Catalyst 2013

Ahhhh, Catalyst Conference.  It feels like home to me.  These are my people – passionate, committed leaders willing to push the envelope, ask the tough questions, worship with abandon, debate and discuss, commune and connect.  Through the years this place has been an incubator for my growth as a leader.  I have hidden in the nosebleed seats of the Gwinnet Arena many years surrounded by thousands and yet hearing distinctly the voice of God as he would stretch me, challenge me, pull me, compel me to whatever next he had in store for me.

These days my Catalyst experience is a bit more hectic.  I’ve been blessed to have a small part of contributing to the experience.  Today as I zigzagged through the corridors I was reminded of how significant this experience is.  Of the thousands of young leaders who are being shaped for futures unknown to us but perfectly crafted by God.  If we grasped the significance…. If we understood the impact… if we caught a glimpse of what God is orchestrating… I think it would undo us.  Perhaps it’s best we don’t understand the scope of all that might be going on in a room of 12,000 young leaders.  We probably couldn’t contain it.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to sit in all the sessions today but I thought I would share with you my notes from Andy Stanley’s opening session.  Perfect and challenging as you would expect.

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Andy Stanley

You have an appetite to be known.

This appetite will never be fully and finally satisfied.

There is no amount of known that will satisfy your appetite to be known.

There’s a little Lady Gaga in all of us.  We live for the applause.

What do you do with it?  How do you survive it?

The Laws of Applause:

1)   What’s applauded as exceptional the first time will be expected the next time. Exceptional becomes expectional.  Your desire to be known will drive you to do things you would normally not consider.

2)   Applause is intoxicating.  Intoxicated people don’t make very good decisions.  Those most applauded for feel most entitled to.

3)   Applause is addictive.  We start looking for it, manufacturing it.  If it gets out of hand you become a victim of known.

The challenge for leaders: To lead, you must be known.  You’ve actually been called to be known.

How do we keep it from ruining us?  Making us strange?  Becoming a victim of the laws of applause?

Mark 1:4

John 1:21-23 “Who are you? … What do you say about yourself?”

John’s response was that he was just the one pointing the way.  He was the directional sign pointing to Jesus.

“A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. “  John 3:27

Remember Who it’s from and remember Who it’s for.

Your appetite for known will never be satisfied by a number, but by a name.  It’s a who, not a how many.

God allows us to be known to make him known.

God has given you the stewardship of known-ness to make him known.

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