Filed Under catalyst
A few weeks ago at Catalyst, Craig Groeschel of lifechurch.tv gave a talk entitled Practical Atheist that is still on my mind and it has truly disturbed me in a good way (which was his prayer as he started his talk). Here are some highlights that have rocked my world a bit…
- My prayer for you… that God will disturb you so much that you can’t sleep, that you are so hungry to seek the heart of God, that you repent for everything unclean in your life.
- A practical atheist is one who believes in God but behaves as though he does not.
- As pastors, sometimes we believe God exists but we do ministry as though he does not.
- I was a full-time pastor and part-time follower of Christ.
- We believe that our private life doesn’t affect our public life.
- In the story of Samson, when it says that he did not know that the Lord had left him… That phrase freaks me out.
- I think there is way too much starting with the culture and finding what the Bible says, rather than asking what does the Bible say and applying it to the culture.
- At times I’ve asked, “What can I preach to bring people in rather than what can I preach that will bring glory to God?”
- Isaiah 29:13-14 - we honor Him with our mouth but our hearts are far from him
Filed Under catalyst, leadership
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.
