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National - LeadNow+Dallas

Thursday, November 13, 2008 - Saturday, November 15, 2008
Dallas, TX

LeadNow+Dallas 08

Wow – what can we say? Our staff has so many things to be thankful about from this past weekend, but all of them are framed by the foundational truth that God showed up at LeadNow+Dallas 08. Check out what Brian Mosley, the Director of the RightNow Campaign had to say about the event. <http://bluefishtv.blogspot.com/2008/11/when-god-shows-up.html>

Thursday
Watermark Pastor Todd Wagner kicked us off by talking about the responsibility for leaders to be bold and stand for truth even when it’s not popular. Then we had a surprise visit from author and business guru Marcus Buckingham. He actually contacted our office about a week before the event because he wanted to talk to our leaders and we were ecstatic to make it happen. Even though he was only in town a few hours his message The Truth About You had our belly’s hurting from laughter and our hands sore from taking notes. After a round of connection sessions and a tour of our Connection Café, Todd Phillips from Frontline in Washington DC closed us out on Thursday with a personal message about being in the wilderness and the process of God restoring Todd’s inner man to do the work of the ministry. I got the feeling that people walked away from Thursday with heavy hearts and contemplative spirits.

Friday
Patrick Ryan Clark led us in a sweet time of worship and then Francis Chan from Cornerstone in Simi Valley delivered a message that will probably never leave many of the folks in attendance. Francis Chan’s authenticity was off the map. Especially telling the story of when he left his church after realizing “if he and Jesus had a church in the same town, he (Francis) could build a bigger church than Jesus because he (Francis) is much less demanding than Jesus.” Wow. Francis was able to challenge every single one of us there to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. After a series of Connection Sessions and some phenomenal lunch time Q&A’s, we were back to hear Erwin McManus talk about the Third Space. Erwin’s message was rooted in Acts 17:16-34 and helped us understand how to move beyond our normal spaces of influence and into spaces that would incite radical change.

Fusion Friday Night
More than 2,000 young adults packed into Irving Bible Church as the Brick House Choir led by Myron Butler kicked us off with an amazing time of worship that felt so very pure and wonderful. After the second song Amena Brown performed her spoken word piece, “He is Here” bringing us straight to the throne of Almighty God. After worship Erwin McManus did what only he can do by giving our generation reason to hope, create and dream. We then had a 30 minute break where we built 1,000 Care Giver Kits through World Vision to send to AIDS crises workers in Africa. We also issued a challenge for the attendees to sponsor 50 children from Compassion International, but when all was said and done our generation blew us away by sponsoring 133! Then Donald Miller talked to us about how to have a better story with the idea that our lives matter and our faith must be put in action. The Robbie Seay Band closed the night with one of the more intimate worship times I have ever experienced.

Saturday
Just when we thought the best was behind us, Francis Chan started us off by talking about how bold we can be in the physical realm, but we are so weak spiritually. Francis told us about meeting the Pastor of the church of South Koreans who were held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan last year. He talked of their faith and how strong they grew under such intense persecution. Then more than 1,500 participated in our Next Step lunches where people learn tangible ways to put their faith in action. Over 400 of those turned in a My Response form and our RightNow Mission Coaches will personally follow up with each individual. After a couple of experience sessions author Margaret Feinberg and Pastor Matt Chandler closed out The Fusion Experience. Margaret with a talk laced in scripture and bathed in prayer about how outrageously generous our God is and calls us to be. Matt Chandler closed us out with the perfect message saying that “no one attending the event was leaving with a new revelation that God wants to use them.” I think God will use that particular comment from Matt in a big way to pierce hearts into action that have been disobedient and inactive for far too long.

Thank you Jesus so much for allowing us to be a part of what You are doing!

Check out Director of Events, Marc McCartney’s Top Ten list’s here <http://therightnowcampaign.blogspot.com/>