Catalyst so far...

Well it seems that the internet connection costs money per hour at the arena so I'll have to post highlights from the day:


Pre-Lab session with Reggie Joiner

We started the day with a special pre-lab session that featured Reggie Joiner. He talked about how important it is for churches to change. In order to reach the next generation we can no longer do business as usual.

We find there are churches that either embrace change too slowly or churches that only change halfway. What we find is that the people we might offend by changing the way we do things are the same people who will be mad when we don't change. Because we will have not impacted their kids.

1st Lab with Mark Batterson

Then we headed to our first lab session with Mark Batterson. It was cool to hear from Mark who wrote "In a Pit with a lion on a Snowy Day." He talked a little bit about the history of his church in DC and spoke about chasing lions. In order to chase a lion you need to do something crazy, do something scary and do something risky. Afterward I was able to talk with him for a few minutes and get my book signed. Pretty cool!

3rd Lab with Brad Powell

We went to lunch and came back for a lab session with Brad Powell from NorthRidge Church. He talked about change without compromise. He showed us that church is all about change and in the church we need to embrace change and lead change. True leaders will lead through change. One of the key statements he made was, "the church is the hope of the world, when it's working right." The problem is that most churches aren't working right.

All in all it has been a great day so far. We heading back in just a little bit for our evening session that we're both looking forward to. It's been pretty amazing so far and we really haven't even started the conference yet.

Oh and for your information here is a picture of our cool Volvo:


More later.