Hey Element Church! The final speaker of the conference was Ed Stetzer. Ed has planted churches and currently, he serves as the Missiologist and Director of the Center for Missional Research at the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, GA and he is co-pastor of Lake Ridge Church in Cumming, GA. His session was THE PERFECT ending to the conference. He wrapped it all up together tremendously.
His big idea was “going through doubt to faith”. Talked about “to have faith, you must go through doubt”
He had some AMAZING quotes. The first one blew me away. SO TRUE.
“A conference like this can easily become ministry pornography!” What does that mean? “You view unrealistic pictures of a ministry you are never going to have.” WOW WOW WOW! The room was loudly SILENT at that moment.
Speaking on doubt “God is not afraid of your questions. The world is growing increasingly tired of a nice neatly wrapped life.” Speaking of pastors who don’t reveal the difficulties of life they experience. Their hurts. Their doubts. Their fears.
“God promises His presence, not always the answers. He promises us Himself.”
“Saying ‘I don’t know’ to a lost person is not a sign of immaturity but of maturity.”
“Jesus doesn’t always speak happiness but He ALWAYS speaks peace.” Now that’ll preach!
“Thomas was not satisfied with someone else’s experience. He had to experience it himself.” And that is ok. He went through doubt to faith. He talked about how Thomas eventually went the FURTHEST to spread the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection.
He ended with this quote, and it was SO good: “Most of you will never experience ministries like the ones you’ve seen today, and if you do it will hurt more than you ever dreamed and struggle more than you ever thought.” GREAT reminder!
That’s it. MAN it was a lot to swallow in one day but did it REALLY help and challenge me with where we are at. Been evaluating Element, how I am doing things, how we are doing things and where God is taking us. It’s been GREAT! Thanks for letting me share what I got out of the conference. Can’t wait till then next one!
Growing,
Jeff
