NPC – Day 2

I’ve got so much swirling around in my head now that I think I’ll just summarize the second day of the conference.

So far the General Sessions have been most notable for the wonderful worship through music and some really funny comedians. Until last night, most of the speakers didn’t really touch me. The second speaker, Bishop John Rucyahana from Rwanda was passionate and authentic, but his accent was so thick that he was difficult to hear. And, then as many of you know, I have a huge bias that keeps me from hearing some preachers—when they raise their voices (especially when they are male)—I have a tendency to tune out and I have to force myself to continue listening. I’m pretty good at that, but his accent made it all the more difficult. Then yesterday morning, the speaker was Chuck Colson. He made some good points (and he didn’t yell!), but he spoke on the importance of doctrine—his doctrine—and while I agreed with him on his points of doctrine I disagreed strongly with what those doctrines look like when you apply them to every day life. And he seemed a very strange (and thanks to Phyllis Tickle I can now say perhaps an important) speaker at a conference that is otherwise featuring progressive/emerging voices.

Yesterday afternoon, I had the opportunity to briefly hear from Shane Claiborne about “Jesus for President.” My son, Steven, commented that he didn’t know Jesus was running and if he was he’d vote for him. However, Claiborne’s message was not that we should vote for Jesus but that we need to have our political imagination kick-started and start looking at the role of the church in making some of the changes that we have often looked to the government to make. Tomorrow I’ll get to hear from Jim Wallis and I’m sure I’ll get a different view from both Colson and Claiborne!

I choose to go to Phyllis Tickle and Tony Jones’ seminar on the Great Emergence. Tony wrote a blog entry about hearing some of the same info last fall. I’ll save my thoughts for later, but suffice it to say that it was exciting, scary, and informative.

The evening preacher was Brenda Salter McNeil who was fantastic. She preached on “The Need for a Credible Witness” using the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. How I wish I could preach like the African-American preachers!! Of course, I’m not too sure how much Trinity would appreciate it if I did!

One final note about Wednesday. I took a break and visited the prayer chapel yesterday afternoon. For a Martha like me, it was a wonderful experience. They had a large number of prayer stations set up that allowed me not only to pray but to DO something. I’m one of those people who can need activity to center themselves, so I appreciate labyrinths as well as prayer centers because they allow my body to do something while my brain settles down. Thank you to the wonderful Mary who appreciated Martha’s need to do something with her body!