CONGRESS REVISITED

Your Take Aways From Leadership Congress

For those who attended Congress this year, they did not go home disappointed. We gained powerful leadership insight from Pastor Bret Allen of Bethel Church in San Jose, from Pastor Tommy Barnett of Phoenix First Assembly in Phoenix, AZ and from Jeremy Affeldt from the San Francisco Giants.

Here is what you had to say about your take-aways from Congress this year:

FROM THE MAIN SESSIONS:

• "Who's on your tandem bike?" Who's leading the journey that you are taking? Are you trying to be in control, or are you letting God lead you?"
• "Sharpen Your Axe!" We must work hard and work will to fullfill the call that God has placed on our lives."
• "Being ordinary is okay. You can be great by being ordinary. A leaders job isn't telling people what they can't do.Jesus loved people.Tandem bike:If you look at your life on a tandem bike, we're really."
• "Don't allow acquaintances to dictate your God given priority. Understand the associates in your life and their role in your life. Define your allys and deposit into them how you would them to give back to you."
• "Success in ministry is not a stamp of approval on my personal life. Don’t ever take it that way. Too may pastors have said I thought my life was okay because my ministry was successful after a moral failure."
• "The hot water pipe- this really hit home and the fact that as Christians, we still deal with anger hate and all the other things we dealt with before we got saved. It is most important that we tap into Jesus and the Holy Spirit and pray that Jesus turn the water on and flow into our lives and our heart."
• " If you want a God-given dream to happen, you have to take action!"
• "In order to be great we need to first understand that we are ordinary that way God can work through us."

FROM THE BREAKOUTS:

• "We communicate for CHANGE! Why create an experience instead of a simple message? More is caught than taught. Like the rain forest cafe, they don't just bring you in and tell you about rain forest cafe."
• " There has never been a bigger need to lead than right now. We are called to finish what the disciples started."
• "For a team to be successful, they need to know their roles and play their part."

SOME RESPONSES:

• "Hearing the passion of Pastor Barnett and the workshop from Pastor Dean on "Creating Spiritual Rhythm" gave me a renewed strength and excitement for ministry. I regained the "idea generation" that I felt when I was first called into ministry and received the permission to be passionate about the vision that God put in my heart."
• "Tommy Barnett’s morning session on quitting was insightful and encouraging. Perfect lesson for any leader."
• "I am now a Giants Fan."
• "What am I doing to build healthy friendships so that my friendships reach beyond ministry?"
• "My leaders and I had time to get together and debrief on what was going on in our lives and our youth ministry. We also were able to sit down and apply the words of wisdom given by each speaker to where we our at in our walk with the Lord and challenged us to move forward with excellence in our youth ministry!"

WHAT WAS SAID ABOUT EACH OTHER:

• The youth pastors in the district are really some of the greatest Christians / YP's in the country. All of the churches represented are very blessed to have such awesomeness serving their youth departments.

Thanks for the great insights…we do have amazing youth pastors and leaders!