Yesterday was a day to slow down and begin to digest the things that I have begun to ponder. I gave myself permission to miss a session or two so that I could slow down, slow down, and reflect. I will be posting more about these reflections and ponderings later. For now I want to share with you some thoughts about the general sessions I attended.
The first one focused on this idea of holiness. The speaker was pastor Robert Gelinas. The question that he posed was this, “What does it mean to be holy just as God is holy?” He pointed to Jesus saying He is our model of holiness. The way of the cross is the way of holiness. Eugene Peterson defined holiness as happening when “the ways and means of how God works penetrate the ways and means of how we work.” When we act, think, and respond the way God would we are reflecting God’s holiness. This is what Jesus did. Look at the Jesus narratives to see how He responded when confronted, when criticized, when crucified. How do you respond in these settings? I know how I respond, it’s not always with holiness.
The second session I attended dealt with the idea of Words. Richard Foster was the speaker. He spoke of the overshadowing of words by the visual arts; the trivialization of words by the blogoshpere (not always the initial postings, rather the often unreasoned responses); the corruption of words by doublespeak. These are all great thoughts and as I am in the blogosphere I am being careful about the words I use to share my message. Foster came to this conclusion about words, they must be grounded in and grow out of silence; they must be significant in content; they should be crisp, clear, and imaginative. These are things that I need to work on when I use my words.
Day 4 brings a conclusion to the conference, but not my pondering on the things that I have heard. My prayer is that after bouncing around in my head for awhile those things that I truly need to apply to my life will begin in me the transformation process, to grow in holiness, to be more careful with the words I use, ideas I present, to become more like Jesus and as the theme of the conference says walk in the Jesus way.