Catalyst Day 2

Okay, this day two (officially day one of Catalyst Conference itself). There is so much to describe, comment on, complain about, and rave about that I need to choose my words carefully.

Session 1: Andy Crouch (Culture)
I ran into the wrong room and found myself listening about church and culture. After the first 15 min, I wanted to leave. But, being who I am (or who God designed me to be) I decided to stay. Here are some of the good points:

• God is working outside of the box and many times we tend to look in places "we think" God "should be" working through. We miss opportunity because of this. Drop the filters, agenda, and prestige and let God lead. He does a better anyway.

Session 2: George Barna (Neo-Church)

This session was better than the one before or maybe because it was George Barna...who knows? The hall was packed out and cold. Here are some good points that I picked up:

• God is not impressed nor He cares about whether you have 100 or 1000 people in your fellowship (congregation). Numbers do not reflected the final result. You will lose focus and motivation if you and concerned about numbers. Nevertheless, numbers are important to record and to motivate.
• Statistic's reveal that the conventional church model will not be the norm in 2025. Alternative, home, ect. Church's will become more appealing. People are looking for relationships. Number counting and impressive buildings are not helping facilitate this idea.

Session 3: Rick McKinnley (Neo-Church)

Okay, I thought that George Barna's session was packed out, this one was worst. I sat in the back on the floor (which was more comfortable). This guy reminds me of my old youth pastor Kevin Boesler. Big, laid back and preachy. All good traits (to some) and all bad traits as well (to others). He basically gave defined what church is as describes by the mustard seed parable in Matthew 13. Here are the points:

• Its okay to get dirty in context of ministry and church. In fact, if your hands are not dirty your doing something wrong.
• Dirty means to be engaged in the needs to those who around you, not just the one's who go to "your church".
• Engaged in the needs of others means: giving a sandwich to a bum, paying for a single mothers gas, bringing water to skatepark....etc.

Overall the sessions were incredible! Oh, by the way if haven't already, read the book "Irresistible Revolution" by Shawnee Claribone, AWESOME!!!

We finished the night with dinner at Bugaboo's streak house. Pretty good. The place had animatronic stuffed animals that gave people heart attacks every 30 minutes. Fun times!