shift

so this week i took a trip to chicago with my leadership team at resonate. we were checkin out a leadership conference called "shift" which was being held at willow creek church. this conference was life changing to say the least. there was so much that happened, and i don't think i'm going to be able to adequately explain everything, but i'll do my best. the conference consisted of 3 days packed with speakers, worship and other cool experiences. the first day had 3 main sessions, each led by a different speaker. in between each speaker we would worship God.

the first main session was led by author, speaker & pastor brian mclaren. brian is a networker among innovative christian leaders whose teaching is stirring people all over the world to think in fresh ways about christian life and faith. during his session, he talked a lot about our societal system and how jacked up it is. his session was titled "everything must change". he talked about how our goals are prosperity, security and equity... and he illustrated a picture of a goldfish in a bowl and how if the goldfish continues to take in all the resources and only produces waste then there will be less and less room for the waste to go because the fish is continually growing larger and larger... eventually the fish dies from it's own toxicity. i probably butchered that... but it definitely raised some questions that i haven't really thought through before...

every worship session was led by charlie hall and his band. wow... this was some amazing worship people... charlie definitely has a gift... his connection with people was so real and he wasn't showing off at any point... he came in humbly with a heart to worship. so so good! you all need to go out and pick up some of his worship cd's. cool?

mark yaconelli was our speaker for the second main session. this guy was a stud. he's the co-founder and director of the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, and has spent the past 15 years working with students in local church, camp, and conference settings. this session was titled "failure, frustration & loss: the youth worker's path to holiness". he talked a lot about brokeness.... how youth ministry is designed to break the youth leader & how God is aking all of us to be broken. the questions he raised were pretty awesome... do i have an accurate understanding of what success is? or blessing? because if we look at the life of jesus... and we ask ourselves "was he successful?"... and if our answer is yes... then what does that look like for us if we're trying to be more like him? yaconelli also talked about being weary of the tendency to pretend... which is something i'm all too familiar with lately... the invitation was to become real... to hold suffering... and to carry the broken heart of jesus.

our last speaker for session 3 was none other than shane claiborne. this guy was incredibly inspiring! shane is one of the founders of the simple way, a philadelphia-based community of faith that spends much of their time feeding hungry folks, serving neighborhood children, running a community store, and pursuing peace and justice amongst the poor. shane is also the author of jesus for president, and the irresistible revolution. before i took off for this conference i was able to pick up his books and i started reading the irresistible revolution... it goes into depth about his story and how he got into ministry... and as i was reading i felt myself becoming more and more excited... like wow... this is it. this is what i want to do! and then hearing him speak at this conference really stirred up some dreams. within our community at resonate, we've been discussing the idea of starting a ministry house in st. paul... and at first i was very hesitant about being involved... the unknown can be pretty intimidating... but over the course of the last few weeks i've been feeling God leading me down a path that has a ton of potential to land me smack dab (no pun intended) in the middle of a ministry house!

and last but certainly not least... switchfoot was able to come do a Q&A for the conference... followed by an unplugged set by the band's front man... jon foreman. he recently started a solo project with the support of his band and he's released 3 of the 4 EP's so far... fall, winter and spring... the fourth one will be released this summer... ha.. can you guess what it will be called? jon's performance was incredible... it made my top 3 live performances list...

so yeah... needless to say... this conference was SO GOOD!