Catalyst Confernce

I had the awesome opportunity to spend last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at Catalyst Conference here in Atlanta. It was a great time to be revitalized, and overwhelmed with information at the same time. My mind hasn't stopped spinning since. A lot of great speakers were there, a few of my favorites(in no particular order) were: Steven Furtick, Andy Stanley, Seth Godin, Matt Chandler, Craig Groeschel, and none other than Dave Ramsey. So I tried to narrow that list down, but those were most of the main speakers. Here's a few things I've been mulling over in my mind.

One thing Steven Furtick said that stuck in my mind was "God is preparing you for what He is preparing for you." He was talking about being faithful in the process between the promise God makes us and the payoff of that promise. It seems easy to get discouraged in the ministry of church planting. One week there's a lot of people, the next there is a handful of people. This was very encouraging to me. I found myself becoming discouraged and doubting myself as a leader early last summer.

Dave Ramsey talked about unity. He listed five enemies that keep a staff from building unity. One which I found intriguing is "Sanctioning Incompetency." This is very important as a staff that we hold each other accountable and not put up with incompetent actions/things. I have also been turning this inward on myself. How have I allowed myself to become slack or unproductive in certain areas of my life.

Lastly, a session that I went to on Wednesday night mentioned this. The guy talked about the summit, or penacle of what you are trying to reach, is a state of mind because when you get there, there is always another summit to obtain. It's like dreaming of reaching a certain attendance number on Sunday mornings. When we reach that goal, it will be a bigger dream/goal. His advice was to enjoy the journey.

Lastly, I thought this was random. Friday, I saw a real elephant, Jeff Foxworthy, and Franklin Graham all within like a 4-5 hour window. So random...I'm still not over that.