NEXT conference

I went to the NEXT conference this past weekend. The "theme" (if you can call it that) for the weekend was Jesus Christ. The speakers covered his preeminence, life, death, resurrection and return.

The fellowship was rich. We spent time in breakout sessions discussing the messages and in prayer (there was also 5mins of dodgeball early one morning).

The testimonies that were shared were sooooo encouraging. Each speaker shared their personal testimony and there were also 5 conference attendees that shared as well. I LOVED the fact that the testimonies didn't end after some of the people said things like "And from that day forward, I stopped using drugs", as though the message of the gospel is "God will get you sober". My favorite quote from the testimonies was:

"A boring testimony isn't boring to the one who got saved"

The conference was amazingly Christ-centered, gospel-centered and doctrinally sensitive, so it is with Sovereign Grace ministries as a whole. It is for this reason that i'm really excited about the church that i'm going to attend when I move up to new york city for my mba. I got to spend a lot of time with the church ppl (who i already know quite well) throughout the conference (pastor included).

There was an awesome breakout session on discerning the will of God. As someone who was manipulated by people who were really big on "discerning the will of God" this presentation was a breath of fresh air. I wrote a short paragraph on a biblical view of the will of God here. The speaker (Kevin Deyoung) wrote a book called; "Just Do Something: How to make a decision without dreams, visions, fleeces, open doors, random bible verses, casting lots, liver shivers, writing in the sky, etc".

I was also blessed with several opportunities to share the gospel over the weekend. My sister actually pulled me out of a conversation to encourage me to share with some of the hotel workers who were just standing around in a hallway. Though I strive to make my conversations with people about the faith actual CONVERSATIONS, this one felt a lot more like I was preaching a sermon on the wrath and grace of God (prob b/c there were 4 guys).

My prayer for myself after this weekend is for Christ's preeminence, life, substitutionary death, resurrection and return to radically shape every area of my life.

I'm going to another conference this weekend. This conference is an orientation for all recipients of the graduate fellowship that i received.

John&Kate+8

I recently watched a news story that clearly showed that they are going through a tough time in their marriage. As a believer, I know that my role is not to gossip, but rather to pray.

They are professing believers, but i've never seen an episode delve into their spiritual side. I don't know who their pastor is and what role he is playing in their marital counseling.

I hope that the more troubling things that news outlets are reporting are untrue. Ultimately, my prayer is for healing in their marriage and for unwavering devotion on the part of Jon to love his wife as Christ loved the church and for his wife to unwaveringly submit to her husband.

sick/evangelism/reilly/lecrae

I'm currently sitting in my room - incubating a cold. I know exactly how i got sick. There's a coworker of mine that has been coughing all over the place and i've been spending a lot of time with her in meetings as of recent (new task, still trying to figure out what i'm doing - i'm no longer working from home. I've been in the office shirt/tie/jacket every day for the past 2 weeks!). I'm pretty sure that i got sick from her b/c my big boss is her big boss (and they too interact frequently) - and he's got the same symptoms that i've got (headache, fatigue, sore throat) - and she's the only sick person that i've been in regular contact with walking around the office (so much for hand washing).

Weekend stuff:

Everyone in my saturday evangelism group had something else to do, so i found myself alone up in baltimore (charles village farmer's market) this past saturday. I don't feel as comfortable sharing the gospel with people when i'm alone, but i figured that it would be a shame to waste the beautiful day (and to waste the 30mins that i spent driving to get to baltimore) so i stayed in the city.

I had a lot of interesting conversations. My conversation with the agnostic kid (about 17yrs old) was cool. He was a blank slate and really saw no need to believe in a God. I walked with him to buy asparagus and I actually had a chance to share on the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the sufficient grace of God as revealed through Jesus Christ with both him AND HIS MOTHER (who showed up midway through the conversation after her son broke down his worldview to me).

Both of the professing christians that I met were way off. One dude was a "holiness pentecostal" (aside: i've learned to stop coming to conclusions about what people believe based on the denominational title that they give me). He was really big into God speaking through all things: people, events, the q'ran...

The other professing christian that I met was a buff (he and his g/f were walking around in their workout clothes) and successful CEO. His g/f did not want to talk about spiritual things at all (but she stuck around a portion of the conversation). Before I could say much, the CEO dude asked me a bunch of questions about myself that led me to believe that he was a solid believer. I was wrong. He gave me his business card so that we could continue our conversation. I checked out his company's website (really cool company) and sent him an email. He seems to be more interested in my education and professional experience than hearing the truth of the word of God...but who knows?

After that I got started on writing my self assessment (annual review is taking place now) in a mexican place in federal hill (short drive from where the farmer's market was - also my former stomping grounds prior to moving out to the burbs) that had AWESOME service and food. I got congratulations from 3 other people in the restaurant when i finished the entire burrito. After i finished eating I decided to write the rest of my assessment out on the inner harbor.

Here's a picture of the view from where I sat:


I took shelter under the overpass so that I could get away from the sun and see my laptop. I finished writing after about 2 hours. The yankees were in town, so there were more people out than usual. There were yankee jerseys and steretypical non-black new yorkers as far as the eye could see (NY and the greater NY area always invade bmore when the yankees come to town)



I didn't talk to anyone while I was out. The sheer number of people was somewhat overwhelming and i didn't have anyone w/ me, so i didn't even make an attempt.

When i got home, my roommate reminded me that Lecrae was doing a show at UMD's main campus, so i made my way out there. The concert was awesome. He's a really gifted hip hop artist, but I was really looking forward to what he was going to say between the songs. His songs are really Christ-centered, so he set himself up really well to preach in between songs.

Pics from the concert:





Reilly (sovereign grace band) was there as well. I knew them b4 they got big!

pride

Just got out of a bible study on pride. My boy Jay really challenged us with the word tonight.

Two (out of the many) texts on which I'm going to meditate:

"For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and our sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written 'Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord'"

-1cor1:26-31

"For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it"

-1cor4:7

My prayer is that the Lord would search my heart and remove all that is not like him. This study was right on time, b/c i was a little bit discouraged after reading about a lot of the nonsense that people do under the title of christianity today. Stuff so ridiculous that I would have never believed it had I not experienced it myself.

saturday

Typical saturday...

After the men's shelter in DC, i went up to a farmer's market in baltimore to share the faith with some friends from my monday night bible study.

Most people that I attempted to engage in conversation didn't want to have anything to do with conversations about spiritual beliefs...especially with a christian. The typical person at this farmer's market usually falls into more than one of the following categories:

Politically Liberal
Environmentalist
Eastern Religion
Homosexual
African Nationalist
Atheist
Agnostic
Johns Hopkins Grad Student


To say the least, interesting people, interesting conversations.

I ran into a non-african nationalist black person who actually turned out to be an apostolic (oneness pentecostal, unbiblical emphasis on spiritual gifts). I initiated the conversation, but after she started talking, i regretted it. She pretty much told me to appeal to people's emotions and a whole bunch of other nonsense - and then she kept saying "In Jesus Name".

I didn't feel like talking about why oneness pentecostalism is an aberration of the trinity, the folly of emotionalism nor any of the other nonsense that she came at me with. The last thing that I needed to do was spend 30 minutes speaking with someone that is heavily indoctrinated in nonsense (not the time, not the place - especially with someone that was as aggressive as she was). All i did was affirm what I was out at the market to do and try passively try to end the conversation by not saying much in addition to that.

We went to an indian buffet after we left the market. The food was ok. The indian that I had at Yale last weekend (i went up for their preview weekend - i officially decided on NYU) was better. I had a lot of food to eat, so i decided that driving home to go to sleep (played a show last night, didn't get to bed until about 2am, got up at 6 - mad tired) would've been a bad look(too full to sleep), so I decided to drive downtown and walk around lexington market and the inner harbor by myself. I had a newspaper that had an aritcle on the drug kingpins that "The Wire" was based on, so all was good.

religious left

Am I the only person that wonders why no one complains when professing christians are active for liberal causes? Why is it that no one calls for separation of church and state in those cases?

It's because people don't really care about separation of church and state, they care about silencing people that disagree with them.

Honestly, I don't really care about politics. I don't think that the change that this country (or for that matter, the world) needs will be accomplished by any sort of political agenda.

My vote can help to curb the evil that many want to further, but my vote will not change anyone's heart. I've said it before, and i'll say it again - our biggest problems are not the global climate change, marriage equality, women's "healthcare" nor the failing economy. Our biggest problem is the wrath of a holy God directed squarely at all those who are dead in their sins.

What does it profit a man if he slows the rate of global climate change and loses his soul?

As a christian, I stand on the gospel. I am not ashamed of it, for it is the power of God unto salvation.