Session One and Frances Chan

I’m pretty sure I feel this way every year but this year I REALLY feel like this was the first best session of the National Staff Conference ever!

It started out with incredible worship where I had 5 million goose bumps and then Frances Chan took the stage. I recently read a book of his and honestly didn’t love it. I loved a lot of what he had to say but for some reason it didn’t resonate with me quite right so I didn’t know what to expect. Well, he was incredible. He was hilarious and witty, extremely humble and loves God. He was obviously Spirit led as he felt God asking him to share something he had not prepared to share and He did it flawlessly. The one verse he felt like God asked Him to share was Revelation 3:1 “You have a reputation of being alive but you are dead.” It was a call to not be so worried about our reputation with others and only put on a “holy front.” Be more concerned with your reputation with the Lord. What would He say about you, your character, etc? Would it match up to what others say about you? I need to be about loving God sincerely.

He shared stories of Christians he and his family met in the last year on their travels and how they don’t understand how Christians here can be “casual Christians.” There is no such thing in most countries. When you follow Christ you risk losing everything and they live it out because they know it’s worth it. Not here. We live it when it’s convenient or on Sunday. Our culture is full of apathetic Christians and we care more about what others think of us, our comfort, our wants, etc. before we think of the God who loves us and gave everything for us. I’m guilty of falling into the trap as well. I have to continue to ask myself if I’m willing to go anywhere, at anytime and at any cost if God asks. It’s a daily surrender and it’s worth it, it’s not strange to live that way. It’s actually strange not to.

It was so convicting, encouraging and honestly I feel like I could spend a whole day just processing the morning. But I can’t. There are 8 more days of greatness coming our way.

Oh and after that talk we had worship and sang Holy, Holy, Holy. I imagine that’s what it sounds like when the angels sing it in heaven. It was amazing. The part that’s crazy is that I know I don’t sound like an angel when I sing and I’m sure a lot of those other thousands of people don’t either but when you just sing it with your heart and don’t care with what others think about how bad it sounds, collectively it sounded like a host of angels.