This afternoon I've been thinking back on what I learned at the EFCA Challenge Conference in Louisville, Kentucky this past summer.
I found all the sermons and promo videos on the EFCA youtube channel. I'd been wanting to listen to sermons in my free time, and there's no better content to soak up than that of Reid Kapple's first sermon at Challenge. So that's the first sermon I listened to today. These sermons are not the usual 25-30 minute sermons I'm used to from my church. These speakers were going at it for 45-60 minutes, so it does take a bit more commitment to listen to an entire sermon.
Why do I listen to sermons that I've already heard before? Because of what they did to me the first time.
I absolutely love listening to people who are full of the Spirit and on fire for God get up and speak about it. The goosebumps are real, friends.
Some of the things I just had to write down and put on the back of my desk were:
- "If we reject the truth of God we will either find ourselves living as gods of our own world or machines in a godless world."
- "Knowing the WHO shapes the WHAT and answers the WHY."
- "Who we are and why we're here is rooted in who God is and what He's done."
- "We were never intended to be who we were created to live for.
It was the best 45 minutes of my day. I can't wait to watch another sermon later this week. I plan to watch the sermons of the next conference on youtube (since I'm too old to attend again.) I've learned how to work the system hehe
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This past weekend I was able to attend a local IF: Gathering conference. For those of you who don't know what this is, IF is a women's conference live in Dallas, Texas. It is live streamed all across the world. Some watch it in their pajamas at home, and others (such as myself) gather together at a local church to watch it in a group setting with beautiful tables and lots of yummy treats.
It was a new environment for me: adult women, no close friends, and I took myself. This was my first conference I went to that was for young women and not high schoolers, and it was the first conference I ever went to by myself. Granted I did get to drive and sit with other ladies from my church, but still.
I just counted the page in my notebook from the "swag bag" they gave us and, granted these are smaller notebooks, (5" by 7"-- Yes, I checked. . .) I took 22 pages worth of notes! I filled that puppy up with truth and knowledge. It was a test of my sitting still skills (something my quirky and fidgety self has always struggled with,) when I had to sit in a chair from 6-9:30 at night on Friday, and then from 9am-5:15pm the next day. They fed us lunches, so that made it all better. But my gosh! It was SO GOOD! The live stream portion was different and something I didn't quite care for, especially when the worship band would come on. It just wasn't the same.
I've got my notebook here beside me and I wanted to give some (probably hundreds) of bullet points that stood out to me. This was a women's conference, but most of the truths apply to men and women alike.
- A group of women praying on the living room floor can change the world.
- Discipleship is doing life with others.
- Don't just pray for others, pray for them specifically by name and pour out your heart-- (Small story with this one: I felt God tugging on my heart to call up a friend of mine who moved up to college this fall and invite her back to church. I'd felt this tug since the Wednesday before at my Bible class. This friend of mine turned away from God and the church after she graduated, and I kept wanting to do something, but I'd given up. During this session I couldn't get that little voice in my head to go away, so I wrote down to call this friend on the way home. . . And I did. She had said she'd come back for church on weekends before she left- she came back once, ended up dating a not-so-great guy at campus, and we haven't sen her since. When I called I was sent to voicemail- as I expected- and I left her a voicemail telling her I missed her, loved her, and that I hoped she'd found a good church to go to. I then proceeded to bring up how she said she'd be coming back to our church and how I hoped I'd see her the next day. I had invited my friend to church, and the next morning she did not show up. She also never returned my call, not even with a text. Let me tell ya: obeying God is not always easy, but once I told myself I'd call her it didn't seem so scary. That brings me to my next bullet point. . .)
- Courage comes after our obedience to God.
- Intimacy with God > Ministry for God
- We do what we do, not because we love God, but because He loved us.
- The things I learn today are the things I'll need tomorrow.
- I'm only free to receive the desires of my heart when my desires become God's desires.
- My job is obedience to God- His job is everything else.
- Our everyday habits can be our everyday idolatries.
- Discipleship is what God wants versus what we want.
- Dare to live broken (Don't hide when you're struggling- You could be an incredible encouragement to someone else by showing that it takes courage to be publicly broken.)
- Jesus is the only one who will ever love us to death.
- God can work with anybody, all He wants is a heart of availability.
- Invest in the Word, not for if we fall, but when.
- The young sheep don't know the shepherd's voice yet, but I know His voice. Help the young sheep learn to hear His voice (I'll be writing a blog post on this topic specifically, so keep your eyes out!)
- We are only here for a short while. Don't sit on the bench; get in the game!
- Pour out to God, and He'll pour out to you to pour out into others.
- What if we walked up to the impossible just because God is there?
- When did we receive our calling to ministry? When we got saved. . . (Just let that soak in- Everyone is called to be a missionary of some kind!!!)
- They'll know how much you love God by how you pray.
- It's not about the numbers we receive with our blogs or Bible studies; It's about the 1 (God.)
- Revelation 7:12- (On the live stream there were some speakers who were multilingual, and we all read this verse together out loud. . . It was as if we were in Heaven sining together in everyone's natural tongue. It was so incredible.
- It doesn't matter if you have a doctorate degree, experience, or comfort. . . We are all called to go and make disciples.
- Pray about who God wants you to invest in.
- People need access to our lives so we can truly invest in their lives- be real and open with people.
- You lose your joy because you focus on the mission rather than following Jesus.
- Do small things well.
- You don't have to start a blog or run a huge organization, just love Jesus 100%.
- Coffee dates. Conversation. Hugs. They can change the world. (Community and investing are key.)
What Does Access Look Like?
- Space and time
- Stories of experience
- Being real and vulnerable
- Revealing your less than perfect self
Be A Disciple:
- Learner of ways
- Someone who has done it and is doing it
- Intentional about community
- Living their life on mission
Reasons our method of witnessing broke:
- We have traded being with God for doing things for Him.
- We're trying to go big when Jesus called us to go small.
- We blog about sin rather than repenting from it. (I related well to that one.)
- We love the organization or blog more than the people.
- Daily walking with Jesus
- Loving people (What it costs us? Discipline.)
- Jesus becomes our first love while we're on the living room floor praying
- Turn off the noise.
- God moves through those who know they're not qualified.
- Be known for following God more than the TV, being on closet floors more than social media, for doing small things well. . .
I know all of that was so much, and some of it without its context may have been kind of difficult to follow completely, but that's only a fraction of what I scribbled down in my new notebook! God moved in the lives of dozens of women this past weekend and I was super excited to be a part of it too!
Tonight I attended a women's event at my church called Influence. The talk was about friendship, and let me tell you, it was needed. I need healthy friendships with other young women. This night gave me some amazing reminders of the friend I should be versus what type of friend to look for only.
The focus was mainly on the verse Proverbs 27:17
Iron Sharpens Iron
I knew about this verse beforehand, but I had never studied that intensely before. It was good stuff, my friends!!!
The month of March holds some good opportunities for me, as well. I'm jumping in on the first night of a middle school/high school youth conference with one of my best friends for the messages and music. Then the following day I'm signed up for a women's retreat at my church. From 9am-4pm I will be actively engaging with Jesus while relaxing, snacking, and visiting with my other sisters in Christ. Might I add I'll be the youngest one at this event, too. Oh well. Growing individually takes some discomfort, right? It'll be good for me.
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I'd love your prayers for my life as I branch out on my own and continue to personalize my faith!!! I'm excited to see all these opportunities arising, and after I'd prayed that God would give me moe chances like this.
I'd also love you to continue to pray for my friend who left for college and has been ignoring the church. I'm hoping to remember to keep calling her every weekend until God tells me to stop. . . This could be difficult as I know she'll get mad or upset, and the people pleaser in me wants to make her happy and leave her alone if she's content. I know the Holy Spirit will continue to tug on my heart if I give up. He's done it before, and He'll keep doing it too.
"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."
-Proverbs 27:17 NIV
Sarah
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