Tag: Chan

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The 2008 Orange Conference Final Thoughts

The 2008 Orange Conference Rocked!

I posted highlights from each of the main sessions on my blog: (Sessions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) it was the first time I blogged anything live, it was challenging keeping up with the likes of Louie Giglio and Francis Chan, because while you type they can throw out like 3 huge thoughts that are essential to their talk.

Modeling Leadership: The over all message that I heard throughout the conference was that our children and students need adult leaders to model being the kind of church they are to be when they take on the roles of the adult leaders in the future. – The big issue I see here is the need for adult education, because if you are awake and a leader in the church, you may have heard by now that the church is in decline, that’s because our adults are modeling a church they were shown, and its disconnecting with this generation.

Being Versus Doing: I think Louie Giglio ended the conference with a great message. He opened by asking the crowd, “What if we decided to just BE the church?” He did a great talk about how the church cannot make relevancy its “golden calf,” but his fear is, that the contemporary church has already done so, and that the modern church will make social justice their “golden calf.”

I think the best point was that we should choose to be a transcendent church, being the church of Jesus Christ as our goal, versus trying to always be relevant. The problem with relevance is that you will always be a step behind, because the person who is setting the pace for “relevancy” is always going to be a step ahead, but with the church, we have Jesus and He was before us, He is with us, and He will be after us. It doesn’t matter what happens with culture ahead of us, because Jesus will be there.

Breakouts: Were good minus 1. I did not care too much for the UNEDITED: reThinking Student Ministry. Then again I have been to some of the top notch student ministry conferences in the country and I get to hang out with the absolute best youth pastors in the country and Doug Fields once a year, so I may be a little spoiled? In this breakout it felt like the session never gained traction!

Breakouts “Engaging Parents of Teens” with Chap Clark, “Mobilizing the Next Generation” with Stuart Hall, and “College Prep: Protecting our Investment in Kids” with Chuck Bomar was absolutely awesome. I am going to have to email these speakers to get their notes as I could not keep up. Every single session was top notch. Continue reading “The 2008 Orange Conference Final Thoughts”

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2008 Orange Conference Session 2

2008 Orange Conference by ReThink Group

Session 2

Francis Chan:

  • Is the success in churches from God and the Holy Spirit moving, or is it good marketing?
  • With the right team, Francis can build a Mormon church, a Jehovah’s church, maybe even a Baptist Church
  • Francis doesn’t want to preach another message, he wants to experience something supernatural…something God! – Acts was of God.
  • Does it bother us that we walk into our neighborhoods and the lost have more evidences of the fruits of the spirit than those in the church? Shouldn’t there be a difference between someone without the Spirit and the one who is the Temple of the Holy Spirit?
  • We can create church attenders and some disciplined people, but we cannot create Christ lovers, people filled with God’s spirit.
  • Is it God that we are experiencing in our ministries? Are we sure? Are we experiencing God because we know its God, or are we just excited because “we” pulled something off.
  • There is a huge difference in what the Bible says and what we see in the church – yet we are crippled to say anything because everyone seems so happy. So we do not even try to hold our churches to the Biblical standard. (Yep!)
  • **Francis: If Jesus planted a church in Semi Valley California, Francis’ church would be bigger, because people do not want to follow the standard that Jesus calls us to. (Lose our life for his sake, deny father and mother, sacrifice, death) Continue reading “2008 Orange Conference Session 2”
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Francis Chan on the Bible Belt

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=kTjHx_oH_0s]

I know what your talking about…

I believe that is why God has kept me in the Bible belt area, because I see it everyday, and have grown passionate about seeing unbelievers as well as those who claim to be believers become passionate about Jesus.

I’ve grown up watching this very thing.
I am not methodist but I have been intrigued by these quotes from John Wesley:

  • “I shook off the dust of my feet, and left Georgia, after having preached the gospel there, not as I ought, but as I was able.” – To me it sounds as if some people were trying to hold John Wesley back from preaching the way he felt he ought to preach, therefore he left because people did not want to hear him.

  • “I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.” – This, I believe is the danger and the state of many churches in the “Bible Belt” – Having a form of religion without the power.

  • “The Church recruited people who had been starched and ironed before they were washed.” – This reminds me of the assessment that Billy Graham made a few years back, that he believes anywhere from 80-85% of people in church are not saved. The church has gotten into the conforming business versus the transforming business. Instead of leading people to Jesus who can save and change people, we settle for changing people so they conform to us, a lot of churches could care less about their spiritual state, they are more concerned with their physical state.