You might have noticed a ton of posts last Thursday and Friday. I probably should have posted beforehand to let you know what that was all about. I was at the Catalyst conference in Atlanta and took notes here on my blog. I missed the beginning of Andy Crouch’s talk, so those might be a bit anemic, and we had to skip out on the last session of the conference (plane to catch and all), so those are missing as well.

Of course, since these are speaker notes, they don’t necessarily reflect my personal opinions. I tried to be fairly comprehensive, so there wasn’t much filter between the speaker said and what I wrote. In fact, you’ll notice that many of them are written in the first person. “I” in that context refers to the speaker, not me.

I’m not sure I can put into words how powerful the conference was. We got the opportunity to hear some amazing speakers, not only from the Church world but business and thought leaders as well.

The best session of the conference by far was when Craig Groeschel spoke on IT. “What is IT?” you ask. Well, IT is something like what many people refer to the X-factor. IT is that special something from God that is partially the Holy Spirit but is something else as well. IT is passion, fire, and drive. IT is being broken for the things that break the heart of God. As Craig put it, have you ever met someone and said to yourself, “She gets IT. He gets IT.” Have you ever gone to a church and come away telling yourself, “They have IT” or have you ever come away saying “They don’t have IT.”

IT is hard to put into words, but IT is very real. And just like IT, I’m having trouble putting into words how powerful this session was. The Holy Spirit was moving and convicting. There are a lot of us who had IT and lost it, who are just going through the motions, trying to make up for what we lost.

Craig talked about his experience with having “It,” losing it, and getting it back. His prayer was God, ruin me. God, I want it back. I will do whatever it takes, and I want You to do whatever it takes as well.

At the end of his talk, Craig prayed, and he challenged the people in the audience (mostly church and ministry pastors/leaders). He challenged those who didn’t have IT to stand so he would pray for them, and he made it very explicit that they needed to stand, that they needed to give up pride and recognize their own shortcomings.

I didn’t stand up. I was processing, trying to figure things out. It was an altar call of sorts, and I don’t want to be one of those people who just runs down front every time someone gives an altar call. I don’t want to be constantly rededicating my life to Christ or turning over a new leaf. Too often these become fake markers where we have a “turning point” that doesn’t really change anything.

I realized that I’m not sure I’ve ever had IT, and I feel like I’ve been faking it for a long time. Not that I stopped believing in Jesus or anything like that but that I have been acting on my own strength and power instead of on the power of Christ, instead of on the power of the Holy Spirit. But no longer, I want IT. I want it so badly I can taste it. I want it so badly that I will do whatever it takes to get it.

Half-way through his prayer I stood up, and I can tell you that my life will never be the same again. There will probably still be periods of spiritual drought in my life, but I have a fire inside, a burning desire to advance the Kingdom of God. And I will never be able to do that as effectively on my own as I will being filled with the power of the Spirit.

I haven’t read it yet (although I certainly plan to), but Craig has a book called “it,” and if the book is half as good as the talk he gave at Catalyst, I can strongly recommend it.