urbana

as many of you know, i recently came back from urbana 09, a student mission's conference held every three years in st. louis, MO.  about 17,000 students, campus staff workers, and pastors came together to learn about the state of God's global kingdom work and how they can get involved.  each day was jam packed with great speakers, incredible worship, drama, dance, thought-provoking seminars, and insightful bible studies.  it allowed me to experience a week without all the distractions of school, career, media, sports, the list goes on and on.

while the conference was very much outward focused (what do you expect from a mission conference?), i couldn't help but to gain some insight about the state of things in my spiritual life.  leave it to me to learn more about myself than others at a missions conference... self-centered much?  regardless, god showed me some shortcomings in my life that were limiting my effectiveness as a servant for his kingdom.  it was almost as if he was saying, "before you can go out and make a difference in other people's lives, examine your own heart.  do you really love me?  do you really care about making my name great?"  i got hit pretty hard by a sobering reality check during one of the speaker's talks about money and possessions.  these past couple months, i've really been occupied with the next step in my life and how i'll become financially independent and make the best career decision for my life.  when i heard a story about multi-millionaires who chose long ago (when they were young and poor) to live on a fixed income no matter what they made, i was taken aback.  these are the kinds of decisions i should be praying (or at least thinking) about now, while i'm young.

i also learned a little bit more about my own path to salvation.  one of the seminars talked about how the path to salvation is just that, a path, not a single point of conversion.  it's only at the very end of that path that non-believers make the choice to follow christ.  i think too many christians are too concerned about that last step in the process, just focused on adding numbers but not focused enough on the (often harder) steps that lead up to the point of conversion.  the guy who led the seminar wrote a book after he interviewed thousands of new believers about their path to christ.  surprisingly, most of them followed a very similar route with 5 common thresholds they crossed before giving their lives over to christ.  the five thresholds are:

1. trusting a christian
2. becoming curious about Jesus
3. being open to change
4. actively seeking God
5. conversion

he then talked about how these five steps could be applied to the conversion story one of his nonbelieving friends.  as he was talking, i realized that i did things completely backwards in my own path to salvation.  i became a christian when i was 7, basically because i wanted to go to heaven and because everyone else was  doing it.  so i started at step five without experiencing the true change of heart that is usually required for anyone to start following christ.  i had nothing in my life that i needed to change (i was a little kid), and i was completely uninterested in seeking God (learning about him and seeking him are two different things).  because i was a pastor's son, i could tell you all sorts of facts and bits of information about the bible, but facts without belief are useless.  growing up,  i mistook my knowledge about God for an actual relationship with him.  needless to say, i was humbled and shaken by this realization.

one thing is certain. my eyes were definitely opened this past week.  the number of opportunities out there for christians to spread his love are greater than ever before.  i didn't receive a specific calling, but i was challenged to widen my gaze and consider the world around me.  i'm glad i went.