Thoughts by Young Men

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.