Luis Palau partnered with one of America's most liberal and least churched cities and a gay mayor to serve the share the love of Christ through service to the Greater Portland area. Christianity Today has the story.

"American Christians have been moving away from mass evangelism, stressing church planting and friendship as the best ways to introduce people to the gospel. With Billy Graham no longer conducting crusades, big-splash evangelistic events are more rare. Yet the Portland experience suggests a place remains for large, public evangelism, even in a city as far from the Bible Belt as Portland."

It's inspiring that Palau was able to overcome barriers of prejudice and hold a evangelistic festival. Presumably it was the mobilization and coordinated service projects aimed at healing Portland's social problems that afforded him the trust of the local government.

What specific experiences have you had with gaining the trust of people who are otherwise hostile to the gospel?

Shaun King, pastor of the Courageous Church, is partnering with a school in his community in Atlanta to purchase 500 uniforms for some seriously impoverished school children. $25 buys one uniform, and it's SUPER EASY to donate. Plus he has a VERY gratifying flash widget that tells you how much has been donated. Help these children. Buy a uniform. Do good.

Hi Catalyst followers,

It's your host Lanny Donoho, again, with some important stuff for you. Did you like the conference? The music this year was most definitely the most spectacular-ishly fantastic compositions of any conference this world has ever seen. If you weren't able to come to the conference, you missed it. But we care about you, and we care about your ears, and we wouldn't want you to miss the amazingness that you missed. So check this out.

If you were at Catalyst this year, at one particular session you heard five girls lead you in worship and most of you didn't even sing. You just sat there wondering to yourself, "how in the world could five voices sound that incredible?" Then you wondered, "how can I hear this some more?" Good question. We, BigStuf Productions, produced a CD of those five ladies singing some unbelievable stuff. The CD is called "Together." And you can listen to parts of it, and buy it by going to www.bigstufmedia.com. This will send you to the BigStuf store to get it, and we'll get you all the copies you want so you can give it away to all 1307 of your friends for Christmas...so go listen and get it.

I don't think there is any doubt that one of the most heart-rendering times at the conference was when our Daraja Childrens Choir from Africa stood on the stage and we all watched 23 kids who grew up in the worst conditions imaginable, lead us in an unforgettable time of worship. We have some friends who joined us in creating a project to help these kids. If you didn't see the CD there, you can still get it and know that all the proceeds from the sales of these CD's goes to the education and development of these kids. The CD is called Daraja and has Jeff Foxworthy reading that journal entry. It features Mac Powell, Aaron Shust, Bethany Dillon, Geoff Moore, John Waller, Shane Bernard, Steve Fee and all 23 kids. Pick it up and get a bunch for your church right here at the Catalyst Store.

Several Christian bloggers are partnering together to help Soles 4 Souls provide shoes for 50,000 children. Our goal is to buy 50,000 pairs of shoes in 50 days.

Shoes are only $5 for TWO PAIRS! Everyone can give $5!

LET'S DO THIS!

What does it mean to be "in the world, but not of the world"?

John 17:14-15
I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.

While we're called to engage the world and make disciples of all nations, we're also called to be set-apart, holy, etc.

As an edgy Christian conference, we sometimes get criticized for being too much in the world and other times for being too seperate. It seems there's a fine line between engaging the world, enjoying the stuff in the world and being "of the world."

How should we, as Christians, balance being in the world while being "not of" it?