• If you think about the tradition of blues, it’s honest music.
• It is the root of our spirituality.
• It’s an incredibly honest, soulful dialogue.
• We’ve lost that.
• Christianity is glossy today.
• The history of our faith is incredibly soulful, angry, and cries out to God.
• The Psalms were incredibly honest dialogue with God.
• David was painfully honest in the Psalms.
• We are flawed, lonely, and have coping mechanisms so we don’t have to feel our pain… that’s a human experience.
• With God, we don’t have to pretend.
• God is familiar with our pain.
• There are so many blues songs about unrequited love.
• God’s Story is about unrequited love.
• God is crazy about humanity and He’s crying out to us.
• God came to us through Christ.
• He loves perfectly.
• There are times when God has the blues.
• You can see His longing for humanity.
• Jesus got the blues… going off on His own to be with His Father.
• Jesus has been where we have been.
• He’s felt the pain of unrequited love.
• Jesus knew we were worth it.
• There’s hope.
• There’s longing.
• When you feel that, know God is with you.
• He feels your pain.
• He has empathy.
• Be honest in your dialogue with him.

• How does God use our pain?
• I believe that God intended for us to experience pain.
• It’s the anthesis of what we understand in our culture.
• We are taughtthere is not supposed to be pain in our lives by our culture.
• That’s not consistent with a Christian worldview.
• Don talked about Toy Story 3 and how he was impacted by it.
• I think Toy Story 3 is the greatest screenplay ever on film.
• It’s not my favorite movie but it’s a flawless screenplay if you study story.
• The story is about a group of characters who are separated with their owner.
• They were created for relationship with their owner.
• They are trying to find their way back to their own.
• Pixar spends 3 years cultivating their stories before the start animating.
• The human epic we are in is reflected in Toy Story 3.
• The most traditional story structure obeys a 3 act structure.
• Act 1 is about 10 minutes.
• At the end, something happens that launches the character into the story.
• That’s an inciting incident.
• Act 2 is the bulk of the story.
• The last 5 minutes are Act 3.
• Act 2 is trying to resolve the conflict that happened because of the inciting incident.
• Something usually happens to go back to Act 1 but then is resolved and runs into Act 3.
• Something happened in our lives that disrupted our emotional stability.
• The Christian worldview says that’s the fall of man.
• When we understand the structure of story, we can understand where we are at in our lives as humans.
• There is a point in a story where all of the conflict is resolved through one single action.
• Why is there an Act 3 climax in stories when there is no Act 3 in real life?
• Conflict and Characters exist in life. The climax doesn’t
• Everything in a story is represented in a story except for the climax.
• If you can convince people that there is an Act 3 climax in life, you can manipulate and control them.
• Advertising does that. It says, “Something is wrong with you, BUT if you do this, you’ll get better…”
• The cultural scripts that run through our commercials are interesting.
• They all say the same thing: if you buy this, this will happen.
• We as humans, especially as Christians, need to accept the reality that life is hard.
• As Christians, we need to teach people that life is hard.
• The most happy country in the world is Denmark. [America is 32nd]
• The common characteristic of people in Denmark is that they have low expectations in life.
• If you have low expectations you’ll be surprised when things go right.
• When we look at Scripture we see people facing difficult, painful realities.
• Romans 8, Paul talks about the Act 3 climax that will take place in your life, when you go to Heaven.
• Most of the verses on hope are focused on hope later, not hope now.
• If you believe that you are supposed to be experiencing the climax now, your focus is off.
• You will go through life very disappointed.
• Where we are is in Act 2. Not Act 3.
• We are in the struggle.
• We are post, mid-act climax.
• That’s the cross and resurrection.
• That was the event that will engage the Act 3 climax.
• We are betrothed.
• We are engaged to Christ.
• Your troubles will never end.
• What you do have in this life is hope.
• We can climb through the mountains of life and struggle together.
• The sufferings of this present time cannot compare to the glory that’s going to be revealed … – Paul
• Christ’s glory is to be revealed. Not has been revealed.
• In the midst of our pain, we are to wait with patience and have faith it will happen.
• What should our posture be?
• How does someone act when they are engaged?
• They are excited about the what’s to come.
• They are hopeful.
• If you are 30 years old, you’ve had 12-15 significant positive and negative experiences.
• God redeems the hard things in life.
• Sometimes God embeds things in our lives.
• We are born into conflict.

• Joseph has a dream  [positive]
• Joseph tells his brothers [negative]
• Joseph is thrown in the well [negative] – “I blew this…”
• There are mistakes you can make in this life that will cause churches to exempt you from helping them fulfill their mission. But God can still use you.
• Joseph is rescued [positive]
• Sold into slavery [negative]
• Run’s Potiphar’s house [positive]
• Thrown in prison [negative]
• Meets baker and cup bearer [positive]
• Cup bearer forgets [negative]
• Joseph meets Pharaoh [positive]

Bringing it Home

• Write down the positive and negative turns in your life.
• Spend time doing this.
• Your positive experiences are points to celebrate God’s faithfulness.
• When we look at our negative experiences, we need to let God redeem them.
• What the enemy intended for evil, God can use for good.
• Mine those experiences in your life.
• Do something with them.
• Through writing the book about growing up fatherless, Don has created a non profit to mentor fatherless boys.
• The things God can do through the hard things in your life can be the things that bring hope to others.
• Create a storyline of your life.
• Ask yourself, “With these negative things, what can happen?”
• Each negative turn in your life can create a seed that can grow into something great that can bless and feed others.

Q&A Session with Mitch White

• There are different kinds of conflict. There’s conflict that God embeds in our stories.
• This idea that we can be completed in God is untrue on this side of eternity.
• Some of our needs are there because God wants them to be there.
• God took Adam’s conflict and made it worse by asking him to name to the Animals.
• God uses conflict to make us appreciate what He is going to provide.
• It gives us respect for what He gives us.
• It causes us to fear and honor Him.
• There’s conflict that comes from the fall of man.
• It’s not what God likes or wanted for us.
• Control is the root of all sin.
• God does not make you love Him. He gives you a choice.
• Authentic, real loving relationships are made between people who have a will to love one another.
• Freewill is an act of love from God.
• People fill their lives with false, Act 3 climaxes.
• Most people realize those are empty when they get them.
• Put the Act 3 climax at our reunion with Christ.
• That makes all of life about heading toward that climax and taking people with us. That’s evangelism.
• Your motives change.
• It’s less about the praise of people and more about the advancement of the mission.
• On his next book… it’s going to be a CS Lewis Screwtape-style journal of God’s account of creation and the fall.
• On the Blue Like Jazz movie… we hope it changes Christian media. It releases in April.
• The Bible is a great narrative of flawed people who chose to give their lives for the love of God that captured their hearts.
• We need to learn to accept the beauty of people’s flawed humanity.

Donald Miller became best known through his New York times bestseller, Blue Like Jazz, the story of his experience at Reed College, voted at that time as “the most godless campus in the country.” Since then Don has written other best sellers: Searching for God knows What andA Million Miles in a Thousand Years (the story of his writing of the screenplay for Blue Like Jazz-the movie).

In the fall of 2011, Don created The Storyline Conference, a two-day event to help individuals, churches and business staff write a better story for their life and work. We are excited to be a part of what Don does best—help you find your story, see how God is redeeming it and allow this to help you see the story of others that God longs to redeem. Learn more about Don at www.donmilleris.com.

• 2% of the population of Portland regularly attends church.
• Don recently relocated his office above a bistro in Portland.
• He developed a great relationship with the owners of the restaurant, and they discovered that he was Christian.
• Their reaction was, “how in the world could you possibly believe that?”
• It’s hard for the world at large to believe that Jesus is alive today.
• Wouldn’t it help you, as a Christian leader, if Jesus would come back every 5 years and did a press conference? Just to let people know He’s alive, that we aren’t crazy, etc?
• Our narrative is quite mysterious.
• Our Savior comes in a manger.
• He spends 32 years on earth.
• He only does about 3 years of ministry.
• Then He ascends and disappears.
• He’s gone.
• He leaves the rest of it to us.
• What happens when Jesus is gone?
• Time magazine asked: “Is God dead?”
• Portland is statistically 25 years ahead of the country.
• If that’s true, only about 2% of the people you know will attend church in 25 years.
• That doesn’t mean that people won’t know Christ, it’s just that their engagement with their faith will look different.
• We live in a culture that assumes God is dead.
• One of Don’s friend went to Rwanda and saw a tribute to the genocide that happened there.
• Most people would see that and say it’s evidence that God is dead.
• Rather, his friend had the opposite experience.
• She felt God saying, “See what happens when I leave? See what happens when nobody brings the light?”
• Is Jesus gone? Where is He?
• Colossians 1:27 – Christ is in you, the hope of glory.
• Every day your feet hit the ground, it’s Christmas morning.
• Jesus chooses to take up residency in you.
• Jesus doesn’t take up residency church buildings.
• He lives within you.
• We bring hope into the world because Christ is in us.
• Colossians 1:28; Colossians 3:11; Galatians 2:20
• Christ is all and in all.
• It is wrong for us to look for hope in the world externally.
• We have the tendency to take someone to church instead of taking people to Jesus that’s inside of us.
• Bring yourself, all of you, to the people in your life.
• Confession is really helping people understand the difference between Jesus and me.
• My real ministry is not writing or speaking, I love to practice hospitality.
• Last year he had over 100 overnight house guests.
• Writing and speaking is fundraising for me to do the ministry I feel like Jesus is calling me to do.
• What is Jesus doing inside of us?
• Don shared this iconographic image of Christ:
• 
• Jesus’ left eye is convicting you of your sin.
• Christ divides.
• He comes with a sword.
• And He’s the Prince of Peace.
• His right eye is designed to represent His forgiveness and grace.
• He convicts us and shows us grace.
• Why does our culture have so much trouble seeing God?
• It’s because Jesus does not look like what evangelical culture in America wants Him to look like.
• If we were to create a Jesus that would build our churches and represent our community, He would not look like the actual Jesus.
• Who do we like to have represent us as Christians?
• What do our politicians look like?
• Jesus had no form or comeliness that we should look upon him; no beauty. (Isaiah 53)
• Often in our strategy we want to say, “you can have everything the rich young ruler had… you can live your best life now.”
• I don’t think that’s true.
• When I look at pre-fallen man, there’s only one defining characteristic: he walked around naked and was not ashamed.
• He was hardly self aware.
• When we are naked, we know.
• You will not live your best life now.
• You will live it when you are reunited with Trinity.
• We invite people into hope.
• Christ is so difficult to recognize because He isn’t offering people what they want, He’s offering people what they really need.
• He’s not offering people a coping mechanism; He’s offering people hope to endure.
• When we translate our theology through the filter of the lies of marketing we make people believe falsely about their faith.
• It’s not your best life now.
• It creates false expectations.
• Jesus is operating in the world in beautiful ways.
• Evangelism no longer looks to me like the sharing of information.
• It’s not about sharing truths.
• It’s about bringing people to Jesus.
• “I set people up on a blind date with Jesus and hope they hit it off.”
• We all have mysterious relational encounters with Christ.
• But then we rationalize our experience and boil it down to a formula.
• We are not saved through right theology; we are saved through Christ.
• We don’t need to depend on a church program to bring Jesus to the world.
• Jesus will go places I don’t want to go.
• Jesus will forgive people I don’t want to forgive.
• Are we bringing Christ into our house?
• Are we bringing Christ into our neighbors house?
• Do we believe that Christ is within us, or are we looking for Him externally?
• He’s inside of you bringing hope to the world.

Click here to download my Elephant Room Conference Notebook.

Feel free to pass this along and share it with others.

Huge thanks to Luke MacDonald for letting me serve as a blogger, and to Pastor James and the entire team at Harvest Bible Chapel for making this event possible! Be sure to visit TheElephantRoom.com for more resources from this event.

Also check out other Conference Notebooks I’ve put together from many of the other conferences I’ve attended. Enjoy!

How did you come to know Jesus?

• Crawford: I was 13.5, my sister surrendered to Christ and invited me to church…
• Steven: I got dragged to a Baptist revival when I was 16 and I was confronted with what it meant to have an authentic relationship with Jesus.
• Wayne: I thought Christians were freaky but God used a Christian music group to open my heart.
• James: When I was 7, February of 1967, after a Sunday night service with his family.
• Mark: In my dorm room reading Romans.
• Jack: When I was 6 years old at a tent revival.
• TD: Right after my father passed away when I was 16.

In my moments of honesty, the thing that furstrates me most about myself is…

• TD: I have a passive-aggressive personality. I’m loyal and loving to a fault. I’m quicker to embrace than to confront.
• Jack: The inability to let things go. As a leader, you’re constantly try to fix things… it’s hard to let it go and give it to God or let it go and let it go away. I’m an obsessive fix-it person. It’s really the need to control a situation.
• Mark: My selfishness.
• James: I’m more easily wounded than I let on and I can forgive but I don’t get over it.
• Wayne: The difference between caring deeply instead of worrying.
• Steven: Being grateful. I’m very, very grateful and insatiable for progress. It slips into the wrong motives easily.
• Crawford: My heart will write a check that my calendar cannot cash. Don’t be a prisoner to need.

The Gospel is our greatest treasure. It sparkles like a diamond. Which facet sparkles the brightest for you right now?

• Crawford: The wonder of the Savior dying on the cross in my place.
• Steven: God’s favor. I always thought it was a sidebar, but it’s synonymous with grace. I know God is with me, but God is also for me. I always felt like God loved me because He had to, but I have learned that God likes me, too.
• Wayne: God is pleased with me. Sometimes we think we can do more to get God’s pleasure… but God is pleased with me.
• James: I’m comforted and blessed by the imputative righteousness of Christ in my life.
• Mark: Expiation… we are forgiven and made clean.
• Jack: The call of the Gospel. After 40 years, I’m more passionate about this Gospel and my call than I was before.
• TD: “Oh that I may know Him and the fellowship of His suffering…” knowing that there is fellowship in the suffering with God. We don’t go through our struggles alone. The antitheses of success is sorrow.

My one concern about young pastors would be…

• TD: They would allow their ambition to underestimate the price that is paid to be who we are. I’m concerned that they see us on our platforms and our stages and don’t see the suffering behind the stage. They don’t know the cost of the oil in our alabaster boxes.
• Jack: That they don’t sell out the Gospel or their own lives for something cheaper. I hope there would be a purity of thought in action and in their lifestyles.
• Mark: I would like to see their passion to reach people exceed their passion to review books.
• James: Our sense of timing is messed up. Give your life to Christ. It will be worth it.
• Wayne: The danger of making a calling a career. Don’t use Christian stuff to advance your career. Don’t take any shortcuts. Pay the price. There’s much depth to gain in that. We don’t want to pray we want the blessings of someone who did. We don’t want to study, we want the affirmation of someone who did.
• Steven: We can fall prey to being entitled. We need to be a generation of honor. Honor comes from value. Everyone wants to be a rockstar but no one wants to learn the chords. The antitheses of honor is entitlement.
• Crawford: Faithfulness is undervalued. Previous generations have paid the tuition for the platforms we have today. The power is in grabbing the baton and realizing you’re living for a time you cannot see. We are disconnected from our faith rhythms.

What do you see the church looking like in 20 years given its current trajectory?

• Crawford: I’m conflicted. I’m scared by the movement away from truth. On the other hand, I see the great leaders and believe the future of the church is in great hands. I believe the next generation is going to do some incredible things. I just hope they will embrace the long haul, be holy, and not disqualify themselves.
• Steven: “The future cannot be predicted because it’s waiting to be created.” By God’s grace I’m intending to carry it forward. I will speak good things over my generation. I won’t let anything go. We’re gonna move forward. We are going to raise up a standard.
• Wayne: I have hope because of things like this and telecommunications that enable us to reach other people. If we don’t make changes we will become a subculture instead of a counter-culture.
• James: I believe preaching that emphasizes the word of God and the Gospel vs felt-need preaching is important. It isn’t impossible that North America will become like Europe. We’d be foolish to think that’s not possible. We just have to serve God faithfully.
• Mark: Some of the future leaders of the church may not even be saved yet! Our hope isn’t in our networks or institutions, God can take anybody and do anything!
• Jack: Praise God it’s getting gloriously dark. Things are not getting better, they are getting worse. We need to prepare for what’s coming. The future will look different. The Gospel is in good hands with the generation that’s carrying it forward. We know the last chapter, bu the church of the next generation must prepare for much tougher times.
• TD: My hope is that 20 years from now this coming generation will have found a way to translate the integrity of the Scriptures into the language of the times and not make the mistakes that their predecessors made. Don’t limit the platform but infect the culture with Gospel using technology that’s available.

What did you learn today?

• TD: Do not be so consumed with the busyness of your schedule to go beyond your borders.
• Jack: There is rampant anger and that disturbs me. I haven’t thought about how much anger is in the pulpit and in our pews.
• Mark: This was fun. I wonder if fun is one of the attributes of God? I had fun. I liked having fun.
• Wayne: I realized how much I don’t know. I learned so much. It reminded me how much I need to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn.
• Steven: “I don’t know what I think about that, I need to think about that for a little while…” – Bishop Jakes. We don’t have to have all of the answers right away.
• Crawford: I have to sit and marinate. That’s when I really learn. We need to learn to listen with our hearts. It’s amazing how we can spiritualize our insecurities and our fears. Why are we threatened to talk to one another? The older I get, the more passionate I get about what I do know, and the more free I feel about what I don’t know.
• James: I have learned a lot. I will process a lot. And look forward to see what will come from this.

What responsibilities do we have to local pastors who exist outside our theological boundaries, but within the body of Christ? How do you confront a brother in error while showing fidelity to truth, and to the truth about biblical relationship? Given the freedom to preach your conscience, is there anywhere you wouldn’t preach? Does a pastor’s association really communicate endorsement, or is that just a carryover from fundamentalism? How can pastors practically encourage/challenge those who are different than they are? How do the benefits of broader community weigh against the dangers of confusing people about your own convictions?

James MacDonald

• We have national borders and state borders when it comes to our theology and methodology.
• When you are so proud of your state is when you start to get into trouble.
• It took me 25 years to see the trappings of fundamentalism.
• People see minor things differently.
• We all handle pressure differently.
• The idea for this started with Bill Hybels.
• Bill rallied 10 pastors from the largest churches in Chicago to get together.
• “I love Bill Hybels.”
• We have different methodologies.
• He deserves my respect.
• Meeting Bill and becoming his friend changed my tone… not my methodology or my convictions, but my tone.
• James initiated a friendship with Mark over the past few years which led to a trip they took to Haiti which started Churches Helping Churches.
• Though my convictions didn’t change, my tone changed drastically through these relationships.
• James’ initial reaction to Steven Furtick was, “oh, that kid is just a punk.”
• My disposition was to doubt.
• So much of fundamentalism is rooted in fear.
• James invited Steven to meet with him in Chicago and was blown away by Steven’s humility.
• Hear people before you make conclusions about them.
• Those friendships are what started The Elephant Room.

Steven Furtick

• It’s sad that it’s rare for pastors to show affection for one another.
• It’s sad that the conversation shifts to borders.
• A lot of people may be called to draw borders and barriers, my calling is to affirm the center.
• That doesn’t mean there is not a need for boundaries.
• When we say things like, “…they aren’t a big fan of you,” we sound silly to God and to the people that God is calling us to reach.
• James is putting the “fun” back in fundamentalism.
• I was self-righteous in my own opinion of you [James] when I met you.
• We could stand to encourage, build one another up, and honor one another more.
• Boldness isn’t speaking to your tribe.
• Real boldness is to stand with someone, even if it costs you something.

Mark Driscoll

• There are people who love the same Gospel and believe the same book and follow the same Savior.
• Revelation 1:2 – the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
• Step back from the theological constructs.
• All that matters is the Word of God and Jesus Christ.

Steven Furtick

• People who say they are defending the Gospel are just crappy friends.

Wayne Cordeiro

• We have to develop a new construct where love thinks the best.
• We often believe the worse until you prove me different.
• We have a tendency to want to identify with a tribe, but we need to move closer to the center… around the Cross.

Crawford Loritts

• The legacy of fundamentalism has tainted evangelicalism.
• Unfortunately, it’s a legacy of fighting.
• You define yourself by who you are against.
• All truth is seen in the center of tension.
• Lead with all of the truth of the Gospel.

Jack Graham

• One of the greatest joys I have is introducing my friends to other friends and to connect people.
• Connect and be connected.
• Leverage your friendships to encourage and mentor one another.
• Everyone needs connectors.

T.D. Jakes

• I come from a world that has it’s own, different problems.
• I come from a world where fellowship is taken for granted and unity is commonplace.
• The things you struggle to do we do easily; the things you do easily we struggle to do.
• Minorities don’t have the luxury of bickering.
• Our survival hinges on our ability to come together.
• We esteem people over our principles.
• Jesus died for the people, not principles.
• What excites me is breaking of a pathology that produces the false ideology that you need to unite around what you’re against instead of what you are for.
• Let us not confuse anointing and substitute it with anger.
• In the absence of the pursuit of God’s presence the only emotion we can display is anger.
• Don’t use your power to coerce people or speak out in anger because of the lack of God’s anointing in your life.

Steven Furtick

• We’ve perverted boldness and confused it with anger.

James MacDonald

• The subject of civility and how Christians need to learn how to talk to other people is important.

Mark Driscoll

• Andy Stanley said, “As a leader you’ve got to always ask if you want to make a point or if you want to make a difference.”
• In the instant, constant, and permanent age of communication, you can garner a tribe of critics.
• You don’t need to make any effort to make a point.
• To make a difference, you have to work.
• Sometimes you need to make your point privately.
• Sometimes you need to make a difference before you make your point.
• The wounds of a friend are trusted much.

Steven Furtick

• Love paves the way for us to have the right to speak honestly and with candor to others.

James MacDonald

• This event has cost me some relationships.
• I’m wounded by how others have felt that they needed to respond.
• “Just because someone doesn’t want you to be in their circle anymore doesn’t mean that they can’t be in yours anymore.”
• It always seems to be easier in relationship with people who are the left of you.

What do you do when a staff member fails morally? How bad is bad enough for dismissal? What responsibilities does the church continue to have to the former staff member? What if the failure involves a higher-profile pastor in your area or circle of influence? Is it ever acceptable to name a fallen pastor publicly? Can a fallen pastor re-qualify and be restored? In the same church? How soon is too soon? What safeguards can be established to help those who sincerely desire to remain faithful?

Crawford Loritts

• What you do begins prior to the fall.
• We need to be spiritually and emotionally healthy.
• There needs to be a strong sense of responsibility in church leadership.
• The issue of character and stewardship forces us to hold ourselves to a higher standard.
• If I am on a church staff team, there’s an assumption that I am a steward of the integrity of the ministry and the message as a whole.
• We need to spend more time talking about what that means.
• When someone falls into sin, Galatians 6 is our attitude and Matthew 18 is our approach.
• We need to restore in a spirit of gentleness.
• It needs to be bathed in love.
• There ought to be tears in our soul when we confront people over sin.

Wayne Cordeiro

• Many times we ask, “How far is too far?”
• We need to go back to Matthew 5… if a man thinks in his heart, he’s already committed the deed.
• We need to take a look at the aura of what’s happening on our staff.
• Adultery in the heart, lust, single incidents are not disqualifications for ministry.
• When it is a disqualification, when you aren’t exemplarily, what do you do?
• Remove them immediately from the position that they are in.
• Not just for them, but also for others.
• If someone has an infections, contagious disease, you pull them out.
• Bring them out to get them healed.
• Get them mentors and watch their correctability.
• Contrition is what brings restoration.
• Continue to pay them, but remove the responsibility of their ministry.
• Take the money to buy some to see if they are truly repentant.

Crawford Loritts

• If people are trying to protect their reputation they aren’t truly repentant.
• The sign of repentance is brokenness.
• Psalm 51
• Contrition is the act of remembrance of the pain our sin causes.
• 85% of the time, the confession does not come the first time around.
• We tend to do some sin management.
• Self-deception doesn’t go away easily.

Wayne Cordeiro

• When I pull people into a contagion ward for about 30 days, one question I ask is “Why couldn’t you self-correct?”
• If you can get staff who know how to self-correct, that is gold.

Crawford Loritts

• People are good at playing the game.
• We broadcast more than we think we do.

James MacDonald

• A man will go silent about their marriage before it’s about to go South.

Wayne Cordeiro

• You will be ready to come back to ministry when your wife says you are.

James MacDonald

• Restoration to fellowship is different than restoration to leadership.

Mark Driscoll

• We need to build accountability around the pastor’s wife.
• Dont’ just care for the man, but care for the wife, too.
• Come clean before you get caught.

Wayne Codeiro

• It’s better to confess than to have to admit.

Jack Graham

• Restore the leader but protect your church.

T.D. Jakes

• Any time you tell someone to come forward and tell them they can’t be themselves again isn’t a great incentive.
• Moral failure isn’t just sexual… there’s drugs, greed, abuse, etc.
• We have anther kind of problem that no one talks about.
• When there is something unhealthy going on in the house, it’s a symptom of something unhealthier going on in the house.
• Don’t leave the rabbit with the wolf.
• It’s naive to think that because the husband is a perpetrator that the wife is innocent.
• You’ve got to evaluate the health of the family.
• Look deep.
• Don’t be so focused on sin alone that you neglect the disfunction that causes the sin in the first place.
• Don’t let anyone go without inspection.
• Moral failure impacts the entire family.

Steven Furtick

• Monitor the culture of your staff.
• What we do is very imbalanced work.
• We need integration.
• Steven’s wife helps care for the staff pastor’s wives.
• They give date nights for all staff members that include gift cards and babysitters.
• Be proactive.
• Provide off-ramps for people to get help.

James MacDonald

• Create a culture where we can support and care for one another.
• Moral failure is more than sexual.

Wayne Cordeiro

• Create a culture of holiness on your staff team.
• Our society has lost its grip on moral resolve.

Crawford Loritts

• Love Jesus more.
• No one falls morally who was consistent in their times with God.
• Reading the Bible isn’t a cure for sin; a genuine passion for Christ is.
• Create cultures in your church where passion and holiness is everything.
• We need to orient people about the spiritual responsibility of leadership.
• Holiness matters.
• Character is important.
• Modeling is important.
• This isn’t your gig or your platform, you are representing Jesus and the people who trust you.

Wayne Cordeiro

• You can teach what you know but you reproduce what you are.

Crawford Loritts

• I used to pray, “Before I bring a reproach in the name of Christ, kill me.”
• The issue of holiness is a big deal.
• There is too much at stake.
• Too many people believe in us and listen to us.
• Too many people.
• Don’t be used by the devil to knock them out of the race.

James MacDonald

• Ministry is not a right, it’s a privilege.
• God help us to be faithful.
• God give us humility.
• 5 Moral Fences

Two of the largest churches in America, in one of America’s great cities—one almost 100% black, the other almost 100% white: Is that a problem? What factors, beyond local diversity, are widening this divide? What causes such obvious segregating of the races? In what ways does being a minority worshiper hinder worship and service in the church? What churches are achieving success at breaking down these walls, and how? What do you see the other pastor doing better than your church does it?

Jack Graham

• The way to destroy the racial divide is to get the roof off and get God in.
• About 10 years ago, Jack and TD Jakes partnered together for the Global Day of Prayer.
• Contextually, Jack was born in 1950, old enough to remember segregation.
• Prejudice is ignorance.
• As a Christian, you have to overcome your upbringing.
• Growing up in a racially divided, segregated world, we’ve seen people coming together at a much faster rate.
• We’ve got a long way to go.
• There’s still so much hatred.
• There are churches that are dead and should be dead because of hate. They don’t welcome everyone.
• As a pastor, I began to ask questions.
• Working in West Palm Beach, he learned a lot about multi-ethnic ministry.
• In moving to Dallas, he made a commitment to work together.
• Working together [in the trenches and serving] is greater than talking about it or preaching about it.
• Live it out.
• When I know you, I can love you.
• When I see the Jesus in you, we learn to be colorblind.
• Our church is making progress in this area.
• We have 50 or 60 different countries represented at Prestonwoood.
• Most people go to church in their community… as the community changes, so should the church’s environment.

T.D. Jakes

• You cannot successfully integrate your church until you integrate your life.
• Are all of your friends the same race? Otherwise, it’s just staged.
• African-Americans and Latinos account for over 50% of the population of Dallas.
• You either evolve or your church will diminish.
• Racism still exists and is pervasive in our churches.
• Most Americans aren’t racist, they are just used to what they are used to.
• The Industrial Age happened during the Civil Rights Movement.
• It caused us to work together.
• Even though we lived in our bedroom communities, we worked in the central marketplace of our ideologies.
• Today, we are gradually reseeding into the comfort of our communities.
• When you write the books you read your truth will always be distorted.
• Cross-pollination is what creates fruit.
• The body of Christ will never be what it is meant to be without people challenging our convictions.
• We aren’t doing as good as the world is doing at integration.
• We have a natural inclination to be in environments where people look like us.
• God always challenged us to be uncomfortable.
• We need to irrigate our ideas.
• Every aspect of our society plays the music to your band.
• If you don’t change you will find yourself in a position of racism.
• We can go from being comfortable to being racist without knowing it.
• We need to talk to each other.
• Do you know me by the books you write about me?
• We have arrogance about what we think we know about each other.
• We have to willing to talk and be willing to listen.
• We need to untangle the way we are being fed information, our politics, our history, our religion, etc and get down to what is really true.
• We need to challenge everything.
• We have to find a way to fight our way out intentionally.
• We have to find a way to connect.

Jack Graham

• The main issue is apathy.
• We have a huge amount of apathy and indifference.
• It’s not intolerance, it’s indifference, which can be worse.
• They work with an organization called Bridge Builders to “bridge back” into the community.
• When the world sees us working together, they take notice.
• That’s what changes everything.

Crawford Loritts

• The lack of moral courage we see in the church of Jesus Christ is appalling.
• We accept our comfort and our apathy, when this issue reflects the integrity of the Gospel.
• Jesus came to bring every tribe and nation together.
• The call to Christ is the call to express the unity that was meant by the blood that brought us together.
• There ought to be something diverse about our Christianity, otherwise we aren’t authentically Christian.
• We need to teach more about the implications of the Gospel… what does it mean to live it out and be distinctively Christian.

Wayne Cordeiro

• We need people of all races saying the same thing… like in Revelation.
• Intentionality is key.
• It’s not integration, it’s Pentecost.
• That has to be our goal.
• Structure can decrease as maturity increases.

T.D. Jakes

• We can’t fulfill the Great Commission by picking the houses we want to go in.
• Avoid using terms that create images that are counter-productive.
• When you label things as racism, people think about sheets and burning crosses.
• When you challenge people about who they interact with in their everyday lives, it changes the equation.
• It forces us to get out of our safety zones.
• You can’t trust what you see when you walk into my atmosphere because you are seeing it through the eyes of your history, not mine.
• We make white conclusions about black realities.
• We need to learn how people think, not just look at what they do.
• We get to where we are because of generational ideologies.
• We have to become students again.
• That’s good for us if we have humility to do it.
• The sin is in the pride that we fail to admit that we don’t know everything.
• We have arrogance if we think we need to always be the teachers and not the students.
• The thing God hated the most was pride.

How do you put this into play?

• Jack Graham: Make space for reconciliation. Invest in relationships. Be intentional. Bring people on your team that are different that you.

How do you make practice hospitality for people that are different?

• Steven Furtick: Our awkwardness betrays our lack of affection. We need to pray for God to give us love and affection for one another. Let your attempts to become racially diverse come from a place of authenticity.
• James MacDonald: A lot of white suburban folks are clueless about the city. Let your heart get touched by what you don’t know.

T.D. Jakes

• We need to talk about this and have the humility to admit we may say something stupid.
• The people that God used the most mightily in the Bible were multi-cultural.
• Paul was able to become all things to all people because he was so diverse.
• Understand that God is bigger than you.
• Translate that into the languages of the world around you.
• Go beyond your area code and your zip code.

What are the ‘majors’ of Christian doctrine that cannot be diluted or denied for a person to be a Christian? How can we help one another move beyond the bare minimum of accepted belief, to a pursuit of robust, soul-satisfying, biblical substance? How should we relate to those who do not yet embrace the benefit and priority of sound biblical doctrine? Is there a difference between a person in error and a wolf in sheep’s clothing? What benefits derive from keeping the majors on a separate list and not letting the ‘minors’ divide us? Is it possible to love the truth without compromise and still work passionately for unity?

Mark Driscoll

• My wife Grace and I wrote a book on marriage.
• We talk about sex in the second part of the book.
• You can work on those things or write a blog on those things.
• Most people are upset by this book because they think we are too conservative.
• Others think we are too liberal.
• I honestly want to be humble and turn my critics into coaches.
• At the end of the day I think it’s a great book and I don’t recant what we’ve said.

T.D. Jakes

• My situation is not much different than Mark’s.
• My father was Methodist, my mother was Baptist.
• I was raised Baptist.
• I was raised in church but didn’t have a committed experience with Christ until after my father died.
• I had it in a “Oneness” church… not a UPC church, but somewhat similar. Jesus-only.
• How they describe and define the godhead is different than the trinitarian viewpoint.
• I ended up Methodbapticostal.
• I’m a mixed breed.
• I began to find out that it’s easy to throw rocks at people you don’t know.
• The more you get to know people the more you’ll want to be a bridge builder.
• He who stands in the middle of the road gets hit from both sides.
• Much of what we do today is teaching people to take sides, I believe we are called to reconcile.
• When you are leader you need to back up and think things through.
• He realized there are distinctives between the Father, Son and Spirit.
• I don’t think anything we believe fully describes who God is.
• We in our finite minds cannot define an infinite God.
• It’s One God, Three Persons.
• …for God was manifest in the flesh.
• Paul is not a modalist.
• There are distinctives between the Father and the workings of the Son.
• Jesus is with us but indwells us through the Spirit.
• When we only get to know people by their labels, it comes with the baggage of we define those labels.
• We need to bridge the gap.
• Why should we fallout and hate when all we understand is “through a glass darkly?”
• None of our books will be sold in Heaven.
• Our God is beyond our intellect.
• If we can define Him he ceases to be God.
• We deify the fact that God does things that don’t fit our formulas.

Mark Driscoll

• It takes a lot of courage and humility to put yourself [TD Jakes] in an unscripted environment.
• How have you been treated from people who have criticized you?

T.D. Jakes

• People define by where I’ve been.
• I’ve been labeled by a heretic.
• I have to read their articles to see what kind of heretic they label me as.
• We need to be willing to take the heat and have a conversation.
• If we continue to do this, we do this at the expense of increasing numbers of believers in our country.
• This is the only thing that Jesus prayed that we can answer: “I pray that we will be one…”

James MacDonald

• One God.
• Three persons.
• I believe Jesus is the only God we will ever see.
• We cannot replace mystery with certainty as a test of orthodoxy.

T.D. Jakes

• There wil be one throne and one God we can see.
• There will always be detractors and people who define themselves by their differences than their connections.
• We all stumble to explain who God is and what He does.
• That stumbling is worship.
• There are so many reasons for us to come away from race and denomination and to not allow other people to define us.
• If we don’t do better at communication we will not survive.
• The loss of civility is killing our culture, our churches and our nation.
• We need to learn to talk to one another.

Jack Graham

• I’ve found consistency in what Bishop Jakes says and in who he is.
• I hope this puts to rest the jive that’s going around about this Trinitarian issue.
• When we see God, we see Jesus.
• I’m grateful we had this discussion and grateful that James was willing to take a stand to let this conversation take place.

Crawford Loritts

• We need to stop letting people tell us who we are and engage that.
• I’m concerned by the subtle ways we justify slander and give credence to it in the name of intellectual insight or even how we’ve prostituted the word discernment so much that we’ve felt free to criticize people without getting to know them.

Steven Furtick

• I hope we will put into practice the belief hat love will always win out in the end. [1 Cor 13]
• The goal is love.

Wayne Cordeiro

• WW2 was not won by the United States, it was won by the Allied Forces.
• We had to join up to win the war.
• We cannot afford divisions in the last days.
• We have to put aside our differences and move the Kingdom forward, together.

James MacDonald

• 6,000 churches close their doors every year.
• Less than 20% of Americans attend church regularly.
• Only 15% of churches are growing.
• Only 2% is from conversion growth.
• The church is in peril.
• The church is in a free-fall.
• We need to WAKE UP and figure out that the constant, negative rhetoric is hurting the church, not helping it.
• They will all know you are my disciples if you love each other.

How can a pastor effectively manage the pressures of ministry? What are the warning signs for burnout? What do you see pastors doing today that is most detrimental to their marriage and children? What about pastors who are unmarried? What single action is most healing to your emotional health in ministry—and what action is most damaging? How does the care of your own soul affect the relationships that matter most?

Wayne Cordeiro

• It doesn’t matter if you’re in a big or small church, every single one of us is susceptible for being burned out in ministry
• It can start with anxiety.
• When you are in ministry you can’t stop the train.
• You put on a mask, grit your teeth, and make it through.
• What fuels you in the inside will also destroy you.
• Pastor’s lives are bookended with sermons.
• Wayne began having anxiety attacks.
• We need to take a rest.
• If you don’t take a sabbatical, you’ll get a forced sabbatical.
• God > Self > Spouse > Family > Ministry
• Work on yourself harder than you work on your ministry.
• 50% of leadership is self-management. – Bill Hybels
• We often think we need to put ourselves last.
• Your capacity is not equal to your commission.
• There’s a difference between your calling and your compulsion.
• It’s not just managing your time, it’s also managing your compulsions.
• I feel like Schindler… I could have done so much more.
• You could save one more marriage today but ruin yours tomorrow.
• There are needs everywhere, you have to focus on what God is calling you to do.
• At first we think we are invincible in ministry and think we are bullet-proof.
• We don’t forget that we are pastors we forget that we are human.
• We get to a point where we can’t be human anymore.
• People need a hero… an authentic, godly leader.
• To admit your pain would make it seem like you can’t be a hero.
• The road to what you perceive as success and the road to a mental breakdown become the same thing.
• We can still function, but we can lack joy in what we do.
• “Restore unto me the joy of my salvation…”
• The devil can’t steal my marriage but he can steal my joy in it.
• The devil can steal our joy and force us to disqualify ourselves.
• The devil can’t push you over the edge, so he will find ways to make you jump.

James MacDonald

• I went through two seasons where I almost quit ministry.
• I was unhealthy in how I related to my church.
• I bore the weight of other people’s failed performance and disfunction.
• I had to come to the place where I looked at our leadership team and said it wasn’t healthy for me.
• I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing without some good men that got over their egos and helped me.
• I had to make myself accountable to a team of people.
• I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out for myself.

Wayne Cordeiro

• You have to ask for help.
• The eye cannot see the eye.
• You need objective help that’s from outside of yourself.
• That’s where pride and ego needs to be depleted… humility is huge.
• We can wish for Jesus to lift us over the valleys, but Jesus drags us right through them… but He will never let to go of your hand.
• You can choose to let go.

T.D. Jakes

• This issue is of paramount importance.
• Sometimes we focus so much on who we are, what we have, what we think and what we believe that we can lose sight of the fact that we are brothers.
• We are similar in ways that are very important.
• The problem exists because we are busy putting the oxygen masks on the passengers and not ourselves.
• We can implode.
• We haven’t been taught or been given permission to scream for help.
• When we go under all of the sharks come out.

Wayne Cordeiro

• We all need to give somebody permission to speak into our lives.

James MacDonald

• Giving permission won’t give the courage.
• Remind people to have the courage to speak truth to you.

T.D. Jakes

• Very few men of God create a platform of total transparency.
• We are always so camera-ready that we never appear before people fighting.
• In addition to having someone you can be transparent with, you have to practice telling the truth.
• We can hide behind the truth we herald because it is a safe place.
• When you crash, you don’t crash outwardly, you crash inwardly.
• Do you have a person, place, time, and language to come out from behind the curtain and show people who we really are.
• You cannot critique what you cannot see.
• You need to have a plethora of relationships that do not compete with you but that complete you.
• Broaden your scope and broaden your thinking.
• Have a sounding board with someone who doesn’t echo your truth.

What can a wife to do prevent her husband’s burnout?

• Jack Graham: Allow him to be who he really is at home. Your wife should be your #1 accountability person. We can’t dump the pressures of ministry at home. That can create offense in the home. Keep it real at the house. Oftentimes, wives and children see someone different at home than they see in the pulpit. Don’t be so proud that you can’t get the help that you need.
• Mark Driscoll: I told Grace I needed her to be my friend. Stop asking me what I’m doing, start asking me how I’m doing.

How often should a pastor take a sabbatical?

• Crawford Loritts: There’s not an easy answer for that. I feel as if some of us who mentor younger leaders are partly complicent in this trajectory. We focus on leadership and strategy when need to focus on leader development and hold up the principle of brokenness and dependence on God. We have a forever need for the Lord and a distance between who I am and what I’m doing. Your identity is not your ministry. Gift are oversold. God doesn’t use what we bring to the table, He uses what we surrender to Him.