Going to church conferences
can be a real weird thing for us pastors. My wife Misty and I
scheduled to attend it months in advance, really looking forward
to the experience. Then the day before we left, all we could
think of were the dozens of urgent tasks screaming for our time
and attention. If we hadn’t have paid for the thing in advance
we probably would have just skipped it. Like a donkey in his
yoke, pulling the proverbial plow.
This was our first time at this particular conference, Thrive at
Bayside in the Sacramento area. Having been to a few conferences
in my life, I was a little bit leery. The thing about
conferences is that it is usually a church or a church movement
putting their best foot forward, kind of like being on a first
date. On a first date people rarely talk about who they really
are, or about their deepest insecurities or failures, because
they desire a second date.
There are a lot of things that happen at a conference that
almost never happen at a real church service, dancers,
comedians, balloons from the ceiling, professional musicians,
mega-church speakers. You usually go away from those conferences
mildly encouraged, but ultimately frustrated that it will never
be this cool in your little world. It’s almost like the goal of
the conference is to impress you with all this stuff so you will
want to be like them. Then you get all insecure and feel like
you’re not doing stuff right, but that’s the reason you came in
the first place, to engage and learn and stretch and see a slice
of the church you don’t have in your little world.
The first session of this particular conference was pretty
amazing. I was waiting for the usual thing, a real charismatic
leader to talk to us about vision and mission and how well
things are going, but that ultimately the church is losing the
battle and we need to work harder and plan smarter. Usually they
will feature the little-guys who become big-guys so the rest of
us little-guys will get motivated to become big-guys.
The entire opening session was none of that. It was really funny
comedians just making us laugh. No Bible verses, no mission or
vision, just what a room full of very tired donkeys who had just
un-yoked themselves from their plows. Then it got really crazy,
the host and Senior Pastor of the church began to throw little
tubs of Haagen-Dazs ice cream out to all the attendees. Then
volunteers pushed grocery carts through the aisles that were
full of ice cream and spoons to make sure all the attendees got
their choice of flavors. Then we all sat there like little kids
and ate ice cream and laughed. I also cried. My wife was crying
too.
Then it occurred to me, that the God we serve, the object of all
our effort and hard work and risk was reaching down from heaven
to push the pause button in my mind and used these people, at
this moment, to show this room full of hard working and tired
pastors...you are the heroes. Not mega-church man, not the
top-selling author, not the professional musician, who, in our
success-obsessed society has arrived...but the little guy who
ministers in relative obscurity, is the hero.
Wow. I’m ready to go home now.
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