west palm beach (day 1)

well, we did the first round of talks today at the multi-site gathering with leadership network. it is being facilitated by none other than geoff surratt and greg ligon.

mark batterson - a punk kid?

mark batterson and a couple guys from his staff up at ncc in washington d.c. are here (joel schmidgall and dave clark) and they brought with them a lot of - well i see it as "cool factor," but another guy in the gathering put it this way:

"i look at you (mark) and i see some punk kid who just went out there and started doing something...."

now, mark has gotten his fair share of not-so-nice commentary lately - i think largely for being so successful in thinking of ways to reach people (they just don't like how he's doing it). but this comment (i don't think) was meant in a negative way at all. i think it was actually meant as a compliment. whatever the intent, i think mark and joel and dave all were sharp enough to take it as such, knowing that "just getting out there and doing something" is probably what many churches would love to be able to do. it certainly gave them a chance to live up to the statement on the back of dave's theaterchurch t-shirt:



mark batterson - a punk kid.