Fireproof pastor Michael Catt reveals church secret

How does a church in southern Georgia turn out box-office-hit movies? The secret isn’t superior production or top actors but a top-down policy to make revival the first, second, third, and fourth priority, reports church in its press release.

Michael Catt, senior pastor of Sherwood Church in Albany, shows the roots of that policy as he opens The Power of Surrender: Breaking Through to Revival,” number three in his trilogy on God-dependence, from B&H publishing: hitting stores on March 1. “I am a man who begins with the thought of ‘What if?’” Catt writes. “What if we were willing to lay hold of the altar and not let go until the Lord blessed us and changed our lives? What if we stopped our conniving and started a concentrated emphasis on seeking Him?”

Sherwood Church senior pastor since 1989, Catt is executive producer of the surprise movie successes FIREPROOF (2008’s top-grossing indie film), FACING THE GIANTS (the breakout Christian film of 2006), and FLYWHEEL (now in a re-mastered DVD). The Power of Surrender maintains that surrender is the key to revival and revival is the key to spreading the gospel—by any means.

“I had a roommate in college who didn’t like the word surrender when associated with Christian life,” Catt writes. “I find it refreshing. It’s the awareness of my desperate need for something or someone to lift me out of the miry clay and set my feet on solid rock . . . It’s not overstating to say revival is our key to survival.”

Catt sees the disciplines of revival lived out in his congregation firsthand. “People are being saved. Members are inviting their lost friends and un-churched neighbors,” he says. “Attendance shot up. Why? Revival produces evangelism.”

As part of Sherwood Pictures, Catt has appeared in the New York Times, on the 700 Club, the Dr. Phil Show, Glenn Beck, Washington Post, Baptist Press, Leadership Journal, and FamilyLife Today among many other national media. But he’s the first to say that filmmaking is not the hallmark of Sherwood’s faith in God. Surrender is.

Michael Catt is the think-outside-the-sanctuary leader making good on his church’s goal to “change the world from Albany, Georgia.” He’s also founder of Sherwood’s annual ReFRESH revival conference. In 2008, he headed the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference, representing more than 42,000 churches. He is a prolific author, speaker, conference founder and leader, and pastor to pastors.

B&H Publishing Group is a division of LifeWay Christian Resources, the world's largest provider of Christian products and services, including Bibles, church literature, books, music, audio and video recordings, and church supplies. LifeWay serves 150,000 church customers, shipping more than 61 million units of product a year from a 350,000 square-foot distribution center. >From its original core of Bibles, textbooks, and reference titles, B&H has developed into a major publisher of Christian living, fiction, youth, history, academic, reference, and electronic products. B&H is home to bestselling authors Beth Moore, Henry Blackaby, Gary Chapman, Oliver North, Chuck Norris, Vicki Courtney, Dan Miller, and Thom S. Rainer.

The Power of Surrender is appropriate for personal, small-group, or church-wide study.

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TAGS: USA Michael Catt Sherwood Church The Power of Surrender Fireproof Facing The Giants evangelism revival B&H Publishing Group LifeWay Christian Resources

[01/06/2010]

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