Challenge '08 part 1

Hopefully this will be the first of a few blogs on the subject. I just got back from taking my youth group and the youth group of our parent church to Challenge '08. Challenge is the EFCA's (Evangelical Free denomination) youth conference that they hold every two years. This year it was in Salt Lake City, so the youth pastor for Wasatch Church (our parent church) decided to take our youth groups to it. Although it has only been one day since the conference ended, I can honestly say that this even may very well have been the most life-changing experience I have ever had. The last time I had an experience like this was at One Day '03 when I heard John Piper speak. Before that event God had been working on my friends and I about needing to be centered on God's glory and then everything just came crashing into place at that event. This time, about a week before the conference, my friend, Nino, confronted me on some areas of my life that I had set up a functional god and wasn't seeking God for God himself. I sought ministry as my satisfaction and end, rather then seeking it as a means to the true and ultimate end and joy of God himself. So last week, I spent a lot of time praying and seeking God on this, and Sunday night - the first night of the conference - the roof got blown off of my false temple. It started with an amazing time of worship led by Starfield (if you haven't checked them out, you should, they're amazing) that really got us ready for what we were about to hear. Then Francis Chan spoke. His goal was to set the tone for the conference by giving us an accurate picture of God. He did this by going through about four passages of people seeing God and how they described him. He ended on Rev. 4 and the image of the throne and Jesus sitting upon it. Needless to say, he totally blew away the image of God that I think most people in that room (about 5-6,000 of us) had of him. After that message and a couple of well-chosen (perhaps even Spirit-inspired) songs, I sat down and started weeping like I never have before. The only thing I could think about was that image of heaven with millions of angels gather around the throne with the 24 elders shouting out "Holy, Holy, Holy" and my heart burst out "Yes! Yes! Yes!" Never before have I been so enthralled with the worship of God. Never before have I loved the fact that God is Holy and is worshiped so completely both now and forevermore. Never before have I sensed such an awesome magnificence in God and the incredible blessing that I get to join in the song the heavens sing. I have been brought so much lower by that sight that I don't think I can ever be the same. And every session after that served to chisel away a little bit more of my false gods and temples that I have set up in the throne room of my heart. Over the next week or so I'll post some more thoughts and notes from the other sessions. But I ask that, if God leads, that you would pray for me and the youth we took down. Pray that what happened to us at the conference would not stop now that we are home, but that it would continue in our daily devotional time and in our daily worship of God in our service for and through him. We can't let this stop. We can't afford to go back to our puny, self-absorbed lives. We must go forth and be continually changed by God so that we can change our world for him. I love all of you and hope that what happened to me happens in even greater measure to all of you. God bless.