My personal assessment of Catalyst

• Andy Stanley talked about leveraging your power for the other people in the room. He used John 13:1-17 to show how Jesus did just that with His power. The big takeaway for me was this...To do anything other than leveraging the power that I have for others is making a public declaration that I am more important than my Saviour.
  

• I wrote this quote down, but I can't remember who said it. "True friends stab in you in the front!" meaning...they are not afraid to confront you with the truth when needed.

• I learned that Patrick Lencioni and I have the same personality profile of "ENFP". I could relate to all of the little rabbit trails he went down. I have the same problems sometimes. He spoke of three important truths. 1) Everybody has a need to be known. 2) Everyone needs to understand how important their role is. 3) There needs to be measurments of performance.

• Here is quote that was said during the Unchristian panel. "Christians are not hated for righteousness, but for their self righteousness!"

• Shane Claiborne said, "I cannot fully recover until I help my world to recover."

• Francis Chan is an amazing communicator. He hit the ball way out of the park when talking about our call/purpose as pastors and leaders. He talked about Jeremiah 1:4-5 and the fact that before we were born and still in our mother's womb, we were set apart for God's plan. He also talked a lot about the cost of following Christ and how our churches in America call for too easy of a commitment.

• Rick Warren had some good quotes...

"The Kingdom of God is wherever Jesus is King."
"Stop trying to change culture and start creating culture."
"Whenever God asks a question, it's not for His benefit."
"The first reformation was about creeds, the next reformation needs to be about deeds."

• John Maxwell talked about adding value to people. Some quotes about adding value from John...

"Just sow, and the reaping will happen."
"People who add value do so intentially, we're naturally subtractors."

• Craig Groeschel talked about three ways to become a practical athiest...

1. Start to believe our effort is better than God's power.
2. Start to believe that our private life doesn't affect our public ministry.
3. Start to believe that we must please people rather than God.

I'll blog more this week on some other great highlights!