I came, I saw, I blogged... (JDR)

I will in all likely hood be departing mid-service to take a through the night drive back up to the roving hills of Michigan, so unless something striking occurs from now until I depart, this will most likely be my last blog....

10:25-Message w/Nate Binion (who is a home-missions pastor in Austin, TX) in the Young Adults split-session service: "The space between my experience and my calling."

-Bro. Binion's message is my favorite message to date at this congress.... He spoke an abundantly relevant message to the 20 somethings audience (to which I consider myself a citizen of such a demographic). Favorite points-

• Our generation has all the knowledge but no wisdom.
• We as a generation spend too long longing for the camp and congress moments of our teenage years (You know those moments, when we find ourself in a magestrial spiritual state for dozens of minutes on end soaked in tears and convictions, and much repentance). But the problem is that while we long for those moments, God never intends for us to go back to those moments or seeking such moments. When we endeavor for these ultra-spiritual moments where we simply delaying our ministry, because we are of age to start doing (and not simply of the teenage age where we start seeking).
• We as a generation pay large monetary sums to travel across the country to go to congress and evangelical teaching conferences, but those neighbors and co-workers back home will continue to go unwitnessed to upon our return.....
• If you want to see change, just do it. Stop complaining about all the things going on and start acting.

1:05 PM-What does congress mean for people trying to network and find friends? I would argue that it is not much...but rather congress' main objective socially is the confirm to 16,000 young people that they wer simply not alone. Let me me explain:

As I began to inquire last night, and

continued to discusse matters today with folks, I realized that people simply are not moving out of their immediate social circles. People talk with their friends and at most friends of their friends. Wherein, meeting these friends of friends, the talk is minimal and more introductory and unintrusive in their conversation. Sure there are those determined to network, but in general I would propose that these networkers are the exception to the rule...Well except those

male and females engaged in the art of trying to find their future spouse which brings me to...

1:17-I am realizing that all female pursuers can be summed into two categories: The Overly-Passive, and the overly-aggressive.

Overly-Aggressive-Those who chase with all intent to be either rudely rejected or quickly accepted by their target (most of the time the former results). Their agrressive overtunes in conversation with those of the opposite gender usually center around a cheesy pick-up line such as "Did you just fart, because you're blowing me away?" or by a quick insult as if we are in third grade and the apparently best method to get the girl is to pretend that you are superior to the girl. Surprisingly this seems to have a better success rate than one would anticipate.

Passive-Agressive- These people quickly ally themself in the "just friends" category. They enter into prospective relationship with little premonition to want to date the girl (or so they say). These guys are all too excited to laugh at their new friend's jokes and take an over-interes

t in the things that interest the new friend.

6:47-I begin to type this blog in the lounge of the hotel (pictured right), and am awestruck by how empy it is before service (note that the picture to the right is not current but was taken last night...the seats and couches pictured are all empty) . I should have noted something was up when I went to hit the button to come down in the elevator and the wait for the elevator was almost none, which has primarilty not been the case for the majority of the trip. Being the last night, I was not sure if this meant everyone was running really late because they were trying to do their hair super pretty for this climactic evening, or because everyone rushed to the stadium super early in anticipation of a packed-house.

7:17 Suspicions are confirmed that everyone had left early to the stadium. Apparentely over 45 minutes before service-time the lower bowl of the stadium was full, and the top tier was already a quarter-filled.

7:20-The aforementioned fact gets me excited for tonight's service. While the last service is the service that brings out everyone's best outfits and costumes, the spritual antipation is also at it's high-mark of congress...No one really knows what is to come, but they know whatever that thing is, it will most likely be life-changing. Now the bigger question is, does the service itself bring the high-spiritual results or is it the anticipation and expectation of what is to come cause that causethe spiritual move?