At the time of writing, I’m due to help give a report on CrossCon tomorrow to the church, so I wanted to come here and put down some thoughts to help me summarize before tomorrow. I’ll probably find a way to summarize this into a list instead of reading word for word tomorrow, but just getting the thoughts out will be helpful. I’ve already written something on the speakers and such, and I plan to go more in-depth with some specific sessions soon (the post is in-progress), so this will be a way to summarize the takeaways for myself personally, what stood out to me, and what impacted my life significantly while I was there.

I’ll start by saying that it was a very emotional experience. This comes with good and with bad, but I’d say it was mostly good.

I left the conference loving God more than I when I came, so it’s quite possible that that in and of itself made the trip worth it. It was so encouraging and motivating to be around such good preaching with other likeminded believers and friends.

I also left the conference loving the people I came with more. It was so much fun to get to know everyone better while we were there. Times like these with friends are so much fun, and this trip was no exception.

The singing and music were incredible. I maintain that it may be worth going just to experience that alone.

When I say the trip was encouraging, I suppose what I mean is that it’s good to know that I have this potential for affection inside of me. It’s easy for me to lose my affection for God in everyday life (more on that later), so just experiencing the Holy Spirit move me in such a way encourages me that I am even capable of such love, even if it can’t be there most of the time (such levels of emotion are unsustainable).

When I say motivating, I think that comes from such good preaching while I was there. I really felt pushed to know God better and pursue him more wholly. The theme of the conference was focus and what you should choose to put your focus on, and I’d say that point really came across for me (more on that later too).

I would say (as mentioned in my most recent post), that I can see how the conference’s push for missions could be confusing for someone if they haven’t made up their mind on whether they are goers or senders. For someone like me, who hasn’t thought about this a great deal but have assumed for various (valid, I think) reasons that I am a sender, it was a little bit confusing in the middle. I came into the conference assuming I am a sender, and I’d say left the conference assuming the same, but during the events it could be confusing for me. “Should I be a sender?” “Why do I think that I’m not supposed to be a sender?” “Am I just scared?” “Am I afraid to do hard things?” “If I did go, would it be merely for the sake of doing something hard and impressive? That doesn’t seem right…” Thoughts like these came into my head, but were eventually put at ease. So because I did come out of the conference assuming I am a sender, my primary takeaway was on how to love Christ more and share him with others.1 I’d say Mez McConnell, David Platt, Rosaria Butterfield, and John Piper were particularly good for that purpose.

I came away from the conference knowing that the emotional experience of it would die down eventually, but I wondered how I could keep and care for the seeds that were planted there effectively after this honeymoon phase had worn off. I found myself in the days after arriving home being more dedicated to my devotions, desiring my typical entertainment less, and missing my friends more. We returned home on a Saturday. By Thursday or Friday the next week, this had died down significantly. For various reasons, my devotions had begun faltering again and I was falling back into some of my old habits with my phone usage. My affections for God was beginning to dwindle as well. What could be done about this? Then, I remembered a breakout session I’d heard by David Platt, “Hearing Without Doing: The Danger of Our Information Age.” I remembered his opening analogy, where he compared the Word of God with oxygen, essential to life, and compared the world with smoke, a substance that will suffocate life. Perhaps this is the key! If I am filling my lungs with smoke all day, I will be weak and lethargic, not only unmotivated, but also dying This is exactly what I am doing! Perhaps the key to again unlocking the freedom that comes with fresh air is to spend less time taking in smoke. Platt’s session mentioned above was good to me when I heard it the first time, but the specifics of it weren’t things that stood out to me after I left the conference. However, upon more thinking and revelation, I think it might be quite powerful for me. I very much enjoyed the feeling of satisfaction in God I felt early this past week, but doing what it takes to keep that feeling will require work. I think of Jesus’ parable of the sower, where some of the seeds are choked out by the world. There, the primary meaning is that some people receive the truth at first, but then fall away later because of their care for the world, but I wonder if this analogy works for true believers as well and their affections. Initial excitement for God being replaced by worldly cares shortly thereafter.

This is something I must continue thinking about, but it makes me all the more thankful for my trip and the truths spoken there. I would definitely encourage anyone who is interested in the conference to go. I certainly don’t regret it.

  1. We didn’t go to any “sender focused” breakout sessions in terms of how to be a good sender, so perhaps that might’ve been another good takeaway had I joined in one of those. ↩︎
  2. This is ignoring the other dangerous toxins that can’t help but be encountered when spending this much time inhaling spiritual smoke online. I think it is possible to spend time in “the world” without encountering inherently sinful things, but spend enough time (especially random, careless time) there and encountering those things can’t be helped. ↩︎