The Nines

So there was this online leadership webcast/conference on 9/9/09 called The Nines. It was a series of Christian leaders who were asked this question: if you had nine minutes to tell other Christian leaders anything, what would you tell them? It went on all day (I think from 9-9pm).

I watched for about an hour and wanted to share two of my favorite ideas from the conference.

1. Brian McLaren asked "what is the gospel?" He then said "the gospel is about transformation not evacuation." So many pastors think Jesus' message was about getting off this earth and either going to heaven of hell. That idea couldn't be farther from the truth. Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God coming on earth as it is in heaven. That means Jesus is concerned just as much about our lives here on earth as he is about our lives in eternity.

2. Sam Chen (I think that was his name) said that thing that separates pastors of a healthy growing church and pastors of other churches is the pastor's pain threshold. He said for growth to happen you have to have change and change means pain. So he said the more pain you can endure, the more likely your ministry is to grow. He said that if you talk to pastors of large churches, they have story after story of pain and have been able to endure it.