How Not to Waste This Conference
May. 22 2007
This week we sat down with Eric’s fellow pastors Isaac Hydoski and Jon Smith to talk about how to prepare our hearts for the conference. We met at Jon’s house over coffee and laptops and a Little Tike toy.
Na: How do you approach going to New Attitude? How do you try to get the most out of your time there?
Isaac: Well, here’s one thing I’ve tried to do going to conferences like New Attitude: I will identify just one area that I really want to hear from the Lord in or one area I want to experience God in. One week before the conference I’ll start praying consistently for God to work in that area. I come in faith expecting God will meet me.
As a result, I’ve had some tremendously powerful moments during the conference where I felt that God was certainly speaking to me in a certain way. I’ve come away from those times much more aware of God’s greatness, God’s glory, God’s love. And it all just comes from seeking him.
Think about it: practically a lot of us will go out and buy new clothes and get new haircuts before going to the conference. But are you preparing your soul as well?
Jon: Right. I remember last year I’d just finished reading Don’t Waste Your Life by Piper. I was praying and preparing for the conference when I thought, Lord What would it look like for me not to waste this conference?
I asked myself that question and listed a number of different ways I could not waste the conference and that list really formed for me a guide for my time there. I wrote down thoughts like, I’ll waste this conference if I don’t have concentrated alone time with God. Or I’ll waste this conference if I don’t seek to deepen my fellowship with guys like Isaac.
That really helped me approach the conference intentionally because, honestly, sometimes my tendency could be just to chill while I’m there.
Na: Approaching the conference that way is very different from the way we normally approach our lives.
Jon: Well, the culture we live in is a jiffy-lube culture. We’re slammed and we’re flying everywhere and it’s hard for us to even get 30 minutes in the morning with the Lord. We’re overloaded with images and iPods and Palms. We’re overloaded with everything.
It’s so good for us to get away from everything and have time to stop and pray and think and be alone with the Lord.
Isaac: And that’s another suggestion I’ve found personally beneficial: while you’re away at the conference spend time with God outside the messages and worship times. Spend time praying and meeting God personally. Think about the message you’ve heard or think about how God met you in worship. Just meditate on conversations with people that have provoked you. Then spend time meditating on God’s word and deepening the work of grace God has begun.
I just remember last year at Na taking one of the afternoons taking 2-3 hours by myself (which for me was very different to do…usually the norm is that you’re around people 24/7). I took that time to pray and read the Bible and think about the messages. And looking back, that was one of the most significant memories for me at the conference.
Jon: Really? That’s great.
Isaac: God was just deepening the conviction he’d begun in the messages, he was providing direction for things he wanted me to pursue. What was happening there? It was the beginning of application for me. It was the beginning of what I needed to do when I got home.
Na: Last year at Na I heard someone describe attending the conference as like trying to drink out of a firehose. With so much great material how do you manage to apply everything?
Isaac: I can relate to that feeling because after every message you feel like you could stop there and have plenty to apply.
My first thought is to take tons of notes. I am utterly lost if I don’t take notes in the message. I’ll walk out of the auditorium and maybe remember a phrase or sentence from the message but if I take notes then I realize that that’s going to fuel my application later. So the beginning of application for me is reviewing those notes. Then I take those points of conviction to other men that are going to help me change in that area.
Jon: Going to New Attitude really is going to feel like you’re going to drink from a firehose. And the temptation for me personally is that I want to come home and I want to apply in the same way. I want to try to apply every message the day after the conference. But it just doesn’t work.
David Powlison wrote an article called Think Globally and Act Locally and in it his point was to take one bit of scripture and apply it to one bit of life. I’ve gone to two conferences with this mindset. After a conference is over I’ll try to take a half day to sit down and think through and find at least one thing that I’m going to seek to apply from the conference. Sometimes you can get buried under all the truth and at times you don’t end up applying anything at all. So ask yourself if you can just take one thing from the conference back to the church what would that be? And so after the conference I take 1-2 hours and to pray and decide how to apply so that the conference results in lasting fruit. You apply one bit of the conference to one bit of life.
Na: Any practical hindrances to meeting God at New Attitude you want to warn people about?
Isaac: ::Laughs:: One thing--and it’s a practical thing--is something people won’t want to hear: a tendency to stay up and hang out with friends until 3 in the morning. The reality is that we’re all getting up in the morning to hear God’s word preached. So I think there should be a significant emphasis on being prepared for that when you’re spending hundreds of dollars to come to a conference to meet with God and be equipped. If you know you’re going to be sitting through an hour long message from one of the greatest minds in modern Christianity it would be wise and humble to be prepared for that.
Jon: ::Laughs:: That’s great.
Isaac: So that’s one practical thing.
Before you pack, take time to think through how you can keep from waste this conference.
Stop. Pray. Find one area of your life you want God to work on during the conference.
Isaac and Jon pastor the ONE ministry at Covenant Life Church with Eric Simmons. Look for more from our interview with them after the conference.