I'm back! and Newspring Leadership Conference

Well it has been a very long time. I thought about starting an entirely new blog, but Uganda has been such an important part of my story, so even though there is an incredible gap of time it felt right to pick up and keep going. I've been feeling like I should start back up for some time now, so now is as good of time ever. I pray that God will be glorified through the words that I write.

This past week I did probably one of the most spontaneous things I’ve ever done – Wednesday morning Brian came into the office and said that we could go to the Newspring Leadership Conference. We were pumped. But then he dropped the bomb that it was the next day. And then he dropped an atomic bomb when he told us it was in South Carolina! 12 hours away! There were things that we had to work out to make this possible, especially me (thank you Sara for being so flexible), because it wasn’t until 4:00pm that afternoon that I finally decided that I needed to go. And this is Wednesday night, mind you, so we all still had to do church that night. Even though these past few days have been such a whirlwind, it is so clear to me that attending this conference was no surprise to God unlike it was to me. He has been preparing my heart and working on my thoughts for months leading up to Newspring, and I heard what I needed to hear at the exact time I needed to hear it. He makes all things work together for our good, and I don’t even know why! What do I have to offer?! But I am so grateful that he does.

Let me just give you some highlights:

Perry Noble reminded us of the importance of getting alone with God. One thing he said that really resonated with me is that “If you are always accessible to people you’re hardly ever accessible to God.” That got me right in the heart.

Francis Chan… what didn’t he say?!? His passion for Jesus Christ was made so clear as he spoke for an hour. He was all over the place, but it was so encouraging and convicting! He spoke about boldness and faith. We need to live our lives knowing, really knowing, that we are living for MORE than this world has to offer. When has it ever been about us and what we can and cannot do? We can’t do anything apart from Jesus Christ, but we can have boldness (and boast!) in the fact that we know Him.

Mark Driscoll blew my mind. When he walked off the stage my mouth was literally hanging open. He began by saying, “For those whom God greatly uses he will first wound deeply” – suffering is not a punishment for our sins but a correction from our Father who loves us deeply. Suffering is painful and it costs us so much, so we cannot waste it. We have to embrace it and use it in our lives for the purpose that God intended. He walked us through 6 ways in which suffering can be used for God’s glory. I literally could write pages and pages on my thoughts from this session. If you want to hear more about it, let’s go out to coffee, because I’d love to have further conversations about it. But I’ll end with saying that I think one of the biggest things I took away from his talk was that we NEED (bold, caps lock and italics – this is the real deal) to talk about our suffering because it brings about humility, repentance and faith. If we can’t talk about our suffering/shame/sin then that says we’re living in a religious culture. It’s not about what we do, it’s not about behavior modification, its about life transformation. And suffering is a huge part of that transformation. Oh boy… suffer well!

Steven Furtick called us to action! We just have to do it! We have to live it. When we feel the Spirit’s leading in whatever he tells us to do, we just have to do it. And he kept saying over and over “Jesus told me to!” And I loved that. Sometimes things don’t make sense, but when we know that we are to do something, we are to respond with immediate obedience. Nothing is insignificant when done for the most significant purpose on the earth, which is the advancement of the Gospel. So, just do it! Let’s go!

Judah Smith was something else. He brought it, and that was an unexpected blessing. I hadn’t ever heard of him, but I’ll never forget him. He talked about what we are to do in the “Matters of the meantime.” I think this talk, along with Driscolls’, was the most influential in my personal life. He used Mark 5:35-5:1 and the story of Jesus calming the storm. We have to remain faithful when we’ve floated off shore, but are sitting in the middle of the lake waiting to get to the other side. And sometimes we can’t even see the other side; this is the meantime. Our culture is so highlight orientated, and it was helpful for me that he pointed this out. We never glorify the meantime, but Paul after his conversion was living in the meantime with 3 years in silence and Jesus lived in the meantime from age 12 to 30! In the meantime, we are to trust and rest because God is preparing us – and while we rest, there is One who never sleeps. We have to stay in the boat – this plays out several different ways in my life. I’ve been feeling the meantime, but was approaching it in a very different way. We can talk about that over coffee too :).

And lastly, Andy Stanley. Honestly, I don’t even know what to say about this talk – there was too much! I was hanging on every word he said. He talked about 4 gravitational pulls every church leader feels (gravitational pulls meaning things church wrestles with). He hit every nail square on the head. He gave us a lot to think about and incredibly tangible things that we will bring back to our church. He began his talk by saying that we as the next generation of church leaders have been handed “the baton”, that we are joining saints throughout history in the ministry and for the advancement of the Gospel and we have to be good stewards of that. I am confident that God will use his message to change the way I am involved with ministry.

After the last session, the four of us were able to sit down over a meal and debrief and process with one another. It was encouraging to me that we already began to apply some of the things that we had learned throughout the day even in our conversation, and then wrote down specific ways in which we can implement into our ministries the things that God taught us. I know He is doing a mighty work. I know he has laid things on my heart that He is calling me to do and he prepared my heart to hear those things yesterday.

I am refreshed, I am challenged, I am excited, I am hopeful, I am grateful, I am convicted. By the grace of God I am forever changed.