing technology, before any of it was cool or en vogue to do. Hopefully this doesn’t sound sacrilegious, but there seemed to be kind of a sense of awe at what he had accomplished as I watched the video. Truly amazing. His son, Franklin came to receive the award on his behalf and share for a few minutes.I was dissapointed Billy could not be there, cause I’ve never heard him preach live, just videos, but I think he’s getting a little too up in his years to travel. He’ll be 90 in November they said.

• There is Holy Ghost power in the gospel message. Its supernatural, not just simple words or stories, but a story that actually brings transformation into people’s lives by the power of the Holy Spirit.
• Serving should always be tied to evangelism and the Gosple, bcause withou the Gospel there is no hope.
• Simply put. “Be a soul winner”

It was a short little message simply about the power of the gospel and its ability to change lives. There is something incredible about hearing it in its simplicity.

Catalyst – Dave Ramsey

One of my favorites this year. Dave didn’t come to tell you to cut up your credit cards and get out of debt. He came to bring his country flavor to your leadership. I love Dave Ramsey, he tells it how it is, he doesn’t jerk around with you. He is kind of like a country Mark Driscoll that talks about money all the time. Great stuff. Here it is.

• Unity does not just happen, it is very intentional
• Few churches or organizations experience real unity
• Unity produces a spirit of serving

The 5 enemies of unity are

1. Poor communication
2. Gossip
3. Unresolved Disagreements
4. Lack of Shared Purpose
5. Sanctioned Incompetence

Poor Communication

• You have to create communication and you must work at it
• It can take many forms, but when the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, strife sets in.

Gossip

• Gossip is degrading and WILL destory a church or organization
• A successful leader develops and maintains a culture in which negatives are handed up and positives are handed down, meaning don’t complain to peers or people under you in an organization, take it to the leader or person you are complaining about.
• Talking to someone who cannot fix your problem is gossip.

Unresolved Disagreements

• Happens when a leader does not konw they existor when that elader avoids confrontation
• If you don’t deal with the issues, they just get bigger
• Not dealing with confrontation is cowardly.
• A little confrontation cleanses the wound
• If you know there are hurt feelings and/or disagreements, ACT QUICKLY!

Lack of Shared Purpose

• Is caused whena leader does not restate the goal, the vision and the mission often.
• Does not create a servants heart.

Sanctioned Incompetence

• It demoralizes
• Do not allow it. If you want to make an impact in the marketplace for Christ, be excellent, do not let people get away with incompetence
• Team members will become demotivated when someone else on the team doesn’t pull their weight and the leader does not take action to fix it.

In conclusion, he said leaders must go to battle early and often with ANYTHING that gets in the way of unity. When its valued the team will rally around the values and keep the enemies of unity outside of the gate. One of my favorites this year. Super practical meat and potatoes as Dave says.

Catalyst – Tim Sanders

Tim Sanders is a former executive with Yahoo! and is now writing and doing other cool stuff. His talk was entitled, “Saving the World at Work” The main concept is that everyone can make a difference at work. Don’t go to work just to get a paycheck, change the world. Here are a few key points.

• Scarcity is in your mind, it doesn’t exist
• Abundance is the essence of your faith
• “Good” is the new great. Meaning companies need to do “good” things not just purely exist to make money. If he had not expounded that statement we might have seen Jim Collins and Tim Sanders fight live on stage at Catalyst. That actually would have been awesome. MMA, executive style.
• As leaders, we need to challenge our people to take their Christ like values to work, cause it will make a work a better place.
• Compassion is contagious.
• Leaders gauge reality and give hope.

Catalyst Backstage

If you can’t make it to the Catalyst Conference this year go check out www.catalystbackstage.com. There is all sorts of fun things going on over there like interviews with speakers, video clips of what is happening on stage and other little goodies. If you have some time tomorrow, go check it out and enjoy. Its being hosted by Anne Jackson who is on staff at Cross Point Church in Nashville pastored by Pete Wilson, maybe the best looking pastor in America. Oh if we could all be that cool. Good stuff. 

You will get a different side of the conference than those of us here, so let me know how you like it.

Catalyst – Craig Groeschel

The more I listen to Craig Groeschel the more I like him. I’ve heard him speak a few times at conferences like these and I think he’s Fannnnntastic. My wife won’t be happy cause I have yet another man crush. He is the Senior Pastor at Lifechurch.tv out in Oklahoma. 

I love what Lifechurch.tv is doing to serve local churches through things like www.youversion.com, www.churchmetrics.com and also making Bible apps for the iPhone, which I love by the way, thanks guys.

He shared some thoughts from his new book called “IT”. The concept is simply this. Have you ever been to a church that just had “IT”? Have you ever been to a church that definitely did not have “IT”? What is “IT”? He doesn’t know but he shared a few thoughts about what “IT” is.

This message was really more of an impartation, “had to be there” type message, there was some powerful ministry going on after his message so its kind of hard to capture that in this medium but here’s my best try. Here they are. 

1. God makes IT happen
2. We cannot create IT
3. IT isn’t a model, system or program
4. IT has an upside in that lives are changed
5. IT attracts critics because whenever God is doing something unique, someone will always be there to criticize. 
6. If you have IT you can lose IT. If you don’t have IT you can get IT. 

• IT is about being overwhelmed by God’s presence and power. 
• Do you measure success by inward obedience or by outward success?
• You have to do something drastic to get IT back. If little tweeks are what you needed those would have worked a long time ago. 
• Do you rationalize God’s voice and leading if it sounds to crazy or big?
• There is more in you that you are capable of doing. 
• Is God stretching you, if not, ask Him too.
• Before God can stretch you, He has to heal you, before He can heal you He has to ruin you. We need to be ruined by God. 

Great day this first day of Catalyst. Looking forward to tomorrow.