Catalyst Last

:: CATALYST WEST :: APRIL 23-24, 2009 ::

:: Perry Noble :: You Can Do This

Ezekiel 37

- The size of the vision God will give you is directly related to the pain and discomfort you're willing to go through.

Playing with Pain
1 - Trust Him
--Ministry starts when God's hand is on us.
--Sometimes ministry is dryness and dryness always leads to desperation.
--I don't want to preach nice sermons

2 - Believe him
--Just do what God told you to do and God will tell you what to do next.
--What would you be willing to attempt for God if you knew you could not fail?
--we consistently obeyed Jesus and, when we were ready for it, he blew our freakin' minds!
--Reasons we run from big vision God gives us :: 1-fear :: 2-laziness :: 3-discovery is more important than development
--Leadership is as easy as listening to God. "Dude, pick up that hammer."
--It's not about imitation, but revelation.

3 - Honor Him
...by finishing what you've started
--As leaders we get so close and then we stop and wait for something to happen.
--God says "I'm not through with you!"

Ephesians 3:20 :: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us ::

Chan

:: CATALYST WEST :: APRIL 23-24, 2009 ::

:: Francis Chan ::

1 Timothy 6:15 :: which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords ::

- If you hear your name in conversation more than you hear "the holy spirit" your congregation won't go anywhere!
- Do I say "I'll follow only if..?" or "I'll follow even if..?"
- I never read the book of Acts, put it down and go, "that's just like us!"
- Our churches are so stoppable today!

Acts 4:13 :: When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. ::

- When do I pray for boldness? When do we pray for boldness?
- Exegesis vs. Isogesis
- If you started with scripture, would you come up with church the way we do it?
- I was taught to teach exegetically, but I wasn't taught to live that way.

John 6:63 :: The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. ::

- It is not my flesh at all, but God's spirit.

Thoughts from the Saddle

:: CATALYST WEST :: APRIL 23-24, 2009 ::

Summer always seems to be the craziest time of year for me. Summer camp, family vacations, and the invariable summer-move-in-to-a-new-house have kept me busy and I haven't posted in a while. I've got three more blog posts focusing on Catalyst West (from way back in April). It'll be a barrage of great insight from wise Christian men who have more experience in ministry than I do.



:: Rick Warren ::

-These are people Jesus died for.

As Leaders we need to do the following:
- Divert Daily :: What energizes you? If you work with your mind, you need to relax with your hands.
- Withdraw Weekly :: If you don't take a sabbath, you are sinning! Call it "sabbath" and treat it that way.
- Abandon Anually :: don't take your laptop or your cell phone.

- Energy management is more important than time management.
- If you do ministry Jesus's way, you will last in ministry. If you do it your way you will not last.
- Jesus is the model. Not Rick Warren, not Andy Stanley.
- Never stop learning. Learn from everybody. You need to be humble.
- Never compare yourself (for two reasons)
1 - Discouragement
2 - Pride
- Never give up.
- I don't try to be profound, I try to be simple.
- To move people from unbeliever to missionary you need to have an intentional plan and it must be incremental.
- Take people from "come and see" to "come and die." A church has to be both. You cannot be one or the other.
- I'm not interested in a crowd, I'm interested in an army!


Rick had a couple of important points for leaders to remember. We need to take breaks and ministry needs to be modeled after Jesus.