Francis Chan of Cornerstone Church (Simi Valley, CA) discussed suffering during Verge Conference’s 6th session. Here is what he said:

Good ministry is full of suffering. Yet we are surprised when we suffer.

Do not be surprised when people persecute you (1 Peter 4:12). In fact, you should be concerned if people speak too well of you because that is how the false prophets were treated. At the end of the day, it is all about the Holy Spirit and what He has called you to do.

Jesus did not come to bring peace (Matthew 10 ). Blessed are you when people hate you because of Jesus (Luke 22). The world hated Jesus before it hated you (John 15). The apostles rejoiced at the opportunity to suffer for the cause of Christ (Acts 5). We are heirs of Christ provided that we suffer with Him (Romans 8). For the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in Him but suffer for Him (Philippians 1:29). Share in the suffering (2 Timothy 1:8). Let us bear the reproach that Christ endured (Hebrews 13:12).

If you are not suffering, there is a problem. Imagine how close you’d be with Jesus and how safe you would feel had you suffered alongside Him. Then you would know this is real.

You must learn to love people who betray you. The highest form of love is to love people who betray you.

If we really are serious about wanting Christ - to experience Christ, to know Him - we must be ready for suffering.

Dave Gibbons of NewSong Church (Irvine, CA) discussed loving your neighbor during Verge Conference’s 5th session. Here is what he said:

If we really break it down, the mission is clear. What is the mission: Love God and your neighbor. The problem is our definition of our neighbor. We define our neighbor in America as someone just like us. The genius and the brilliance of the church and when it becomes the most illuminous is when you love someone different from you.

Embrace the theology of flow and blessing.

FLOW: Jesus only did what He saw His Father doing. See what God is doing. Pray for your community and let yourself be broken. Great vision will come from your brokenness.

BLESSING: When you unpack blessing in the Scripture, it is to see how special you are. Notice how special people are. Affirm people’s destiny.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. What’s in your hand?
   A lot of times you think about serving God, you think you don’t have the eloquence or resources. But God has given you a unique story. He has given you the Holy Spirit in your hand. You know how much you do by how much you pray. If you don’t pray, you are depending on your own power and not that of the Holy Spirit. Your pain is your gift. Tell your story, and let it be used by God.
2. What’s on the outside of your hand?
   Who are the outsiders in your community? If you want to know how civilized a society is, look at how they treat children, women, and the elderly.

Jeff Vanderstelt of Soma Communities (Tacoma, WA) discussed living with gospel intentionality during Verge Conference’s 5th session. Here is what he said:

We are being active for Jesus’ sake and glory.

LISTEN: Part of our job is to listen well to the Word of God and the SPirit of God. We are good at talking to God but not listening to God. Scripture says where words are many, sin is not absent.

CELEBRATE: In every culture there are celebrations going on. Your job as a christian is to engage in the celebration with the people. We are to bring what is lacking.

BLESS: Bless your food. Physical hunger reminds us that we have a spiritual hunger for something external (God’s Word) to feed us daily.

EAT: Do what you already do but with gospel intentionality. You should be opening up your table regularly to those who don’t know Christ.

RECREATE: We should enjoy life and joyfully create and work as though its unto the Lord. What if Christians were the more creative, playful, and caring people in your community.

John Burke of Gateway Community Church (Austin, TX) discussed what is really missional during Verge Conference’s 5th session. Here is what he said:

If your unchurched friends are not finding faith and becoming the church, you are not missional. You aren’t really living on the mission of Jesus. If the world is not coming to Christ, can we really say that we are part of the Body of Christ? If we are being the Body of Christ, what would it look like? Very messy.

I think God could care less about our ministry efforts if we don’t have love for people.

3 Question to Ask Yourself

1. Am I serving the spiritual and physical needs of my neighbors?
   Everywhere Jesus went, He met people’s needs. So if we call ourselves missional leaders but do not meet our neighbors’ needs then we are not missional. If people think you are for them and not against them, they start to believe that God is for them not against them.
2. Do I point out God’s work in them?
3. Are my unchurched neighbors now leading the church?
   If you are on mission with Jesus then your friends will find Jesus and start leading the church. And that’s exciting!

Hugh Halter of Missio discussed the power of posture during Verge Conference’s 5th session. Here is what he said:

Posture is about nonverbal communication. It is a powerful thing.

You must be missional and incarnational.

Christian leaders living in excess is a posture problem. Think about how often you have done things nonverbally that make people uninterested in Christ. People are interested in our words but often not in our posture.

Incarnation causes you to go in. It is the Word became flesh.

Incarnation is to be an advocate for lost people. Jesus’ defense of the woman caught in adultry. You are not condoning the sin. You don’t have to worry about sin because Jesus said that He already took care of that.

Incarnation wins people’s hearts.

Missional and incarnational ministry is what the world needs right now.

Ed Stetzer of LifeWay Research discussed empowering disciples rather than disempowering them during Verge Conference’s 4th session. Here is what he said:

I’m tired of hearing about great disciple making movements across the world except the United States.

Disciples do. We may have to do mission and ministry differently, so that we might do what we need to do.

Look at 1 Peter 4. Keep your love at full strength. Disciple making movements keep people at full strength. There is something wrong when the abnormal is people effectively discipling others.

#1 :: ALL HAVE GIFTS

The way we do leadership often disempowers people who we know are gifted. We teach people to be passive spectators and then we are shocked by how they live. If we disciple through knowledge and not action, then we have raised up puffed up nostics. I am tired of knowledgeable people not living in mission, criticizing mission.

God has gifted each person in your church (1 Corinthians 12:7). Any system that disempowers and demotivates the people of God is unhelpful and perhaps sinful. Disciples don’t just know, they do. When we do for people what God has called them to do, everybody gets hurt and the mission of God is hindered.You cannot disciple people with books. You disciple people with life on life.

Obedience-based discipleship leads to mission-shaped disciples. If you are so gifted that your abilities overshadow the people of God, you should either quit or change.

#2 ::  GOD INTENDS ALL TO USE

As church leaders and pastors, you are a manager of people and their gifts.

I don’t know how it happened, but somewhere along the way we figured out how to sit in church week-after-week doing nothing and calling each other Christ followers. The greatest sin in most churches is that we have made it okay to sit in church week-after-week and do nothing and call ourselves Christ followers.

#3 :: FOR WHICH HE EMPOWERS US

There are varieties of giftings, but then sometimes leaders disempower people. To break the cycle, the enabler has to stop enabling. I’m not calling on you pastors to bemone the reality. I am calling on you to stop enabling. In the church, we know that people are called, but we must enable them. The underappreciated and undervalued shine as God has gifted them. Ordinary people do extraordinary things for God.

#4 :: TO BRING GOD GLORY

Don’t miss that the use of gifts is tied into the glorification of God. God will not get His glory if you are up front getting all of the credit.
We will not be a mature church by having a bunch of knowledge. We need life transformation.

I care less about the label and more about the lifestyle.

Disciples see what Jesus is doing, and they join Him in it.

Neil Cole, author of Church 3.0, discussed reating 4th generation disciples during Verge Conference’s 4th session. Here is what he said:

Sheep without a shepherd are wolf chow. Jesus has created sheep to be protected and cared for by a shepherd. So when you see lost sheep without a shepherd, they are victims. Don’t judge them. Help them.

When it comes to multiplying disciples, you have to get to the fourth generation. If you haven’t gotten to the fourth generation, it is not yet multiplying.

We need to see the harvest fields, but more importantly, we need to know what to do with them. Here is how a Life Transformation Group does it:

1. We read the Bible together.
2. We confess our sins together.
3. We identify the names of lost people that we know, and we pray for them daily.

You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, so start by looking for someone who desperately wants to be saved. Also look for someone who will be faithful to the process. Jesus looks for those who are sinners but who are also faithful. Your life is too short to waste without seeing multiple generations of disciples.

George Patterson of Western Seminary discussed acting like an apostle during Verge Conference’s 4th session. Here is what he said:

The best kept secret among Evangelicals is that it is far easier to plant churches and do small groups if we do it like the apostles did. That might sound simple, and it is. I thank God for that.

Let’s stop presenting Jesus by just telling facts about Him. We need to represent Him.

Stop trying to shove the camel through the eye of the needle. The average American church spends most of its evangelistic efforts on the camel.Jesus said He came to preach His gospel to the poor.

Don’t get hung up on a method. Only one approach has been consistent, universal, and simple, and that is to evangelize like the apostles did. The one thing apostles did consistently after a person’s conversion but before baptism was go to the family. After you convert someone, do not pull them out of their circle and family.