Thoughts by Young Men

Well, Shepherd’s Conference is over. Now that I have gotten that piece of depressing news out of the way, I wanted to take a quick moment to put a final bow on the 09 excursion. In short I would summarize the content as a call to higher, harder and healthier ministry. While not even the greatest minds among us (JSarr, Sean Higgins… actually, that’s about it) have been able to identify a singular theme that runs through the sessions and seminars - higher, harder and healthier is how “I” would summarize it.

While the call to a higher level of God fearing, a harder pursuit of truth and a greater heart for the overall heath of the church COULD be said of SC every year - these were the three “take aways” that stood out the most to me.
I have been asked several times now which message I thought was the “best.” I’ve spent enough “hemming and hawing” each time I’ve been asked I feel I finally have an answer. The most impacting message in my mind was the message by Phil Johnson on Sound Words. The concept that he spent the majority of his time focusing on was the idea that, as leaders of the church, we are to be calling the members on to greater things - not seeking to meet them on their level when that level is the very condition they are needing to be saved from. Mr. Johnson went on to discuss the examples of XXX Church (a controversial ministry to the porn industry) and the close to home example of Mars Hill (a young pastor known for his use of vulgar language.)
On a side note, I did appreciate Johnson’s care in noting that no one faulted either of these two ministries for having a heart for these demographics - the fault comes in the approach to reaching them. Methodology aside, the key take-away from Johnson’s message, in my mind, was the call to witness to the church by calling sinners to a higher level, not by meeting sinners on their level.

We do a fallen world NO FAVORS by trying to befriend them on a level that acts like they have “time” to repent from their God-denying behavior. Love the drug addict, YES; love the prostitutes, YES; love the atheists, terrorists, scientologists, rapists, murderer-ists, robbers-ists, YES YES YES YES YES YES YES! Pretend like any one of their sins is not as bad as one of the vilest of offenders and is not AS culpable in the sending of Christ to the cross, no.
As a junior high leader, I am challenged by this principle. While none of the young men in my group are guilty in the prosecutable sense of the above crimes, I am still called to call them to a higher standard. To witness to a junior higher, you don’t meet them on their level, try to “get their humor,” get them to “want to be around you” by wasting time in the ways they waste their time - you witness to a junior higher by showing them the desperate situation they are in before a Holy God and then encourage them to follow the example set down by Christ. Need a “practical guide” on how to do that? Try following the example I am leaving as I pursue the SAME THING - and lest I boast, my example is not my own, its my example, set down by JSarr, set down by Jim Otto, Set down by his discipler, set down by his discipler and on down the line of faithful men.

Sorry, I’m off of the borrowed soap box now.

Beyond THAT call to a higher level of God fearing, I was impacted by Steve Lawson’s rallying call to pursue the truth in the face of of promised persecution. Examining the example of the life of John Knox and his relentless preaching of the gospel against a tyrannical reign of persecution as compared to the willing “punt of the gospel” by Joel Osteen on national television - I was personally convicted to know and preach the gospel of the One who called me from a hopeless condition.

On a practical sense, I enjoyed Rob Ivarson’s seminar on how to Make Waves Without Sinking The Boat - a practical application of dealing with conflict in the church. While he relayed a handful of practical “tips” when dealing with controversy that I believe will certainly come in handy, it was his repetition of the principle (the health of the church) that I found motivating. Having been in and around discussions of controversy in the church for a long time, I have seen what happens when unity in Christ is not given priority.

And there you have it, my summary of the Shepherd’s Conference. The fellowship is always excellent, the singing is amazing and the outpouring of the leaders heart is convicting. Feel free to ask me personally how the conference went - I am not writing this post as a “please stop asking me” - though, maybe you could refer back to this post for some of the basic questions… Thanks for reading, enjoy!

Day two of the conference is now done, the activities officially concluded in my mind now that I have entered all twenty books into my digital library via Delicious Monster. I don’t like to cut these posts short, but as it is midweek of the conference and I want to be rested for the following day, I will make this brief.

Apart from the moving rendition of “It is well” in a cappella with both halves of the room facing each other, the most significant “take away” from the day for me was the analysis of the “new atheist” by Nate Buzenitz. The significance of the “new atheist” as opposed to a traditional atheist is the hell bent mentality of these people to see the end of all religion. No longer are they happy enough to deny God and let the “wacko” Christians do their own thing, they are on a mission to oust all religion (Christians) from existence.

In my own experience, this movement has quickly picked up the banner of same sex marriage and abortion rights as weapons in their arsenal to hunt after believers. While in the university scene I was constantly ridiculed, yelled at and ostracized in and outside of classes by fellow students who found my “intolerant” religion - intolerable. I experienced professors grading my papers low because of my beliefs and I have had other classmates threaten me with physical harm. If we don’t think that “it can happen here” - “it” has already taken root in the colleges and universities where the masses of youth are being recruited into the army of the “living dead” (that’s a pun) that is setting out to wage a public war against religion.

Now, lest I sound to heavy on the “head for the hills” mantra - the point I endeavor to make is not one of “prepare for battle.” The point that Dr. Buzenitz made that I found extremely deeply encouraging is the truth that the Holy Spirit ALONE will be the agent of change. While we as believers do have some nice “evidences” that are pieces of God’s grace to use that we can use in “proving” God’s existence - be it through natural discoveries that support the creationism or avenues of logical argument that disprove evolution… the point still remains that we cannot “prove” Christ exists because that is not our job to do. Our job is to proclaim Christ and He will reveal himself to those whom he has chosen. Praise God for His goodness to us in that, while we can expect greater hardships to come - it is not a matter of our own strength or eloquence to win the battle. Our faithfulness to His word is our charge and His revelation of Himself is His mighty, sovereign and gracious work.

This true story was told during the seminar. A young man on a college campus was arguing with an evangelist. The young man was attempting to argue that Jonah could not have been swallowed by a giant fish and then spewed back on to land three days later. The evangelist told him that he was happy to discuss Jonah and the whale with him - but first he wanted to finish telling him about Jesus. The evangelist continued through a gospel presentation at which point the Holy Spirit did a work in the college students life and he came to know the Lord through the conversation. After the tears of repentance cleared, the evangelist asked if he wanted to still discuss Jonah? The college student replied by saying no, if the Bible says it happened, he believed it happened.

It is Christ that saves souls and makes alive the truths of scripture, not our cleverness of argument.

That is all I have for tonight, all that I can muster up - it is not 11pm again and I really ought to be getting myself some sleep before tomorrow begins. Some rumors running about on the topic of tomorrow’s sessions promises to be a VERY interesting day. Please continue to pray for us as we press on and sit under the quality teaching for the rest of the week. Enjoy!

Day one of the Shepherd’s Conference is concluded. On our road trip down, Chuck made a comment to the effect of “getting ready to drink from the firehose.” Right now I feel like I am floating (face up, by God’s grace) in the flooded streets after the dam has burst. The preparation for the conference has been like drinking the stream of water gushing from the crack in the side of the dam - and once my face was pressed against the concrete barrier, the wall of water has exploded through the shield and I am caught up in it.
I was praying that I would be applied to the sessions and seminars early on in the week as opposed to going through the all to often “warm up” period that can accompany conferences/camps/retreats. God has been good. I imagine that if there were a “warm up” period need, however, that the God honoring worship would have made quick work of it - with pastors in the audience and future pastors in the choir it is hard not to be overwhelmed by the testimony of MEN praising their God.

As the night is quickly progressing (it is now 11pm) and I want to be alert for tomorrow’s messages I will quickly list the three key concepts that convicted my heart:

• Creation cannot be explained with science
  As outlined by MacArthur’s first message, creation is not a matter of scientific evidence. Sure, we can see some signs that the events that took place actually TOOK PLACE - but ultimately creation was and can only be explained as mega miracle. There are no defined laws of nature or repeatable circumstances that can be used to explain how creation happened. Especially coming out of a secular university where the idea of a Deity creating the universe is barely accepted in religious studies classes (I’m not making a joke) - it is refreshing to be reminded that their disbelief changes nothing! Creation happened the way the Bible said it did and whether or not the world would round us up and send us off to Bedlam, we can rest assured that our unwavering proclamation of Genesis has not watered down the glory that God is due for His magnificent work.

• The church is not ours
  In the second general session, Tom Pennington talked about the three components in building the church. His third point was on the quality of materials being used which dovetailed (in a way) into the topic on “who owns the church?” The point he was making was that when the owner of the building is Christ, our manner of approach to the job he has called us to aught to reflect a holy reverence for the “owner.” We are preaching/teaching the WORD of GOD. Coming to the pulpit, orange music stand (skh’s weapon of choice) or small-group round-table with the solemn charge to teach the word of God accurately and to bring only the highest quality content to the discussion - we aught to be ashamed of our hurried and often careless assemblage of “thoughts and questions” that we intend to use in the edification of those we are instructing.

• 40 years is a really heavy torch
  In the last session for the evening John MacArthur shared some “personal testimony” of his work over the last 40 years. His faithfulness day in and day out to nothing but the word of God and a proper understanding of what the church is to look like according to the new testament’s standards is a massive challenge to my own life. Not only am I convicted time and time again on my logistical bent towards clever marketing when it comes to evangelism as juxtaposed against the simple pursuit of the word of God; but I am also challenged by the fact that he has BEEN faithful over the last 40 years. I am quickly approaching the age at which Mac launched his ministry at GCC. While I am not entertaining the idea of starting a church, I am absolutely challenged to live a life that is as “singularly addicted to the word of God” as he has modeled for so many years. I praise God for his testimony and I am reminded of my gratitude for the men in our ministry who are already carrying the “40 year torch” in their day to day pursuit of Christ.

I believe this is a good place to conclude this post. I have a suspicion that the above paragraphs are somewhat “rambling” in nature though I did try to do some rough edits. I trust you will pardon me though as you probably understand that my brain is beginning to short-circuit. Please continue to pray for your staff leaders as we aim to pursue Christ and bring some of this newfound “fire” back to our students in Washington. We are praying for you every day. Enjoy.

It is now 9:11pm here at the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn in sunny Sunnyvale, Ca. The journey was fairly uneventful as we partook in quality “life on life” opportunities. God was gracious to grant safe passage down the I-5 corridor - even through TWO torrential downpours that could have made Sean reconsider atrib.
Once at the hotel we were met by Ben and later departed to pick up JSarr where we met by Mr. Lugg, Mr. Tuttle and Micah - the nine of us then enjoying some In and Out.
In a few minutes the Tahoe will depart again to pick up Andy, bringing us to our total of seven one28 staffers for the week. There is not much more to report at this time, but rest assured I will do my best to maintain the blog for the remainder of the week. Enjoy!

I an sure that all ten readers of the TBYM blog are aware that I will be departing with two other staffers and one student for the twenty-two hour drive to sunny Van Nuys for the 2009 Shepherd’s Conference. Once down there we will be joined by three other staffers bringing the one28 representation to a total of seven.
What you may not know (and more than likely “CARE”) about is why I enjoy shepherd’s conference so much. Shepherd’s Conference is, very plainly, a conference designed for pastors (shepherd’s). I am not a pastor. I am a right-brained, right-wing media guy that currently sells computers part-time at a retail store.

In a simple answer the reason I have attended SC the last few years is for the discipleship. By God’s grace my world currently revolves around ministry and over the last three years of college I have been in constant edification with some very amazing, God fearing, Christ pursuing, example living men. Attending the shepherd’s conference allows me to immerse myself in even greater tutelage of God fearing men. What follows is a quick list of reasons I am attending the 09 Shepherd’s Conference:

• Tiny pieces of steak
  Go with me on this, its an analogy I’ve used for three years now. If you try to feed a full fledged porter-house steak of the highest quality to a toddler, there is no way its all getting down - its too much, too soon. However, by God’s grace I believe that SOME steak will STILL GET DOWN. So, I am going for the sound teaching, for the little bits that actually stay after the massive deluge of theological truth.
• I go for 2007
  2007 was, in my mind, an amazing year. Two sermons that I have listened to repeatedly is Al Mohler’s message on the Power of (expository) Preaching and Mark Dever’s message on Opposition and Hope - both of which can be found here under Shepherd’s Conference > 2007 > General Sessions - you may need to register first.
• I go for the 4 am conversations
  Still to this day I received one of the most “gut checking” conversations of my life on the importance of protecting not only my purity but the purity of others around me as well - at 4 am on in the front (hot) seat of the tahoe on the return home.
• I go for the singing
  There really isn’t much more to say, if you haven’t experienced it you can’t understand it. It’s MEN praising their GOD.
• I go for the books
  While I might have a read a tenth of the books I’ve received by this point - the quality resources are excellent tools to supplement my spiritual walk.
• I go for the sweet tea
  Obviously this is a joke, but the sweet tea is pretty good - not to be mixed with the butter mints, a newbie mistake…
• I go for the friday night roundup with the men staffers
  Raw perspectives on the one28 ministry from the heart of staff attending that year.
• I go for the view
  When the world is inundated with weak Christians and weaker Christian men who sit passively by and let/force the women in the church to fill the gaps from their lack of spiritual hunger - it is a shot in the arm to see that there is still a population of God fearing men who are leading their congregations.

That’s it. This is my short post on why I am going to the shepherd’s conference. During the coming week the blog format will alter slightly as I put the “shepherd’s conference” blog posts into rotation in the blue banner area. The moment by moment featured posts in the grey box will stay the same but will take on a decidedly “conference-esque” nature. Thank you for reading and I trust you will be in prayer for us as we make or way to and from the 09 Shepherd’s Conference! Enjoy!