I know, I didn't spell that right, but after the whirlwind that October was I can't imagine any of us standing still. I was privileged to be able to attend two very impacting conferences. Catalyst (Atlanta, GA) and Inferno (Auburn Hills, MI), both excellent conferences that have incredible effectiveness in their respective demographics. Catalyst is a leadership conference focused on business leaders, pastors and ministry workers. Inferno is a spiritual conference that is a call to young men and women to impact their world. Incredible stuff that won't matter beyond the people who attended unless we move it out of the leader's hands and into the hands of the people we lead, that's what this month's theme is, Movember.
Tim Rutledge @ Inferno...If you didn't make it to Inferno this year you owe it to yourself and the people who are following you to get a hold of the message preached by Tim Rutledge at the Friday night session. Once you hear it, you'll want to get your youth, staff and leadership teams together and spend an hour to rethink who we are as the church and what we're supposed to be doing.
Tim spoke about Jesus Christ being the bread of life. The reason Jesus chose to compare himself to bread was because bread is for everybody all of the time. Rich people eat bread, poor people eat bread.
One of his strongest points was that we make heaven and hell issues out of a whole lot of things, but we miss the most important one, doing what God called the Church to do. I can't really go into much detail without affecting the way you will receive the message. Suffice it to say that it changed my thought process about what I am doing as a leader in the Kingdom.
Visit www.TheApostolicChurch.com
or Call 248.373.4500 ext. 228 and order your DVD from Larry.
Incredible! This package of materials is a phenomenal investment. Go the website (which is loaded down with awesome information and materials) to order it or to get more information.The literature, messages, teaching and preaching are fresh, relevant and applicable to any leader working at any capacity in God's kingdom. The sessions that impacted me the most were Jim Collins, Seth Godin and Dave Ramsey.
Are we wasting our time with these conferences?
Should we continue to attend these conferences? Let's face it, if we were so inclined and had the finances we could attend a good conference every day, a great conference once a week, and a phenomenal "life changing" conference once a month and not change anything on the home front.
If you're like me you don't typically walk away from these meetings empty handed, right? We buy materials that for the most part end up on the pastor or leader's bookshelf. Convenient fodder for us to pull snippets from so our congregants will think we are gurus that have a direct connection to God and His infinite wisdom. Unfortunately most of this wealth of materials is wasted because we're afraid that if we shared it, the people would get a glimpse behind the wizard's curtain and realize that we're just little men with microphones and we didn't come up with all of that impressive material after all.
I had one pastor swear me to secrecy before he showed me a website with great teaching materials on it because he was afraid somebody else would get it and preach it, or maybe because he "kind of" made it seem like he came up with it. ;) If I can insert this here without being offensive, "What the heck?" Sorry.
"Then Paul went to the synagogue and preached boldly for the next three months, arguing persuasively about the Kingdom of God. But some became stubborn, rejecting his message and publicly speaking against the Way. So Paul left the synagogue and took the believers with him. Then he held daily discussions at the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for the next two years, so that people throughout the province of Asia—both Jews and Greeks—heard the word of the Lord.
Acts 19:8-10 NLT emphasis added.
Paul stayed in one place for two years and all of Asia heard the word of the Lord? Paul didn't speak to all of Asia, he couldn't have, he was at the lecture hall. Asia heard the word of the Lord because the people that came heard what was said and took it back to people and those people took it to others, etc., etc. What if they did what is so commonly done and sat on the information?
Maybe we should make a vow not to attend one more conference until we share every bit of literature and information we've gathered with the people we are privileged to lead. Hmmmm.
All of these materials are wasted if we don't find some avenue to disseminate this information. For your group it may be during your weekly general session. This doesn't work too well, though because you'll have to generalize the teaching to be able to "spread it out" to connect with the different levels of people present. Click here to view two ideas that I am presently employing to get information to the right people so they can in turn spread it further and move the kingdom forward.
