Sit down and shut up, Jesus

Hypothetical situation: I invite two friends to my house for a meal, a game, and to catch up on life. As they arrive, my buddies greet each other warmly, to my joy. I wait for my hug, but they pass into the other room where dinner waits to fill their growling bellies. With the exception of a token nod or word in my direction, they eat, play, and talk in such a way that leaves me no opportunity to participate (without elbowing my way in, which I won’t do). They even spend a significant time talking about me, my life, and how much they value my friendship – yet rarely acknowledge me (all in my own home). What is even more confusing and painful? They seem blissfully content for me to be present in the room though functionally excluded.  Spending time with friends who I love while being gagged, tied, and overlooked brings grief.*

The title above no doubt betrays my underlying focus. But what inspires the story above? “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” We find these words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 18:20.

Lately I’m compelled by the reality that He is living. Jesus is alive.

If Jesus is alive, and if he is with us when we gather, I wonder how he desires to interact and how we ignore him. What does Jesus hope for by being among us? What do we miss out on by carrying on without him?

If Jesus truly is among us, we need to restructure our gatherings (formal and informal) in such a way that allows the Christ to participate, and even more so, to lead. Let’s not just talk and sing about him, let’s talk and sing to him, and most importantly, let’s listen to (and obey) our good and worthy King.

*In the story above, I don’t mean to equate myself with Christ… But I find it helpful to put myself in Christ’s shoes to empathize with how I imagine Jesus feels sometimes when his friends & family gather in his name.

the Nines 2010

Today I’m watching the The Nines 2010, an online leadership conference where Christian leaders are asked the question: “If you had only 9 minutes, what would you share with Christian leaders?” on the theme of “game-changers” (not sure yet what all that means). So, I’m gonna watch 9 hours of videos streamed live and try to blog main points of each, partly to share, partly to help me concentrate. I think it’s going to take a little while to process and apply…!

To get a small taste of what the live videos were like, check some out at this link over the next couple of weeks (after which it will be shut down, if I understand correct): http://media.leadnet.org/nines/videos_featured.html

Dino Rizzo

• Continue to value the small.
• How well do we still care for one person?

Charles Jenkins

• Book of Acts flipped the church inside out, empowered by the Holy Spirit to impact culture

Jenni Catron

• If everything in life were black and white, there probably wouldn’t be a need for leaders.
• One of the primary jobs of leaders is to navigate the “shades of gray”
• Nehemiah: Identifies the gray, prays, pushes forward

John Bishop

• Risk everything to reach everyone, like we find in Luke 15
• “I hope we all have an awakening toward grace”

Michael Hyatt

• The power of asking the right questions – if we ask good questions, we get good answers
• Questions determine the result
• A better question in adversity: “What does this experience make possible?”

Mark DeYmaz

• How do we know when it is time to move on?
• Maybe when we are not in a place of dependence on God.
• “Without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6)

Frank Turk

• Jesus is a real person

Mike Slaughter

• Commitment to discipleship changes the game more than anything
• Neither programs or services don’t produce disciples. Discipleship produces disciples

Keld Dahlmann

• I spent alot of energy in the beginning trying to motivate people, but now I believe you can’t really do that. Motivation comes from within. Instead I ask what are people motivated for?
• Shift into discipling who people are rather than trying to make them into something else.

Stacy Spencer

• Christ in crisis
• Not asking “why me?” but “what now?”

Ed Stetzer

• Every person in the church is gifted and called to ministry. The only question is where, and among whom?
• The hope is active participators in the mission of God, not passive observers.
• When pastors do for people what God has called people to do, everyone gets hurt and the mission of God gets hindered
• 1 Peter 4:10, 1 Cor 12:7, John 20:21
• God has not called us to do everything, but to equip

Kim Meyer

• Are we more focused on what we have to say than who we are saying it to?
• Are we pushing an agenda rather than personalizing a message
• Are we more focused on performance or policy than on the individual person?

Patrick Kelley

• Psalm 25:3 “No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame”
• There was no plan B, w/out Jesus we were dead.
• I don’t serve success, I serve God

Dave Ferguson

• Keep mission and vision moving forward by saying “yes” before asking “how”?
• 1 Peter 2:9

Eric Bramlett

• what a jokester

Toby Slough

• This one was powerful… and I forgot to write this one down..

Scott Williams

• If you change your perspective, you change the game

Matt Carter

• “never trust a man of God who doesn’t walk with a limp”
• Psalm 39
• David desired to live in holy urgency, with the shortness of his life in view
• There is a direct connection between you understanding how short your life really is and the urgency with which you’ll live that life.

Jonathan Falwell

• He didn’t equip me to be able to what another pastor/leader does • Often we spend so much time trying to be like some other pastor, we miss out on God’s best for us.
• 1 Kings 18
• When I realized that successful ministry has nothing to do with the accolades of others, but our faithfulness to God’s calling for our church. Then I was free to focus like never before.

Chip Henderson

• Eph. 5 – Husbands love your wives… -God revealed I was completely selfish and Jesus was not. -I did not have a servant’s heart. (could pretend when convenient) -I need to serve my wife and my kids

Eric Geiger

• Becoming a pastor is about leaving direct ministry and preparing and equipping others to do ministry

JD Greear

• The hope of a sermon: that people leave not with just more information, not some action steps, but worshipping
• Change when their eyes are opened to see the largeness of God and captivated by His beauty

Angela Yee

• Uses a “focus funnel” to prioritize
• Starts with a big picture view, then breaks it down into manageable chunk
• Write down 2-3 goals for that year.
• Set some “yes” goals that help get there, and some “no” goals (things that you need to cut)
• Each week has a specific focus / priority
• Days are divided into morning / afternoon / evening blocks
• When we get to end of funnel, we focus on what we do right now.

Scott Lehr

• Why does God allow us to be a part of his amazing work?
• For us, honesty (admitting we don’t know what we are doing), expectations (expecting God to be God)

Craig Groeschell

• The 5 year plan is dead and stupid
• We try for less time, more flexibility, so we can respond readily to God
• Less resources means more innovation – money isn’t the answer
• Less structure is better, though you need some. Over structure slows things down.
• Someone makes a mistake, so they write a policy Policies, paperwork, and boards drastically slow innovation, flexibility, and progress

Rafael Castillo

• Discipline doesn’t come to inflict pain but with a redemptive purpose
• Stand up and deal with the sin in your life. If we don’t deal with it, than God will deal with it.

Gayle Haggard

• Our righteousness is in God

Patrick Johnson

• How do we create a culture of generosity?
• Generous leaders, communicate (talk about the joy, say thank you, celebrate what God is doing), gospel focus, discipleship strategy, externally focused
• Dollar for dollar concept – a dollar for the kingdom for every dollar on themselves

Miles McPherson

• The body of Christ should be doing the same thing today as Jesus did
• How many “symptom centers” (place where wounded people go to medicate their fallen nature) in your neighborhood? Telling of the need
• Jesus walked. Jesus went to the people. Go to the places you just counted rather than waiting for them to come to you.
• Ask community leaders how you can help

Scott Wilson

• Are we too busy doing stuff for the community that we don’t have time to do stuff with the community?
• Does the neighborhood believe it is better because God’s people live there?
• John 20:21

Tim Stevens

• Performance had nothing to do with Jesus’ love for me.
• The local church is the hope of the world
• Changed my life around making family first
• Rethinking church.

Bob Roberts

• In the midst of obsessing over church growth, God asked, “When will Jesus be enough for you?”
• Hear and obey and hear and obey and hear and obey.
• Focus on global and local.

Sam Chand

• People are game-changers. They opened doors for me, introduced me to others. They were way ahead of me. They were thinking ahead of me, bigger than me, , better than me. They were generous with their time, and in making connections for me.

Jud Wilhite

• Don’t get so caught up in the moment that you lose the joy of the moment

Jaeson Ma

• Not about going to church, but being the church, salt and light, in the world.
• When two or three are gathered, willing to obey Jesus’ commands, that is the church.
• Everyone is called to be a minister, a missionary, to make disciples, to see God’s kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
• Our goal is not to get to heaven, but to get heaven to earth (by our good works).
• Why is it not happening here in North America? I truly believe it is because of our belief system. If we believe it can’t happen, it won’t happen
• Live a life of prayer.
• The same God from yesterday is the same God of today

Laura Koke

• I don’t remember specifics, but I come away listening to Laura convinced of the power of investing in the coming generation

Steve Robinson

• About giving up control in ministry
• From self-focused ministry (I want to make a difference) to surrendering to Christ
• Jesus learned obedience through suffering

Larry Osborne

• I quit judging myself through the lens of potential and performance
• You have nothing to improve and no one to impress
• Rest in Christ and find identity in Him

Brad Powell

• I wasn’t living each day in light of this game changing principle:  Eternity is always on the line
• I try to write a talk that engaged God’s word in a way, that could change a person’s life who was desperately needing God in that moment, who might not be here in the next.

Chris Elrod

• Small churches are significant to the kingdom of God
• I realized I was spending all my time chasing another’s vision, or coveting other’s ministries instead of sitting in the presence of God and loving my own church
• If you are reaching people with the message of Jesus Christ, and you are seeing them come to know him, and lives changed, then you are significant and your church is significant in the kingdom of God.

Brady Boyd

• If you know how to worship and how to pray, the darkest season of life will not overwhelm you.

Will Mancini

• Every desire is not necessarily God’s vision for us, but often our projection of what we want.
• God began to teach me living His visions vs. chasing my projection of ministry idolatry.

Brian Bloye

• Purpose statement for my life: To pursue Christ with such intimacy that the glory of God would be revealed through every area of my life.
• God’s priority is the revelation of his glory
• God does not exist to make much of us, we exist to make much of Him.

Pete Wilson

• Luke 14:26 • If anyone comes to me and doesn’t hate father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he can not be my disciple.
• Jesus is saying, “Don’t allow good things to become ultimate things”
• Your greatest temptation probably is not to chase after the ridiculously evil, it is to chase after the deceptively good

Greg Holder

• Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength
• Biblical waiting is an act of trust

Walter August

• All you need is love

Chad Hunt

• What are you doing to invest in leaders?
• You can’t grow the church till you grow the leadership.

Charles Lee

• Collaboration leads to exponential growth.
• Collaboration births creativity / Intentionally spontaneous moments of creativity
• Elements for co/laboration: – transparency >> trust – clarity >> direction – community >> accountability – openness >> formation – listening >> strategy – intentionality >> ethos

Matt Fry

• We chose not to do life alone
• We are where we are today because of leaders who have come along side. We are strongest when we are connected. We are more effective.

Joan Ball

• Great story about where some guys said to Jesus, “Lord when did we see you in need?” and how God reminded Joan of this when she was being interrupted by a man at an airport while she was trying to film her video, and how awesome it was to spend time with him.

Neil Cole

• To fulfill Great Commission we have to learn to see the entire world, lift our eyes to the global harvest.
• Over the course of 20 years – unlearning how to do church, – unlearning what it means to be a leader, – so we don’t create dependency but reproduction
• 1) Can it be received personally? – Does it make a difference in my life? – If it doesn’t change my life, not going to hand it to anyone else
• 2) Is it repeated easily? Can I write it on a napkin and pass it on to the next person? – Simple reproduces, complex does not
• 3)Can it be reproduced strategically? – Can it work in other contexts and cultures – Can it be translated in other languages and still work? – Universal principles vs. Culturally bound ones

Bill Easum

• As a new Christian, many seasoned believers invested in time with him. Don’t zap and forget new believers
• If your church gets too large to where new believers are getting overlooked, something needs to change.
• When you have people come to Christ, mentor them. Spend time with them. They need a place to go to share thoughts and doubts.
• If you follow God’s dream, you will never be disappointed

Frances Chan

• One of the biggest changes in my life, the game changers, were the relationships with my elders.
• Men I trusted and loved. They were hard workers. They loved through adversity. I saw sacrifices they made for the gospel. They lived for the Lord. They encouraged me to think more biblically
• I liked the old system–I was more a loner and wanted to deal with my own relationship with God
• But we kept looking and started asking: – What actions do we need to be family? – Decided to set the example – What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine – Let’s think through interdependence
• I Peter: saved… in order to be part of something v.9, 10 Royal priesthood…
• I John 4:11: Love one another
• We got convicted – in scripture leaders are held more accountable. – It’s not just enough to do good things. – Need the Bride to become what God called it to be – One anothers – Even if we lose people, we have to do this
• Cain brought good stuff. But it wasn’t what God asked for.

Shawn Wood

• When my metrics are used to measure rather than God’s metrics, it does not matter how I measure up.
• I was measuring how good a church was based on how large it was rather than on impact

Tammy Kelley

• What we DO as church leaders really matters.
• The inconsistency between what we say, say we want to do, say we believe and we actually do stinks
• We need to do what we say we are going to do.
• We need to model right behaviors
• It’s better to say little, or nothing, than fill the air with meaningless words we can’t put action to.

Shawn Lovejoy

• We’ve focused so much on inovation that we lost sight of reformation.
• Shifted our focus toward being a gospel-oriented community. That very shift has caused us to become the most innovative church in our community again.

Mark Beeson

• Deadly distractions
• You are always going to have critics. Sometimes you are going to find yourself distracted by those critics.
• When you stop what you are doing to express anger, you are siphoning energy off of your mission, and taking strength away from what you could and should be doing.
• There’s the temptation to be distracted to the point of mission failure if there are people who don’t agree with you, who don’t go along.

Skye Jethani

• Students wanted to talk about the “ongoing presence of sin” in their lives. – Asked them, “How do you think God views you in the midst of your sin? All gave the same answer: God is supremely disappointed.
• Paul’s focus in 1 Cor 7: Paul said they should remain in the condition in which God called them, but stay there with God.
• not what are you doing for God, but what are you doing with God.
• The real motivation to get rid of sin is not so we can do more, but so that we can experience more of God

Thom Rainer

• After 9/11 I talked with two teenagers about churches in America. • Commonality was gender and age • Both Millenials • Spiritual matters – the boys were from two different perspectives (committed Christian, atheist) • both were saying most churches were irrelevant. (wake up call)
• Churches that are connecting with the Millenial generation: 1. Look beyond themselves ( a. money goes out beyond the church 2. Are in the community a. making a difference b. living incarnationally c. highly missional 3. Are going deep a. Deep in the word b. Deep in teaching c. Millenials don’t want shallow Christianity d. Even those who are not Christian want to learn about our faith.

Dave Gibbons

• Biggest issue for us is how we define neighbor
• I used to describe neighbors as someone like me, but it seems like Jesus often describes neighbors as someone very different, even people who are enemies, or who we are uncomfortable around

Bruce Miller

• Where do we see balance in the Bible?
• I read that I’m supposed to sacrifice my life, take up my cross.
• I’ve thrown out balance. I think its harmful, false ideal that doesn’t make sense. What do you put in its place?
• Rhythm. It’s so much more dynamic than balance. Balance is static.
• Balance is a photograph; rhythm is video. You don’t pause life to balance it. Life is moving.
• There are two kinds of rhythm; there are two types of time; two Greek words
• Kairos – season in your life. Like the rhythm of a story or symphony
• Chronos – are cycles. Like the beat of a drum or the week and the day that repeat over and over. Built into the created order.
• How could we live better if we lived our lives in rhythm?
• When you hit the kairos times, seasons/stages in your life, you have to release expectations that don’t fit Seize opportunities that are unique to that time. Anticipate what’s next – this season too shall past.
• With chronos, repeated cycles, we can pace ourselves.
• Ecclesiastes 3 – central for rhythm. There’s a time for everything, a season for each one.

Amy Hanson

• Am convinced that the aging Baby Boomer is going to be a game changer for society and for the church
• In 2011 the first baby boomer turns 65 – 2030 – more than 72 million adults over the age of 65 (1/4 of our population. – Happening globally – Massive group of people with time, experience, resources. – Waiting to be called to a significant Kingdom work.
• Their capacity to give – New phase of life – beginning to retire – no longer caring for kids – asking how do I want to spend the next 20 years.
• Church leaders can ignore the reality, or step in, point them to Christ, and engage them in His mission
• First – not going to respond to your current senior adult ministries – not interested in social clubs or potlucks or bus trips – want to be active and involved – don’t like anything that resembles getting old – don’t like word “senior”
• Second – start a retirement revolution in your church and your community. – our culture has taught us retirement is to do the kinds of things we want to do. – That is the worldly view of retirement – Teach young people to save, save, save so they can enjoy themselves in retirement. – As leaders call people to something great. Point to Christ. Mobilize them for His mission.
• We have a window of opportunity to harness the capacity of aging Baby Boomers and mobilize them to be Kingdom laborers for Christ.

Andrew Jones

• Luke 10
• Jesus tells his short term mission team to leave their bags
• A person of peace who is going to provide
• There’s somebody waiting for them.
• They will only find this person if they left their stuff behind.
• If you have too much stuff, if you are too rich, you don’t have any filter.
• You end up doing a lot of stuff with a lot of people. But you miss the right people God is leading you to.
• I’m beginning to understand that more because of the recession and our response to it.
• Embracing voluntary poverty.
• It’s a doorway into communities that normally wouldn’t give me the time of day.
• I’m here not because I’ve got something to give, but because my truck is broken down. These punks are helping me to fix it.
• Sometimes its easier if you are a guest rather than a host to find entry into these communities.
• It’s a filter to discover the right people
• God will use our lack of things to lead us to the right people and right things.
• Ministry is hindered when we have stuff in our bags that shouldn’t be there. Maybe stuff that worked in the past. But now, here, it doesn’t work.
• Matthew decides to follow Jesus. He throws a party. Jesus disciples come. But Matthew pays for the party, Matthew’s friends come. It works, but not because of the disciples. Their poverty allows the right ministry to happen.
• When you embrace voluntary poverty, you walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
• This recession may be the opportunity to hear what the Spirit is saying and to look in our bags and see what shouldn’t be there, and use our lack of resources to find a better way.

Pete Hise

• What if everybody who sits in your church, and claims to be a Christian, really isn’t?
• 1. If you draw a thirty minute radius around Lexington, Kentucky, there are 1200 churches in that circle 2. Remember hearing a study that 80-85% of all Americans claim to be Christians.
• This was fundamentally shifting. – They may be in my church/in our churches – What if my folks are doing things that are “unauthorized”? – What if we think we are making disciples but what we are doing is populating a Matthew 7 line?
• - What if people are thinking they going to Heaven, but they are deceived. – What if they get to Heaven and Jesus says I never knew you. That stuff was unauthorized. I gave my life to know you.

Bill Cornelius

• Personal prayer
• Challenge: look for other leaders that have a real personal walk with God and emulate them in that.

Andy Crouch

• Restore four chapters that are in the Bibles we carry, but are not part of the story we tell
• Gen 1,2 and last two chapters of Revelation
• What happens if your Bible begins with Genesis 3 and ends with Revelations 20?
• The story of sin that leads to judgment.
• What is the good news if that’s your story?
• The Good News is an escape route out of that story; of not being tossed into the lake of fire.
• The problem – it neglects the beginning and end that scripture gives.
• When we neglect the first and last two chapters, we end up with a very distorted picture • of what culture is • what human beings are meant to be • what they are meant to be doing.
• If you begin in Genesis 3, culture is just rebellion. It’s just an expression of sin. • You may ignore it. • You might use it, be strategically relevant so you can extract them from culture and bring them to the story of escape. • You may compartmentalize and think what matters is the spiritual life and can consume culture however you like.
• What if we begin in Genesis 1?
• Where we discover a very good world, that is not actually very good until God’s image bearers are in it. • They are asked to till the earth and keep it. • To do culture; to fill the earth and multiply. • To do cultural creativity, • to expand through the world, discovering and unfolding its possibility
• so the Creator of that world gets more and more glory.
• What if your Bible includes Revelation 21?
• You discover our destination is not Heaven but a renewed earth.
• In this renewed earth is a city. In this city is the glory and honor of the nations.
• What is the glory and honor of the nations if not culture?
• God’s eternal plan for His recreated world is the fulfillment of His plan for the originally created world.
• The best that human beings would do will have some eternal part in the eternal good world that God gives His redeemed people as a gift at the end of history.
• It’s clear the kings of the earth include pagan kings and the fruits of culture they bring.
• It may not have anything to do with the Jewish story or the Christian story. They are there because they are the fulfillment of God’s call to be image bearers.
• If your story is about escape from the world, that has a certain strategic value if you happen to be a pastor.
• You can make your church better by making the world and culture look worse.
• I’m asking myself “how am I participating to fulfill the call to be an image bearer of God in the world”.
• Are the things that I’m creating the kinds of cultural artifacts that have a chance of being called the glory and honor of the nations and brought into the New Jerusalem?
• This has changed my understanding of what the good news is.
• It’s about the restoration of God’s image bearers through the one true Image Bearer, Jesus Christ (not to just escape from sin)
• The plan He had all along that He’ll complete at the end. That we be makers of culture to the glory and honor of God.

Jon Acuff

• Satire – a vehicle for truth; humor with a purpose I use satire to surprise.
• When you can surprise somebody, when you can get around broca, you can get inside.
• Focus on surprise. Not shock. Shock is offensive. Shock is mockery. Mockery wounds. Mockery has a target and a victim.

Darrin Patrick

• The state of being God most wants to use you in
• We spend tons of time trying to strengthen our weaknesses, but that’s when God most wants to use us.
• 2 Corinthians 12:7 … when I am weak, then I am strong
• No human being wants to avoid their strengths and go to their weaknesses.
• Weakness is something in your life that you are begging God to take away.
• • Moses (speaker) • Joseph (margins of society) • David (King on the run) • Peter (uneducated) • Jesus (the garden)
• Things in our lives that God uses to get us to depend on Him
• God says “no, it’s there because it keeps you dependent on me. And I will use you in your dependence.”
• Strengthen yourself, get equipped, but remember God wants to use you in your weakness.
• He will mainly use us in our weakness

Steven Furtick

• Embrace your uniqueness! We live in a culture of carbon copy.
• When you embrace the thing that makes you unique you become powerful.
• When you embrace your uniqueness, when you surrender your life to your anointing, that’s when God beings to open doors.
• I Samuel 17 – David shook off Israel’s finest equipment and said, “Give me my rocks.” The game changer is the day when everything fell apart and God gave me this realization that all I need are my rocks. Find the unique thing that God made you able to do.
• We get so confused. In trying to learn from everybody, we try to live up to the expectations of others and operate in the gifts of others.
• God will never hold you accountable for something he called someone else to do
• Once you find it, don’t apologize for it. Don’t back down from it, or be intimidated away from it.

Rick Warren

• All boils down to faith
• Takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people
• Common denominator is “faith factor”
• What are you expecting God to do in your life? God will do no more, no less.