Jonathan Merritt – “Creation Care and the Gospel”
I really enjoyed Jonathan’s presentation, which began with the premise that there were three relationships broken in the garden: our relationships with God, each other, and creation. Restoring the latter, our relationship with creation, is Jonathan’s passion. He has written a book, Green Like God, Unlocking the Divine Plan for our Planet. I’ve already downloaded it on my phone and can’t wait to read it! You can go here to learn more about Jonathan and his latest book.
Phyllis Tickle – “Rediscovering the Ancient Practices”
The ancient practices, by the way, are really disciplines. We’ve substituted the word practices to make it easier to approach! To begin with, remember that we are all dual citizens of both heaven and earth. The practices are given to us to remind us of this.
The Seven Ancient Practices (the first three govern our body, the last four govern our time):
- Tithing, fasting and the sacred meal (which is the most intimate thing we can do with each other in community) are the first three.
- Fixed Hour Prayer – governs our day. Join with people all over the globe who pray in a cascading gathering of prayer in each time zone.
- Sabbath – governs our week.
- Liturgical Prayer – governs the year.
- Pilgrimage – once or twice in a lifetime. We have lost the sense of faith incarnate, the sense of journey to a holy place.
Phyllis spent some time further describing Fixed Hour Prayer, which is a habit from the earliest days. Every three hours you pray through the Daily Office, joining your voice with all the unseen Christians in your time zone. As you finish your prayers, the next time zone is soon to begin them. it rings the globe and draws us all together.
Matthew Sleeth – “Observing the Sabbath”
Rest just doesn’t happen in a 24/7 world unless you plan for it. But if you observe a Sabbath day, over the course of a lifetime you will gain an average of 11 years with the Lord! The intent of the Sabbath is to save us, to refresh us. To figure out what counts as work, figure out what feels like work to you and don’t do it. Liberating! Matthew has a new book, entitled 24/6, coming out soon.
Dr. Alistair McGrath – “Overcoming the Faith and Science Divide”
The bottom line of this presentation was that Christians need to interact more with the sciences and scientists.
- Christianity makes sense in itself, but it also make sense of everything else.
- Simple messages, such as the “God Delusion” by Hawkins, get heard. We need to counter that with the message of the Gospel.
- We need apologetics – identify areas of concern and work out how we discuss them.
- We need to empower Christian sscientists and help them to build a vision for how they can make a difference.
- Begin by making the point that science is not complete.
Tyler Wigg-Stevenson – “The Two Futures Project”
Fear and love can not coexist. Transform fear to courage. This presentation focused on the eliminaton of nuclear weapons and included a preview of the documentary Countdown to Zero.
Sean Womack – “Don’t Eat the Food”
“I was fired from my position as a high-ranking WalMart executive because I had an affair with my boss.” This was how Sean Womack began what was undoubtably the most powerful presentation of the day. Sean ended up separated from all that made his life rich: his wife and children, his job. In the midst of this difficult time, Sean’s wife chose not to let him go. Instead, basing her faith on Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in 52 days, she decided to fast and pray with her children for him for 52 days. And then came restoration. Sean had the scales drop off his eyes. The Lord showed him the little moments, little decisions, that led to the implosion of his life. That was the beginning of rebuilding the walls.
During this time, the story of Daniel in Babylon was crucial to Sean. Using that story, he made several points.
- Daniel didn’t do it alone – he had friends willing to go into the furnace, even without him.
- Daniel didn’t eat the food, knowing it would defile his heart. Are we eating the food of the culture around us?
- Daniel didn’t bow down to the foreign gods.
Mike Foster – “People of the Second Chance”
Broken people are beautiful. People of the Second Chance’s brand is failure, pure and simple. Grace is Christianity’s killer app. We are called to show radical grace to each other. In society, failure is what makes the news. We live in a culture of judgement. Grace is scarce…which makes it a great opportunity to show it! It can transform everything.
“We don’t drift into better behaviors.” (Bill Hybels) We need to be intentional.
1. We need to GIVE a second chance. Don’t hoard grace! It is supposed to come in and flow right back out of us. We all need grace.
2. We need to CHASE the prodigals. There are too many men and women standing on the sidelines. Their story does not — should not — end in the valley. We can either be part of the judgement culture or part of the grace solution.
Richard Florida – “Resetting the Creative Economy”
Every human being is and should be creative! The communities that harness the power of that creativity will prosper. We have lived through a huge generational shift in the last two years. In the past we worked with our bodies, the golden age of opportunity. Now we work with our minds. Shared creativity makes us human.
The old order valued material success. It was the American Dream. Now we no longer define success by material goods. Instead, we want three things:
- Meaningful, challenging, purposeful, engaging work. And we want control of our day to day work life.
- Social relationships. We want to live in a connected, engaged community of more than just family members.
- Being in a place, a community, that we love. We want it to be walkable, human sized.
Gabe Lyons wrapped up this session by reminding us that all the elements Richard Florida listed for human happiness and meaning can and are found within the body of the church.
Richard’s new book: “The Great Reset.”
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sounds like sean and mike’s sessions were excellent! and gabe lyon’s is always legit. thanks again for keeping us outsiders in the loop :]