Are We Up to the Challenge?

The last session started with some of the best arts of the conference thus far. A worship package led by Trace Rorie and Jason Miller. Ben Ngoma presented the song by Matisyahu called King Without a Crown. Then Kristin Baker presented a monologue that she wrote called Baggage followed by Kim Stewart singing the Mary Blige song by the same name.

Mark Beeson shared some poignant thoughts in his final session. He said that theater is made up. It's not real. Everyone is okay with that, because theater is "suspended disbelief." But in church, we aren't called to good theater. We must be real and authentic. People can smell a fake a mile away.

Mark told a hilarious story about Dr. Baldridge and then shared some learnings from the past 12 months at Granger

He said that we have a new intensity on focus. Together we studied the book 7 Practices of Effective Ministry by Andy Stanley--and we came out with a renewed desire to narrow the focus. Our leadership got away as a team and asked some tough questions.  He said,  "I have people who love me who help me stay in my sweet spot." We needed to get focus.

We develped five things for the church to focus on this year. We presented this to our church on Palm Sunday and it has given us a narrowed focus for the past six months.

The conference ended with a moving presentation of the Coldplay song, Fix You, sung by Trace Rorie.