Some of you know I am at the Catalyst Conference right now in Atlanta. Catalyst is a convergence of 13,000 next generation leaders for the Kingdom of God. It's believers of all colors, denominations, and viewpoints coming together in order to get re-energized, re-fueled, and to learn and grow to be a better leader in our spheres of influence.

I am exhausted!

We're staying about 40 minutes away from the Gwinett Arena where the conference is held, so we had to get up very early this morning in order to get there for the 7;45 door opening.

The seats are first come, first serve, so we wanted to get a decent spot. We ended up getting 10 rows from the stage on the floor.

We experienced 6 different sessions today, and each one offered something unique. I'm going to miss something, so I'm just going to share the highlights with you now, and later I might share what God dealt with me about if I'm awake by then.

Andy Stanley spoke first about Joshua's encounter with the Angel of God and Joshua asked him, "Are you for us or against us?" The angel basically said, "Well, no." Some translations say "Neither," but "no" was just funny.

Andy's point being--life is not about us making our mark, but about how God can make HIS mark through us! This really hit home with me as God revealed a lot of pride issues in my heart today.

Malcolm Gladwell was featured in the second session, and he was really good. I'm not sure if he claims to be a believer or not, but definitely not a pastor. He writes for a newspaper and has written 3 very successful books on business and leadership, his most recent being "Outliers" (which I started last night).

Malcolm told us a story from the Civil War about overconfidence and about how people will actually follow people when they're overconfident. He also made some keen observations about how when someone is overconfident, additional data or facts does not influence the direction they are heading in. The Civil War story about General Hooker losing to General Lee was incredible. His final summation: "We don't need over-confident leaders. We need leaders who exhibit one thing: humility."

The Steve Fee Band led worship in several of the sessions. They are incredibly high energy and I do not understand how they keep it up! They've gotta have like a ton of Red Bulls back stage or something.

Shane Hipps talked about the medium and the message and sort of threw a wrench in our notions about that. I didn't feel like he competely landed the plane so to speak. If he would have hammered his thoughts home a bit more and unpacked them, I might have been with him, but as he finished his session, I was not on board.

They interviewed some author that we were supposed to know but who I didn't. He had a new book coming out and talked about it a bit. He said a few things about faith that were, well, completely out of line with Scripture. So I took what he said with a grain of salt.

Rob Bell was very impressive. He talked about how God had a role for each of us to play, and that we could not be satisfied by trying to play someone else's role. He is a very gifted communicator and I sensed a humble spirit about him. There are a few things I am not sure I agree with him on, but I didn't let that hinder God still speaking to me. Oh yeah, he was taller than I imagined as well.

Matt Chandler is just awesome. He is incredibly solid biblically. He spoke from Hebrews 12 and talked about the hugeness of the Gospel and what an incredible thing it is that we get to be a part of it and that in light of that, we have GOT to lay aside the weights and sin that hinders us from running this race with patience. I was very impressed with Matt and his passion for the Gospel and being very focused on the Word of God.

Aaron Keyes led worship in the last session of the night. He was awesome. Nearly every time he opened his mouth he was either quoting Scripture, singing, or praying. His heart and intent was very, very clear--he led us in worshipping God with the Bible. He probably quoted at least 5 different passages while leading worship. I loved that, and I loved his spirit.

Francis Chan was very real. He's just the man. You got a real sense that he was being completely open and honest with you. He led us in communion, and simply read some different passages of Scripture, and invited us to worship God for what Christ had done on the cross. We took communion together and worshipped our Lord for what He had done. It was wonderful to just rest and focus on the amazing work of Christ and His redemption.

Whew! I can't believe I remembered all that stuff! Day two starts in about 6 hours, so I'd better get to bed!

Here are a few links:

http://catalystbackstage.com   Go here to keep up on the conference from backstage. Looked pretty cool.

Do a twitter search for #cat09. Everyone who tweets during the conference uses that hashtag, and searching for that will show you what attendees are saying about the events. Oh, P.S. I find it annoying to read a ton of quotes from someone going to a conference, so I'm refraining from that. However, I'll share a few thoughts in response to some things via my twitter account, @jacobriggs.

Peace!

@jacobriggs