Day 2 of Catalyst was, despite the lack of Jeff Foxworthy, overall better than the first day.

The first session was Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz) interviewing his pastor, Rick McKinley. I've read McKinley's book Jesus in the Margins, and he was every bit as inspiring and challenging at Catalyst as he was in his book. At his church in Portland, Imago Dei Community, he talked about how he made a choice to move into being missional in the community. He said it wasn't working until he was willing to risk the complete failure of the church - but he had decided he didn't want to "play church" anymore. McKinley's perspective is interesting, because he had almost no connection to church before he received Christ as an adult, so his approach is refreshing. If I was going to get involved in a "conventional" church again, it'd probably be as unconventional as Imago Dei sounds like.

The second session was Louie Giglio. Louie is the founder of Passion (a college-age worship movement), speaks at 7:22, and also heads up sixstepsrecords (home of most of the Passion artists such as Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, etc.). Louie is always one of my favorite speakers. He said that ministry is "not about being great businessmen," but about "empowering normal people to do supernatural things."

In the third session, Kevin Carroll talked about the value of "play," and the value of understanding the way children view the world, full of imagination and possibilities. Kevin Carroll calls himself a "Katalyst," helping other companies turn creative ideas into reality.

To end the day, Donald Miller talked about where the church has come from and where it's going. The thought that stuck with me the most was this: the problems come when the church tries to be like the world. Pre-enlightenment, the church asserted its authority via grand buildings (that looked similar to the royal castles), and holy rituals. Post-enlightenment, the church took on the position as the conveyor of truth. Today, the church takes the position of entertainment and marketing. Miller said that if you look at the metaphors used in the New Testament, though, you'll see the metaphor of fathers and sons being reunited. Of finding things that were once lost. Rather than viewing Christianity as a product to be marketed, he said that we need to view our ministry as reuniting people with their Creator. Awesome stuff.

Overall, day two didn't feel as oriented to "church staff" in the same way that day one felt. We were being challenged to view ministry as a spiritual phenomenon, not a business phenomenon.

The real question was this: when it came time to order tickets at a really low cost for next year, would I do it? I decided that yes, I would do it. This was a good opportunity for me to test a lot of what I have been experiencing against a lot of thought-provoking speakers, and challenge some of my thinking. I'm also very encouraged that there were a higher number of speakers this year that questioned the "status quo" in terms of simply applying sound business principles to church ministry as an avenue for success. Given that they even bothered to invite George Barna to speak in front of a lot of these pastors, church staff, and lay leaders of conventional churches, I really want to see how Catalyst continues to grow - not just in size, but in scope.

Labels: Catalyst, church

So I went to my first Catalyst Conference as a house-church participant, as opposed to a conventional church worship leader. I gotta say, the changes in my life in the last year has changed my perspective on this quite a bit.

Andy Stanley started things off with a good start, talking out of Daniel 4-5. The discussion cenetered on this line, repeated several times in Daniel: "the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes." If found it ironic that he applied this to church ministry. Funny, I thought churches were supposed to be a part of the kingdom of God, not mini kingdoms of men.

Next up was Marcus Buckingham, who talked about playing to your strengths rather than always trying to improve your weaknesses. Good stuff, even if they've been talking about that kind of stuff at Catalyst for years. Still, he put it in more of a workplace/career context, rather than just trying to focus on church, which is good. Sometimes I think some of the speakers forget that a lot of the people at Catalyst aren't employed in ministry. Marcus certainly didn't ignore that.

First up, after lunch, was George Barna. I honestly felt like people just didn't understand Barna. He would say things, and people would just be completely silent. Here is a guy that has been hugely respected in the ministry world for years, but now that he's written a book basically predicting that conventional churches will lose about half of their market share over the next twenty years, and that it's not entirely a bad thing, people just tune him out. One thing he said, that should have gotten a response, and didn't: "Jesus didn't call us to go to church, he called us to BE the church." There were several more. I was annoyed.

Then John Maxwell took the stage. They did this as a Q&A session with Andy Stanley asking the questions. I've seen Maxwell speak numerous times, mostly at Catalyst, but also at other leadership seminars. Something clicked with me this time, though. Maxwell's ideas and leadership principles completely make sense in a business world. But in the kingdom of God, they completely rule out spiritual possibilities. For instance, he always says that you can only increase a skill a notch or two - so if you're a 3 on a scale from 1 to 10, with a lot of hard work and discipline, you can increase to a 4 or a 5, but never higher.

This starts to bug me though - because it rules out spiritual gifts. I don't believe that Jesus' disciples were 10's on a leadership scale when he picked them. I don't even believe that they were a 7. They were probably more like a 2. He picked the least capable to prove that with the inflow of the Holy Spirit, the least talented of us can become the greatest servants in the kingdom. People who have never shown any leadership potential can, with the direciton of the Spirit, become great leaders in the kingdom of God. I've never heard Maxwell acknowledge that there's a difference, and many (if not most) conventional churches are run more like a business than as a part of God's kingdom, so this makes sense.

Then there was a special guest - Jeff Foxworthy had the chance to share. He started with a definition of what a redneck is: "a complete and utter lack of sophistication." He then talked a little bit about his background, told a few redneck jokes (and even managed to make fun of West Virginia in the process), but then started talking about examples of rednecks in the Bible.

The thing is, he was challenging as Barna, but because of his delivery style, I suppose (and probably the fact that he hadn't written a book predicting the decline of the influence of the conventional church), his reception was much warmer.

But he basically gave every indication that he is a revolutionary. He can't stand churches that are stuffy and require everyone to dress up (where rednecks would NOT fit in). He said he specifically won't join a church that requires membership, because he's a member of the kingdom of God. And that when it comes to church leadership, we're all sheep leading sheep, and there is only ONE shepherd.

Overall, Jeff Foxworthy gave the most challenging and thought-provoking talk up that that point. It's pretty interesting that he beat out Andy Stanley and John Maxwell in that regard.

The last speaker of the day was Gary Haugen, president of the International Justice Mission, which is a group of lawyers that works around the world to provide law enforcement the evidence they need to break up forced child prostitution and illegal slavery rings. Pretty awesome stuff. His talk really centered on the command for Christians to be God's agents of justice in the world. He was quite challenging on the need to get out of the "visitor's center" (implication: going to church) and go "out there" where Jesus is, where it is dangerous, and show people that God is good by bringing justice where there is oppression. Awesome stuff.

All in all a good day. I was actually expecting to feel more on the outside of things looking in - but I think this year, with the inclusion of Barna, Catalyst is at least trying to throw a bone to people like me: formerly disillusioned Christians who are finding a deeper call to the kingdom of God outside of conventional church.

Looking forward to day two.

Labels: Catalyst, church

In the last article of this series, I will focus for a moment on something that people have a hard time accepting: change.

Andy Stanley, in the last session of Catalyst 2005, gave a talk about Gaining and Sustaining Momentum. You are only experiencing momentum if you are reaching out to more people, seeing deeper commitments to Christ, and having a greater impact on the world. Momentum represents what the church is, at its best:

And each day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved. (Acts 2:47, NLT)

I couldn't imagine a better description of momentum, and it's found right in the middle of the description of the New Testament Church at its best.

Stanley talked about three components of sustained momentum: new, improved, and improving.

Anything new, by definition, generates some kind of momentum. The momentum can be positive or negative. Study any organization that has enjoyed a season of momentum and you will discover at least one of three things: new leadership, new direction (or vision), or a new product (or program). When evaluating an organization or program that lacks momentum, ask, 'Do we need a new leader, a new direction, or a new product? Do we need some combination of the three?'

But it's not enough for it to be something small: "minor improvements to something that lacks momentum will not trigger momentum." We need to be willing to make a major shift if we want to see momentum occur. But new by itself does not guarantee sustained momentum.

If we want sustained momentum, we must ensure that what is new is also improved. If the new thing is also improved, it will sustain momentum for the short term, but it must be a significant improvement.

Stanley mentioned that significant improvement often costs money, but that we're usually already stretched too thin financially when we're at the point of needing to do something to generate momentum. He warned us to not spend money on mediocre ministries – we should focus on the core of the organization, and concentrate on the vision. If we would focus on the vision, and abandon areas that are not essential to that vision, momentum will take hold and as the organization grows, the resources will be there to replenish what used to be mediocre with a better quality program. Funding a large number of mediocre ministries gets us nowhere – funding a small number of high-quality ministries will gain sustained momentum.

But improved will only sustain momentum for the short term. To continually sustain momentum, new must be improved, and improving.

Small, incremental improvements rarely result in sustained momentum. Long-term momentum is sustained through continuous improvement. Specifically, your leadership must maintain an uncompromising commitment to relevance. Your vision must be recast and re-illustrated. Your product must be continuously upgraded. Continuous improvement requires systematic and unfiltered evaluation.

We must not just be open to change; we must be committed to change. But success breeds complacency, and complacency brings failure. We have a tendency to coast on previous successes. But we have to constantly re-evaluate, and embrace change, if we want the momentum we need to have a greater impact.

It's easy to accept change if you believe, as I discussed in previous posts, that very little of what we do is sacred. If you are holding onto customs and styles that defined success in the past, then change is scary, and momentum actually makes you uncomfortable. But with momentum, we have a greater opportunity to reach out and take the message out into the world. This is our calling, to adapt to our surroundings and communicate the gospel. We must maintain a firm grasp on the few things that are sacred, and let the rest go. Only then can we be fully committed to Christ's calling.

If we are afraid of change, then we are afraid of momentum, and as a result, we are afraid of success. There is another way I would describe complacency: being lukewarm. And Christ specifically warned us about being lukewarm:

I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, I will spit you out of my mouth! Revelation 3:15-16 (NLT)

Are we complacent? Are we lukewarm? Or are we hot, ready to do whatever it takes?

Labels: Catalyst, church