Session 3 - Mark Batterson

Mark Batterson is the pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. NCC is doing an amazing ministry downtown, impacting a community that desperately needs the light of Jesus Christ. This was one of the most challenging sessions of the whole conference - Mark is an incredible and inspired communicator. God truly spoke through him. (If you haven't read his book, In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day, go check it out - I promise it'll be worth your time.)

Notes I wrote down during this session:

- Mark preached from 2 Samuel 23:20-23 - you need to go read this right now before you go further

- We pray that God would keep the 500 lb. lions away. For Benaiah, this is not the wrong place at the wrong time - this is an opportunity for God to do something.

- Benaiah is eventually appointed commander in chief under Solomon. His geneology of success seems to trace back to a moment - will I run away or will I chase the lion?

- "Before you get out of the boat, you'd better be sure Jesus said come"

- Lions are scary. Average size is 500 lbs, they run approx. 35 MPH, their vision is 5x better than that of a human - every advantage is with the lion.

- "Faith is the willingness to look foolish."

- "Why have some of us never walked on water or killed a giant? We've never wanted to look foolish."

- "I don't want to see God do things through me that I am capable of. I want to see Him do things that I am in no way capable of - God things."

- "We are called to play offense." (Gates of Hell will not stand against us - gates are defensive by nature)

- "You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right."

- "At the end of your life, your greatest regrets will be the lions you did not chase. The greatest regrets at the end of life are inactive regrets - things you didn't do. - where we are left wondering 'what if?'"

- "As long as there is one more person who doesn't know Jesus, I better be playing offense."

- "At NCC, we didn't launch a 4th location because we needed something else to do. We did it to reach more people for Jesus."

- "When you don't fear God, you have to fear everything else. When you fear God, you fear nothing else."

- "God wants to tell His story through you. He is the Author (Hebrews 4:12)."

- "When we don't have the guts to chase the lion, we rob God of the glory that is rightfully His."

My takeaways (still processing...)

1. Mark said "I don't want to see God do things through me that I am capable of. I want to see Him do things that I am in no way capable of - God things." That has become my new prayer to the Father. I never want to become the thing blocking what God wants to do - I don't want God's work at Southview limited because I'm in the way. I want to see God do God-things - things that neither I nor any of our team is capable of. I want to see God-things happen. That is my prayer.

2. There are a few 500 lb. lions I've been afraid to chase in my life. Reading about Benaiah and listening to Mark teach on this Scripture really challenges me to step it up - to kick the obstacles out of my way and chase the lion. If Jesus is calling me / us out, what are we still doing in the boat?

3. "Why have some of us never walked on water or killed a giant? We've never wanted to look foolish." Wow. Convicting. On so many levels. Who wants to look foolish? Not me. But faith calls us to be willing to, and to do so at times, as we follow God's path for us. I need to pray that I can get past this - that I will be willing to look foolish if God calls me to do something outside my comfort box.

4. "When we don't have the guts to chase the lion, we rob God of the glory that is rightfully His." My desire is to glorify God with all that I am. That means I've got to have the guts to chase the lions when He tells me to. No matter how difficult, how scary, how foolish looking - I want to glorify God more than I want to be comfortable.