Catalyst Nitecap

If you’re going to talk about Catalyst, you have to talk about Andy Stanley– he opened and closed the conference with two incredible sessions. How do you talk about Catalyst? With passion, enthusiasm and shake-your-head amazement at what you learned. You tell people, “I feel like I just got kicked in the face by Jesus.” even though you have good reason to believe that Jesus does not kick people in the face, but you don’t know any better way to describe the loving correction that happens in the sessions.

Peter and I got in to the ATL about 11:30pm and went straight to our rooms- (sweet rooms, Sarah! thanks!) we met up with the Next Level team the next a.m. over breakfast; bleary-eyed and ready to rock.

Andy’s first talk was on power. He used the story from the gospels about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. Matt taught on this two sundays ago in the context of service… I taught it last Sunday in the context of humility… Andy talked about it in the context of power and asked this question: What do you do when you realise you are the most powerful person in the room? Answer: you leverage your power for the sake of the people in the room. He mentioned that church leaders are more comfortable with the word ‘influence’ rather than ‘power’… but we mean the same thing, don’t we?
It obviously gets me thinking about what influence/power i have and whether in those given situations i am leveraging my influence for the sake of the other people in the room… or for myself? Where and how in a given day could i be influencing situations for Cara’s sake?

I think i’m probably in a lot of situations in the course of a day where i am both powerful and oblivious to that power- situations where i could be taking care of other people, giving them a chance, empowering them, freeing them up… instead, i act powerless and talk like Jesus isn’t present in the room, as if God wouldn’t want to do something for someone sitting next to me.

If Christ lives within the believer, then the power/influence of Christ is available to leverage for the sake of the people in the room. Maybe i’m not the most powerful peorson in the room, maybe i’m just His representative- what does that mean for the rest of the people in the room?

Geez. Anybody want to complain about xianese? I do. No pages were updated in the making of this post.