Catalyst Recap – Part 3
This is a continuation of my thoughts on the 2008 Catalyst conference. See Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Tim Sanders, Former Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo! and author of Love is the Killer App was first on tap for day 2 of Catalyst. Sanders was another speaker which I was looking forward to hearing speak. His session was based on his latest book, Saving the World at Work, and he started by encouraging us to take our values to work – learn on Sunday, be a rock star on Monday. He said good (as in moral good) is the new great, observing that our generation more than others in recent memory desire to do good, giving back to the community and helping others. He asked “If not you, then who?” and “If not now, then when?” I enjoyed Sanders and wish he had had one of the longer blocks of time.
Speaker number two of the day was the man himself, Dave Ramsey. I was wondering if Dave would talk about his specialty – personal finance – or have something different to say. Turns out he had a lot of different things to say. 
His session was on the enemies of unity:
- Poor communication
- Gossip
- Unresolved disagreements
- Lack of shared purpose
- Sanctioned incompetence
Ramsey specifically focused on gossip and how it can destroy an organization. He says “a successful leader develops and maintains a culture in which negatives are handed up and positives are handed down,” and went on to explain that “gossip is when a negative is discussed with anyone who can’t help solve the problem.” He also spent some time talking about conflict, that it needs to be dealt with quickly before it infects everyone and that the leader can’t be like a squirrel in the middle of the road. Much more I could talk about here, but I’ll leave it at this.
The next session revolved around the Grahams – Billy Graham and his son Franklin. After playing a nice video montage of Billy’s life, the Catalyst Conference presented Billy Graham with the lifetime achievement award. Franklin accepted on his father’s behalf, saying Billy was doing well, that “His mind is sharp, but his body is wearing out.” Franklin went on to speak about the Gospel. I don’t remember much detail about this session, but here are some quotes:
“The Gospel is God’s power.”
“There is Holy Ghost power in the Gospel message.”
“God uses his Gospel to penetrate and go right into the heart of a person.”
“Everything is about the Gospel. Without the Gospel, there is nothing.”
“We have the responsibility to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth.”
“You’ll never get another opportunity friends. You only get one life.”
He also spoke about Operation Christmas Child, the charity which involves sending shoe boxes of supplies and such to less fortunate children around the world. Over 8 million shoe boxes were distributed last year and 100 countries will distribute them this year. He said the organization is “going to do everything in our power to tell them that God loves them and Christ died for them” and encouraged us to pray for the children that would receive the shoe boxes.
I’ll wrap this up with Part 4 soon.
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