On the Journey

….. but unfortunately I am not. 

Have you heard about Kary Oberbrunner and his soon to release book The Fine Line: Re-envisioning the Gap Between Christ and Culture? It is a bold look at how we as believers, and specifically the Church in America, have lost our understanding of how to be in the world, but not of it. And gives real examples of what Kary labels Transformists, those who are living in balance between the worlds of Faith and Culture, and impacting those around them in incredible ways. 

Kary is doing some great things, is a great friend of Catalyst, and it seems has struck a chord with this soon to release book and the message it contains. 

Check out the blog tour that has been happening the last several weeks in leading up to the release of the book on December 5. Glad to be part of the tour. Will have a short interview with Kary in the next couple of days to post here.

Great article in the most recent issue of Fortune on Steve Jobs #2 at Apple. Tim Cook is currently the Chief Operations Officer at Apple, and the questions continue to be raised of whether he will one day replace Steve Jobs as the CEO. It is always such a difficult task to replace a Founder and icon such as Jobs, so the jury is still out on how the Apple board will handle the issue of succession. 

In the same issue of Fortune, Patrick Lencioni (past Catalyst speaker and friend) is listed as one of the “ten gurus you should know” when it comes to leadership and management. Nice.

YUM! and a cornhole game in between turkey and pumpkin pie. 

Here you go, the November edition of the Young Influencers List. You can also view past ARCHIVES of the list. 

1. Cathleen Falsani- award winning Religion columnist for the Chicago Sun Times. Her recent book Sin Boldly is a refreshing take on faith in today’s culture. Love her humor and wit. 

2. Kevin Palau- EVP of the Luis Palau Association. Among his many duties, Kevin spearheaded the Portland City Fest, which has helped churches, schools, the mayor’s office, businesses, and local government all collaborate on service projects in the city of Portland. Amazing work. 

3. Santino Stoner- Partner with Dot Cross. Also Film Director on the very popular NOOMA series. 

4. Jay King- A and R guru at Integrity Music. Jay is one of the good guys in the music industry. He is out constantly finding new talent as well as handling current artists such as Hillsong United. 

5. Brian Pirkle- COO of BigStuf Events. You will usually find Brian with a headset on calling a show from the production area. 20 years from now will be the creative/technical producer for the Grammys, or the Oscars, or the Presidential Inauguration!

Check out the latest Catalyst Podcast episode, featuring an interview with Steven Furtick by Ben Arment and Tim Willard, and an interview I recently did with Lanny Donoho here at the Catalyst office. 

Stream it here or grab it at itunes.

Cornhole, the grown up version of bean bag toss. It is addictive. And has taken over our office. We have two-three games per day.

And Mark Batterson, we challenge your team to a cornhole tournament….. anytime, anywhere. Bring it!

Many shots from the first Catalyst One Day event in Granger, IN. 

On the way back to Atlanta from Granger, IN after finishing our first ever Catalyst One Day event at Granger Community Church. Over 1,300 leaders from around the midwest were in attendance to hear from Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel. The day was great, and can’t wait for the next One Day in Atlanta at North Point Community Church on February 26. 

Pics will be posted later today. And more highlights to follow.

A few pics from Granger, IN and Granger Community Church. We are preparing for the Catalyst One Day event tomorrow here. PLEASE check out the picture below from the walls of the lobby of Granger Community Church- in a newspaper clipping from several years back…. Tim Stevens in a suit with a major mullet. Wow, how things have changed!

Typical stuff in the Catalyst office, plus a review of the West Coast event brochure. Very nice. 

Watch until the end for the West Coast brochure reveal. And I apologize in advance for the rude segment in the video…. you’ll know what I mean after watching. 

Got to hear my good friend Chris Heuertz speak in Atlanta last night at All Souls Fellowship. Chris is the International Executive Director of Word Made Flesh, an incredible organization that serves the poorest of the poor in incredibly difficult environments in cities around the world. The work that Chris and his wife Phileena are involved in and are able to inspire an entire community of workers and volunteers to be a part of is such an inspiration. I really don’t know how they are able to do it. Hearing the stories from Chris last night for an hour of teaching was challenging, convicting, inspiring, and freeing all at the same time. 

If you are looking for a place to invest time, energy, and resources, I recommend Word made Flesh. They do the work no one else wants to do, but everyone knows they should do. 

Chris has a recent book that is incredible. Simple Spirituality. Highly recommend it. Buy it. Then buy it for your friends.

12 Stone. metro Atlanta. A great church community. 

From earlier this week at the Catalyst headquarters. 

Friday morning in Atlanta. I don’t know how people in the midwest and northeast deal with this for 4-5 months out of the year. To all my friends in the dreary states, I feel your pain. Sort of. The difference is- the sun will shine tomorrow in Atlanta. 

If you could change jobs for a year, and only for one year, what would you want to do? 

Me- Leading Actor in a feature film. Cast alongside Denzel Washington.

Are you just being average? In your job? In your family? Your friendships? Your community? Your Church?

Are you typical? common? ordinary? all right? common? decent? moderate? All common synonyms of average. Yuck.

Don’t be that person who just does enough to get buy and keep your job for one more day. Don’t be that person who everyone says, “yeah, it was an ok presentation, nothing out of the ordinary.” Don’t be that person who is the last option when it comes to helping out or volunteering because you have a reputation for just showing up but not helping out. Don’t be that person who your boss or employer has to painstakingly consider every quarter whether to have a sit down conversation about your performance…. “I like you Bob, but your performance and contribution to the team is just average.” Don’t be that.

There are way too many average people. Right now, get up, straighten up, stand up, and do something extraordinary. Something outstanding. Make today remarkable.

Portland City Fest. 

This is a great story, and a great example of how the Church, the body of Christ, should be the Church. The festival took place in August in Portland, and around 190,000 attended the two day event. Now they are working on service projects throughout the city- in partnership between the local city government, schools, churches, and the Luis Palau Association. Inspiring. Thanks to our good friend Kevin Palau for leading the charge on this.

Read all of the story from a recent article in Christianity Today. It is worth your time.

It’s time to give poverty a swift kick with 50,000 pairs of shoes!

This is the 50,000 Pairs of Shoes in 50 Days challenge. Today is the day. We want to raise enough money to purchase 50,000 pairs of shoes in 50 days. Go to 50000shoes.com

$5 buys 2 pairs of shoes. I just bought 10 pairs of shoes online, so get involved now by going here and buy some shoes today. 

And anyone who donates will be entered to win a trip to Mexico to personally deliver their shoes to someone who has never had shoes before. 

The organization behind this effort is Soles4Souls, and was featured on Friday in USA Today. 

Let’s help those in need. And feel free to link here or to put a similar post up on your site TODAY. We want as many blogging about it as possible. 

- Had coffee yesterday with Dave Travis from Leadership Network. Always great catching up with Dave. He is an expert in the church leadership world and knows everybody. Really excited about the Innovation Conference that Leadership Network is hosting in late January in Dallas. Make sure to check it out. It will be a completely different kind of event. 

- Lunch earlier in the week with Jeanne and Jarrett Stevens. Jarrett is on staff at North Point, and Jeanne is a writer, communicator, pastor, and hosts all of the Youth Specialties events. Great couple with great thoughts regarding the church and how to engage your neighbors and community. Talked about some fun ideas to work on together in the future. 

- The election has come and gone. Barack Obama won in case you missed it…..

- Had dinner with Mark Sanborn on Thursday night in downtown Atlanta. Mark is the best-selling author of The Fred Factor and numerous other books, a past speaker at Catalyst, and was the emcee of the Maximum Impact Simulcast for many years. Always good to catch up with Mark. He is on the road constantly speaking, and just recently released a new book called The Encore Effect. Highly recommended. 

- Just under two weeks until the first Catalyst One Day event in Granger, IN. The staff at Granger has been amazing to work with. It’s no surprise- Granger Community Church is the REAL deal, and their staff is the reason for being such an attractive church body for people in the Granger area. 

- Oklahoma scored 66 points today on Texas A and M. Wow. 

- Had Lanny Donoho over to the office on Tuesday and we recorded an interview for an upcoming Catalyst Podcast. Lanny is working on a number of new projects….. check out their new Big Stuf media site, and make sure to watch the Happy Together video that we showed at Catalyst. 

- There are 46 days until Christmas, and people are already putting up Christmas lights. And the commercials have already started, promoting Christmas specials. Honestly. It’s too much. We should all be reminded of what’s really important at Christmas. Join the Advent Conspiracy campaign.