2012 Global Leadership Summit Session 7a: John Ortberg

Session 7 – A Leader of Unimaginable Influence
John Ortberg

Senior Pastor,
Menlo Park Presbyterian Church and Author

• Senior leader of a thriving multi-site church in Northern California
• A prominent voice in the worldwide spiritual formation movement
• With a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and the heart of a pastor, he invites you to consider the incredible potential that awaits you outside your comfort zone
• Best-selling author of numerous books including the upcoming, Who Is This Man? The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus

Session notes

• You can’t look at a map – San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento – without being reminded of Jesus.
• Jesus influence continues despite those who oppose him and those who attempt to follow him.
• We need to marvel at Jesus.
• It would be hard to pick a less likely person to change the world than Jesus.
• Jesus gave the world its most influential movement.
• Colossians 3:11
• Where before the church was there a movement to include everyone regardless of race, gender, etc.?
• No Jesus, no 12 steps
• Jesus changed how we look at history. Today we think of history as progress. Prior to Jesus people thought of history as repeated cycles over and over.
• Today we give our children names like Peter, Paul and Mary and we give our dogs names like Cesar and Nero.
• A.D. = Anno domini = the year of our Lord
• In the ancient world, it was common for children who were weak, malformed or the wrong gender to be killed. But that began to change when Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me.”
• Book – “When Children Became People”
• Jesus’ movement shaped medicine.
• Jesus shaped education. He and his followers taught everyone – men and women, slave and free.
• 92% of colleges started in the U.S. before the Civil War were started by the church.
• Mechanical Clocks, eye glasses and campaign were all invented by monks.
• Jesus shaped politics, leaders are held to a higher authority.
• In the ancient world nobody associated love with Bail or Zeus. Jesus brought a new way of thinking about God and love.
• The discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs was Jesus of Nazareth.
• Martin Luther’s dream was not a secular dream it was a divine dream.
• The reason we must marvel at [Jesus] is because his work is not done.

What impacted you from John’s talk?  What action will you take as a result?

Bill Hybels…

• The first thing I experienced when I chose to follow Jesus is a sense that someone was with me who was for me.
• I would not take a paycheck to get people involved in religion but I would work for free for the rest of my life to introduce people to Jesus.