the buzz conference – Craig Groeschel notes

limited resources + increasing passion = exponential innovation

i love equations (ok – that’s not true) – these notes are from Craig Groeschel’s first talk @ the buzz conference.  These are not exact quotes, but pretty close.  Some good thoughts from Craig.  You can read his blog here.

a lot of times we say we can’t pull something off, because of limited resources. Craig believes that it’s more tied to our passion for something than it is to our resources.  And claiming limited resources is just a lame excuse. True passion for something will overcome resources in an innovative way.

in the church world today, we need to stop whining about what we don’t have, see what we do have and become more passionate.

it’s not about getting more people into our church, but getting our church into the world – all of a sudden we will have exponential innovation.

innovative leaders do the following…

1. they heal the sick

(Math. 9) – not the healthy who need a doctor (increasing passion part)

in order to reach those who no one else is reaching, we’ll have to do things that no one else is doing…i.e. – we can’t just copy what other people are doing

question – when is the last time you had a non-believer in your home?

2. they break rules

we don’t break away from the truth of scripture, but we break away from the way things have been done (what did Jesus do on the sabbath?) he “broke the sabbath rules” and they “turn right” (nascar)

every great movement of God started when someone “turned right” – Martin Luther, John Wesley, Bill Hybels.

Craig stopped doing church conferences for two years – so he could hear more clearly from God

Today’s contemporary is tomorrow’s traditional

question – what is God calling you to try that no one has done before?

3. they offended pharisees

What new thing is God calling you to create today, that God will use tomorrow?

4. they redefine success

John 3:30 – John the Baptist – prepare the way, I must decrease, and he must increase. We must become less impressed with our latest creative idea, and becoming more focused on us becoming less.

The whole idea of a an individual mega-church is ridiculous. Every church is micro compared to the population around it and what God will do with his church.

hallelujah

These are some worship notes from listening to Aaron Keyes lead worship @ 7[]22 in June 2007.

hallelujah

from we will glorify into amazing love back into we will glorify

add chorus to we will glorify

[we'll say] hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah amen

Hallel (to celebrate, to be clamorously foolish, to applaud, to rave, to praise)

put this together with Yahweh = the name of God

and you get…hallelujah

praise the lord,celebrate the lord, or applaud the Lord or Lift high the Lord

amen = let it be so, we agree, it is true

there are two words that are the same on every continent, in every country and in every language – “hallelujah and amen”

read the second verse:

Lord Jehovah reigns in majesty
We will bow before His throne
We will worship Him in righteousness
We will worship Him alone

Psalm 96 & 1 Chronicles 16 say the same thing:

8 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
bring an offering and come into his courts.

9 Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth.

1 Chronicles 16

29 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
bring an offering and come before him.
Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.

30 Tremble before him, all the earth!

The Marks of True Worship – Louie Giglio – Thirsty 06 Talk

How do you know if your church is a worshiping church?

Worship is what it’s all about, it’s all about God, but we make much of him when we worship.

If anything you want to be known as a worshiping church!

Some say – We want to be a missional church – missions isn’t the beginning or ending of anything, missions starts and ends with worship, missions is in the middle

Evangelism/Giving/teaching/discipline/innovative/whatever kind of church

What you really want to say is that we want to be a worshiping church, because that encompasses all the things we want to be about (like above list) when we ARE a worshiping church.

Two Baselines:

1. You are a worshiper! Everyone is a great worshiper (of something)

Worship is about giving glory (setting our affection) to what we value most.

Worship is a human activity, not a Christian thing (Romans 1 – exchanged truth of God for a lie…and they worshiped and served the creature instead of the creator…) worship went right on happening w/out God.

We are good at giving glory to STUFF, humanity is good at it.

The question – are you a TRUE worshiper?

Louie’s Definition of worship

“Worship is a full life response to the greatness and the grace of God”

Marks of True Worship (Romans 12:1-2)

1. Is God happy? – A preoccupation for God’s happiness
   1. At the end of the day – worship for God (pleasing to God) in Romans 12:2
   2. God decides if the worship is acceptable or not
2. Is there an aroma? – An acceptable offering of worship that is pleasing to God
   1. Jesus offered himself as a fragrant aroma, an acceptable offering
   2. This is our spiritual act of worship
   3. Are we more concerned if they like it or if we like it, instead of wondering if it was a sweet sweet sound in his ear
   4. Here’s the question – God, did you like it?
   5. We don’t ask, ‘cause we’re afraid of the answer
   6. Sometimes we need to stop singing, put our hands down and repent
3. Has it reached the least of these? – The mark of demonstration
   1. Is worship still a meal for you?
   2. Or is it fuel for missions?

It is trickling down to the least of these?

1. Are people alive? – Are people being turned upside down.
   1. They’re seeing in color, not B&W
   2. Are they talking about Jesus

For the worship programmers:

How prevalent is the work of the Spirit in you and in the planning of worship?

Distance worship from worship programming…you cannot program worship

You can program a worship service…

New Questions (the people sitting around deciding the logistics – what song’s are we going to sing)

1. Where are our ideas coming from?
   1. Are we looking over there to those people,
   2. Or are we looking up there to the face of God?
2. What do you want people to change? (As opposed to what do you want people to feel or experience – we need to worry less about vibe and feel)
3. What internally has to happen for that change to take place? (As opposed to what just has to happen externally for the program to work)
   1. This could mean – we don’t need any music tonight
4. How prevalent is the work of the Holy Spirit in You and in the body dynamic?
   1. In other words, is the question being surface a lot – where is the Holy Spirit? When he is moving and active – stuff happens

John Piper – session 4 @ Passion 07

Dealing w/the guilt of failure in the sexual life

Satan’s lie – because we fail sexually, we should settle for middle class mediocrity – dropping coin’s from our SUV’s, because we’re not worthy of God’s high calling

Words to use the morning after the failure

Substitutionary Atonement – whose hands did the nails go through, not yours – his…who’s warrant was on him, not his – but yours…

Col 2:14

Rom 8:3 – what the law could not do, God did.

Micah 7:8 – rejoice not over me o my enemy, when I fall… “trusting Christ to the hilt with gutsy guilt”

Col 2:15 – God disarmed the rulers…

The Bible wasn’t written to be misunderstood

Satan will not be able to destroy your dream

Louie Giglio – Passion 07 session 5

In the end, we need to be able to say “I had a part in making my savior famous to all the peoples of the world”

Lord, we know you don’t need us, but we want to be part of the story

 

God says – “Everything is about the party, and the party lasts forever – and it’s all about the party”

The only thing happening on this earth is God redeeming the nations, calling all peoples, throwing a party exalting the name of Jesus

If we pour our lives into anything else, it’s going to be different when we walk into the party….

Don’t waste your life on something less than this….be in it, because it is….I want to be a mission minded going person all the days of my life…I want to be a part of God’s story going to every person on the planet…so they hear the name of Jesus

 

You can get into the story no matter…it’s easy to say “I don’t know if I can be part of God’s story because I don’t know!” - so what!

 

Can I get some of that, can you use me in that story I’m in? I don’t need to know what, or when or how, I just need to know if you will go w/me Jesus?

Francis Chan – session 3 @ Passion 07

o you really want to know the will of God?

I’m concerned – do you really love God? (not do you serve enough or sing loud enough)

wreck our lives – passion 07 session 1 – Louie Giglio

 

Louie Giglio – “Wreck our lives and put us in the stream of what God is doing”

“Lean forward into what God has for us”

 

 

 

worship in spirit & truth

Worship and spirit and truth… notes from a Chris Tomlin Thirsty ’06 talk

 

Part 1 – Worship in spirit…

Focused on Jesus (John 16 – Holy spirit brings glory to Jesus)

Worship is unpredictable (You don’t know what the spirit is going to do in others lives – the Spirit is unpredictable)…It’s not about me, and we have no idea what’s going on in people’s lives.

God is orderly, so this is not permission to do whatever we want to do, but God’s ways are higher than ours…

The people (leaders) that are most prepared to worship are the ones that are most lead by the Spirit of God….when you have prepared you heart, you are lead by God

 

Proverbs 20:27 (KJV) The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.

 

Part 2 – Worship in Truth….

Are we singing Truth? (content)

Wonderful Maker…

No eye has fully (was truly) seen how beautiful the cross and we have only heard the faintest whispers of who you are….truly is a derivative of the word truth, and that is not right and we have seen the truth of the cross, because we have been saved…you have not seen it fully, you’ve only seen in part now, one day you’ll see in full

The Adventure of Worship (Garrett Gustafson)

Worship in truth quote “External expression (lifting hands) without internal reality is unacceptable worship to God”

Jesus said “They praise me with my lips, but their hearts are far from me – their worship is in vain” (Mark 7 or 2)

Practical tips:

Community event (revelation, worship around the throne – thousands upon thousands – day and night they never stop singing)

Psalm 22:3 – God is enthroned upon the praises of Israel (God inhabits the praises of his people)

Hebrews 10 – let us not give up meeting together (why we do what we do)

Leading is a continual process of reminding those who follow of where we’re going…

Just stop and explain why do we do what we do…why do we stand in silence? Why do we clap? Why do we bow down?Why do we lift up holy hands?

This was not made up by man – this is biblical worship to God.

Key aspects to worship:

1. Humility….the favor of God comes in humility

“Humility comes from seeing God” God will raise you up from humility! “Those who are exalted will be humbled, and those who are humbled will be exalted”

1. The gift of Leadership (from the holy spirit) – You will never lead the masses unless you can lead the people closest to you
2. Discernment – ability to be sensitive to what God is doing in people’s hearts
3. Excellence (David was known as a skillful excellent musician – 1 Sam 16.)
4. To love your audience (an effective leader loves the people he’s leading) – love your neighbor as yourself

 

louie’s take on passion

Passion – going with the wind (setting up their sail) – trying not to row on their own…
This is a Louie Giglio quote from Episode 9 of the Catalyst podcast – August 10, 2006

life springs from the heart and if you don’t have life you’re not going to lead too many people too far

(college kids) they don’t really gravitate towards enterprise in this moment – in fact they hate it…that’s a lot of the whole emergent conversation is ya know people are anit-industry and they are for grass rootsy authentic what’s real what’s true community what’s true motive – the don’t have a lot of time for – “that looks like an enterprise – a man made concocted thing”

so for us we don’t want to row – we want to keep the sail up
and we want to say to God – “Please Blow”
and if the wind goes another way – then our boat’l go a different way
if the wind doesn’t blow – then our boat won’t go
if the wind blows a 100 mph – we’ll hold on for dear life – and just trust me survive this movement of God…
but we don’t want to row…and we don’t want to get locked into “oh this is what Passion is”
and so we’re gonna keep doing this every day till Jesus comes…
the only promise I think Jesus made for me is that he’s going to build is church – and Hell’s not gonna to stop him…
He didn’t say that every local church had to exist until he comes back…
He didn’t say every organization has to exist until he comes back…
The church is going to exist until he comes back…but…you know….you’ve got people in “shady grove baptist church” and they’ve been going 33^ north for 79 years…but the wind hasn’t blown in forever, and so you have to ask the question “Is it time for Shady grove to not be?” or “Can they turn around and catch the wind going different direction?”
…and I just don’t want Passion ever to fall into that place and so for us it’s always a question – and that’s the simplest part of it….Lord, what do you want to do?

know who you’re not

“the success in being a little leader – and I think in being a leader period – is to know who you’re not” – Louie Giglio

This is a good for me, because I definitely know who I’m not…I’m still trying to figure out who I am…

money $ sacrifice

Notes from “Mind Your Own Business” – Part 1 – Craig Groeschel

Define your vision – What is God calling you to be about? – What’s your mission? You want to be driven by God’s vision for you – not money.
Romans 13:8
Consumer debt is taking you out.

You gotta be weird – you can’t be normal. Normal is fighting, panic and stress and worry.

Set up a business plan:
Develop cash flow plan – a budget.
1. Lower overhead
2. Plan for down times (save)
3. Develop Investment Strategies (invest)
4. Plan for profit sharing (10% is a starting point)

How are we going to get there? – sacrifice – Intensity
Proverbs 22:7
We will not have our hearts in this world.

brickianity

…i was just reading part of Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell – he had a neat way of looking at Christian theology as something that should be experienced rather than defended…he uses two analogies, one of a brick wall and one of a trampoline…he equates following Jesus, or following “the way” to being on a trampoline – he talks about questioning everything and having joy in life….he says how we often think of theology as something that we need to defend and convince people about – rather than embrace some of the mystery that comes with following God…he asserts the historical orthodox Christian faith – but he questions whether we should look at that faith as a brick wall, where some are inside and some are outside the wall…i thought brickianity was a cool word – thanks Rob.

a blip from Francis Chan sermon – Living w/urgency Part 2

Culture pacers – you don’t have to be a preacher – what is in your heart that is a God-wired passion, and how can you run after it with everything you’ve got in the name of Jesus?

Sometimes we get too satisfied on earth…

“God does not want you to be satisfied with life on earth”….(Francis Chan – Living w/Urgency Part 2 – around 19 minutes

2 Cor. 5 – we’re in earthly tents – but we long to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, the spirit is a guarantee for what’s to come

why we sing – mars hill church – rob bell

Mars Hill Church – Rob Bell – January 2007

“Why We Sing”

Passage: Psalm 71:23 – My Lips will shout for Joy when I sing praise to you – I who you have redeemed

Sometimes we sing because we feel like it…we have a song in us…and we can’t wait to sing

But sometimes we don’t feel like it – instead we need to say “I’m going to discipline myself” – I’m going to find something good to sing about…

Sometimes if we don’t sing, we’re going to sink further and further into despair…

One of the reasons we sing is to remind ourselves that it’s not about us – and we get to be part of it (God’s story)…

trust me – but you choose

The following thoughts are from Jarrett Stevens on his decision to leave Chicago and go full-time to 7[]22 in Atlanta…I’m thinking through a similar threshold in my life, and learning to trust more on God, while I’m really really trying to make a choice to follow….

Fear, if you are leading me there, that mean’s we are leaving here…fear

Am I consumed w/fear or consumed w/God?

pray/fast/seek God and see if he is leading us there…God is affirming, saying – “trust me – but you choose”…so we had to make a choice, I remember breaking down and bawling on the plane – because I didn’t want to choose – I didn’t want to trust God…I had a very real image of God holding my faith to fire – if so choose, choose – do you trust me? – We didn’t have all the answers, it was not going to be easier – but God was leading us – I choose to trust and choose to go…It hasn’t been easier – do we trust you that you brought us here?, that you are here?, that we trust you?…so much that’s good – but just because you say yes to God, doesn’t mean it’s going to be easier

Don’t let fear/anxiety consume you…be consumed by God, not circumstances…