What We Learn At Pastor Conferences

On March 25 I was blessed to be able to attend the Catalyst One Day conference (http://www.catalystspace.org) at Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago. The featured speakers were Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel. It was an amazing event with about 2100 pastors and church staff in attendance.

The day long format was intense but extremely gratifying.

Here are notes from what I felt was the best of the presentations by Craig Groeschel, pastor of Church.tv (http://www.lifechurch.tv) Some of the notes are his and some of the comments are mine.

Busting Barriers with Mindset Changes by Craig Groeschel


Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Romans 12:2

Think Differently about your church culture. (or whatever)

(don’t think) Our people won’t ____________. (do, think, any behavior, i.e. invite, bring unchurched to worship; won’t get into worship, etc.)
(do think) We haven’t led them to _____________. (do, think, any behavior).

They “won’t” because we “don’t.” We have to model the behavior we want them to do. Whether this is how to worship, how to invite unchurched people, how to give. What people will do depends largely on what we lead them to do and to do that we must do what it is we are asking of them.

Think differently about programming.

(don’t think) We have to do more to reach more.
(do think) We can reach more by doing less. (Less is more). Why do we keep doing things that don’t give life? Life transformation decreases as activity increases.

Think differently about the mission.
(don’t think) We can’t hurt someone’s feelings.
(do think) We can’t allow someone to hold back the mission of the church.

Think differently about people leaving the church.
(don’t think) We can’t let anyone leave.
(do think) We can grow when people leave.

Wrong mindset on this is a momentum killer. Don’t be needy. Needy people are there for the wrong reasons. Typical complaints of needy people: I didn’t like that song. The preacher isn’t deep enough. The music is too loud (seriously, he said all this).
Don’t bless the wrong people to leave, but the right ones. You choose.

Think differently about limitations.
(don’t think) We can’t because we don’t ______
(do think) We can be we don’t __________

Sometimes God guides by what he provides, sometimes by what he withholds. Limitation leads to innovation. Perhaps the biggest innovations came about because of limitations (lack of space led to second site instead of new building).

Three Assingments:
Find someone one or two steps ahead of you and learn how they think (not what they do - don’t copy what without the why).
Identify one wrong mindset and ask God to renew your mind with truth.
Identify one painful decision you’ve been avoiding and commit to make the decision no matter what the short term pain.

Thanks for reading. God bless. PJ