The elements team is in Atlanta this week, diving head first into the leadership conference for young church leaders – Catalyst. Today we spent time in worship with Steve Fee and other Northpoint Community Church worship leaders. We heard speakers Andy Stanley, Patrick Lencioni, Shane Claiborne, Francis Chan, Sunday Adelaja, and Rick Warren. We also got to hear an “emerging” conversation between Chris Seay, David Kinnaman, Gabe Lyons, and Tri Robinson, as they discussed the new book “UnChristian.”

I took some serious notes during the conversation and from the rest of the speakers. The first half of today, though, had entirely too many theatrics, advertisement bombardment, product placement, and a general entertainment industry flavor. The second half, starting with the emerging conversation, is where things got deep. Update: on the second day, we heard speakers Erwin McManus, Craig Groeschel, Dave Ramsey, John Maxwell and more from Andy Stanley.

Quotes of the day:

• “Suck it up!!” – Francis Chan
• “We are known for what we are against.” – Chris Seay
• “Too often, ‘right answers’ produce wrong character.” – Gabe Lyons

Quotes of the day (2):

• “Christians are known for not being capable of discerning between what is real and fake.” – Erwin McManus
• “The way I was doing the work of God was destroying the work of God in me.” – Craig Groeschel
• “If you blame yourself for the decline [in your church] then some day you will take credit for the increase.” - Craig Groeschel

Thought-provoking question of the day:
If Peter (the Apostle) started a church in your town today, would people go to his church or yours?

My doctrinal question of the day (you can discuss it on our MySpace group):
Were we created to be loved by God, or to love God?

Bryan took pictures using his cell phone because that is all we remembered to bring. D’oh!

See the rest of the Catalyst 2007 Flickr pool