Mark Batterson led off the Catalyst lab sessions with a few words from his upcoming book Primal, which led into a reflection on the foundation of ministry. (Kevin Miller was across the room blogging this session as well, and his report follows this one.) Mark's emphasis:

"What is the primal essence of what we believe? Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's more foundational than the forms we employ to live that out. ... There are ways of doing church that we haven't thought of yet."

Then Mark pointed out: "We come to conferences too often to find methodologies that we can take out of context and apply to our context. But that too often is misguided. We can learn 'how' but forget 'why.' "

He reflected on 1 Samuel 14-15, where Saul sets up a monument to himself. He suggests we need to erect not monuments to ourselves but altars to God, to remind yourself of the greatness of God and the cause to which you have been called.

Mark ...