Thoughts from the Third Session at Triennial

Here are some quotes from tonight's session with Francis Chan.  I've heard several of his sermons before, so a lot of what has been said in his messages during Triennial is stuff I've heard before.  Let that be a lesson to you: don't listen to too many sermons.  Wait, that's not right.  Anyway, he's still saying good stuff, and he's contextualizing it for his audience.  Lots of good stuff to think about here.

"How like God to make the best singer in the room someone who is deaf." (said after a performance by deaf singer Mandy Harvey)

"The thing I love about Peter and John was that people knew them for their boldness (Acts 4.13).  They didn’t notice them because they were smart or educated, but because they were bold.  When I see people in America I see people that are SO educated, but are cowards."

"John Piper told me the last time I saw him that I looked great; that I looked relaxed and in good shape.  I was actually kind of offended.  Well, not offended – convicted.  When I got to thinking about it, last year was too easy.  I don’t want it to be easy – I want it to be a war."

"I don’t want to be a soldier that complains ever time someone shoots at me.  That’s just part of the deal.  That’s what we’re here for."

"I want to know that if someone were the only believer in their city, that they would walk with the Lor boldly."

"The goal of discipleship is that the disciple can stand alone boldly."

"When are you going to experience the Holy Spirit of God?  When you’re out there being a witness.  When you’re taking risks.  When does God 'come through?'  When you’re in a lion’s den.  When you’re before the authorities.  When you’re on a mountain with the prophets of Baal.  When they throw you in a furnace of fire.  It’s when we go and make disciples."

"Why was the Spirit given?  So we could be his witnesses.  So the people could know there has been a prophet among them."

Florida Trip: Day 3

Today marks our third day in the great state of Florida, and the second day of the Triennial Conference.  Lots of interesting stuff happened today.  Allow me to share a few things.

The day started out with the second session of the Triennial Conference, where Francis Chan once again brought the message.  You can read more about that here.  After his message there were some breakout sessions, and the one I attended was less than good.  Not that there was anything wrong with the topic or the speaker, though.  This has been the case at almost all the conferences I've attended.  The breakout sessions tend to be a little weak.  Usually the topic is something that is way more than one could ever address in the hour or hour and a half that is allotted.  It's just not possible.  Then the speaker spends 20 minutes giving his biographical information, and there's just not enough time to cover what needs to be covered.  You tend to leave a breakout session feeling like you've just scratched the scratch that's on the surface of the topic.  Today's breakout session was no different.

There was an NAB business meeting scheduled for 1:30 today, which I fully intended on attending.  This was not to be, however, as The Mrs. had to take The Hanburger in to urgent care.  On Monday night before we left, we noticed that Han had a loud, painful sounding, seal-like barking cough. She's had this kind of cough two other times in her life, and both instances were confirmed cases of croup.  But since she is a year older, and the cough wasn't that bad, we decided to just go with it.  She seemed fine Tuesday morning and on into Wednesday, still with a cough, however.  Today it got worse, though, and her breathing was starting to be affected.  Short, shallow, wheezy breaths.  So after a bit of looking online and a call back to our insurance provider in Minnesota, we brought her into a local Orlando clinic.  They confirmed an ear infection in her, and the possibility of either croup or pneumonia.  Either way, we caught it early so that it wasn't severe, and a good dose of antibiotics should clear it up, post haste.

Anyway, while The Mrs. and Han were figuring this out, Ferg and I stayed back at the hotel.  Since I couldn't bring him to the two and a half hour long business meeting with me, we decided to hit the pool (bummer!).  Check out the swimming picks here.  So after an afternoon of swimming, and five hours after they left, Han and The Mrs. returned to the hotel with a whole bunch of medicine and groceries (hotel food is crazy expensive!).  Soon after they returned I had to go to the next general session.  You can read more about that session here.


Also included in tonight's session was a brief performance by Mandy Harvey.  My mind was blown by this young lady and her incredible story.  I strongly encourage you to watch this video of Mandy's story, and then prepare to have your own mind blown when you listen to her sing.  She's having a concert tomorrow night that I will not miss.

Tomorrow brings a "free day" where conference attendees can do whatever they like.  This means, much to my chagrin, that we will be going to Disney World.  Why does the notion of my family going to Disney World not excite me?  That's another post for another time.

Thoughts from the 2nd Session of Triennial

The following are some quotes from Francis Chan's message this morning at the Triennial Conference that I though were profound.  They lack context, of course, but they're still good thoughts that can spur more thinking.

"Younger people want to see older people whose lives make sense in the light of scripture."

"There’s a generation of people that would love to be led by older people.  They just want to see the real thing.  They want to see someone that’s being led by faith.

"Do we really believe that we’re open to God’s will?  To anything God wants?  Are you really, 'Here am I, send me'?"

"I don’t want to say, or sing in a song that I would go anywhere for him.  I want to really mean it."

"You don't want to know God's will.  You’d rather go your own way.  You don’t want to know what God wants you to do, because at the end of your life, when you stand before God, he will say, 'Here’s what I really wanted you to do.'  And you can say, 'Well, I didn’t know that.'"

"I get confronted in the church whenever I say to do anything that I see as being remotely biblical."

"People don’t think biblically. They compare to what everyone else is doing.  Not to what the people in scripture are doing."

"We have to make sure we don’t let people talk us out of things anymore.  Church people often talk us out of what God has called us to do."

"If we believe in eternity, we have to let things go."

"What if you give everything away and you end up starving to death?  Well, let’s say we starved to death.  What an awesome way to come into the kingdom of God!"

"God promised that if we seek his kingdom first, all those things would be taken care of.  Do we believe that or not?"

"Most of us are more concerned about our standard of living than we are about other people actually living."

"How do you make decisions?  I picture myself before God, and I try to think, 'Ok, if I’m standing in his presence, based on everything I know of him, which way does he want me to go?'"

"God wants unbelievers to be blown away by how much people in the church love each other."

"Why would people follow me unless they see that I’ve got a connection with God that they don’t have?  I’d follow Paul.  I’d follow Moses.  I’d follow Elijah.  Would I follow you?"

"I want people to know that God speaks through me, whether they believe it or not.  I want them to say, 'That guy’s the real thing.  He knows the Lord.  God’s presence is with him.'  It doesn’t matter if they believe it or not, as long as they know that I’ve got a connection with God."

"If I could get a transcript of your prayers from the last week, what would I see is the main thing you asked for?  Would it be the presence of God?  To see his beauty?"

"70% of kids who grow up in the church leave when they turn 18.  Could it be because they’ve never seen the supernatural in their parents?  Why would your kids keep following?"

All I want for when my daughter turns 18 is to look her in the eye and say, 'You know that God was with your dad.'"

Florida Trip: Day 2

Well, it's 10:54, local time, and we're wrapping up day 2 of our trip.  We woke up early this morning and left our spot at the Ramada (the elevators even worked!).  We got out of there by 9:00 AM and made our way out to Cocoa Beach, located on an island off the Florida Coast.  Betsy had been to this beach when she was a young child, but thought it would be worth looking into (we also got some help from friends at church that said this was a good place to go to swim).

Han has taken to call any body of water larger than a puddle an "ocean."  That means, to her, pools, lakes, ponds, etc. are all "oceans."  In preparing her for this trip we told her we weren't just going to a lake or a pool, but were actually going to swim in the real ocean.  Since then, both kids have been referring to the ocean as the "real ocean."

We got to Cocoa Beach around 10:30 and were swimming right away.  Jamie went into the water immediately, while Han preferred to stay on the beach and search for and collect shells.  She decided she would bring one back for each of her friends.

Jamie loved swimming with the waves.  He would wait for a wave to come in, jump into it, allow it to knock him over, and then laugh hysterically.  He did it over and over again.  I hope we get a chance to go back towards the end of our trip.  You can see some pictures from today's excursion here (scroll down to see the most recent photos).

We arrived at the Peabody Hotel around 3:00 PM, and proceeded to check out our room.  The Peabody is an amazing place, if for no other reason than its sheer size.  This place is huge.  It doubles as a convention center, so I suppose it makes sense that it's pretty big.  There's a grotto style pool (pics from that to come tomorrow), and each room has a TV built into the bathroom mirror.  I have to admit that I enjoyed my shave quite a bit more than usual by being able to watch Fox News.

The first session of the Triennial Conference was tonight, featuring Francis Chan.  I've said quite a bit about Chan in the past, so I won't go into much of his biographical information here.  Needless to say, it was neat to hear about his history with the NAB, and how he actually became a Christian in an NAB church.

His message was very good, and very appropriate for his audience, I thought.  In fact, it was very similar to this message presented by Paul Washer, which I would highly recommend you take an hour and seven minutes to watch.  The basic gist of Chan's message was this question: is it possible that our ecclesiology is messed up because our soteriology is messed up?  Or, in layman's terms, is the way we currently "do" church in America a little off because what we believe about salvation is not right?  This is a very important question that has far-reaching implications (too far-reaching to talk about here and now), and I hope the pastors and leaders of our NAB churches (including myself) consider it carefully.  I look forward to the rest of Chan's messages this weekend.

After the conference session I returned to our room where Beetz was watching fireworks go off about 10 miles away through out hotel window.  I had totally forgotten that today was the fourth of July.  We've grown accustomed to not going out to see fireworks anymore.  Doesn't really work with young kids who go to bed at 8:00 PM.

On a personal note, I received an email this evening that said that Norm Glewwe, a pillar of faith and service at Riverview Baptist Church is most likely nearing his final days on earth.  One of his sons, Matt Glewwe, has become a dear friend of mine, and is one of a few people I feel I can be "real" with when it comes to spiritual things.  Matt is facing the reality of his father's impending death and transferrence unto eternal life with grace, dignity, and faith.  There is much I can learn from him.  May God bless him and his family in this difficult time.

Florida Trip: Day 1

The Mrs. went through the house this morning at about 5:30 AM waking the slumbering and calling them to prepare for departure.  The family rose from their slumber post haste, got dressed, and got to the airport, thanks to my early-rising mother.

The airport process went smoothly, even though I was totally uninformed regarding the new airport security procedures (our honeymoon was the last time I flew - nine years ago!).  Thankfully a flight attendant was in line behind me and walked me through all of the things I needed to do.  I wasn't searched or groped by TSA agents, but looking back on the process I think I dodged a significant bullet.  I didn't realize it until after the fact, but the shorts I had chosen to wear today recently had the zipper tab break off.  The zipper still works fine, but there's no tab to hold on to, to pull the zipper up when need be.  To remedy this situation, a few weeks ago I found a thin piece of metal with pointy ends that I was able to stick through the zipper and bend the metal around it, creating something I can grasp with my fingers in order to zip my fly.  I hadn't even thought about the potential ramifications for me if that quick fix was discovered at the airport.  I can't imagine a piece of thin, pointy metal would be welcome on airplanes, considering that they won't even let you take a nail clippers on board anymore.  Especially when it could be construed that I was trying to smuggle the pointy metal onboard via the zipper on my shorts!  Nevertheless, I went through the metal detector and set off no alarms and raised no suspicion.  I think I'll credit God for blinding the "eyes" of the metal detector and letting me through without any repercussions.

Our nervousness about our kids' potential bad reaction to flying was unfounded.  They loved it, and had no problems whatsoever.  Ferg loved looking out the window, and Han commented, "I like that ride."  I, on the other hand, remembered why I don't like flying.  It's strange.  I tend to get all excited every time I fly, and I love watching the speed and power with which an airplane takes off as it leaves the ground.  But then, after about five or ten minutes of flying, I'm ready to be done.  The novelty of it wears off on me pretty quickly.

We landed at Orlando International about five minutes ahead of schedule and proceeded to ride the shuttle to baggage claim, where Betsy and I split up: she to baggage claim, and me to go pick up our rental car.  The rental agent told me to go into a specific lot and just pick any SUV I wanted, and that the keys were already in them.  I found the key, alright, but it was nothing like anything I had ever seen before.  In fact, it wasn't a key.  I knew that some models had switched to this type of ignition system, but I'd never used one before.  I kept putting the device to the steering column, thinking that some kind of electronic signal would be conveyed and the car would magically start up.  I finally had to approach the lot attendant and admit my ignorance.  Turns out the key needs only to be somewhere in the vicinity of the center console, the break needs to be applied, and a button pushed in order to start the engine.  So off we went in our Dodge Journey.

The weather in Orlando today has been a pleasant and dry 90 degrees.  Not too bad, considering the weather back home is over 100.

We arrived at the Ramada Westgate at around 3:00 PM, local time, and The Mrs. and I proceeded to take a nap.  The kids were supposed to nap too, but I think they were too excited and just chatted with each other.  We eventually awoke and headed down to the pool.  Something funky about that pool water.  It was bath-tub warm, and it was very salty.  Hopefully not "people salty."  Hopefully there was just an abundance of chlorine that gave it the weird flavor.

The Ramada Westgate is located on what I'll call "Disney Rowe."  The theme parks are not far away, and every other structure and building on this street sells Disney T-shirts and tickets to the parks.  Lots of money to be made on that, I imagine.

We ended the night early, and I'm the only one who is currently awake as I write this.  The kids are both asleep, and The Mrs. slumbers peacefully beside me.  Tomorrow we're going on a beach adventure, which should truly be an adventure, since there are no beaches near Orlando, and we have no idea where we are going.

NOTE: see this page for daily pictorial updates from our trip.