Catalyzed, Part 1

On October 3rd, my brother Eric, his buddy Matt, and myself traveled down to Atlanta, Georgia to attend Catalyst 2012. Eric had attended last year, and had quickly made it known that I had to go this year. With speakers like Andy Stanley, Matt Chandler, and Francis Chan (three of my favorite pastors) and music from Gungor, I was already interested. Once he let me know the sweet rate he managed to get for us to attend, I was sold.  To Catalyst!

For those who don't know, Catalyst is a Christian young leaders conference that has been going on for about 12 years now in Atlanta, and now welcomes more than 13,000 attendees to the conference, which packs The Arena at Gwinnett Center, which is located northeast of the city of Atlanta. In the past, I have "attended" (via live feed) both the Global Leadership Summit and the Chick-Fil-A LeaderCast, but both of those conferences, while still providing good information, come off more as corporate leadership training with a Christian bent, and I was wanting more of the Christian and less of the corporate. Catalyst provided this.

I'm not sure I truly consider myself a leader. Or even if I really aspire to be, as it seems a bit scary. However, I do think I have some of the qualities that would make a good leader if and when I am called upon to do so, so it never hurts to equip oneself, I figure. More than anything, I just went in wanting more information about letting God lead me, so I could then lead others by following His example and hope that they in turn follow suit.

The conference was two days of great information, worship, and worthwhile causes rolled into one. There were so many good points made, and so much to reflect on and pray about as far as how it applies to my own life that I am still trying to figure it out. In my efforts to do so, I thought I'd finally inaugurate my blog with its first post to cover some of the very best of what I heard and pass it along to anyone who should happen to read this. There was just so much content to cover, I am going to split this into two posts (one for each day). So without further adieu... The Awesome Points of Catalyst 2012, Part 1!

From Andy Stanley (Day 1):

• What makes a leader is their response to: unexpected opportunity, unavoidable adversity, and unquestionable calling.
• "It wasn't the calling, adversity, or opportunity that made them a leader: it was their response."
• "This is a part and a growing part of your story right now. As you think about, not these things because you have no control over them, but as you think about your response, I would say to you: This needs to be a story worth telling."
• "The greatest thing you do as a leader might not be what you do but who watches you do what you do. That is why it is so critical that we let God make us and shape us into the leader he wants us to be: not only do actions speak louder than words, sometimes they echo into the next generation."
• Influence is more important than title as leader.
• "God gets more mileage out of adversity than anything else. He does more shaping and making out of adversity. It's fun to open our hands and watch God put stuff in our hands. You will become an open handed leader. But the only way God will make you an open handed leader is by taking things out of your hands. And if you close your hands, you will deny your potential."

From Patrick Lencioni:

• The trust a healthy organization needs to have must not just be predictive trust, but vulnerability-based. 
• "When people can be that emotionally buck naked with one another and be completely honest about who they are, warts and all, it creates a dynamic like nothing else."
• "The only way we can get to vulnerable is if the leader goes first.  It's a leap of faith, folks, and it's not comfortable."
• "Conflict is nothing but the pursuit of truth, but conflict without truth is politics. A good team has to have conflict. We owe it to each other to disagree sometimes. When we withhold our opinion, it's bad because when we don't disagree with someone around an issue, it becomes about the person."
• "We often confuse nice with being kind. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is to tell someone the truth."

From Bryan Stevenson:

• "The biggest problem we have [in this country] is the profound absence of hope."
• "Brokenness can be mended by grace. Brokenness can be healed by mercy. And there is opportunity to be a voice to the broken."
• "We are all more than the worst thing we have ever done."
• "The opposite of poverty isn't wealth, it's justice."
• "There is a need to be an advocate for redemption, for recovery."
• "Stone-catching is our calling." We are to catch the stones that other people throw in today's world.

From Perry Noble:

• "There is no progress unless we embrace the process of leadership."
• "...sometimes we do some hard work, some difficult work, some unbelievable work, and no one is going to see it but God." That has to be enough for us.
• "We've got to get passed wanting to get discovered and start worry about being developed. When we stop screaming at the world, "Discover me!" and start screaming at God, "Develop me!" That's when we'll reach our potential."
• "If you're gifted, you don't have to say you're gifted. You just have to use your gift and people will notice."
• "The process of leadership involves good stewardship where we are right now."

From Mark Burnett:

• "This nation gives everyone an opportunity, but you have to have the courage and the faith."
• "You do have to jump in. If you need to be certain of something, you will never do anything, . If you only have half-certainty, you have enough."

From Christine Caine:

• "If you don't remember to honor those who have gone before you you will forget that there are those who will come after you."
• We need to lay aside our sins and baggage because "You will reproduce what you are, not what you say. Far more is caught than taught."
• "The last thing the world needs is another wounded healer. We have plenty of those."
• The weight of this generation is entitlement...opinion...position.
• "There is only one love language: It's called DIE. Die to self."
• "Better to be marked by God than marketed by man."

From Francis Chan:

• "We probably don’t want everyone in this room making disciples because some of you don’t really act like Jesus. When people look at your life, are they reminded of Jesus? If not, then why would they want more of you?"
• "Why be disciple makers? Well, it’s commanded. But I know that in the busyness of life that I forget what a shock it will be when I see Christ’s face. We would never neglect a command from our boss, but we neglect Christ’s command to make disciples."
• "Be hearers of the Word, right? No, be doers of the word, and not just hearers who deceive themselves. We're hearing tough messages, but what are we doing? Walking away sad isn't achieving something. That's what the rich young ruler did."
• We are putting our fear of rejection over someone's salvation. We are willing to let people spend eternity in hell because we are too scared to talk to them about Jesus.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post which is also sure to be chock full o' wisdom, as well as covering some of the other things that made Catalyst 2012 so great.