Katie Davis is 21 years old and the mother of 13 children. She lives in Uganda, is an avid blogger, and has recently written a book, Kisses from Katie.

Q: You're 18, and this whole journey gets started when you go to volunteer for 3 weeks. I want you tshare what God did in your heart.

A: I completely fell in love with the Ugandan people, their joy, their heart. I had never experienced poverty like that. As soon as I got back to the US, I said to myself, "I've got to do something."

Q: So you go back for a year and big things start to happen. Take us through that journey.

A: Over the course of this year God has presented me with so many different needs. My kids (she's a teacher) quit coming to school. They can't afford school fees. Parents tried to drop their kids off at an orphanage to give them a better life.

So I said to myself, what can I do to help these kids stay in their family? So I started to e-mail my friends and family. So 10 kids turned into 40, which turned into 100, and today Amazima sponsors over 450 children.

So that year was slowly turning into a bigger committment.

Half way through that year a house fell down. There were three kids there. Their dad had died, and they were living alone. Then their house fell down. The 9 year old was crushed, so her 7 and 5 year old sisters came and stayed with me.

I didn't think of it as adoption. I was looking for their family, but God confirmed it in my heart that I was their family.

So the year turned into a lifetime.

Q: Can you imagine? You're 19 and you're a mommy. I was reading your book in preparation for this. The theme is Be Present. I'm amazed at how you stepped into that moment, so what I want you to encourage us with is, what's going through your mind and spirit as God's encouraging you to do this.

A: Sure, it's terrifying. In that moment you have to choose to say yes. Over and over again I've seen this redemption in my life and my daughters lives. As we step out in faith, He's always right there to meet us with his grace.

Q: Now take us from that first decision to adopt and how you get to number 13.

A: Well, I mean, children keep showing up at the door, and always the first option is, Is there a biological family? Then, is there a Ugandan foster family? So we do foster care too. I've had kids come through that I thought I would adopt, but they're not. And ones that I thought I wouldn't, but then end up being my kids. It feels like a smaller number when you realize that out of 2500 kids in my program 13 ended up with me.

Q: You talked about this in the book a bit; you realized you can't adopt every kid. You talk about a boy who you knew couldn't stay with you and might not have food, but you had a peace about it.

A: Michael is a great example of a kid who had parents who after counseling were willing and able to care for him. I can look over the past 4 years and say none of this was planned. God has confirmed over and over again that while we are faithful in the little, He is faithful in the big.

Q: ?

A: I know in my heart that I love my children as if they were mine biologically, and I think about how God loves us as adopted children. It's a reminder to me that adoption is this redemptive response to tragedy.

God sees the tragedy of our sin and wants to enter in and redeem that. He enters into the lives of my daughters and says, I see you and know your tragedy. So many new facets of the Father are revealed in this.

Q: If you're considering adoption, what should you do?

A: Pray and seek God. I doubt he'll say know. It may look different for all of us.

Q: I want to read a passage from the book: I don't always know where this life is going. I can't see the end of the road. Courage is not about knowing the path. It is about taking the first step. It is about Peter stepping out onto the water with the complete faith Jesus will not let him drown. I do not know my five year plan. I don't even really know tomorrow. I call it faith. Some choose to get out of the boat.

Jim Collins is a student and teacher of enduring great companies -- how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies. Having invested over a decade of research into the topic, Jim has authored or co-authored five books, including the classic BUILT TO LAST, a fixture on the BusinessWeek best seller list for more than six years, and has been translated into 29 languages. His work has been featured in Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Harvard Business Review, and Fast Company.

Good is the enemy of great. I’ve always been curious to understand what separates the good from the great. We use a data driven approach. We compare those who became great with those who didn’t given the same circumstances.

If circumstances are constant and some became great and some did not, then it can’t be circumstance.

Greatness is first and foremost a matter of conscious choice and discipline.

This idea becomes even more clear

Rate your world on a 1-10 scale. 1 is everything is pretty stable. Nothing can hurt you. A 10 is the other end of the continuum. There is instability, and a high degree of uncertainty and unpredictability. There are definitely things that can hurt you.

Welcome to the rest of our lives.

Why do some companies, enterprises and organizations truly thrive in the face of immense uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?

When you’re buffeted by disruption and tumult, what distinguishes those who perform exceptionally well in that kind of world? I believe we’ll be facing that type of world at least for the next 50 years.

We titled the book, “Great by Choice,” because we believe what separates some from others is not what happens to you but the actions and decisions you make.

My wife had a double masectomy a couple of years ago. We came out of that with a mantra: Life is people. It all begins with people.

When we began doing our research on “Good to Great,” we expected it would be visionary leaders who did it, but that wasn’t it. First you had to get the right people in place, then you had to drive them somewhere.

When my wife was sick, I went right to the what. What’s the treatment? What’s the diagnosis, what’s the schedule?

But she told me to read my own book. That’s not the right question. You need to ask who. Who is the oncologist? Who are the nurses? And so on.

Try to change every what question into a who question.

We did not find that those who do well are better able to predict what is to come, they have a better ability to prepare for what they cannot predict.

If you’re going to climb the mountain, more important than your strategy for climbing the mountain is your climbing partner.

Note, there is still leadership in all of this. What distinguishes those exceptional leaders? It’s not personality. We live in a culture that reveres charismatic personality.

Some of the best leaders we’ve studied didn’t have any personality. One of the leaders we studied for Good to Great, Darwin Smith, had a charisma bypass. There are charismatic leaders. Some leaders aren’t charismatic or uncharismatic, they’re just strange.

The founder of Southwest Airlines is just strange. When he wants to resolve a trademark dispute he rents an arena, fills it and resolves disputes with a trademark dispute.

Darwin Smith said he was just trying to become qualified for the job. Admiral Kayhee said he never wanted to become CEO, it was just a surprise. Herb Kelleher was devoted to creating the culture of his corporation.

It is not about personality. It is about humility. It is humility backed by an absolutely burning ambition for a mission or company that is better than yourself combined with an utterly stoic will to do whatever is required for that mission, no matter the package or personality.

Along this journey of our research, we turned to the dark side: “How Does the Mighty Fall.” We found that it happens in stages

1. Hubris born of success
   The outrageous arrogance to believe we can neglect our peole or because our intentions are noble that all of our decisions are in fact good an wise. Bad decisions taken with good intentions are still bad decisions.
2. Undisciplined pursuit of more.
3. Denial of risk and peril
   Is humility and will enough? We need more.
4. Grapsing for a quick solution
5. Capitulation

You would think great companies fall because they refuse to innovate, but it is overreaching, undisciplined pursuit of more that is the precursor to how the mighty fall.

An analology of the whole study:

In October 1911 two teams started toward the South pole. One team was led by a Norwegian (Amundson), one by a Brit (Scott). The Norwegian gets there first. The Brit gets there 34 days later. The Norwegian returned to camp exactly on the day he had penned in his journey. The Brit and his whole team died on his way back, 11 miles from a supply depot.

What we see in how these two leaders led their teams matched perfectly with how leaders who led companies through uncertainty.

They all had that level 5 ambition. It begins there, but tehn they have three important behaviors that allow them to thrive.

1. Fanatic discipline

   You are standing on the coast of California, and you’re going to walk to Maine. And you start in the morning on a beautiful day and decide to do it 20 miles per day. And the first day you are on the edge of town. The next day you’re in the middle of the desert and you just want to rest because it’s hot. But no, you do your 20 miles. And then you’ve got great weather again. And then your’re in Colorado in winter, and you’re cold, and you just want to hang out in your tent, but you do your 20 miles. And eventually you make it to Maine.

   Now compare that with the person who is excited and does 52 miles on the first day but ends up in the desert waiting for good weather. And then their in the Rockies in winter, and they hang out in their tents. They’ll take off in the spring, and they never made it.

   Intel would meet Moore’s law, recession or boom time.

   Amundson was totally obsessed. He needed to get a pass to go, so he bicycled from Norway to spain. He was obsessed. He had a 15-20 mile/day plan for the South Pole.. He did it every day, good weather or bad.

   Imagine the discipline it would take not to go more than 20 miles/day. Amundson could go 45 miles in one day. He was so close. The Brit could have been so close, they didn’t know. They were only 45 miles away. They had great weather. But they went 17 miles.

2. Empirical creativity

   We try to follow others for clues, but what great leaders do is look at data. They look at what really works. There’s something to say, “I’m not going to trying to outsmart the world around me. I’m going to see what actually works before I place my bets.”

   Scott thought he would outsmart the South Pole, so he tried to use motor sleds. And when they cracked and didn’t work, they were left with ponies, but ponies sweat, so ponies freeze, so they were

   Amundson knew he didn’t know the most about how to survive in cold weather, so he went to live with Eskimos. And they told him dogs are better for cold weather. Amundson made his decisions based on data. He read all of the journals from explorers who had been near there and found a launching point that everyone thought was too dangerous, but he knew it was safe based on the data.

   That is how true innovation happens

3. Productive paranoia

   I’ll only mention a little bit about this, but they understand that in an uncertain world you have to be prepared for what you can’t predict.

   Amundson knew you always had to be prepared for what could happen next, but instead of just being afraid about what could happen next, he channeled that into productivity.

   Scott calculates how many supplies they need and buys that much. Amundson said, “I’m not that smart. I don’t know how much I’ll need.” So he tripeled what he thought.

   Scott planted a single flag at his supply depot. Amundson put black markers for 10 miles across at every supply depot giving himself a 10 mile target to hit.

   They’re truly worried about will happen. Herb Kelleher said, “We predicted 11 of the last 3 recessions.” Southwest was the only airline that didn’t cut a single flight and was profitable in the fourth quarter of 2001. They understand, the only mistakes you learn from are the ones you survive.

   But it’s not just about surviving but building something great that is worthy of surviving.

I want to go back to a fundament point about enduring greatness. The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change, although if you don’t change, you will fall.

The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency.

What can we hang onto over a long period of time? Values. Values that aren’t open to change and abandonment. Only those endure. You need a consistent core.

To preserve the core and stimulate progress, you must have values.

The secret is to understand the difference between practices and values. Continue to change the practices but keep the values.

What keeps things alive and vibrant and great is to do what we do differently but based upon a shared set of core values.

I would like to in the last few minutes give you your 10 point to do list.

1. Run your Good to Great diagnostic on your enterprise, team, and you. It’s free on my website. Read it, download it, and use it with your team.
2. How many key seats do you have on your bus, and what is your answer to getting 100% of your key seats with the right people within a year?
3. For those whoare younger, we think a lot about what we’re going to do with our life? It’s the wrong question. Who will you allow to mentor you. I challenge you to build a personal board of directors
4. Get your personal hedgehog right before it’s too late. Know what you’re deeply passionate about to do. Know what you’re genetically encoded for, those things you are made to do. Something at which you are making an undeniable contribution to others.

   If you have those three, you have a personal hedgehog.

5. Once you have your hedgehog, set a 20 mile march and stick to it. Have a routine and stick to it. What is your 20 mile march? What is your church’s 20 mile march?
6. In an uncertain world, it’s easy to get frozen. Fire at least 6 new bullets before the end of the world. Test things. Those who move forward in an uncertain world are good at testing and then making their big bets. Navigate uncertainty by firing buillets.
7. Turn off electronic gadgets for at least 2 days every 2 weeks. I do not understand how it is possible to present with a text and email and hpone and hello. Those things are all fine. I use them too, but disciplined people engaging in disciplined thought need to find pockets of quietude in the midst of chaos, and gadgets rob us of that. One day a week, no gadgets.
8. True disciplined action is not in what we do but what we choose not to do. Start a stop doing list.
9. Whatever age you are, double your reach to people half your age, always, by changing your practices without abandoning your core values.
10. Set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal that just makes you very useful. One of the men I most admired was Peter Drucker. He kindly invested in me when I was young and uncertain. I went to lunch with him, and he ordered a Merlot and double espresso and took them both like shots. I thought to myself, “Preserve the core and stimulate progress.” I asked him which of his 26 books he was most proud of (he was 86), he said, “The next one.” He wrote 10 more. He wrote 2/3 of his books after age 65. He was 1/3 of the way through his usefulness at age 65. At the end of the day when he had his merlot and espresso chaser, he gave me one more piece of advice. He said, “You spend a lot of time worrying about whether you will survive. You will probably survive. You worry about being successful. That will probably happen too. Why don’t you go out and make yourself useful.” A great mentor changes your life in seconds.

    How do you make yourself useful? That is what all of you are doing. The path out of darkness is through those of you who are constitutionally incapable of stopping.

Q&A w/Andy Stanley
Q: There’s a lot in here on the value of empirical evidence. We live in a world where we say things like, “I was praying, and I feel like God wants us to…” We get all of this non-empirical data that is often directional. Take a shot at us.

A: It’s really important to realize that evidence comes in many forms, but imagine if it had been an intuition that, “I’m going to do motor sleds on the south pole.” Maybe it’s a truly inspired notion, but you might want to test it first. I believe we get messages that we don’t know where they came from, but when you fire a cannonball, you want to know it’s going to hit its target.

Q: Of all the key factors that led to Great by Choice, innovation wasn’t at the top.

A: That surprised us. What you find is that pioneering innovation is good overall, but statistically lethal for the innovator. It’s incredibly important for society and the economy, but it rarely works. Only 9% of those who are pioneering innovators become the leaders in their industries. I’m sacrificing for the species, but I’m sacrificing. Innovation is important but more and more innovation not married to discipline won’t get anywhere.

Creativity is human. To be human means to be creative. If you breathe you are creative. It is part of our spark. The great challenge is to marry creativity with discipline so as to amplify the creativity without destroying it.

Q: Great people in key seats versus compassion.

A: Your work is too important to allow the key seats to be filled with the wrong people.

There’s a big difference in being rigorous in your people decisions and being ruthless. To be in the service of what you’re doing means you are in service to the cause. What that means is you have to make very rigorous decisions for what is best going to serve the cause. If I’m a school principle and I’ve got a teacher who is not teaching 3rd grade kids to read, what is compassion in that situation?

And, someone might be the right person on the bus, but I’ve got them in the wrong seat. If someone is failing in a seat, they’re not in their hedgehog. Is it of service to someone to leave them in the wrong seat?

Andy Stanley is a pastor, communicator, and the founder of North Point Ministries (NPM). Since its inception in 1995, North Point Ministries has grown from one campus to five in the Atlanta area and has helped plant over twenty strategic partner churches throughout the United States. Each Sunday, more than 25,000 adults attend services at one of NPM’s three campuses: North Point Community Church, Browns Bridge Community Church, and Buckhead Church.

Andy's books include the newly released The Grace of God, as well as Communicating for a Change, Making Vision Stick, Next Generation Leader, The Principle of the Path, and How Good is Good Enough? Andy lives in Alpharetta, Georgia, with his wife, Sandra, and their three children.

I want to jump into a pretty raw and disturbing leadership truth as it relates to being present.

The more successful you are, the less accessible you will become.

For some of you this is frustrating. For others of you it is liberating.

This isn’t a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just a thing, thing. It’s just a leadership truth.

Because you’re leaders you love to grow and love progress.

This is actually not a bad thing at all. There’s something in a lot of us that says, “Not me.” Especially if you’re in our 20s.

This unavoidable truth tends to drive us in one of two directions.

1. Refuse to face this reality and burn out trying to be accessible to everyone.

   You can only truly be accessible and present to a very few people.

   When you were called to ministry, it was all about people, not programming. You saw someone and it broke you’re heart, or someone ministered to you and rescued you. And you wanted to do that.

2. Use success as an excuse to become more inaccessible than necessary.

   Now I’m a big shot. Everyone starts conversations with me, “Andy, I know you’re busy…” I get the opportunity to say, “Go, be warm and well fed…”

   Over time it’s easy to use our success to become even more inaccessible than we need to be.

I understand we start on one end and end up on the other.

Unawareness is bliss. The more unaware you are of the needs of the people around you, the less put upon and obligated you feel. The more you know, the more overwhelmed you feel.

There are no 15 minute problems. People say, “Pastor, can I come see you for 30 minutes?” You’ll talk for 30 minutes, and I can’t say, “Well, I know you have problems, but your 30 minutes is up.”

It used to be that the only bad things you knew about were the ones in your community. We’re aware of all of the sick people in our churches because of social media. Every time you turn on your computer you’re aware of some need.

We all just want to close our doors and study, go in our office and do busy work. Before long, our hearts grow cold, and we’re no longer accessible. We’re no longer present.

If you’re a preachers kid, you kinda life your life twice. You see everything your dad did. Every time you were in a restaurant someone would come over to talk and start with a 5 word lie: “I don’t mean to interrupt…”

There’s going to be so many broken marriages, prodigal sons, cancers, etc. you could give everyone 15 minutes and not get anything done. You could give everyone 3 hours and still not solve any problems.

We’re at California Pizza Kitchen, and I’m behind my assistant and her assistant. I’m at the salad bar, and I’m almost through, and someone says “Andy!” hysterically. “Andy! Andy! Andy!” And she starts into the story of her cancer. She’s on some kind of medication, seriously. I’m hoping she remembers this conversation. I’m talking and listening. I’m not rushing. I’m present. And then she sits down in the area you wait for your table… so I sit down. So now my assistants are watching me and aren’t sure what to do. They can’t hear what’s going on.

It’s heartbreaking. If you’re in ministry, you have those moments. You say, “It’s too much.” You just want to draw.

The Apostle Paul speaks to this.

Galatians 6:9 – Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:10a – Therefore, as we have opportunity,

You’ve got limited time and opportunity, but as you have opportunity…

Galatians 6:10 – Let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Galatians 6:2 – Carry each other’s burden, and in this way you will fill the law of Christ.

You can’t shut it all out.

You can’t take it all on.

This is one of those primary tensions you have to manage. This is not a problem to solve. If you ever solve this problem, your heart is hard toward people.

Years ago I coined a phrase that has defined my ministry:

Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.

We struggle with this because when we were a kid adults told us, “If I give you one, I have to give everybody one.”

You remember what you thought? “No you don’t. I won’t tell anyone.”

There’s this silly adult idea that that if you do it for one you have to do it for everyone.

I wanted to take my son on a father-son outing. He goes to a public high school. So I pull him out of school.

Then I want to take my middle school son out of his private Christian school. They tell me “no.” They tell me he’ll get a “0” in everything, that if they let him out they’ll have to let everyone out.

This creeps into our ministry. If you do premarital counseling for one couple, you feel like you have to do it for everyone. If you work with someone with a struggling marriage, you have to work with all of them.

No you don’t.

I tell pastors they need to be working with one struggling couple all of the time. Hopefully not their own. You don’t need to do all of the funerals, but you need to do some of them.

In church world, we feel like we have to be fair. Fairness ended in the Garden of Eden. Nothing has been fair since. Fair is not anything to shoot for.

Don’t be fair. Be engaged.

• Go deep rather than wide.
  Give someone your cell number and tell them you’re available any time day or night.
• Go long-term rather than short term.
  We need to see it through to the end, win or lose. We need a success story every once in a while. We need to decide to work with one or two all the way not everyone for a few minutes.
• Go time, not just money.
  Don’t just support mission trips. Go on one. And go the next year, and take your family.

  There’s nothing better than getting up in front of the people you lead and your heart full of what God is doing in someone’s life.

I learned this in 1987. I’m preaching for my dad one Sunday night downtown on Peachtree Street. Because we were downtown a lot of street people were around. Every now and again one glassy eyed, high as a kite street person would come down for the alter call and commit to anything if you gave them a bit of money or helped the find a place to stay or meet.

So I walk into my dad’s office and this woman behind me says, “Preacher, do you believe what you just preached?” I had just preached on forgiveness. She said, “I need to talk to somebody about that.”

There’s this moment when you think, “Let me get your number. We’ll set up a meeting…” But every now and again you get a nudge. The Holy Spirit says, “Not this one, not this time.”

What I didn’t know was that was the beginning of a 20 year relationship with a woman named Jane. Typical story. Over the next 20 years, I learned about medicare, Medicaid, how to tell if someone was lying. It was an education. Hillary Clinton was right, it takes a village. I got my roommate involved.

She lied and stole, lied and stole, lied and stole.

We wanted to get her a job, she had some typing skills. So we were trying to find her a house, so we found this house with three college guys with an extra room.

So one day Jane comes in and says, “I quit my job.” I’m like “No! Why?” She says, “I have AIDS.” She didn’t think it was fair to her employer or the guys she was living with. And then she disappears.

Then she came back a few months later and says, “I lied. I’m not HIV positive.”

I told her, “If you ever get clean. God’s going to use all of this crap. And you’re going to have to go back to Mississippi and confront what happened there.”

Jane finally got clean and got a job. She comes to me and says, “I want to start a ministry for abused women. How would I do that.” So I’m like… “Uh…”

So she starts a group in her apartment and invites me to come. And I don’t want to go hang out with all of these women who hate men. So one time she says the boyfriends and husbands are coming. So I’m like, “Uh, sure, I’ll come.”

So Jane’s sitting there facilitating this discussion with these women. She’s got her Bible in her lap, facilitating this discussion. She’s just dealing out grace, dealing out grace. Sandra and I couldn’t say a word.

We ran out to the car and just sat there, and suddenly burst out crying. Part of was the pane in the room. Part of it was the complexity of those relationships. Part of it was the fact that Jane was sitting there.

She called me and said with a giggle, “Andy, you were right. God is telling me to go back to Mississippi.”

She would call, and I would call. I struggled to maintain that relationship.

Her brother called and told me she passed away, and she wanted to leave what she had to the church.

So I got a check a couple of months later for $6000. I held that check. I’ve held bigger checks, but I’ve never held a more precious check.

My dad was in high school and felt called to ministry but didn’t have any money for college. So this man, Julian Phillips, asked him what he wants to do after high school. He said he wanted to preach, but had no money for college. So Julian talked to Rev. Hammock about it. So a week, and two weeks, and a month went by, and he didn’t hear from him. And one day Rev. Hammond called and said, “We’ve got you a full ride to the University of Richmond.”

How would you like to be the pastor that sent my dad to college? This is a pastor who I’m sure talked to many high school boys. He couldn’t send all of them to college. But he got engaged.

When you do for one what you can’t do for everyone, you often end up doing for far more than just one.

Don’t be fair. Be engaged. Go long. Go deep. Go time. Don’t make excuses. Don’t let people guilt you because you’re not fair.

If we all do for one, maybe that’s how we change the world. But even if not, we’ll have changed for someone.

A popular speaker at churches and leading conferences such as Catalyst, CreationFest, and YouthSpecialties, Margaret Feinberg was recently named one of the '30 Emerging Voices' who will help lead the church in the next decade by Charisma magazine and one of the '40 Under 40' who will shape Christian publishing by Christian Retailing, she has written more than two dozen books and Bible studies including the critically-acclaimed The Organic God, The Sacred Echo, Scouting the Divine (Zondervan) and their corresponding DVD Bible studies. She is known for her relational teaching style and inviting people to discover the relevance of God and His Word in a modern world.

Each speaker seems to be responding to this theme of Be Present differently. The way I am is just by sharing where I am right now in October 2011.

People come to Catalyst for a lot of different reasons, but a lot of folks come to figure out what techniques and methods they can use to grow their church.

I recently stumbled on one that can be quite amazing, and I have placed it in this box. This isn't just any ordinary box. It is "The Box."

This is a muffin, an extraordinarily basic object. What is extraordinary about this is that people come to our church in Denver, and people love the muffins. They want to know what bakery we use. You know who we use? Costco. A church up the street uses Krispy Kreme. He says that's one of the most exciting things that happens at their service.

And then she handed out muffins. And we all started having conversations.

That is what we call a method. You're going to hear a lot of those over the next couple of days. And I'm a big fan of methods and techniques. And yet as important as the methods and techniques are, that is all they are.

At the end of the day we need to build our churches on the person of Jesus Christ.

This starts to allude to a deeper question. What stirs the human heart to know God. I'm talking about more than physical hunger. I'm talking about spiritual hunger.

Recently David Kinnaman came out with a book looking at how youth are becoming disaffected with the Church.

Scott McKnight takes a more academic look in his book King Jesus Gospel. He challenges us to think about the way that we share Jesus.

Kara Powell has this book called Stickyfaith. As kids grow up, they're losing their faith, and she looks at what causes it.

For me this question of spiritual appetite is something I wrestle with. How do you raise someone's spiritual appetite?

When I sit down and write, I actually think about the person I want to reach. And I do it in very specific terms. If you sit down to write a sermon and just begin to pull out material from thin air, you'll end up with just this amorphous thing. But if you think about a particular person you're trying to reach, it focuses you.

When I sit down to write, when I sit down to create my real heart material, the person I want to reach is a 33 year old spiritually malnourished male. Let me introduce you to him in general terms, and I realize there's some stereotyping here.

• He's probably a bit frustrated with his career.  He's not where he wanted to be in his career or he's realized this isn't the career for him.  He can't move up because baby boomers can no longer afford to retire.
• When he comes home he pulls into his driveway, and he probably purchased a home that is worth less than he paid for it.
• When he walks in the door he hugs his wife, but when he looks into her eyes, he realizes that she is more tired than he is.
• And his kids grab him and are excited to see him, but all he really wants to do is crawl into his man cave and play PS3.
• But he digs deep so that he can serve his family.
• He goes to church on Sunday.  He probably didn't have time to read his Bible this week.  He wants to do his duty, put in his time.

Why do I want to reach that person? Because he's one of the hardest to reach people, one of the hardest to ignite passion in.

When you picture the person you are going off, what specifically do they look like? What is their age? What is their demographic? Do you have that picture in your mind?  What is their spiritual temperment?

A few weeks ago I had the chance to sit down with a girl I had never met before named Susannah.  I asked her what she does, and she said she's a lacation nurse.

I thought that was kind of weird, so I asked her about it.  She says my job is to get a baby who otherwise won't eat to eat.  Typically they take a baby and wrap it and put it in the arms of its mother.  And so what they do is take a portion of the mom and try to put it into the baby's mouth.  On the roof of the baby's mouth there is a receptor that tells it that it's time to meet.

But she said that's only working for so many babies.  I get the ones it doesn't work for.  I take the baby and remove its hat and its wrap and just leave it in a diaper and lays it on its mom's belly.  A baby has a dozen sensors in its body that connect with the mother.  And one of them hears the mother's heartbeat.  One smells the breast milk which smells like the embryonic fluid.

And the baby sees mom, and the connection starts to happen.

And the baby begins to climb up it's mom's belly and begin to eat.

And as this woman is describing this incredible miracle, I think, this is what we're in the business of doing, stirring up people's appetite.

And so we ask why?

And I think some of the answer, if not all of it, is found in the Scripture.

John 1:35 ff  People begin to follow Jesus even though they really have no idea who he is.

v. 41 Andrew goes to Peter and tells him they've found the Messiah.  We think we need to get people plugged into a program, and really it's just about bringing them to Jesus.

Jesus does something a bit motherly, giving Peter his name.  And so Peter becomes a follower.

v. 43 Jesus just goes up to Phillip and says, "Follow me" and he does.

So many folks meet Jesus in so many different ways. We get a glimpse of how the very first followers of Jesus come to know him.

It doesn't stop with the disciples.  There's Nicodemus in John 3 when Jesus tells him about being born again.  And then he disappears and reappears later in John 17 & 20 when he helps to prepare Christ's body.

And then in John 4 there's the Samaritan woman who had all of the spouses, and she goes and tells everyone about Jesus.

This awakens us to the reality of the way we are designed.  What stirs up the hunger in the human heart to know God?

1. God is drawing all men to Himself through his spirit.

   I see the numbers and statistics and what is happening at our own church.  The Gospel reminds us that God is in the business of drawing people to him.  It is not a burden we bear but a priveledge we get to participate in.

2. The methods that awaken peoples hearts to God are wildly different.

   We have to extend greater grace to people who do things differently than us.  When I look at Christianity, especially Evangelical Christianity, I see a bitterness and a harshness.  Look at what happened with Rob Bell.

   I had a friend who read Love Wins and didn't like it at all.  She got mad and frustrated.  "I have a real problem with him and with that book, but my daughter who hasn't been to church in years read that book and is plugging back in."

3. We are living in a time when it is all hands on deck.

   Something is holding back people from coming to Christ, and all of us are on the front lines of finding solutions, whether is poetry or blogging or speaking or preaching or spoken word or whatever.

So what does this mean for me as I write for that 33 year old male?

• It means I am desperately dependent on the Holy Spirit.
• That means I have people in my life who are like that.  Call on them to speak into your life and what you're creating.  Often the feedback that they give isn't about a major concept, it's just one little thing like shopping at Target, and they're like "I don't shop at Target."

My hope and my prayer for you as leaders is that you will think about how to cultivate spiritual hunger in your town and your community, that you'll be in the business of becoming part of the solution.

Joshua DuBois is Special Assistant to President Obama and Executive Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, where he helps direct the Obama Administration’s engagement of faith-based and other nonprofit organizations around the country. One of President Obama’s longest serving aides, Joshua served in then-Senator Obama’s legislative office and he led the Religious Affairs Department for his presidential campaign. He came to the Obama world after having worked on Capitol Hill and was an Associate Pastor at a small church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and a Bachelor’s degree from Boston University. Joshua was raised in Nashville, Tennessee.

President Obama began his community organizing work on the south side of Chicago. A lot businesses had moved out, so there were a dearth of services. President Obama started working for the Catholic Campaign as a community organizer.

He tried to reach out to city hall and businesses without much success. When he began to reach out to churches, he found a receptive audience. Faith motivates people to do social good.

As a kid I participated in a lot of programs at Payne Chapel AME Church in Nashville, TN. Much of my support came through the church, as my mom was a single mom. From my early years I had a notion that churches are what can connect communities to resources.

My stepfather is a pastor led many of those types of programs as well.

President Obama asked me to head up this department in order to better serve people in need in this country. The way that we do this practically is we manage thirteen smaller offices throughout the federal government out of the White House.

In addition to that work, the President has asked us to focus on some special priorities where the President thinks we can make an impact.

• The first one is the President's National Initiative on Responsible Fatherhood. He grew up without a dad, but he also spent a lot of time in communities where children are being raised by single parents. We affirm and support single parents, but whenever we can have a positive male role model in a child's life, that is an incredibly important thing. In the African-American community a child has a 72% chance of being born to a single mother.We're supporting fathers who have come out of difficult circumstances such as incarceration.We're going around the country and championing the value of fatherhood so that the message can spread that fatherhood is important.

  We're working with companies to create spaces where fathers can connect with their children in the real world.  It's important not only for those dads and kids but also to get the idea of fatherhood back into the culture.

• The next issue we work on is the President's agenda on adoption and foster care.The President's basic thought is that we have to create a culture where adopted kids and families are seen as just as valuable as anyone else.  There are about 130k kids in foster care today.We spend a lot of time on this issue, and the President has invested a lot on this.  In the Affordable Care Act, the President included an extension and expansion of the Adoption Credit to help offset the cost of adoption.

  We're also trying to lift up the cultural role of adoption in our country.  We have an adoption ceremony each year where the Secretary of Health and Human Services presides.  We want to send the message that adoption is valued.

• We help to feed hungry kids in cooperation with faith based and community organizations.We found that there are a lot of kids who go hungry in our country, especially in the summer when they don't receive free or reduced price lunch. We started working with organizations around the country to set up summer feeding programs.We see an interesting correlation between juvenile crime and some of the food deserts that are out there.
• Underscoring the importance of religion in foreign affairs.Our foreign policy folks have never really engaged with religious leaders throughout the world, largely because we were afraid to touch it.  It was seen as too complicated and messy and maybe unconstitutional.If we're going to have an impact on issues of hunger and nutrition in countries, we're going to have to engage with religious leaders.
• We work to protect religious freedom around the world.We were instrumental in getting an Ambassador for Religious Freedom appointed.

We manage 13 offices around the government.

We work on special priorities.

We work on some other events like the President's Easter Prayer Breakfast.

I was trying to think about what the common thread among all of these iniatives and some of President Obama's other work is.  And the common thread is dignity.

I learned about dignity from a man named Homer Roberson, my grandfather.  A few things about him that were important.

• He didn't come from a place of a lot of resources.
• He read a lot, voraciously consumed information. He could talk about any subject.
• He was a really big guy, huge hands that looked like catchers mits.  He never hurt anybody, but he looked like the kind of guy you didn't mess with.
• He had this innate sense of human dignity.  He knew he was a child of God, and nothing could shake that core sense of human dignity.

It wasn't a pride thing.  He needed it.  He grew up in Nashville and was an electrician.  He did such a good job that he was appointed to be a foreman.  He was coming on the tail end of the civil rights movement.  He was managing whites, which wasn't easy.  He said the name calling wasn't the worst part, it was when people would do things that would threaten his safety, like mess with a rung of the ladder he was on.

He emphasized the importance of dignity.  Whether someone had messed with his ladder or he didn't get a job and money was running low, he always knew who he was and whose he was.

I think a lot of what we're about is rooted in this notion of human dignity.

The President spent a lot of energy on health care reform a couple of years ago.  It wasn't a popular issue for him.  But he kept hearing on the campaign trail about people who needed health care.  Because of that about an additional 500k people last year had health care who didn't have it before.

He's also spent a lot of time talking about jobs.  Every day the President reads 10 letters from people who write him.  Often they're about needing a job.  It's about dignity.

Where the private sector can do these things, they should.  Where the Church is stepping up and doing these things, they should.  Where the government can fill the gaps, they should.

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We have a program encouraging faith organizations on college campuses to come together around service, not to convince them to believe the same thing but to help them to understand one another better.  We find that students usually end up stronger in their own faith.

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Churches provide 8% of food assistance in the US.  Government provides 92%.

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Q: How can we as pastors better engage with our communities?

A: Partner with a local non-profit who is already doing great work.  I attend a church called National Community Church in DC, and they often partner with other organizations who is already doing great work.

Look at sports leagues for little kids, especially ones that may be in a community you haven't connected with before.

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Q: How do you as a Christian handle the idea that abortion is murder?

A: President Obama believes that abortion is a deeply moral issue, but that at the end of the day that decision should be with a woman and her family and not with the laws.  There can be honest disagreement with that position, but that is his position.

That said, the President does a lot to support the full range of options for women.  He included $250 million for pregnant women in the health care reform bill.

We can find common ground.  There are going to be some disagreements, but the President thinks we need to do more to support the unborn in this country.

Michael Hyatt is the Chairman and former CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publishing company in the world and the seventh largest trade book publishing company in the U.S. He blogs at michaelhyatt.com, focused on “intentional leadership.” His philosophy is that if you are going to lead well, you must be thoughtful and purposeful about it.

I want to tell you a story that happened in 1976.  I had only been a Christian for two years, and I went to a retreat with my church.  One of the speakers said, "By the time you get 55 years old, 10% of you will act like you never knew Jesus at all.  About 70% of you will be comprimised.  You may be going to church, but you're not going to be impacting the world any longer.  About 20% of you will be making an impact.  If you want to be part of the 20%, you're going to have to make a lifelong committment."

I desperately wanted to be part of that 20%.  What happens to the 80%? My experience is that they lose heart in some way.

This is particularly important for you as a leader.  If you don't want to be a zombie leader who is just going through the motions, you're going to have to be intentional.

I've almost lost my heart several times.

In 1992 I had a business I started with a friend of mine, and we were going like crazy.  But we violated a couple of Dave Ramsey's principles.  We were investing more money than we were taking in.  THat eventually catches up with you.  In 1991, a bank called in our loan.  We didn't have to go bankrupt because our assets were pledged to the bank.  So they backed up a moving truck and took everything out.  Two days later I was literally sitting in my office with my partner and a phone.

It wasn't the last assault on my heart.

I don't know as you come in what you may be struggling with.  Maybe it's a marriage, a wayward child, a child with a health problem, your career or your ministry.  I find that so often it's those things that tend to take out our heart.  The people closest to us are the ones that can take out our heart.

It's possible to get your heart back.  It's possible to lead from the heart.

You will maximize your influence as a leader when you embrace five truthes about the heart.

1. Your heart is the essence of your identity.This is particularly important in a world of social media where so often the image triumphs over the reality.  The image is so important that we often confuse it for our essence and lose who we are.

   Matthew 5:8: Blessed are the pure in heart.
   Matthew 6:3: Where your treasure is there your heart will be.
   Matthew 15:18
   Matthew 22:37: Great commandment

   One of my very favorite theologians, Dr. Seuss, said, "Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one youier than you."

   Once you strip away all of the relationships, all of the connections, the essence of who you are is your heart.

   The world's focus is too often on the external image.

   1 Samuel 16:7: Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

   One of the first times I can remember becoming conscious of the heart, was when I met a young struggling writer in the late 90s.  His name was John Eldridge.  He looked at me across the table and said, "Mike, how is your heart." it seemed incredibly personal, intimate, and honestly, I had no clue.

   If he had asked me about my career or family, I could have answered.  It was one of the first times I had considered my heart.

2. Your heart is the most valuable leadership tool you have.Proverbs 4:23: Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

   We so often think it is about our experience or knowledge or skills.  That's the thing that will make the difference and make us a great leader.  That's the thing out of which everything else comes.

   About a year ago I had the priveledge of going to the San Juan Islands.  It was an absolutely gorgeous setting.  My friend told me to bring some waterproof shoes because we'd be walking through springs.  I noticed a few a things about springs.

   If you stop up a spring, the stream stops flowing.
   If you pollute the spring, the stream becomes polluted.

3. Your heart directly impacts your influence.This is where it really starts to get interesting for leaders.

   Physically your heart keeps you alive.  Your body can survive without many different organs.  In 2011 I went into the hospital thinking I had a really bad cold.  The doctor said, I think you have pneumonia, so they gave me antibiotics and pain medication.  For 4 days I got worse and worse.  The middle of the fourth day they brought me back to the ER.  The doctor came in and said, "Your gallbladder is ruptured."

   As traumatic as that situation was, I haven't missed my gallbladder.  I can't tell any negative effects.  There are lots of organs you could lose a piece of or one of, but if you lose your heart, you're dead in a physical sense.

   Spiritually, your heart is what keeps your church, your ministry, your organization alive.

   As a leader you pump possibility into every person and project you meet.  It can survive without your experience, knowledge, or skills, but it can't survive without your heart.  Your heart is the greatest thing you can give.

   Sam Moore was my predecessor as CEO at Thomas Nelson.  He served for over 40 years.  But he could be a bit mercurial.  Some days he was up, others he was down.  But I never doubted for a moment that he loved God, our mission, and me.  He understood how his heart is a leadership tool.

4. Your heart is either healthy or unhealthy.I'm afraid that some of you sitting here today may have spiritual cardiovascular disease.  That happens for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes we get offended, and pull back, and the spiritual bloodflow gets restricted.  Like physical heart disease, you can keep function for a while.  It's

   Your heart is either open or closed.
   Closed: Distant and aloof, lost in your own problems, you can't seem to connect to people, communication shuts down, you leave people on your team to fend for themselves, you leave people feeling oppressed. A few months ago I was asked to coordinate a strategic planning retreat for a large bank.  Things went incredibly well until I had to talk to the Chairman.  So I got on the phone with the CEO and the Chairman.  The whole climate changed.  I could almost see him sitting with his arms folded on the other end of the line.  Have you ever had one of those calls where you feel diminished, just small?  I told my assistant that I didn't want to do the event.  This guy was bleeding life out of his organization.

   Open: You're fully present and accessible. You're focused on others. You connect to people. Communication is wide open.  You're a resource to your people. You may focus on what is missing, but you don't focus on what is wrong.  that's an important difference, especially when you're trying to lead a team and keep them inspired.  I've often worked with consultants who come into the meetings and think it's there job to figure out what is wrong.  They want to look smart.  As a leader it's easy to go there if you're not careful, but it will suck the life out of your team. You're affirming and encouraging.  People feel free.  You're pumping life and possibility into the organization.  People may not be able to articulate it in those terms, but people know if your heart is open or closed.

5. Your heart is under constant attack.Satan's primary objective is to take you out and render you ineffective for God.  We do have an enemy, and he wanders about as a roaring lion.  One of my best friends got taken out this spring, and I didn't see it coming.  But I should have.  He got taken out at the level of the heart because he let some disappointments and failures take root in his heart.  He left his family and his ministry and moved to another city for another woman.

   It also taught me that you're never too old to do something stupid.  I've been married for 33 years, and I'm here to tell you you can be married long term. I'm not saying it's easy.  Sometimes it's hard.  Stand for it.  If you need therapy or counseling or help from friends, get it.

   Satan will come against you in that realm as well.

   Solomon wouldn't have told us to guard our hearts if there weren't something precious there.

   Every Wednesday night I take these two trash cans to the street and leave them unguarded.  No one is going to steal them.  There's nothing valuable there.

   How many of you are in ministry?

   I think Satan is particularly adept at taking out the hearts of Christian leaders.  When a Christian leader falls, it sends a shockwave.  People are watching you to see if you make it.  They're hoping you show them it's possible to finish well.

   "Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, depression, and hypertension at a higher rate than most Americans... Many would change jobs if they could."

   According to pastorburnout.com, 1500 pastors leave their churches every month due to burnout or moral failure.

   70% of pastors say they don't have a close friend.  I'm going to tell you something about friends.  It's a key to keeping your heart alive.

   I used to think the people at work were my friends, and they were in a way, but it's different.

   Ecclesiastes 4: Two are better than one...

   57% would leave the ministry if they had somewhere else to go or some other vocation they could do.  That's tragic to think you'd be trapped in a job you're doing because you have nowhere else to go or nothing else to do.

   I sometimes think of the heart like a drawbridge on a castle.  Sometimes it needs to be brought up so negative influences don't come in, but there are other times it needs to be lowered, like when we're leading.

   Jesus died, was crucified and raised again to set your heart free.  As a leader, it's so you can lead from your heart, love from your heart.

   Your heart is under constant attack.

Can you discern whether your heart is open or closed? This is an important leadership skill.

You can recover your heart.  You can keep it healthy, by practicing the disciplines of the heart.  I want to mention one of them to you, the discipline of Sabbath, finding time to cultivate the inner you.  We live in such a busy, noisy world that it all gets crowded out.

Someone asked me, "How can I compete with people willing to sacrifice their family and themselves to win?"  I said that it's faith.

Often times, people in ministry put themselves last and ultimately cost themselves everything.  It's like when the flight attendant says to put the mask over your own face before you help someone else.

Ask yourself regularly: How is my heart?

You can leave Catalyst this week with a different heart than you came in with.

Q: Can you talk more about the difference between what is missing and what is wrong.

A: Being a good leader is kinda like being a good parent. When someone I’m working with who is trying to develop as a leader comes in with something they’ve put their all into, I don’t want to poke a hole in it immediately. I want to recognize what they’ve done well and then point out what may be missing.

Q: You have a life-planning guide on your blog. How does this fit into that?

A: That's the number one thing that has guarded my heart, giving me a check to make sure that I'm balanced, things aren't getting neglected, that I'm taking care of myself.

Q: You talked about that bank earlier. How do you decide when you want to engage and help make change?

A: Part of it is just spiritual discernment that comes with age. There are some situations where you're excited to help make a change. Other situations you just don't want to engage. I think it's just prayer and experience.

Q: Can you talk more about disciplines of the heart?

A: The big one is sabbath, but it's not just a weekly thing. Jesus would go pray early in the morning. For me, it looks like this, reading a portion of the Bible every morning. I often pray when I'm running or driving. When you start seeing those things go, you're in the danger zone. Stop, back up, and take time for God.

Originally from Australia, Darren Whitehead has lived in the United States for over thirteen years. With a passion for the global church, Darren joined the staff of one of the most influential churches in North America - Willow Creek Community Church. As teaching pastor, Darren and senior pastor Bill Hybels share the weekend service teaching responsibilities for all six campuses. Darren lives with his wife, Brandy, and their three daughters just outside of Chicago, Illinois. He co-authored Rumors of God: Experience the Kind of Faith You´ve Only Heard About with Jon Tyson.

Jon Tyson is the Lead Pastor of Trinity Grace Church, which has five churches in New York City. Originally from Australia, Jon moved to the United States fourteen years ago with a passion to understand and help work out the future of the Western Church. He lives, works, and serves in one of the largest cultural and missionary contexts of the world—the global city. Jon is also on the board of City Collective, a network of incarnational churches committed to multiplying missional church networks in the urban centers of the world. Jon lives in Manhattan with his wife, Christy, and their two children. He co-authored Rumors of God: Experience the Kind of Faith You´ve Only Heard About with Darren Whitehead.

We have been living in the US for 13-14 years. So I hope you can deal with us talking about the church as outsiders. We've worked at a bunch of different churches in the US and at one point worked together at a church in Tennesee, but we are in almost diametrically opposed contexts now.

I (Darren) am in suburban Chicago at a mega-church with 25,000 at 6 locations. Jon is in NYC with 5 churches, neighborhood city parishes they call them.

We don't have a church future crystal ball, so you can write this down and see how wrong we were in the future, but we love talking about this kind of stuff. This conversation is a lot like an overflow of a phone conversation between us.

I want to talk about a number of different subjects. We're just going to talk about a number of different subjects.

One of the things I (Jon) think is interesting about our friendship is that we've gone through a whole series of theological and methodological challenges together. We're almost diametrically opposed, I pastor a church of 140 in Manhattan, you pastor at a huge church.

Jon: The idea of a megachurch in America in the last 40 years has radically changed the church landscape. They were started by people who felt their church wasn't doing things right. Some people say the large, suburban megachurch doesn't have a future.

Darren: For our purposes, a megachurch is a church of 2000 or more in weekend services. In 1970, there were 10, in 1980, there were 50, in 1990, there were 500, in 2005, there were 1200. The growth of them has been astounding, yet denominations and attendance in churches overall is way down.

Based on this, I think the death of the megachurch is pretty unlikely. It's like shopping malls, in spite of Amazon, most of them will make it. It puts a large conglomeration of needs that can be met in one place. A megachurch has that same sort of appeal.

Whenever you have a leader with a large drive (whether from a pure heart or a broken heart or somewhere in between), you're going to have church growth. About 50 years ago churches started to implement business princples to grow their church, and that's how you got the church growth movement.

The bigger question is, why are all of these churches on such a decline, and what is it going to take to turn it around. I think all churches, big and small, need to be thriving.

Jon: Jesus never told us to build the church. He told us to make disciples. People get obsessed with one kind of church over another. We miss the point when we fight these battle. We need the kingdom of God to advance in a rapidly secularizing western culture.

Darren: Let's talk about NYC for a minute. How has the spiritual landscape changed in 10 years since 9/11?

Jon: NYC is incredibly transient. So, I've been there 6 years, which is a long time for there.

60% of evangelical churches in Manhattan have been planted in the last 20 years. We have moved from 1% to 3% who identify as evangelicals.

There are 160k people within a mile and a half of my church. You could have a megachurch on every corner and still not reach saturation.

People are becoming more spiritual, but it's not translating into church attendance.

Darren: So you have about 1200 people in 5 church locations.

Jon: We're basically tried to create a culture of empowerment.

Anyone who comes to NYC to reach NYC hasn't been there. It's a conglomeration of individual neighborhoods and cities.

If we're going to reach NYC, you're going to have to focus on smaller neighborhoods, smaller components of the city.

I want to talk about church leadership. I gave a talk a couple of years ago called "The death of alpha-male leadership," and it was a little controversial. I had quite a bit of pushback on this. Do you think the future of the church is charismatic, alpha-male strong leaders. If a church is large, it probably has a really strong leader and really good teaching.

Darren: Now you're starting to sound like a whiny, pissy church kid. The US has an infatuation with celebrity. There's a desire to put someone on a pedestal who is better than the rest of us.

When leadership starts to get criticized as the problem, I think it's a misdiagnosis. The Bible is full of stories about good and bad leadership. When someone starts to say, "Alpha-male leadership needs to die." I think that is diagnosing it incorrectly. I think the future of the church is not anti-leadership, but it is anti-celebrity.

We're projecting in varying degrees a facade.

Leadership matters. The style and context of ministry continues to evolve. People are saying, "I don't want to be that guy on TV. I don't want all that." But God will continue to use leaders. You need to be humble and continue to serve your congregation.

Jon: When I started I wanted to do a network of house-churches. If you've got a mega-church and the leader leaves, maybe it collapses. If a leader leaves a house-church. It collapses. The church is based on leadership.

Darren: What will be the defining issue for the church in the next 20 years.

Jon: There's the gay issue. Women in leadership still hasn't played out. At the end of the day you can't talk about any of these issues without talking about the authority of Scripture. In the end our opinions don't matter.

That will be the defining issue, the authority of Scripture.

It's incredibly frustrating to debate with someone until you understand their hermenutic, what they think about Scripture. That's where the boundary lines will line up. That's where you should draw the lines. More alignment will come out of that than anything.

There's been such a resurgence of Calvinism that it's almost like if someone's not Calvinist (and I come out of a Reformed tradition), they're liberal. I wish we would be more theologically centrist. Let's not define the center as neo-Calvinism. Let's define the center as evangelicalism.

Darren: Your perspective is that all of these big issues are built on the authority of Scripture.

Jon: Most people are Biblically illiterate. They don't preach the text anymore. We've got to teach people the Scriptures.

So talking about teaching the Bible, Willow Creek invented a paradigm called a seeker ministry. It became the dominant paradigm. Churches started to say "We're going to do seeker-sensitive on the weekends, members services during the week." But you don't do that anymore. Why did you abandon your defining paradigm?

Darren: You have to understand, Bill Hybels and his mates were reacting against the church they grew up in. It was high-church that was completely culturally irrelevant. So they planted a church that would hold cultural relevance in high regard.

Then 10 or 15 years ago they realized there was a cultural shift going on. After 9/11 people weren't returning to church. They were going for the first time. 30 years ago people had a church background, and so all a seeker church had to do was get them back into church. Now that's not the case anymore. People don't feel the need to be in church.

So we morphed what we had been doing, preaching around felt needs and doing a presentation service hoping people would bring their friends. Now we're really teaching from the Scripture directly. We don't do series based around popular movies.

We're really returning to the roots. We do a lot of hymns, a lot more teaching from the text. We're finding the younger generation is reacting to the seeker movement and are wanting something a little more historic and rooted in church history. It's, interestingly enough, appealing to both older and younger people.

Jon: Our church isn't what people think for a NYC church. We have hymns and stringed instruments and liturgy.

Darren: We're all thinking about the gay issue in the church, so I don't want to sidestep it. How do you think it's going to play out in the church?

Jon: What I think is unfortunate is that the whole middle ground has dropped out. I've got a lot of reactions to it.

I've got a theological one, my theology of Jesus. I think the most important text which teaches us about marriage is Jesus' teaching on divorce. Regardless of cultural views on marriage, Jesus roots marriage in a man and a woman leaving and cleaving, and any expression outside of that is outside of God's will.

I've got a son in middle school. 40 or 50 years ago a gay person was incredibly self-loathing, but in their heart they questioned whether it was really wrong. So they felt the only way they could respond to this, according to the premiere gay historian in America, was the gay pride movement. Fast-forward to my kids. They know in their heart that following Jesus is a good, beautiful thing, but they have a culture that tells them they're narrow-minded and dogmatic. I'm painting with broad brushstrokes, so don't send me e-mails.

I think the middle ground is going to disappear in the next 5-10 years. If you've been on the fence, you'll be forced to make a decision.

How the church has treated the gay community is horrific. I don't want to really apologize to the gay community because we haven't done anything. I think the response has to be at the local, not national, level. I don't think the church can apologize as a whole.

Darren: I think in the next few years we will see a number of high-profile leaders who come out with a pro-gay position from the Scriptures. I think we'll see a really convincing position. Even heterosexual young Christian leaders would like to be pro-gay because they've hated how the Church has handled it.

Jon: I've read just about every resource I can get my hand on connected to this. Abraham Kuyper says, "If in the generation you live, a line is drawn in the sand on which you have a response, you're called to take a stand on it."

Darren: What is the church going to need to get right in the future?

Jon: In the Christian ghetto there's all this talk about church-planting, but it's a bit of a diversion. The church is fading away in western culture. I think we're at a point where if God doesn't do something powerful, we're not going to be here.

The one thing we have to get right is a passionate pursuit of Jesus. The thing you need to get right is spend more time in prayer. If I could lead you to do one thing, it would be to spend two hours a day in prayer.

I'm a fan of praying outside because when you pray outside you taste the brokenness.

Darren: We love the Church. It's not just about critiquing. It's about loving the bride of Christ. We love the bride of Christ.

In the context where there's a diminished influence of Christians, like in China, that's where you begin to see real Christianity lived out. I'm really hopeful you're going to start to see people who really love Jesus.

We wrote a book called Rumors of God that is about a lot of these ideas we've been talking about. If we're honest we're not seeing an undeniable move of God in our world. It's not about tweaking little things. It's about an undeniable, unexplainable outpouring of God's Spirit.

Q: Do you think video venues are going to increase or diminish?

Jon: I don't like video venues. You can't even make a joke about the weather or the traffic.

Darren: What we haven't lived in long enough is the unintended consequences of the multi-site movement. Are we going to have big brand churches. Theologically, we're saying, "We can produce everything, besides me, the senior pastor, the true visionary." Pragmatically, you've got churches in decline. They start multi-site, and they start growing. They double in size.

Q: Something about being a cultural imperialist.

Jon: I'm not a cultural imperialist. I'm about being salt and light. Our job is to be disciples for the transformation of the culture. Just be faithfully present and stop being about results.

Q: How does the megachurch catering to needs not feed into the church experience as consumerism.

Jon: M. Scott Peck says that just as a child grows with normal, physical birth, one grows spiritually. What does an infant do? It consumes. It does nothing. A child's concern is to be compliant, on how to live in the house. Teenagers are about being rebellious. An adult's job is to run the house and take responsibility.

On our spiritual journey, there are times it's okay to be frustrated. If you're a baby, drink milk. We can't blast everyone for being where they are. I'm a little more nuanced.

The thing about Willow Creek, they'll baptize almost 2000 people this year. Some of them will go to other churches where they can grow more.

It's not wrong to be a consumer if you're a spiritual infant. It's that there are more folks who should be further along.

David Kinnaman is the President of Barna Group. He is the author of the best-selling book, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, and his new book, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church...and Rethinking Faith.

So for the last five years I’ve been studing the question, why do young Christians leave the Church after spending so much time in the Church.

I approach this as a researcher, but I’m also a pastor’s son. And I work in the church with young people.

This girl, Amy, came back from college and I met her in the coffeeshop and asked about her faith, and she sheepishly said, “I’m a Mormon now.”

Shifts between the 60s and now.

If you look at the percentage of young people who are born with an unmarried mom, it was 5% in the 1960s. Now it's 41%. It's 8 times more likely that someone is born with a mom not married to their biological dad.

Look at failure to launch. At age 30, the percentage of young women who have left home: 77% in the 60s, 4?% now. It's only 31% now for young men. It was 65%.

The percentage of Americans who were unmarried by their 30s, it was 17%. It's 54% now.

Teenagers are getting 10.5 hours of media intake per day.

89% believed the bible was sacred in the 60s. 67% now.

70% of boomers were aware of Billy Graham in the 60s. 22% have a favorable view of him now.

Do you think we're more or less sexualized, narcissistic now?

What if how we disciple is different now? What if this is the first generation who isn't going to come back to the church?  How are we going to make effective Christ followers in a new generation.

I can't emphasize the urgency of responding to these trends.

Significant historical shifts are powered by profound social change.

After 9/11, there wasn't much you could do to keep people out of your church.  2-3 months later, there wasn't much you could do to keep them in.

Most of the 20-somethings in your community are unmarried, have fewer connections and loyalties (at work, to music, etc.)  If we don't recognize this, how are you going to make disciples of this generation?

When you think about the exposure of this generation to science, one of the main reasons young people leave the church is its opposition to science.  Young Christians interested in science leave the church.  52% of young Christians say they're interested in a career in science.  Science is dominating our culture.  Do you know that just 1% of youth pastors told us they had spoken on issues of science in the last year.  The church is remaining silent on issues of primary importance to young people.

Take a step back from your day to day ministry and ask what it means to ask these new questions.

We're also losing many young artists.

A young woman named Katy grew up in a pastor's home. She had to eat "angeled eggs," not deviled. It wasn't the "Dirt Devil," it was the vacuum. Her last name is Perry. We lost Katy Perry because we weren't willing to disciple where people are at.

We've tried to mass produce disciples. This doesn't have anything to do with church size. There are large churches that don't mass produce disciples.

Only 1 in 11 churches say they do a good job of ministering to young leaders. Are we measuring success based on how well these young people are growing in their faith.

I think there are three things that are incredibly important in discipling young people.

• Solid relationships, intergenerational relationships
• Calling and vocation
• Dependence on God

Percentage of 18-29 year olds who were churchgoers as teenagers:

• 17% of young people had an adult mentor at Church
• 16% learned how the bible applies to my field or interest area
• 20% believe that Jesus speaks in a relevant, personal way.

So Eli tells Samuel that the Lord is speaking to him and says, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."

God is speaking to the next generation of leaders whether we coach them or not.  We have a real opportunity to guide the next generation and be an intergenerational body of Christ.

We had Carolyn, a 93 year old woman from our church, over for dinner.  I asked her what things she is thankful for.  She said, "I guess at 93 I don't have much peer pressure."  The church is one great place where we don't have older or younger, male or female.  The Body of Christ is about all of us.

Martin Luther called the printing press "God's agent of grace" because of it's effect on the Reformation.  How will the technology we have today be "God's agent of grace."

Q&A with Reggie Joiner

Q: Why the title "You Lost Me" for your new book?

A: It's really the voice of young Christians about the Church.  They're irreverent and blunt.  It's really trying to capture the voice of young Christians and non-Christians.

Q: If we gave you 7th-9th grade boys, what would you do with them?

A: I'd start by having 3-4 times as many adults as kids.  Young people are struggling, so you have to have many different adults involved in discipling them.

Q: How do we get older people to want to mentor younger people?

A: Some of it is how you teach and inspire them.  Do some intentional things.  There's something called the Fellows Program where you bring young people into your church and they live with a family for a year.

It's partly by arm-wrestling these people.  It's partly by teaching and being intentional.

Q: I would suggest taht we see young people who are using their gifts in broader culture as missionaries.  The older generation should not give the younger generation such a hard time. Talk about this.

A: Most of the young people are not going to be involved in church ministry professionally.  Such a small percentage of young people feel that the church connects.

We interviewed young executives at Abercrombie and Fitch. We interviewed people on Broadway. Their connection is tenuous because they feel like their engagement with the broader culture makes it hard to connect with the Church.

Q: The church hasn't done a great job in the last few years of giving young people a safe place to doubt and ask questions. As leaders, what would you tell us to do to give them a safe place to process their doubt.

A: The whole theme of Catalyst, "Be Present," a lot of times the questions people are asking aren't important. They really just want you to be there.

We heard this profound story about a 25 year old mom on the plane with a 13 year old girl going to visit her dad. When the go to get off the plane, the 13 year old says to the woman, "I think you know me better than anyone else in the world.

Q: You talk about a time in your father's church when he invited people to particpate in mission and it upset people because they thought you had to believe a certain thing first. What is it with allowing people to participate in missions without believing in Jesus?

A: We think answers are the antidote to doubt. Doing is the antidote to doubt. Mother Theresa struggled with doubt.

Q: What should you do for those who have already walked away?

A: Be present. There's little you can do to talk someone out of doubt. Most of our time we're in our own little bubble living our lives. We're not willing to change much, but there are certain periods of time, when there's a major crisis in your life. These are periods of spiritual junctions.

Reggie Joiner is the founder of Orange, a nonprofit organization providing resources and training to help churches maximize their influence on the spiritual growth of the next generation. Orange provides innovative curriculum, resources and training for leaders who work with preschoolers, children, families and students.

A lot of us have this vision and it's somehow connected to the Great Commission. I guarantee if I asked you your vision it would somehow relate back to the Great Commission.

At the end of the day it's not really your vision statement that makes you successful.  It's your strategy.  I know a lot of organizations that have a great mission but never accomplish it unless they have a great category.

A strategy is simply a plan fo action with an end in mind.  In the end, what do you want Ryan (a 17 year old in the audience) to become.  Not only what do you want him to become but what experiences do you want him to have to become that.

I think we've forgotten about why it's important to do things like Catalyst, why it's important-when you leave-not to agree with me but to wrestle with what I say.

Jen was a waitress at a restaurant, now she's on our staff.  She's a film major with a sarcastic wit.  I make assumptions that I know someone better than I do, and somewhere along the way I decided she must believe what I believe.

We had a bunch of student pastors at her restaurant for a conference, and I asked Jen to lead us in prayer.  And she asked, "Who do you pray to?"  So Jen said, "I can do that."

So I figured we should take Jen out for her birthday and have some conversations.

I asked Jen about the spiritual part of her journey.  Her dad was Baptist, her mom a Methodists.  She said as a teenager she enjoyed church, going to the Catholic Church some too.  She kinda drifted away but said "I like to sit around on Friday night with my friends and talk about God now that I don't go to church."

So I asked her "Why?"  She said, "I can have conversations and ask difficult questions without being judged.  It's like putting together a puzzle without having someone leaning over your shoulder telling you where the pieces go."

She said, "It's our most fun part of the week.  We absolutely love hanging out talking about God."

When she finished her explanation I wanted to get into her head and find out what this looked like.

Jen is into Daoism and we're having some interesting conversations.

If you could rewind Jen's life back to the 7th grade, and she's a 7th grader in your church, what would you do now with Jen that you know her future?  What would your strategy be to move Jen into adulthood with a different kind of relationship with the church so that she would look back at her experience with you and process her faith and life differently.

I think what happened with Jen in her particular local church, she missed one theme, which is the critical piece, the most important piece of what it means to move into life with a different worldview.

"Love"

At the end of the day it really had to do with something we too often overlook.

The Great Commandment

For a few minutes I want to talk about the power of a concept that has to be an integral part of the way we craft our strategy.

2000 years ago there was a religious system that had become irrelevant. Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was. And he answered with something incredibly powerful, something we’ve heard so much that it’s become insignificant when we hear it.

Somehow at a profound moment in time 2000 years ago Jesus said something to give everything context, to make everything make sense. We forget that it really does boil down to a very, very clear theme.

When Jesus was asked, I’m sure there was a pause because they were testing Jesus again.

As a Pharisee I’m sure they felt pretty good about what Jesus said. As a Pharisee they at least look like they’re loving God.

But then Jesus said if you really want to test this, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The Pharisees weren’t great at that, so on another occasion a Pharisee asked who his neighbor was, and Jesus answered with the story of the good Samaritan.

Jesus said if you just want to keep your life, kids, and church on the right track, it’s all about loving God and your neighbor.

What was so powerful is that Jesus appealed to our instinct to love and connect relationally with something bigger than ourselves.

Somewhere in our doctrine and dogma and declaring truth, we can’t forget that we’re not inviting a generation to believe what we say. We’re inviting a generation into a relationship with someone.

If you can help someone keep turning their relationship dial up and in the right direction, you’re ministry is winning.

At the end of all of this every strategy we put in place, every message we teach, every story we tell, somehow has to come back to the greatest commandment.

There are a few dials to turn.

• Wonder
  You are instinctively drawn to what is supernatural, miraculous, or spiritual.You know how I know this, because we love superhereos. This is the reason why 400 million copies of Harry Potter were sold. There’s something in you and me that wants to be amazed by something.We’re either capturing kids’ imagination, turning the wonder dial up, or we’re turning it down.
• DiscoveryYou want to do something, figure yourself out, discover your strengths, figure out what God has put you on this planet to do. You want to do something bigger than yourself.We’re naturally wired this way.

  When Jesus said love God and love you’re neighbor, that’s what he was saying.

  That’s why we have self-help books. This is why 2 million copies of Seventeen magazine sold this month. There’s some amazing stuff in here.

• PassionIf we don’t turn this dial up, young generations will continue to think of Church as something you attend not who you are.If you don’t turn this dial we will sabotage the spiritual maturity of an entire generation. Because somehow they will think it’s a consumerism issue. They won’t understand that their growth is linked to how they get involved with other people’s lives.

  You are instinctively drawn to connect relationally and to rescue those who are hurting or broken.

  There’s a reason why 7 of 10 people on the planet are connected to social media.

  There’s a reason why people who aren’t Christians and may not believe in God will go to another continent to help someone who is hurting. They don’t even understand what’s in play.

  Jen asked me, “If God is really real, why do so many bad people do bad things?” I said, “I don’t understand why so many bad people do good things.” Ultimately you and I are wired differently than the rest of the animal kingdom. It’s the image of God in us.

  It’s why Brad Pitt will build homes for Katrina victims. He doesn’t realize there’s something in him.

  Why are weddings so expensive? Because we know that connecting with another human being is important.

I used to think it was my job to make sure all of the kids in my youth group knew all of their Bible, didn’t go to hell, didn’t drink, didn’t… you know… before they were supposed to.

I just thought that was kind of the goal. I could make that happen.

I’m not saying this isn’t important stuff, but all I’m trying to say is that there’s so much of a bigger picture than this. There’s a calling God has placed on my life. The adventure He has invited me into.

The way I structure the things I’m teaching will shape what they perceive what I’ve invited them into.

It’s not about answering the questions right. You can get all of the answers right but not have life change. How do we turn that dial?

What are the issues we’re going to come back to over and over again to help them understand what this all comes back to.

Incite Wonder

• Design - We’ve got to hand this generation the concept of design, that they’ve been created for a reason and purpose. It changes my perspective if I think I have been designed with an intention by God. One of the most powerful things you can hand a child is to help them understand they were created with an intention.
• Intention - If you want to capture their imagination, we help them understand that not only were they created with intention, but they were created in the image of God. The cross stands at the climax in history to begin to move us back to the image of God. The things that gives us value is there’s an image of God in me. It may be distorted or broken, but it’s there.
• Connection – When we begin to understand that this God created us with intentionality, we realize He wants and desires a relationship with us.

This is what will anchor them as they grow into teens.

Provoke Discovery

• Faith – We’re not inviting a generation to stop discovering, thinking, or doubting. We’re inviting them to trust with whatever percentage of faith they have in an event that happened 2000 years ago.
  We forget that students have doubt because we have doubt. If we don’t allow them to process, they’ll never own their own faith. Somehow we thing their doubts will remove their potential to trust.If you’re on a plane, my doubt or my faith in the plane doesn’t affect the plane’s ability to carry me.As a young minister in my 20s I was walking around with an 80 year old pastor. He said, “Your problem is you have faith in your faith. He said, “You don’t need great faith in your God. You need faith in a great God.”

  It’s not the amount of faith that determines your relationship with God. However small it is, it’s about where you put it.

  We make the mistake of trying to make teens have an adult level of faith before they can follow Christ.

  I was talking with a pastor who said, “I have an agnostic in my student ministry who keeps coming. He keeps saying, ‘I can never believe that.’ Last night I used the airplane illustration, and he came up to me and said, ‘Last night I became a Christian. I took what faith I had and put it in Jesus.’”

  You know what Jen said that got me so excited? She said, “I’m about 60% there.” She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She just has to take that faith and put it in God.

• Transformation – When you’re turning the discovery dial, it also means that there’s a process of transformation that we’re cooporating with.Don’t tweet me out of context on this:We are sinners. I believe that with everything in me. I believe in the fall, in depraved nature.

  But I also believe that we are created in the image of God, and for you to say we can’t tell people they’re special because they’re sinners is ridiculous.

  The power of the Gospel is not only can we change, but God desires to be in the process.

  You’ve got a 7th grader in your group who you don’t think could ever change. But the reason you can have hope is because you were once the 7th grader. We forget there was a process of transformation. When you lead into the Jens and Ryans of the world, there is a process of transformation.

  When you look at the mess of your life, look at the kids you’re working with, at the teens you’re working with, remember the Holy Spirit is at work, and He won’t quit or give up.

  There are moments in my life when I’m not sure I can change.

• Truth – What is the context we want to hand to kids. What is their perspective on truth?All truth is not created equal. All truth in the Bible is not created equal. Some truth in the Bible is more important than other truth.How do I know this, Jesus said it. He prioritized one commandment over the others.

  You’re responsible as a person who’s handing truth to the next generation to decide what truth to hand away to the next generation.

  Jen asked, “Why do you believe the Bible? It’s just a book.” I said, “It’s not just a book. It’s 66 books written by a bunch of different authors over hundreds of years, and they all fit together to tell one story.”

  She called me two months later and asked which Bible to get. I didn’t know what to say, so I hesitated for a minute. She said, “You know what, I don’t need a Bible yet. I just need holy Cliffs Notes.”

  We forget to give people context for the story you’re telling. Jesus gave people context with the Great Commandment, when he’s on the road to Emmaus.

Fuel Passion

• Community - The Church is sometimes more important than it feels like it is. The church gets a lot of bad press, but Jesus died for the church. Jesus decided he wanted to use the church to show a broken world his love.It’s one thing to own your own faith. It’s another to try to do it alone. That doesn’t work for a 50 year old, and it doesn’t work for a 15 year old.You can call it life groups or small groups or whatever, but you’ve got to reorganize the strategy of your church around doing life together, because God did n’t call us to do it alone.
• Compassion – The most important person to the Good Samaritan was the person who showed up and became his neighbor.Sometimes I read the Great Commission and get sick to my stomach because I don’t do that day in and day out. I don’t really know anyone who does that. I’m not always sure how to feel something emotional toward a God I can’t touch, see, feel, or hear.One of the best ways to love God is to love the people who God loves. That will affect how you feel about God.

  We can’t put a generation in a classroom and expect them to fall in love with God.

• Restoration - The powerful piece of this is when we understand not only how to reach the neighbor but to engage in the story of restoration and invite a generation into God’s mission of restoration of the world.Don’t create classes for teenagers. Plug them into ministry opportunities.We turn the passion dial down when we equate experiences with education. Somewhere along the line we've got to redefine missions not as education but as experience.

  Why do we think if Jesus Came to this planet to give his life for humanity, and he is in us, that he requires any less of us.

  I asked Jen what she wanted to do with her degree.  She said, "I think I want to spend my life helping people in 3rd world countries have a better life.

  She's not even a Christian yet.

  I have a friend whose daughter was dating a guy who wasn't the greatest, and he didn't like it.  And I told him, "I think I know what she is doing.  I think she's trying to live a different story, a more exciting story."  Donald Miller said, "Maybe you should try to live a more exciting story with your own life."

  This guy reengaged with an orphanage he had wanted to help.  His daughter starts helping him, and one day in the car she gets in a fight with her boyfriend and they break up, and she says to her dad, "I don't know why I ever dated him.  I'd rather go to Mexico with you."

  What story are you telling the young people in your church.  Is it the story of God's restoration and healing and redemption.  Most importantly, is it a story you're engaged with.

  Maybe the most important take away from this conference is for you to figure out how you can engage with God's story better.

  When you experience what God is up to in the world, you will be moved to live out a better story.

I want the Ryans and Jens to be able to engage with the story of Jesus.  Don't forget.  It really is about a relationship.

Hey peeps, I'm with the NCC staff on our annual trek to the ATL for the Catalyst Conference, and as is my tradition, I'll be blogging my notes here.  I'm hoping to post a couple of more reflective posts this year as well.

I tend to take pretty comprehensive notes, as you can see from past years' posts.  So, if this interests you, stick around.  There should be some great stuff.  Catalyst brings in some incredible speakers.  If not, feel free to tune out until Saturday, when I'll resume my regular posting style.