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Dear-God.net

April 25, 2008

If you like design, you're probably a fan of thecoolhunter.net (if not, turn-in your "I-like-design" card). Well, that decidedly non-evangelical group has newly minted another pretty website: Dear-God.net.

It's a collection of short prayers and stunning photos submitted by mostly less-than-religious submitters. This postsecret.com-esque site is interesting because it brings God into the equation somehow. I think it shows that people do believe in God, not necessarily Jesus yet, or even Christianity.

For those of us who forget how lost a person can be without a personal relationship with him, and hope of salvation, this website can serve as a reminder. People do want and long for God and his help... this website reminds me that I (we) urgently need to share His amazing, loving gift with them.

Posted by Catalyst Admin at 07:35 AM • Permalink • Comments (0)

Looking back at Exponential

April 24, 2008

It's one thing to take in amazing teaching and content in a short period of time (some call it trying to "drink from a fire hydrant") but it's quite another thing to try and meet and really connect, I mean really connect, with so many amazing men and women who are having profound influence on the front line of the church. It seemed like everywhere we turned we were shaking hands with someone significantly serving people in their community. Sure, some were well known people like Andy Stanley, Mark Batterson, and Ed Stetzer but we had the chance to meet SOOO many others that shared stories of their experience as church planters and pioneers in the church. Reality is there is an undercurrent of men and women that are not seeking to build a building but are seeking to love others and build the Kingdom of God through a selfless and foolish outpouring of genuine love... these are people that are truly motivated to be church and not do church.

Chad Johnson, Dwayne Melton, and LV Hanson spent time at the Catalyst Vanagon meeting many attendees from the conference while Brad Lomenick had a the opportunity to interview several key leaders and conference speakers for the Catalyst Podcast - stay tuned in to upcoming Catalyst Podcasts for more insight on the backstage happenings from Exponential!

The Catalyst Road Trip Team makes their way back to Atlanta tomorrow morning to get ready for The Orange Conference in Duluth, GA next week. Those of you in Atlanta that are following the Catalyst Road Trip, please get in touch with us to let us know if you would be interested in having a visit from Your Friendly Vanagon Vagabonds... and if you'd rather just take a picture with the Vanagon and ignore the smelly drivers then we can arrange that as well! :-) The Catalyst Vanagon is coming home for several weeks.

More content from past road trips are still in the works. We haven't forgotten!

Your Friendly (and sunburned) Catalyst Road Trip Team

Posted by Catalyst Roadtrip at 09:39 PM • Permalink • Comments (2)

Exponential Backstage Interviews

Scott Hodge and Todd Rhoades conducted backstage interviews with several of the speakers from the Exponential Conference. They used UStream.tv to stream the interviews live from the green room!

This is soooo cool to watch them do an interview live + you get to make insightful (read: sarcastic) comments along the right side of the broadcast.

Scott has the edited interviews available on his blog here.

But it's more fun to watch them live - Rick Warren gave-out his email in the last interview! To avoid missing more live streaming action - follow Todd or Scott (or me) on Twitter.com

Posted by Catalyst Admin at 01:25 PM • Permalink • Comments (0)

The End of the Beginning

From Ed Stetzer:

After 50 years of increasing membership, the SBC has plateaued and is now officially in decline. This day has been lamented and foretold by many - but now, what should we do about it?

Ed offers some suggestions at his blog... which you should read because Ed is a genius.

"Baptisms are at their lowest levels since 1970 with seven of the last eight years showing annual declines. Even though some might hope the decline in membership numbers is due to lack of reporting, the inescapable conclusion is that baptisms by individual churches is falling off. (LifeWay Research will provide more analysis in the next month.)

For now, Southern Baptists are a denomination in decline. Some of you were born into an SBC church; others of us chose it of our own accord. Either way, it is dear to us all. Our responsibility before God is, then, to urgently consider how we should respond. Yes, most of our response should be personal and lived out in our local churches - this is a local church issue. But if we are choosing to partner in this network of churches, and the network is faltering, it will also take some joint action. As such, I offer a few suggestions..."

Suggestions here. Have you noticed a decline in membership/momentum in your church? What do you think is causing it and how can you deal with it?

Posted by Catalyst Admin at 08:48 AM • Permalink • Comments (0)