Catalyst 09 :: Louie Giglio

A passionate communicator, Louie Giglio is the Visionary Architect and Director of Passion Conferences, a collegiate movement calling students around the world to lives that reflect their Creator. Through international gatherings, Passion invites students everywhere to live for what matters most: the glory of God. Rooted in the confession of Isaiah 26:8, the aim of Passion is spiritual awakening in this generation, an emerging wave of students that proclaim, “Your name and renown are the desire of our souls.”

Louie is the Pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta, Georgia, a local community faith with the DNA of the Passion Movement. He also heads sixstepsrecords, a partner with EMI CMG, and home to artist/worshippers Chris Tomlin, David Crowder*Band, Charlie Hall, Matt Redman, Passion, Kristian Stanfill and Christy Nockels.

Louie is the author of The Air I Breathe and I am not, but I know I AM and is widely known for the Passion Talks Series DVD messages: Indescribable and How Great is Our God.

Louie and his wife, Shelley, who is a partner in Passion Conferences, Passion City Church, and sixstepsrecords, live in Atlanta, Georgia.

• I don’t know much about leadership, but I know something.
• It is all about the person of Jesus Christ.
• Everything is all about Jesus.
• There is nothing going on that’s not about the person of Jesus Christ.
• He is the central character in everything that’s happened and all that will be.
• He is the reason we do all that we do.
• Leadership is about knowing and following Jesus Christ.
• We want to hold the door open for another generation to rush in and experience who Jesus is.
• As my life becomes about Jesus, it becomes all that life is meant to be about.
• I’m totally down with “on your mark.”
• The only thing he had going on for him was that he could run very fast. He’d race anyone, anytime, anywhere.
• On Your Mark. Get Set. GO!
• Before you GO you have to ask a question: ”Where are we racing to?”
• When we know where we are going, adrenaline kicks in and all we see is the goal.
• If you’re on your mark, we need to ask, “where are YOU going?”
• The time is now for us to process, to live out, to move out, to do something, to take action.
• We’ve all been on our mark, but the question is where is it that you are on your mark, getting set, and going to?
• Going to be a better leader?
• Build this?
• Start that?
• We are all going to a common destination.
• “Your life is a shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.” – Thomas Merton
• Whatever is at the end of your ready, set, go is very essential and important.
• Whatever you are living for is shaping your heart.
• We all have a common end at the end of the day.
• It could be Jesus or Heaven.
• We’re going to more than Jesus, we are going to the face of the Son of God.
• The end of our lives is the face of the Son of God.
• We are on a collision course with the face of the Son of the Living God.
• He is the end of our journey.
• Romans 11:36 – He is the beginning, middle and end.
• From Him are all things; through Him are all things; in Him are all things.
• Life is not a stair step to greatness; life is a circle that says I started with God (He made me); I live with God (He sustained me); I end right back with Him.
• Leadership is choosing wisely to seek His face and to reflect His face to the world,
• I Cor 13 – it all fades away.
• When perfection comes, the imperfection disappears.
• We see a poor reflection now, then we will see FACE to FACE.
• We are on a path to be standing FACE to FACE with the son of the living God.
• The end of us is the most powerful force that is shaping us.
• Whatever we pursue makes us in its own image.
• We must determine to know and reflect the face of Jesus.
• We could spend forever overwhelmed by His face.

2 Essential Things to Find on the Face of Jesus Christ

1 – Matchless beauty and magnificence – it’s what we were all made for.

• His face is what we were made for.
• The beauty and magnificence that is on His face is what our souls were made for.
• Our souls weren’t made for temporal things.
• We were made to adore, appreciate and drink in the wonder of the beauty of the face of Jesus.
• “God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we as well as He can in divine communion enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities.  He meant us to see Him and live with Him and draw our life from His smile.” – A.W. Tozer
• Intimacy breeding intimacy.
• He knit us to be with Him.
• We are to get the source of our life from His smile.
• You are starving if you try to get life from anything or anyone else, we weren’t meant for that.
• We were meant from Him.
• We were meant to draw our very life, our sense of who we are, our restoration and redemption, our sense of worth and value in the smile of Jesus.
• That beauty is matchless beauty.
• We’ve got too many people walking around talking about church, strategies, leadership, new things, etc… we’re not walking around with the beauty of Jesus on their face.

I was born
I was born to be with you
In this space and time
After that and ever after I haven’t had a clue
Only to break rhyme
This foolishness can leave a heart black and blue

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

I was born
I was born to sing for you
I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise…

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love unites our hearts

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent
Magnificent

- Magnificent by U2

• “I am singing/speaking/leading for You…”
• May our churches be one again filled with the magnificence of God.
• Is that where you are going?
• Is that what’s shaping your heart?
• If you want a beautiful, generous, good, true, pure, whole, healed, happy, awake heart?
• It’s in the face of Jesus and in making the face of Jesus the end of you.
• If we’re not becoming that it’s because our end is something else and that something else is shaping us and our hearts instead.
• Psalm 115 – Not to us but to Your name by the glory.
• It’s not a good ambition to be living for unless it’s the face of Jesus Christ.
• What’s your highest prize and highest goal in life?
• If it’s not the face of Jesus you are living for less than what you were meant to live for.
• Everything is loss compared to the glory of knowing Jesus Christ…
• Paul didn’t mind losing everything if it meant knowing Christ.
• We run the risk of losing knowing Jesus Christ in the wake of gaining everything else.
• Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead… I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward …
• It’s what we were made for.

2 – The Confidence and the Courage to Be the Leaders We Need to Be

• It’s not about us, it’s about Him
• When you see Jesus’ face you quickly learn it’s not about you.
• You see He is the head of the Church and it’s all for Him and all about Him.
• You get confident when you see that He is the head.
• Colossians 1:15-21
• It does not rest on men, it rests on God.
• God inspires little leaders to be courageous and bold as we seek to win the world for His fame.
• Where’s the courage? What do we have to be afraid of if we’ve seen the face of God?
• Our Church has an unstoppable head.
• We can die under a load of stress or look up to the face of Jesus.
• Leadership is not about getting ahead, it’s about the fact that the church already has one.
• That should give us confidence to do crazy things for Christ.
• We should never embarrass Him by saying, “I don’t think we can do that…” because He can do it.
• It’s not something you learn by reading a book, it’s something you learn by seeing His face.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition is predicated on the words: MOVE THAT BUS!

• When the bus moves you don’t see the house first…
• When the bus moves you see their faces.
• You see the face of people who have been living in horrible conditions.
• Now they have a home.
• They are in shock and in awe.
• You see the tears and wonder on their faces.
• Then, you see the house.
• What you see first is the house on their face.
• We live in a world that can’t quite see Jesus, the beauty of the Gospel and the Church… they are looking at us, and we have to have been with Jesus, because our faces reflect Him.
• Our faces must reflect His glory.
• Then the world can say, “we found God on your face.”
• That’s leadership.
• It’s knowing Jesus and reflecting face on ours to the world.

How Do You Get There?

• Go into the closet.
• Close the door.
• Humble yourself.
• Open your heart.
• And wait.
• God is waiting for us there.
• Jesus had 1,059 days of ministry on earth… and when He got on His mark, set, and go… He went into the wilderness for 40 days.
• I do what I see Him doing and I say what I hear Him saying.