I am in that blown away place. I’m going to post this before it ends because we have a Friday night service & I probably won’t get to put up anything later.
Craig Groschel [check out life church] blew me away with his talk on IT. This so squares with what I’ve experienced, that there is an IT that is critical. I love how he didn’t dumb it down or make it a formula. But all of us know what he’s talking about. You walk into a church & it has IT. I love how he begged God for IT. What really got me was talking about the intangible IT in our lives. He prayed that we wouldn’t sleep until God has given us IT! Hard to explain but POWERFUL.
Later on Catherine Rohr [read about her organization PEP] was interviewed. All I can say is Holy Moly!
Here are a few of my notes from her interview:
• She & her husband gave up 250k jobs, emptied their 401k & moved to TX to work in prisons
• “I could be in New York doing Hundred Million dollar deals, how lame is that”
• Cost – “I was CALLED, I was willing to risk everything”
• “My favorite prayer – “bring it on God… bring it on!” How’d you get here – One act of obedience at a time
• 1 out of 15 Americans go to prison at some time in their lives
Character transformation
• We can broken but still be lovable, still be loved
• Let’s be real about it so we can get somewhere

Criticism – don’t let my emotions about it get in the way of TCB
• If it’s not legit – let it go
• If it is welcome it
Here were my concluding reflections in my notes:
She is funny, witty, real, down to earth – winsome
– I had a hard time not crying through the whole thing
The Kingdom of god is SO beautiful & so crazy when it gets into people

UPDATE 5:48

I got to put the last minute touches on tonight’s message (Fri night of Summit week is usually a bizarre message because of the number of thoughts & movements of God I’m processing – usually better by Sunday) . But I had to say, Bill Hybles brought it home with anointing & power as his message was based on his recent study of the life of Mother Theressa. “God, I will refuse you nothing” is the keeper prayer / quote.

If you missed this event this year, please don’t make that mistake in 09.