The Catalyst Conference in Atlanta is just three weeks away (October 1-3), and we’re excited to announce we’ve chosen the winner of our Catalyst Contest. Today we’ll be detouring from church design discussions to let you know some more about the exciting opportunities for learning and worship taking place at Catalyst, and introduce you to our contest winner.
Catalyst Speakers
We’re looking forward to the conference and all it has to offer. We’ve mentioned some of the great speakers and worship leaders before. Andy Stanley, from North Point Ministries, is an Atlanta pastor who has developed a network of five churches and over 30 church plants. Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv holds worship services in 16 Oklahoma locations and his messages are viewed at over 200 churches in his network. World-traveling Matt Redman is a Grammy Award-winning songwriter who will lead the worship at Catalyst. These are just a handful of the inspiring leaders who will be speaking and teaching during this amazing event.
Catalyst Labs
On the first day of the conference there will also be some really cool labs that will allow participants a chance to discuss and learn about some of the most pressing topics and issues for churches today in workshop-style sessions. For example, there’s an “Innovate” session where the goal is to “Uniquely Express Original Ideas.” It will be led by Matt Redman and two other influencers; Hannah Brencher, the founder of The World Needs More Love Letters and Gideon Tsang, one of the pastors of Vox Veniae in Austin, Texas.
Another lab will be on the topic of risk and will talk about how people can “Challenge the Status Quo in the Face of Uncertainty.” One leader is Shelene Bryan, who took the risk of traveling to Africa to learn where her donated dollars were going, and ended up creating a nonprofit to provide food and clean water for children, both in America and around the world. Peter Greer, another leader of this lab, has a background in international microfinance, speaks on the connection between faith and international development, and has co-written a handful of books, including The Spiritual Danger of Doing Good.
Catalyst Contest Winner
So are you ready to learn who will be joining us at Catalyst, at our expense? The winner of our Catalyst Contest is the Reverend Mark Kingen, pastor of Russellville Community Wesleyan Church in Davison, Michigan. In addition to Pastor Mark, we hope you will join us, too, so you can take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to learn more about ways to grow the church.
We hope that many of you will be coming to Atlanta! There’s much more we’re excited about surrounding the Catalyst Conference. In an upcoming post to our blog, we’ll focus on some great things to do in Atlanta while you’re there—besides coming to visit us at our booth, of course! And if you can’t join us in Atlanta, you can still get many of your church design and building questions answered by signing up for our free i3 webinar series today.