Shift Conference 2008

First off, I know its been a long, long time since I last posted. Sorry to all of my adoring fans waiting for some new word of wisdom. I hate to disappoint you if you are truly waiting for wise words because you probably have stumbled onto the wrong blog. Anyway, I wanted to post today about my experience so far at the Shift Conference at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL (thanks Hayley for encouraging me to come because it is worth it already). First off can you say enormous! This church is ridiculously huge. I'm so glad that I didn't have to go very far on campus today or else I may have been lost for quite a while. The first session started off with Brian McClaren talking about world-wide crises that we as the church need to engage. It was a good way to kick off the conference. I forgot to mention that Charlie Hall led worship at each of the three sessions today. That was awesome! Can we say massive goatee? He almost looked Jewish, a la David Crowder. The second session was led by Mark Yaconelli. I really, really enjoyed this. He talked about getting away from all of the processes, the forms, and the schedules that we get so tied down to and allowing God to empty us so He can use us. He used the passage of Scripture from Luke 5 where a crowd pressed Jesus and He went into an empty fishing boat and taught the crowd. Then he told the fishermen who worked and toiled all night to go back out and let down there nets again and they caught so many fish that both boats began to sink. Then Peter uttered these words, "Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around You." He was essentially saying, "Jesus I can't do this. I'm not good enough or gifted enough. I'm empty, just like my boat was." Mike said that it is this type of person God wants to use right now to speak into the lives of students and lead them into a genuine relationship with God, a relationship that leads them to do more than just exist but rather to live out their faith. Amazing stuff! The last session was led by Shane Claiborne, a native of Tennessee (so at least I was able to hear another southern accent than my own). He talked about moving from a condemning, condescending Christianity where we exclude people to being led by grace and love, seeing with new eyes. Everything seemed to go hand-in-hand today. I pray the rest of the week is as good as today, if not better. I'll be back with more info later.