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Reggie Joiner interviewed Andy Stanley during the morning session today. One of the issues he discussed was the process that people went through in their relationship with Jesus. After many conversations, interviews and discussions, Stanley and his staff have come up with the following five areas that every believer experiences in their journey:

1. Practical Teaching – someone opened the Bible to them and communicated the Scripture to them in a way they could understand
2. Providential Relationships – each person met or developed a relationship with someone who influenced them
3. Private Disciplines – each one learned to develop a devotional life
4. Pivotal Circumstances – something happened that wasn’t planned and couldn’t be controlled
5. Personal Ministry – invited to give, serve and be involved in a ministry

The assumption is that these areas are present at one point or another in every person’s life as they develop and mature in their relationship with Jesus.

If that’s true, then we ought to focus on creating rhythms in ministry so that these areas keep on showing up.

The reality is that the person who has the greatest ability to influence each of these areas is the small group leader. The person who has close relationship and has a regular and consistent voice in the life of a believer. This is often the person who has the greatest ability to be present during difficult and pivotal times in the lives of others.

Donald Miller’s definition of leadership:

a person that gets to know me in such a way that makes me want to take part-ownership in their vision.

• Leaders invite people in to their lives.
• Leaders invite people to share/be involved in their vision Great leaders follow people.
• The ambition a leader has is a big part of the story. Ambition should be:
• Huge
• A bit absurd (draws people in)
• Specific
• Leaders speak something new into the culture.

Francis Chan shared in the morning session at Orange today. Here’s a few thoughts/quotes/questions from his message:

• The people in the Church are supposed to be filled with the presence of God, but then why can you find more love/compassion/grace/mercy from people in the world?
• Either God enters a person’s life and they change, or you try to “make that happen” by giving a list of rules to try to help them sin less.
• Are we about experiencing the Holy Spirit or just creating an experience?
• Jesus didn’t get excited about a crowd, he became skeptical. “Are you sure you want to be here? Do you hate your father and mother? Are you willing to die?”
• Jesus’ Parable about the Sower and the Seeds (Matthew 13:13) “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.” A farmer only works with the good soil. He goes where there is fruit. Why would he spend time with soil that won’t produce? They love the world too much.
• God’s design wasn’t for individual followers to be a light for the world, but for the people collectively to be his witnesses. (This is in contrast to our individualist culture)
• What are we doing that is Biblical? What are we doing that is American?
• What will it feel like when you get to heaven and hear God’s voice say, “Well done.” Is there anything else on earth you would rather hear than those two words? Are you still living for that?

Session 1 of the Orange Conference was pretty impressive. From the staging, lighting and video to the music, everything was top notch. Steve Fee’s worship set was excellent and engaging.

Reggie Joiner shared on the subject of “The Prodigal Generation.” He made the point that there are two approaches to ministry based on this parable. The way of the older brother and the way of the loving father. The way of the Pharisees (Luke 15:2 “…he eats with sinners…”) and the way of Jesus.

A Loving Father Approach

• They are preoccupied with whoever is missing.
• The church needs to be about the people that need to be reached and not about keeping the people in the church.
• They operate from a context of forgiveness.
• We live in a generation that wants to feel better about doing about bad stuff.
• So we respond by wanting to make them feel bad about doing bad stuff.
• The solution is to help them feel forgiven.
• They throw parties.
• Loving fathers understand that need to create a context of relationships (out of the “loving father” approach).
• Our children need to have relationships with others outside of the relationships they have with me.
• We have to build our ministries around the idea of celebration and relationships.
• You want to put characteristics that change everything in your church, then put forgiveness and joy there.
• They confront older brother thinking.
• The father understood that the cure for the older brother’s attitude was the party.
• They keep the lights on for as long as it takes.
• They keep hoping and believing for specific prodigals.

An Older Brother Approach

• They are preoccupied with themselves
• You are going to be preoccupied with something.
• They operate from a context of shame.
• “There should be consequences…”
• What makes us think that shame is the way to communicate to a hurting generation?
• They throw fits.
• They criticize loving father thinking.
• “If the Pharisees were alive today, then they would probably be bloggers.”
• They close the doors and shut off the lights.

The greatest gift you can gift you can give any teen or child is to create a group that are “loving fathers.”

Why do the loving father approach?

• Jesus made it a priority.
• Because you are a model and if you lead in this now, then the future church may actually work this way.
• Because you know someone who is a prodigal that needs the love of a father right now.

I’ve had a crazy couple of days since my last post. We had our District Fine Arts event in Decatur, IL on Friday and Saturday. All of our students did an excellent job and our Youth Choir, a Small Vocal Ensemble and Laura’s Poem advanced to Nationals in August. It was a great weekend, but I’m absolutely exhausted from it. I still haven’t recovered.

While waiting for the first main session to start. I noticed a flashing ball-shaped item fall from the ceiling. It took me a moment to realize what it was, but apparently a light broke, fell and burst into flames as it descended. This, of course, is not good. When the fireball landed it started a small fire on the carpet. I quickly ran over to extinguish it. Here’s a photo of the burns.



I’d like to think I’m a hero, but the truth is it was a small flame and probably would have burn itself out fairly quickly.

Today I’m off to the Orange Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. I’ll try to post updates while I’m there. You can also follow me at twitter.com/erikscottberg.