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This years catalyst labs started off with a good one from Reggie Joiner who is the founder of the reThink Group and the Orange Conference, this is what I pulled from his session.

-Reggie asked, “If you could walk into your church with a blank slate and could change anything without any consequences, what would you change?”            

Wow, what an amazing question… its something we’ve all thought about in one context or another, often guilty of the thought, “if I were the pastor (or leader) I would do it this way.” However put in the context of healthy change and positive movement toward a more relevant and innovative church really doing something to challenge and change our culture. First off, I believe that is something we could ask ourselves once a month if not once a week to continue improving what we do. To continue to change not our content but our presentation and integration.He used an illustration from the movie The Guardian in which Kevin Costner’s character was “teaching” the new recruits in a new way and the older professors were reacting very negatively towards him. He responds to the them like this, “There is a gap between what you are teaching them and and what is really happening out there [in the world].”How do we seal that gap? He also said that in the movie there is a scene in which Costner is teaching his trainee’s about hypothermia by putting them in ice cold water and telling them about the condition as they are experiencing it. Again he catches the rebukes from the more seasoned professors saying that they have classes to teach hypothermia. To which Costner responds, “Yea, but in about two and a half minutes your class will be irrelevant.”

The answer to closing the gap is people experiencing the Bible not just sitting in a service or class.