Campus Outreach's New Year Conference.

The conference was a lot better than I was expecting. Logistics were great, schedules were designed to make the most of the time while not being exhausting, and the teaching was excellent. The six main session (or rallies, as the COers call them) were divided between Mike Ross, Joshua Harris, and Matt Ballard, and followed a meta-outline of regeneration --> sanctification --> Christian community --> discipling others --> missions. There were also three break-out sessions throughout the five days and three campus-times where GW and Georgetown students got to reflect together on what they've been learning, bond over games, and eat pizza.

Josh Harris was supposed to grace us with his presence at one of our campus-times before a rally he was going to speak at. However, according to Matt Pearson, "He kissed that date good-bye." No hard feelings; the joke was worth it.

You can find the talks online soon--I would recommend G'Joe's talk on the idolatry of ministry, which I found applicable not only to campus ministry or positions of particular leadership in the local church, but also the daily routines of discipling others. Based off the redneck "you might be a redneck if..." jokes, G'Joe had a list of "you might be a ministry idolater if...":

• You sacrifice conviction for relevance.
• Every part of your spiritual life has connection to others.
• Incredibly dependent on what those you are ministering to think of you.
• You give advice that you don't live yourself.
• You're unwilling to let go of ministry outcomes, but instead work ever harder.
• Your prayers are in His name, but for your fame.
• Every message you hear is for another soul.
• You can't rest because there's almost always more work to be done.
• You're jealous of others' fruit.
• Your grades and relationship with parents suffer.
• Guilt, not burden, is your fuel (aka debtor's ethic).
• You lack thankfulness.
• You do more than you're praying.
• You are more about the message than Jesus Himself.

I definitely felt convicted of many of these indicators.

Shai Linne's men's talk is also worth listening to, whether or not you're a guy or girl, since it was crafted to apply beyond merely guy-temptations.