With the New Year comes New Year's Resolutions. If you haven't done so already, go ahead and resolve to be a catalyst in culture this year! In this issue of Catalyst Monthly, the team and friends have compiled a few ideas to help you get connected to culture, create opportunities to engage and influence your community, and demonstrate a piece of the Kingdom of God in this world. Check out the list and let us know what you think. Do you have other ideas?

Researchers at the Diffusion Group predict the U.S. podcast audience will climb from 800,000 people in '04 to 56.8 million people by 2010. We encourage you to join the podcast craze now- subscribe to the Catalyst podcast by clicking here.

In his recent article Leader's Insight: Real Christian Behavior on leadershipjournal.net, Gordon McDonald shares insight into three stories in the same news cycle: 1. Coverage of the late President Gerald Ford's funeral, 2. A story on Oprah Winfrey's school for girls in South Africa, and 3. Pat Robertson's prophesy that millions of Americans will die in a disaster in the year 2007. His point was this: "When I was a child, the people in my church would have disparaged a Gerry Ford who smoked a pipe and said 'damn' on occasion.... The people in my sub-culture would have put distance between themselves and Oprah citing a few aspects of her private life that they would have found totally unacceptable.... But many of them would have embraced the third because he espouses an essentially evangelical theology. And they would not have thought through what his "prophecy" means to a larger world where many people think evangelicals are fools and now have a bit more evidence for their opinion." McDonald goes on to say in his article: "When Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Warren Buffet fork over billions (billions!) of dollars to deal with poverty, eradicate disease, find clean water, freshen the air, and educate the young, could God (just humor me here!) be saying to those who (like myself) claim an essential orthodox foundation of belief, 'If you will not be known for doing these things unto to the least of my brothers, then I will use others not of your fold to get the job done.'" What can the next generation of leaders do to change the public's image and understanding of Christianity (when all they see in the news cycle is evangelicals making radical prophesy?)

"Jesus loved and accepted others without approving of everything they did. That's our position too, but it upsets a lot of people..." - Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, responding to conservatives who criticized his invitation to Senator Barack Obama to attend an HIV/AIDS Conference Warren hosted at his church. Read the article here.

The Los Angeles Times recently ran a large feature on the growing trend of the "Hip-Hop Church." The story looks at how rap music and hip-hop style have fused in a new kind of church that is attracting thousands in L.A. and around the country. You can click here to read "Rap Gets Religion."