I have
been extremely busy lately, to the point of needing to be bilocational--in two
places at once. Thankfully a coworker was able to pull off one part of
that need, and my wife--once again, thankfully--was able to pull off yet
another part of it. The lawn, however, is still a mess!
With all the busyness, I was
tempted to bail on a conference that I fully enjoy and from which I am greatly
enriched: the annual BASICS conference at Parkside Church in Chagrin Falls, OH.
It's a three day conference, designed for pastors but useful for other
church leaders, held by well known pastor and speaker Alistair Begg. You
can look up the church, the pastor and its many works at www.parksidechurch.com.
Though I knew better than to bail on the conference, as it
would be what I needed to cure the overload (yes, I know, retirement was not supposed to be like this) it was a
battle with myself to go and not stay and get stuff done. The conference
won the; so another leader from my church and I opted to ride our motorcycles to
the event. Getting there was trip, not a
bike ride; but that’s in a different post (the forecast was good when we left--honest).
It was good friends, great fellowship; new friends; great
speakers and messages; wonderful food served by a mass of willing volunteers;
astonishing music; and we came away with a new appreciation for an Awesome
God.
The speakers have always been a varied array of godly men who
have a gift for preaching and a great depth of knowledge from which to
draw. This year was no different, and
the write-ups on them from the website are worth the reading, as the message are worth the listening.
The music is powerful, used to set the tone for the speakers’
messages and to inspire the hearts of the listeners. Good music moves me to tears, a couple hymn
in particular—Holy, Holy, Holy being
one and It is Well With My Soul
being another—and they seem to use them every year. I got through the first, at least partially
because the praise band played it in something of a blue grass style with a banjo and
a string bass; you can’t play a sad
song on a banjo--so I made it. However, the other one
got me. The words are powerful enough;
but then that girl started with the violin!
Strings reach deep inside of me and rip my heart out through my tear
ducts! On that note, the conference was
over; we had a bag lunch from Chik-fil-A and were on our way home.
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