People have been asking me what my favorite session/speaker was and I honestly can’t pick. Each speaker said something that struck me in a profound way.

So, instead of me telling you who was the best, you can find out for yourself.

Below are links to all of my notes from Catalyst 2009.

Enjoy!

• Andy Stanley | Leaving a Mark
• Jessica Jackley | The Story of Kiva.org [check my notes from her session at Willow Creek's Leadership Summit ]
• Malcom Gladwell | The Dangers of Overconfidence
• Shane Hipps | The Medium is the Message
• Rob Bell | Everything Where You are At
• Matt Chandler | Confession, Repentance, and Focus
• Francis Chan | You Were Dead
• Priscilla Shirer | A Divine Interruption
• Dave Ramsey | The Momentum Theorem
• Chuck Swindoll | Lessons from 50 Years of Leadership
• Louie Giglio | Everything is Jesus
• Andy Stanley | Creating a Healthy Work Culture

Andy is also a best-selling author, and his titles include The Principle of the Path,Making Vision Stick, Communicating for a Change, Visioneering, and The Next Generation Leader. He and his wife, Sandra, live in Alpharetta, Georgia, with their three children.

• Your church and your church culture should be the healthiest organizational culture in your city.
• Businesses should want to drop in and see what’s happening.
• People in the marketplace should come to our door and ask us to come to their business to help them figure out how to create a healthy culture like we have.
• This not Sundays… Mondays-Saturdays.
• The work culture of the local church has a huge advantage over the marketplace.
• Theoretically, everyone is a Christian; everyone shares the same values; everyone is crystal clear about what we are doing and why we are doing it.
• There’s no ambiguity about what we do and why we do it.
• A lack of clarity about what companies do and why they do it causes chaos.
• Sometimes church cultures are the most unhealthiest cultures.
• “The meanest people I’ve ever met work at churches.”
• “Some of the laziest people I’ve met were on church staff.”
• “Some of the most incompetent people I’ve met were on church staff.”
• Your systems and your product should be excellent.
• If you get this right you will attract healthy, competent, get it, get it done people.
• If you miss this you will run them off.
• Healthy people are attracted to healthy cultures.
• Healthy people to do not stay in unhealthy cultures.
• Unhealthy people thrive in unhealthy cultures.
• Have a ministry, don’t hire a ministry.

Occasionally there is a gap between what we expect people to do and what they actually do.

• Expectations vs Experience
• As leaders, we choose what goes in those gaps.
• What we choose to put in the gap consistently, the other people on your staff will put in there as well.
• We choose to expect the best or assume the worst.

• Your fears determine the people you work with.
• Your past hurt and failure will determine what you put in the gap.
• Every time there is a gap you make a choice.
• The choice you make will begin to influence and drive the entire culutre of your organization.
• The more trust there is the better is.
• Trust is a decision that you make.

Developing a culture of trust is critical to the health and success of your organization.

• Love really is blind.
• Do you really want to be married to someone who truthfully points out your flaws every single day? NO!
• They could be telling you the absolute truth and you would be incredibly unhappy.
• No one wants a friend that consistently point out what’s wrong with you?
• Relationships begin and stay strong with people who overlook your flaws and still love and trust you.
• Untrustworthy people can be come trustworthy and trustworthy people will want to be a part of your organization.
• It is a choice to believe the best.

Trust fuels productivity.

• We all want to have productive organization.
• The message of trust is this: I think you are smart enough to know what to do and how to do it and if you screw up I think you will tell me and fix it.
• If there is a gap, I believe you are smart enough to do it, and if you’re not, I trust you will fix it.
• Leaders establish and maintain trust.
• It is contagious.
• I’ll be far more upset if you spend time pleasing me instead of doing what’s best for the organization.

A culture characterized by trust attracts trustworthy people and quickly surfaces those who aren’t.

You will never know who you can’t trust until you trust them.

• The longer you refuse to trust the longer untrustworthy people can hide in your organization.
• It’s not intuitive to put “believe the best” in the gap, but we need to do it.
• If you don’t address the hiring problem you might have created a culture where everyone mistrusts everyone else in the organization.

You will never know who you can trust until you trust them.

• The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you might have made a hiring mistake.

Trusting is risky. Refusing to trust is riskier.

• A trustworthy person won’t make the same mistake twice; they correct their mistakes.

Trust enables an organization to move faster.

• In a culture of trust, communication is fluid.
• When there is a high level of trust, I will act as if I believe the best about a situation.
• It begins to feel like a healthy family, with an org chart
• The development of trust is a significant leadership strategy.
• You choose to trust.

Developing a culture of trust begins with the leader.

• Trust and suspicion are both telegraphed from the leader throughout an entire department or organization.
• People are intuitive, they know what you think.
• Proactively promote trust.
• It begins with the leader.
• We must begin to learn to choose to trust.
• Concealed suspicion poisons the entire organization.
• The energy around a lack of trust begins to build.
• When you flip over a rock there are gross things… bitterness, resentment, etc.
• When there’s a gap, you need to confront the person.
• We hate confrontation.
• If you want to build a culture of trust a big part of it is confronting fairly and quickly and refusing to sit on it and to allow it grow in our heart so that we don’t over communicate and hurt people unnecessarily.
• Before you assume the worst, ask for the facts first, then you can deal with it fairly.
• “Oh, I didn’t know that…”
• Slimy things grow in dark places.
• The consequences of confrontation are far less server tha the consequences of concealment.
• With confrontation, things are tangible and immediate and typically only impact a few people.
• Concealed things intangible and can impact many relationships.
• To develop a culture of trust, leaders must be trustworthy.
• Trustworthy means worthy of trust.

5 Commitments to Make

1. When there is a gap between what I expected and what I experienced, I will believe the best.
2. When other people assume the worst about you, I will come to your defense.
3. If what I experience begins to erode my trust, I will come directly to you about it.
4. When I’m convinced I will not be able to deliver on a promise, I will inform you ahead of time.
5. When you confront me about the gaps I’ve created I will tell you the truth.

Gaps are the opportunities to decide what kind of culture you want to create.

1. Are there people you have a hard time trusting?
2. Is it your issue or theirs? [If you don't confront it, it's still YOUR issue.]
3.  What can you do about your part?
4. What do you need to address with them about their part?
5. Who do you sense has a difficult time trusting you?
6. Why?
7. What can you do about it?

We have been selected by God for a very important enterprise.
Our success does not depend on our perfection.
We can survive bad decisions but we can not survive a culture void of trust.

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.

While on the island of Okinawa during his tour of duty in the United States Marine Corps, Chuck recognized that the Lord was calling him to devote his life to the gospel ministry. After being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, Chuck enrolled in Dallas Theological Seminary where he graduated magna cum laude.

Chuck’s pulpit ministry has emphasized the grace of god alongside an uncompromising commitment to practical, biblical truth as its application as he has served numerous congregations. In October of 1998, Chuck founded Stonebriar Community Church where he continues to serve as senior pastor. Chuck’s congregation extends far beyond the local church body. Through the Insight for Living broadcast, Chuck’s teaching is on the air in every major Christian radio market in all fifty states and through more than 2,100 outlets worldwide. While Chuck serves as chairman of the board, his wife, Cynthia, serves as president and chief executive officer of Insight for Living.

Chuck has contributed more than seventy titles to a worldwide reading audience including Strengthening Your Grip, Improving Your Serve, Living on the Ragged Edge, and his most recent addition Jesus: The Greatest Life of All.

After serving as Dallas Theological Seminary’s fourth president for seven years, Chuck became the seminary’s chancellor in 2001. He continues to uphold the school’s motto, “Preach the Word,” as he serves in leadership at Dallas Theological Seminary, at Insight for Living, and at Stonebriar Community Church.

• It was 50 years ago this fall that Chuck was a first year student at Dallas Theological Seminary.
• “When God wants to do an impossible task, He takes an impossible person and crushes them.” – Alan Redpath
• We experience different kinds of crushing.
• “No one is surprised to be here today as much as I am…”
• “I am so proud of you and all you are dreaming about and planning for… but you need to leave room in your life for crushing”
• Crushing is part of the cirriculum people won’t tell you about.
• It’s part of the plan of God that He will do to enable you to do his work.

10 Things I’ve Learned from Nearly 50 Years in Leadership

1 – It’s lonely to lead

• Leadership involves tough decisions.
• The tougher the decisions you need to make the more lonely it is.

2 – It’s dangerous to succeed.

• “I’m concerned for the gifted, accomplished, and capable who are under 30.”
• It’s dangerous to succeed when you are young.
• It takes crushing, time, disappointments and failure.

3 – It’s hardest at home.

• It’s not hard in front of crowd; it’s hard at home.
• Nobody tells you in seminary it’s hardest at home.
• Nobody at home is applauding you.
• “Your kids don’t say, ‘how was Catalyst?’

4 – It’s essential to be real.

• If there’s one realm where phoniess is personfied, it’s in leaders.
• Be who you is, cuz if you is who you is, you ain’t who you ain’t.
• I don’t care about what you do… what I care about is that you stay real.

5 – It’s painful to obey.

• God will direct you to do things that are not your choice.
• You’ll be giving up your way for the sake of the cross.
• There are reward but its painful.

6 – Brokenness and failure are necessary.

• Experiences that are desolating and painful can be looked at with satisfaction; everything you learn has been through afflication, not through hapiness.
• If it were possible to eliminate affliction, the result would make life banal and trivial to be endurable.
• The cross, more than anything else, calls us inexhorably to Christ.
• The cross is a place of pain and in the eyes of the world, a complete failure.
• It was essential.

7 – My attitude is more important than my actions.

• Some of you are getting hard to be around.
• Your attitude covers over the great actions you do.
• Attitudes overshadow actions.

8 – Integrity eclipses image.

• We focus on polishing the image but what you’re doing is not a show.
• The best things you do are not done up front; it’s what you do behind-the-scenes that make you who you are.

9 – God’s Way is always better than my way.

• Our problem is we’re too capable.
• We can pull it off on the flesh, and we do.
• God will have His way, we have to be crushed to realize.
• God could not pour His riches into hands that are already full.
• We need to empty our hands.
• Get rid of the habit of reading your own clippings.

10 – Christ-likeness begins and ends with humility.

• “I am meek and lowly at heart…” – Jesus
• The best place to describe and define ministry is in 2 Cor 4:5-7
• We have this treasure in earthen vessels…

We must be willing to leave the familiar methods without disturbing the biblical message.

• We get that backwards sometimes.
• Methods have changed but the methods remains the same.
• Doctrine and traditions remain.
• Don’t mess with the message.
• As you alter the methods, don’t mess with or alter the message.
• There’s a difference between traditions and traditionalism.
• Paul told Timothy to stand behind the traditions… to pass them to others.
• Tradition is the living faith, handed down.
• Traditionalism is the dead faith of those still living… it’s legalism.
• You defend things that don’t need to be defended.

With every ministry, a special mercy is needed

• No matter what we do, we need different kinds of mercy.
• God will give you those mercies.  (v. 1)

In every ministry, the same things must be renounced and rejected (v. 2)

• Hiding shameful things, doing deceitful things, corrupting truthful things.
• If you are serving on a team and the leadership is leading with deception and corruption, you are on the wrong team.
• You need to expose it.
• We put those things aside.
• We refuse to wear masks and wear games… (The Message)
• We keep everything we do and say out in the open… (The Message)
• Guard against deception, corruption… stay away from shameful things that willt ake their toll and bring out the truth.

Through every ministry, a unique style should be pursued. (v 5-7)

• We don’t preach our promote ourselves
• We declare Jesus Christ as Lord.
• We see ourselves as bondservants for Jesus’ sake.
• We never forget who we are and who He is.
• We have this treasure in peanut butter jars…
• We have to fight the temptation of being self-reliant.
• We have to fight the temptation for power and control.
• As gifted and as capable as you may be, you’re not called to have power over people or to fix them.

5 Statements Worth Remembering…

1. WHATEVER you do, do more with others and less alone. (It will help you become accountable)
2. WHENEVER  you do it, emphasize quality over quantity.
3. WHEREVER you go, do it the same as if you were among those who know you best. (It will keep you from exaggerating.)
4. WHOEVER may respond, keep a level head.
5. HOWEVER long you lead, keep dripping with gratitude and grace. (It will keep you thankful)

Make me Thy fuel, flame of God!

• How would you like your ministry to have such an impact that people remember you and repeat something that you did because it was so sown into their hearts and minds.
• The Concept of Momentum.
• When you have momentum you look better than you are.
• When things are going good (in life, in your ministry) you look better than you are.
• Dave Ramsey’s company has tremendous momentum… they are good at what they do.
• “We’re not as good as we look but we have momentum.”
• When you don’t have momentum you are better than you look.
• It’s usually when you’re starting something, starting over or coming back up.
• Momentum is created. It does not randomly occur.
• You are better than you look.
• Everyone looking in on the outside doesn’t understand what’s going on. They don’t see the diamond in the rough.
• It’s important you get momentum
• We struggle with doing and trusting in God, waiting on Him.
• We tend to pray like it depends on God or work as if it depends on us.
• Some of us haven’t worked hard enough to be burned out!
• We get this paradox between God’s blessings and our part in the play.
• God is dependable.
• The variable we have to focus on is us and the momentum we need to create.
• To be an inordinate success, it takes 10,000 hours. (Gladwell)
• You don’t become a significant leader by accident, you pour yourself into your calling and your craft very specifically and momentum is created.
• It’s not an accident.
• You have a part to play in God’s script.
• The Momentum Theorem: Focused Intensity, over Time, multiplied by God, equals Unstoppable Momentum.

Focused Intensity.

• Focused is an amazing thing in a culture that has none.
• We struggle with focus.
• When we’re not focused other  things distract us and we experience burn out.
• NFL = Not For Long (avg time in the NFL is 3.7 years)
• Focus is lost for two reasons: fear and greed.
• Fear is not from the Lord.
• Fear is not a fruit of the Spirit.
• We get greedy… numbers of people in our churches, viewers of our show, readers of our blog.
• We wonder what it’s like to be “over there” when we aren’t over there yet.
• We overlook the ball before we’re at the goal.
• A double-minded man is unstable in his ways. – James 1:8
• Excellence dissipates when we take our eye off the goal and look into something we haven’t already earned.
• Focus = I can’t see anything else than what I’m looking at.
• You’ve got to lose your peripheral vision.
• You have an unbelievable opportunity when you focus because no one else in culture is.
• Rick Warren calls focus being intentional.
• Stephen Covey called focus being proactive.
• You have to happen “to” things.

Intensity

• Pour intensity into things that really matter.
• Whatever you hand finds to do, do it with all your might. – Ecc 9:10
• Bring excellence into what you are doing.
• Be intense about your calling.
• Get focused with intensity.
• Intensity moves things.
• Nothing moves unless there’s intensity behind it.
• Light that’s dispersed lights a room; light that is intensely focused becomes a laser you can do surgery with.
• Focus is powerful.

Time

• It takes focused intensity over time.
• “If I persist long enough, I will WIN.” – Og Mandino
• If you’re only focused and only intense for a short time, it won’t matter.
• “Run the race in such a way as to win the prize.” – 1 Cor 9:24
• It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
• It’s a long race that’s over time.
• All leaders are readers!
• The tortoise always wins…
• Figure out the course, stay the course.
• Keep moving.
• Figure out your deal.
• Never take your eye off the ball.
• Slow and steady wins the race all the time.

Multiplied by God

• We are finite; God is infinite.
• God is with us while we are running, at the finish line, and at the starting line.
• When you multiply your focused intensity over time by God… God gives us energy and causes us to win.
• “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” – Matt 19:26
• Get plugged in to Him as a power source and your moment will become unstoppable.
• Leading involves following.
• If you think you’re going to be an automatic success; if you are, be very scared because you might not have the foundation to carry it.
• Grow it slow, grow it right.
• “Never give in…” – Winston Churchill
• Never, never, never quit.
• If you’re not doing something significant for God, Satan won’t notice.
• It has a cost, but DO IT in the name of Christ.
• Never, never quit.

Priscilla is daughter of pastor, speaker and well-known author Dr. Tony Evans. She is married to her best friend, Jerry, and the couple has two sons: Jackson and Jerry Jr. They live in Dallas, Texas.

• Priscilla saw the story of Brian Welsh, the former lead guitarist of Korn
• Somebody put their arm around him and “loved him into the family of God.”
• This story wasn’t TBN or CBN, it was on CNN!
• He gave up a $20 Million contract
• “And they left everything to follow Jesus…”
• There’s a Divine Intervention that happens when God turns us in a different direction than the one we were heading.
• Some of us are leading people when we had no idea we had a capacity to do it.
• In your life, in one form or another, has been Divinely Intervened.
• Oftentimes there are three or four different options available to us; we’ve got to decide if we will yield to the direction God is leading us to.
• Joshua knew what it was like to have a life interrupted by God.
• As we yield to the interrupted life we will be victorious at what God has set before us to do.
• At one point or another we will be in a situation that feels like an interrupted life.
• You’re either in the middle of it, about to enter it, or about to walk out of it.
• When Joshua left Egypt with Moses he had no idea that God would call him to take up the reigns of leadership over Israel from Moses.
• On the heels of receiving direction from God, there were four things Joshua did.
• If we follow them, they will make a huge impact on ourselves and others.
• Joshua 3:1 – Joshua rose early in the morning.
• After receiving instruction from God to handle a task he did not feel equipped to handle,  he rose up early to complete the task God set before him.
• It’s not about be ready, but being open.
• Joshua acted immediately in obedience to God.
• What has God asked you to do? Are you procrastinating or ignoring it?
• Would you act immediately in obedience to God?
• This is different than Moses’ response (Exodus 2).
• We’re good at giving excuses.
• Everyone needs a Joshua – someone who will stand in faith in spite of their perceived deficiencies.
• They camped at the Jordan River for three days.
• This all happened in April… to the Jordan River was rushing rapidly because of melt-off from Mt Hermon.
• The river was violent.
• The saw an impossible body of water that God was telling them to cross.
• They had three days to consider what God was asking them to do.
• Joshua told them, “Regardless of what it looks like, we will cross it.”
• He not only acted immediately, he acted fearlessly.
• We’re called to be leaders who are fearless.
• Over 300 times in the Scriptures, God has derivatives of the phrase “do not be afraid.”
• We are not held captive to natural standards, we have supernatural abilities.
• The Holy Spirit empowers us to do what seems impossible for us to do in the natural world.
• The moment you got saved treasure was deposited in you, the Holy Spirit.
• The Holy Spirit empowers us to do and be what we cannot do and be.
• v3 – Joshua doesn’t say, “I’m the leader, follow me.” He says, “God’s the leader, follow Him.”
• Until you see God’s presence moving, you don’t move.
• If God’s presence isn’t going, don’t go.
• Joshua teaches us to acknowledge the presence of God.
• There’s many great opportunities for us, but if God’s not it in it, don’t go.
• Jesus said in John 5:19, “I only do what I see the Father doing.”
• The captivating thing about Jesus is that He did His Father’s will and nothing else.
• We need God to direct us, even though we might be directing others.
• We better be following hard after God.
• We have to follow God because we’ve not passed here before.
• We must think we are God, otherwise we wouldn’t try to control situations.
• It’s time for a group of leaders who will tell people what Joshua told them to do.
• Joshua anticipated God’s miracles.
• Act today like God is going to do something tomorrow.
• Anticipate God’s activity.
• Stop praying safe prayers.
• Believe God can do the unthinkable.
• God is the first and the last; beginning and the end.
• He always was, always is.

Francis spends much of his time speaking to high school and college students and has recently written his first book, Crazy Love. His commitment is to teach directly from the words of Scripture. It is his passion to see the next generation of American Christians display a much deeper love for Jesus.

Francis is married to Lisa, and they have three daughters and one son.

• Ephesians 2
• We were dead.
• When was the last time you stopped and thought, “I should be in hell right now?”
• But Jesus saved us.
• Think about His presence with us.
• Do you ever pray for something and then God overwhelms you when He answers it?
• Ask for the grace.
• Get into the Word.
• The presence of Almighty God is with us.
• That’s intense.
• Stop and think about the presence of a God, our Father, who is crazy about us, who loves.
• Many of us have had people tell us we’re not good enough; but God is here. You are all you need to be.
• God has saved us and cleansed us from our sins.
• Sometimes we just need to mellow out.
• Sometimes we’re better at explaining God’s grace to other people than experiencing it for ourselves.
• Sometimes we don’t have the faith the cross will carry it.
• Sometimes we don’t have faith the Holy Spirit will move.
• We always have to make the resurrection more exciting every Easter.
• We need to trust the word of God.
• Romans 5
• It’s good to fellowship simultaneously around the cross.
• Talk about the goodness of God.
• 1 Peter 5:6-11
• Humble yourself.
• We are one breath away from being with God.
• If we aren’t going to obey the Word, go home.
• Cast all your anxiety upon Him. Let it go.
• God cares for you.
• There’s someone who is feeding problems into our minds, trying to distract us from what God wants to speak to us.
• There’s so many distractions.
• Our adversary would love for all of us to leave still stressed out and thinking we have to fix something.
• We are arrogant to think we can change the world; only God can do that.
• We can’t do it, so don’t worry about it.
• Resist him.
• Other people won’t let you forget your mistakes.
• The God all of all grace will restore and establish you.
• Who cares if people don’t restore you… the God of all grace will.
• God wants us to rejoice in Him and enjoy HIs grace.
• He wants His children to be thrilled… to know we are really forgiven and loved in His sight.
• Grace makes everyone say, “Man, I wish I had your dad.”
• Satan would love for us to be stressed and depressed, carrying the shame of our past.
• But Jesus wants us free and to remind us that He will establish and confirm us.
• Rejoice in the Lord.
• Trust in God’s Word.

• History is a weird animal.
• History is a double-edged sword.
• It can haunt you.
• Matt shared the story of trying to dispel the mystery of Bloody Mary to his daughter.
• We’ve been doing this to kids in church for years.
• There are times you need to forget what lies behind you.
• History can be a life-giving reality check.
• When you clue into it, things can make sense.
• There’s a lot of things going on… good and bad.
• Some are successful others are struggling.
• What have we been caught up in?
• God created everything.
• Wisdom cries aloud in the streets; she’s been with God since the beginning.
• Everything God creates worship for the Creator.
• Everything leads to worship.
• But then the fall happened.
• The fall made us disregard the creator and made us look to creation.
• God is preparing mankind for reconciliation.
• God’s promise to Israel has global implications.
• The Pslamist sings about all the nations being glad.
• Christ shows up, the great exchange takes place.
• He made Him who knew no sin to be made sin for us …
• His righteousness makes us holy and blameless.
• It’s not by our own merit, but by the merit of Jesus Christ alone.
• He gathered the disciples and said, “it’s go time.”
• God made a way.
• Acts 2 is the most unseeker friendly message of all time.
• Thousands were added; 5,000 later; this thing begins to happen.
• Men and women are being saved, reconciled to God.
• God help us and save us from taking the narratives and making them into children’s stories.
• Peter was called to Cornelius’ house.
• Cornelius is saved in the middle of the message.
• Then the church gathers to decide if Gentiles can really be saved.
• Then it blows up… the Gospel spreads to all people around the globe.
• What God said He was going to do is HAPPENING NOW.
• It has been happening, it is working, it is moving.
• The next 20-30 years a “global Christendom” is coming soon.
• We’re caught up in something bigger than we can even imagine.
• Hebrews 11
• The gauntlet we will run through is uncertain.
• We might survive the edge of the sword, or maybe we will die against it.
• There will be seasons where the dead will be raised and times when there will be death.
• Hebrews 12, THEREFORE… let us throw off every weight and the sin which clings so closely.
• We need to redeem and reclaim some words that have been hijacked.
• Somehow the idea of confession and repentance has a negative connotation.
• It seems to be put away in the dusty corner of the believer’s world as if we believe the longer we are Christians, the lesser we will need to repent.
• We look at it as something that only certain people need to do or that fundamentalists scream we have to do.
• Luther nailed his thesis to the door… “the entire life of a believer must be repentance.”
• I John 5
• If we say we have no sin we’ve made him a liar and there is no truth in us.
• If we live and we walk as if we are sinless, we are a liar.
• We’ve created “bad” sins and sins Christ is cool with.
• Repentance works is a continuing ethic.
• There’s times our heart is going to give us a hitch.
• There’s two ways to handle it: ignore it (you’ll be self-deceived) or you can dig deep (confess, repent and grow).
• Every bit of hesitantcy in obedience is God beckoning you to deeper waters.
• Get up, repent and mature.
• Run with endurance the race set before us.
• No one wants the ministry of Moses, his ministry was wandering in the wilderness with whiny people (Church people have always been whiny!).
• Some of us will spend our whole lives with stiff-necked people.
• The day is coming when history will be rewritten as it really is.
• Your role is bigger than you think.
• Play your part well.
• Look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.
• Jesus is the founder of our faith.
• Without Him, His cross and His shed blood there is no reconciliation.
• By this Gospel we will be saved… past, present and future.
• Don’t grow weary.
• God has invited us to play a part.
• THEREFORE, let us throw off our sin.
• Let confession and repentance be a continuing ethic for us.
• It will prevent pride from happening and make us thankful for all that God does.
• Fix your eyes on Jesus Christ.
• Jesus makes intercession for us.
• May we not get distracted with historical silliness.
• May we remember what we’re caught up in and the significance of it.
• May we run well.

• IS BIGGER BETTER?
• There are lots of questions and truths that we would cognitive ascent to that we would intellectually affirm and yet the truth is that we think and feel and a driven by deep subterranean forces way down in our bones that actually drive us and make us think and feel in particular ways.
• These things drive and shape us and create the filter by which we engage the world around us.
• John 6
• Many of Jesus disciples no longer followed Him after He preached this message.
• Jesus has to confront misconceptions about the Messiah, about power, the wilderness, and what the truth of God looked like in changing times.
• Sometimes the crowd thins and people leave.
• There’s things we talk about: women in church, war, doubt, faith,  etc. that sometimes thins our crowd.
• When you talk about the flag and cross – our primary allegiance is to the cross.
• Faith and doubt dance together.
• What would Jesus say to modern church growth experts?
• He would say, “I love your passion… and yes, you can do this… and yes, sometimes there are large crowds… parking problems… but sometimes the crowd thins, not everyone will go with you. Sometimes people leave you.”
• Sometimes large groups of people say, “enough.”
• Luke 21 – the widow’s offering.
• The widow put in more when really she put in less; the people had more who put in more actually put in less.
• Inverse fidelity – less is more.
• Her less is more.
• Why do we have Christian organizations ranking local bodies and leaders who all say they are following a man who said, “the last shall be first.”
• Put your crack pipe down! If you’re on the list, get off!
• Standard fidelity gets implanted in my mind.
• What actually shapes how we think, feel, and behave is impacted by that.
• We are a Eucharist .
• How does the good gift work?
• Jesus body was broken and His blood was poured out.
• The body of Christ is a living and breathing Eucharist.
• We pour ourselves out so that others can receive life.
• If someone else takes, someone has given.
• If someone learns, someone taught.
• There’s a cost. That’s how the Eucharist works.
• We break  ourselves open and pour ourselves out for the healing and saving of the world.
• A church is a Eucharist for its city.
• How can we break ourselves open and pour ourselves out so tha t this context we are in might experience the healing, saving grace of the God who loves us.
• Eucharist is a sacred, holy thing.
• Your own Eucharist, your own gift to the people you give to, the gift of your community, is a holy, sacred thing.
• The gift comes from a deep place of humility.
• You surrender yourself when you give yourself away in humility.
• When you exploit that and break it down and rank it and analyze it, it violates the sacred, holy nature of the Eucharist.
• Don’t demean what God has given you.
• Jesus sees the world in a whole new way.
• John 5, Jesus speaks of the place where He comes from.
• “The Son can do nothing by Himself, He can only do what He sees His father doing…”
• Whatever the Father does, the Son does also.
• We don’t have to do anything we don’t see the Father doing.
• His work comes from a grounded, centered, calm place where He only has a few things to do and sets about doing them.
• He’s not distracted or stressed.
• His work comes from a particular plac.e
• Whatever God has for you to do may be costly.
• There’s a difference between hard, difficult and costly and a burden.
• He won’t give you something you can’t handle.
• Exodus 20 is the 10 commandments
• The first of the nine commands are externally mesurable/observable.
• Obeying the 10th is a reward for obeying the first 9.
• When you obey God you won’t want what someone else has.
• You won’t want anybody else’s life because yours will be just fine.
• Jesus says to us exactly where you are, “Blessed are you…”
• God wants to set you free from the anxiety and burden you carry about feeling like you have to measure up to others.
• God wants to set you free from the stress of size.
• Enjoy the place where you’re at and the work that is in front of you.
• The Gospel is counterintuitive.
• Love your neighbor of yourself.
• Is there any way you’ve neglected to take care of yourself because of the allusion that you have to keep going all the time.
• You need to be fulfilled with energy and vitality so you can love what you do more than you did before.
• Have you been observing a Sabbath?
• Which day of the week can we NOT get ahold of you because your cell phone is turned off?
• Which day of the week do you not respond to emails?
• Which day of the week are your busy doing NOTHING?
• Which day of the week are you feeding your own soul so you can then turn and feed others.
• Until we take care of ourselves, we can’t properly care for others.
• Oftentimes our drive to work and to produce is driven by an unhealthy motive.
• REPENT. Change your thinking.
• Start with yourselves.
• Does your spouse get your very best or does your spouse get what’s left over after you’ve given your best to your church, to what you are building?
• Hopefully your spouse will be there for the whole journey.
• Jesus wants to make sure that the people who are proclaiming peace and life are feeling and experiencing it in the deepest, most intimate levels of our lives.
• Do your kids get your very best?
• How often to do they see you say, “No!” to the demands that would try to take you away from them?
• We feed the machine and in the process the things and people around us aren’t thriving.
• God has given us just a few things to do… just do them.
• Your work and your family are inextricably linked.
• If it’s not going well with your family, it’s not going well with your ministry.
• We ignore one at the peril of the other.
• We need to live a centered, whole, peaceful life in the center of God’s love.
• Bigger brings more. More brings more with it. Let other people have more.
• You have your simple, beautiful work ahead of you.
• That’s good news.

• Christianity is fundamentally a communication event.
• It’s a story of God revealing Himself to the world using different forms of media: poets, prophets, donkeys, stone tablets, etc.
• God is in the business of communication.
• How we understand communication impacts the way we communicate the Gospel.
• We have an assumption that the methods change and the message stays the same.
• We believe you have to innovate your methods otherwise the Gospel becomes increasingly irrelevant.
• We believe our methods and our media are neutral – i.e. porn through the TV is bad, Christian TV is good.
• The opposite is actually true.
• The medium is the message.
• How you say something matters as much or more than what you say.
• What you use to communicate with will determine how your message is receive and understood.
• The flickering pixels we look at reshape pathways in our brain that change the way we see and perceive the world.
• There’s a difference between printed words… processed primarly in the left side of the brian – sequential, logical, etc.
• Images is right sided – it’s an experience.
• Images invite argument.
• The moment you use images and not words, it pins the logical side to the back of the brain and creates images.
• If you want to sell something, images are the way to go.
• Images and words are not interchangeable.
• They are fundamentally different modes of doing things
• About every 7 minutes you see an ad.
• Movies are made to be seen.
• How you say something will shape how it’s understood.
• This puts us in a ministry pickle.
• Here you have a need: a need to innovate the method.
• Where does that leave us?
• When you evolve your methods you change the message.
• Jesus made the exact same observation.
• Mark 2:22 – new wine into new wineskins
• The container and the content need to match.
• The wine itself is new.
• We knew the wineskins were new, but sometimes we forget the wine was, too.
• You must update your methods and your message.
• The message actually changes.
• It has changed.
• The Gospel message has changed based on where culture was and who the people of God were and what they were wrestling with.
• There’s different messages.
• The message never changes.
• The ever-changing Gospel never changes.
• You are the still the same person you were when you were a child, but you’ve changed. You’re still you, you’re just different.
• The look, function and feel of a mustard seed is different that a mustard tree. They are the same but always changing.
• What if what Jesus said is true? That the Gospel is living thing, not a lifeless artifact.
• God needs more gardeners and less guards.
• A guard is motivated by fear. They’re afraid something will be broken, stolen, or messaged up.
• A gardner is motivated by love. They are filled with anticipation.
• Gardeners protect but never to the point of stunting growth.
• The Gospel has no room for fear.
• You don’t have to be afraid … all you have to do is love.
• Perfect love casts out all fear.
• In our best efforts to preserve and defend the Gospel we’ve become guards and not gardeners.
• We need to become open to
• There’s certain things that NEVER change: Love wins, grace is free, peace is possible, etc.
• How it’s changed is in how it’s expressed, felt, and seen is changed because of how we change.
• There are diamonds in the rock of Scripture that we have yet to discover.
• The Gospel grows.
• Each leaf that grows on the tree depends on branch behind it, and the branch behind that.
• We need to be become gardeners of the Gospel that grows; not fearful guards.