Personal Influence For God

I was reading tonight a book that Doug gave us, the Catalyst Groupzine. As I was reading, something hit me. Ben Ortlip said that “personal influence for God comes only from personal experience with God.” He continues to say “‘cool’ may dray a crowd, but only ‘real’ can draw crowds and change lives.” What is it that churches are doing? Why is everyone trying to be cool? Ortlip gave me an interesting perspective because I am part of the “you gotta have the environment” thing, but if you don’t have people in your church, more specifically the LEADERSHIP, who don’t have the “personal experience with God,” then the “personal influence” will NOT happen. I couldn’t agree more with this guy.

Ben Ortlip continues, “So go ahead, buy the cool video loops, crank up the volume on the Marshall amplifier, but don’t think for a second that any of it will make you influential for Christ with your flock.” WOW!! That hits home for me. Life change starts with leadership who has an experience with God. That leadership will spread and influence the people around them; it becomes a disease. Question what you’re doing. Have you had a personal experience with God? If not, good luck trying to bring people to church, cool environments only go so far. Its got to be real, and the real part starts with God.