A ramble on the Engage conference and "One"
The truth is, with apologies, that I can’t quite be bothered trying to write up something from the Engage conference. I have notes, but there’s too much to sort through, and make sense of and explain (and there's still another conference to go this weekend too). But, in essence, I really appreciated John Piper’s talks. He came across as so humble and genuine and truly eager for you to catch a glimpse of his personal discoveries. He was so keen to show us how he got there from the bible, and make sure we only believed it if we found it there too.
Having read several of his books, and followed his blog for a long time, I’m familiar with many of his ideas, but what I loved about his three talks is that they were like a synopsis of his whole system of thought, if you will. He distilled his ideas down into these three discussions, based on the ideas that God is radically God-centred and that is good news for me, God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in him and how being satisfied in Jesus results in us loving others. Then he filled them up with bible verses, went through some of the nuances and disclaimers (what he had to say about “sadness” was particularly good), and it was just a great little summary of what John Piper is ‘on about’ really. Not to mention that it was all about God and his glory. I will be ordering the talks so I can listen again, and you should too, if you want a relatively fast way to acquaint yourself with these ideas.
On the Friday evening it was like John Piper had had written his talk just for me, as he quoted from CS Lewis’s Reflections on the Psalms (not the chapters on Judgment and Curses though), which I had in my bag, said that if he had to vote on the bible’s most important paragraph it would be Romans 3:20-26 (I have 3:21-26 on the wall at work, and used to be able to recite it) and just kept ticking my boxes. Then we sang “Fairest Lord Jesus” and “Here is Love” and I thought whoever designed this conference read my mind!
Rory Shiner’s talks on Eternity were really good too. He spoke about the resurrection, primarily from 1 Corinthians 15, and explained what it means that Christ is the “firstfruits” of the dead, and what that promises for us. It was a good prompt to think about things we rarely devote much thought to.
I’d roped one girl from church into coming up with me to stay in the motel, and we talked in bed for ages like we were on youth camp, so it was good to get to know her more. Then over the weekend we teamed up with three other girls for a short bushwalk, went to a house full of church folks for afternoon tea in a lovely mountain back yard and some fun on the tennis court, later on went to a pub on Saturday evening with some peeps from the congregation of my church that was planted this year that we ran into, then I got a lift home with some other friends who’d been on the coffee carts who live near me, so it was all good. And I bumped into far more people than I could ever catch up with properly, one of note being the brother of my adolescent best friend (I spent a lot of time at his family’s house throughout high school). We hugged and then just fell into a conversation in which it was as though doors came off their hinges and he shared things and I shared things and ten minutes later I felt all wet behind the eyes. It was just one of those beautiful moments when something inexplicable happens and you go unexpectedly deep with someone, and you know the way you relate is changed forever.
Then last night I went across to the city after work for dinner with my connect group folks and we went to “One” in the Entertainment Centre to hear John Lennox and John Piper speak on not wasting your life. It was moving being in there with 9,999 other brothers and sisters in Christ. John Lennox spoke on reasons why we can know that Christianity and the hereafter is no fairy tale and then John Piper showed us what an unwasted life looks like. Both were great, though you had to work a little harder to follow Lennox’s train of thought, and Piper was more ‘hell, fire and brimstone”-ish than he’d been at Engage, but it was rousing stuff. We were all challenged during the evening to make a resolution (you can see the website here with some suggestions), which is not something we’re so familiar with doing I don’t think, but a good idea.
It didn’t finish till 10 pm last night, and by the time we all made our way to public transport and got out of the city and home, it was a long day. Today I’m feeling the need for a spell to work through all this material and sink it in ...