This was my third time at TCX and it was awesome! I learned a lot about God’s character, as well as many ways to change my ways. This is what I learned over the last four days.
I arrived at the Hilton on Wednesday and once I settled in, I immediately went finding people from Project, and I went on an adventure to Target with some of them. Getting food for this week. That night, we had a chance to hear from Tom Henderson, someone who, to be totally honest, I didn’t know about. But he talked about our brokenness and what it’s like to be Fused (The theme for this year’s TCX). After some campus time, I played a TCX mainstay: Ninja. While I didn’t win any games, I had fun anyways.
Thursday, Crawford Lorrits spoke for both sessions. Crawford was one of the main reasons I came back. He speaks so well and is passionate on what he speaks on. In the morning session he talked about abiding in Christ, as mentioned in John 15. It was an interesting talk. Basically the main thing that I took away was that I let Christ abide in me when I came to know Christ almost 8 years ago, but I need to abide in Christ, and live fully and become a light in the spiritual darkness of the world. In the night session, Crawford talked about the character of Jesus. He said that Jesus not only had a impact with his three year ministry on Earth, but made an impact even before He was born. Seminars were also offered today. I decided to go to the seminar “Our Father in Heaven”. It was about prayer and how we should be fervent and enthusiastic in how we pray, not something that we feel we have to do.
Friday was our day of outreach so we went out to the inner city delivering food boxes to people as well as to share the Gospel of Christ. Also getting equipped at the Morning session. We got the chance to hear from Candice Siewert. She does a lot for the international partnerships for the Upper Midwest region (East Asia, Australia, 4th Journey, France, Ghana and Uruguay). She talked about the Parable of the Sower, something I learned about on Project. She talked about the different types of people, related it to our day of outreach, and talked about her hilarious experience on the farm. It was what I needed to go out this afternoon. It was my first day of outreach since Project and while I was nervous, I was excited as well. That night, Crawford talked about keeping the sense of mission, especially after today. The talk also made sense because the session highlighted the international partnerships we had. Crawford talked about the nature of our calling (Matt. 16:13-19), our commission (Matt. 9:35-38), and our command (Matt. 28:18:20). Since the day was so long, I went to sleep afterwards. Yeah I’m getting old.
Yesterday, we heard from Tom, talking about what keeps us from growing in our faith, and becoming fused. The three ways that he ways that kept us from growing in our faith had to do with three things, Our Plan, our pride, and our past. It was interesting on what Tom was getting at. Especially how our past seems to haunt us, and I can see why. We tend to revert to the sins that we had before we knew Christ. After his talk, the emcee, Ben, talked about having secret sins, and gave some time for people to pray and discuss those sins.
The final night of TCX was about surrender. I came into the ballroom to different scenes shown on the screens. They were about how Jesus lived a whole life of surrender from the time he was born to the time he died. I was told to think about those pictures and think about the impact. Then Candice spoke again. She used the practice of Lectio Divina (Divine Reading) to unpack pertinent verses about Jesus’ life on Earth. And she made us think, on where would we be in these verses. From His birth to when He was in Gethsemane praying to God before Jesus was arrested by the Romans. It was a humbling experience for sure. Also that night, we were to make a decision, if you wanted to. It was if you would pledge to spend one year after graduation to serve missionally. After prayerfully considering this, I decided to do this. However, I added something to mine these two words, “or more”. I don’t know what God has in store in my life and I am happy for that. I want to live out a life of mission, to develop a servant heart. In order to radically love Christ with everything we have, we must OBEY what God told us to do.
So what did I learn
- I need to be vulnerable to other people, so I can be open to people what I am dealing with spiritually.
- I need need NEED consistency in my life, especially in my daily walk. And lastly
- I need to pray in a fervent and passionate manner. God likes to be bothered (Isaiah 62:6-7).
I am already excited to go back next year, it will be cool to see this post almost a year from now and see how I have changed.
