Tag: Christianity

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2008 Orange Conference Session 5

2008 Orange Conference

Session 5

Louie Giglio

New Question: Can the church influence culture or lead culture?

  • The church is not poised corporately to take the lead in culture.
  • A whole new idea – What if we decided together to be the church of Jesus Christ? What if that was our Goal?
  • The church that Jesus said He would build…the one that Jesus said that even Hell would not prevail.
  • What if  we chose to be instead of just do?
  • John 1:1-3, 14-?
  • It’s an incarnate church – The Message “Jesus put flesh on and moved into the neighborhood” – We are the presence of God in the neighborhood.
  • The church is transcendent – We, “the church,” can transcend culture.
  • Jesus was before us, He is with us, and He will be after us.
  • Relevance is to be in step with, so to strive to be relevant means that we will always be behind someone. Trying to be relevant is tiring because you can never catch up.
  • One extreme is to completely avoid being culturally relevant…the other is to be oversaturated with cultural relevance. Relevance may have become the golden calf of the contemporary church. The golden calf of the future/emerging church may be social justice.
  • Because of Christ, we transcend culture…I cannot even type the notes for what Louie just said…Wow!
  • It doesn’t matter what is going to happen…because Jesus “Will Be…” – We can relate to people even if we do not have a lot in common, because Jesus “Is” Continue reading “2008 Orange Conference Session 5”
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Lanny Donoho’s Website – UPDATED

This website is now linking to Big Stuf camp information. It was fun at the conference, but unless you are looking to take a group of students to Big Stuf Camps, this website will do you no good!

Reggie Joiner and Andy Stanley revealed to the crowd at the Orange Conference that they have purchased all of the domains for Lanny Donoho, so no one can benefit from his name, profit from it, or hurt his reputation.

Visit the site at www.lannydonoho.com – Reggie did a great job building the site for him. Enjoy!

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Do

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziOG_GHNVq0]

I’ve been thinking about this commercial for a while now. I have had the privilege of attending some of the greatest conferences in this Country for church leaders, yet it seems that year after year we discuss some of the same issues with ministries in the church and in the Christian culture as if nothing is changing. Research data shows that nothing much has improved. This is in no way to take away from what a lot of churches are doing, trust me, there are a lot of churches who are rocking it for God! However, we as an “unified” body are doing nothing, and it bothers me.

This post or video is not to take away from what I am learning at the Orange Conference. Some of the key words reminded me of this commercial today. “ReThink” “Programs” “Processes” “Innovate” “New Ideas” – All great terms, but meaningless unless there is substance to back them up. There was one breakout that confused me today, but that is not to take away from the conference as a whole, everything will not be 100%, but it seemed that people were sharing a lot of their Ideation, but no solid “hows” to move the Church and Christian culture in a direction to answer these issues that we are focusing on. I think there has to be a time and place to quit discussing and thinking and start doing.

I think it is time that we as the “Church” stop Ideating and start DOING! I am passionate about this, but feel I do not know what I can do to influence people to ‘do,’ except post this on my blog. Will you start doing with me? Maybe if a few of us join together we will see some changes. I heard Rick Warren say this past week that he wants to be a part of starting the 2nd Reformation of the church. The first Reformation was about Creeds (we know what we believe now) so the 2nd Reformation will be about “deeds.” – If your ministry, or if you are doing something personally to “Do” versus “Ideate” please share with me what you are doing…If you are Ideating and not doing, please share with me what you are praying God will use you to do – Then we can do it together…

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Thoughts on Chapter 3 of Chasing Daylight (Part 1)

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Here are some quotes and thoughts from Chapter 3 of Chasing Daylight by Erwin McManus that stood out to me or spoke to me: Please share in the discussion!

The Chapter is about Uncertainty, and how as we move with God, we will face uncertainties. I am about a quarter of the way through the chapter and it’s really good!

  • We have no control over when we die or how we die. We must instead take responsibility for what we do have control over – how we choose to live.
  • Our wealth and abundance of human resources have positioned us to accept a paradigm that provision precedes vision. This has been the foundation of building no-risk faith. This is a tragedy when a part of the adventure is the discovery that vision always precedes provision.
  • If you wait for guarantees, the only thing that will be guaranteed is that you will miss endless divine opportunities – that you can know for certain.
  • [On Uncertain Faith] “By faith Abraham, when called [by God] to go to a place where he would later receive an inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” Hebrews 11:8
  • Faith is all about character, trusting in the character of God, being certain in who God is and following Him into the unknown.
  • One of the wonders of uncertainty is that it is the environment in which God invites us to be creative.
  • First-dimension faith is about trusting the character of God – and transforming your character.
  • Much of first-dimension faith is about doing the right thing regardless of the circumstances or consequences. It is about having the faith that God will be with you when you do what is right.
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Living Delusional

In Chapter 2 of Chasing Daylight, Erwin McManus writes about a conversation with his friend Joe White.

Joe has been diagnosed with terminal cancer…(In the conversation) He was clear that today might be the last day he had to live. I could live under the delusion that today is just one day of many still to come. The gift of his cancer was the value of today.

I’ve heard it asked several times, what would you do if you had 30 days to live? 30 days to live still gives enough time to procrastinate. What would you do if you knew that today could be the last day that you lived?

What could we do as a community of believers if we approached everyday as if it were our last one? What could we do as individuals, if that was our focus? Would we fix that broken relationship? Share Christ with that lost family member or friend? Would we set out to fulfill that dream that we never took the initiative to conquer? Would we spend a little more quality time with our family? Would we (fill in the blank) ________________?

How much further could the mission of Christ be furthered if we simply lived like this was our last day to live? Would we truly choose to live or would we choose to sit back and exist for one more day? There are some dreams that I want to see happen, things God has spoken to me about that I want to obey Him on, but I have been sitting back and waiting for “the right timing” to do it, but what if I sit back too long? Could my delusion of another day lead me away from seeing those things ever accomplished?

How about you? Are you living with the delusion of another day? Or, are you living today as if it very well could be your last day? If you are reading this, you have been gifted the value of a day, what are we going to do with that gift?

I close with this challenge from Erwin…I think it sums this up pretty nicely:

Wake Up! Get out of bed. God wants to change the world through your life if you’ll just do something.