Reflection from Verge - Day 1

Yesterday was a long travel day. Josh, Joe and Steve got to my house at 6 am, and we drove to Little Rock. After a layover in Dallas, we finally arrived in Austin with just enough time to get our car, drop our bags off at the hotel, and get to the conference for the first session. The main sessions are going to be organized around the six themes of Alan Hirsch's The Forgotten Ways. Last night's was "Jesus is Lord."

After a great worship time led by Aaron Ivey, Matt Carter opened things up by talking about the dangers of loving your mission more than your Savior. He spoke from Revelation 2 (church of Ephesus). When you look at what Jesus commends them on, it seems like an awesome church. But Jesus says that he is no longer at the center of their lives. And the warnings of continuing this are that he will remove his blessing and presence from them. The question he left us with was, "If everything was taken from you, and all you had was Jesus, would that be enough?"

After communion Francis Chan spoke. The one thing you can count on when Francis speaks is that passion is going to pour out of him. You don't really outline or take notes when Francis speaks. He's really all over the place. But God speaks, so occassionally you write something down, knowing it's quite important.

His main points were that we just need to go back to the Scriptures to learn how to live out the Christian life. We've added so much to it. He brought us back to Acts 2. This group of 120 saw Jesus raised from the dead, and it radically changed their lives. They told everyone about it. The things that had seemed important to them before no longer appealed to them. That's why they gave their stuff away to others in need. This made perfect sense to them. What wouldn't have made sense is for this community, after seeing Jesus raised from the dead, is for them to come to a church service once a week for some singing and preaching.

When I listen to Francis speak, he reminds me of how simple things should be. Simple doesn't mean easy, but it does mean simple. This isn't rocket science. We just need to come to God through his Scriptures, and do what he says. He ended our time by calling us to pray for God to move. Earlier he had asked the question, "What power would I believe in if I really read the Bible?"

I'm still a little tired this morning, but am ready to learn. Grateful to be here with Josh and Joe, and look forward to going through this with them.