New Wine

Last week I was camping at New Wine. It was a bit strange because I usually go to that site for Soul Survivor, and I had to get used to the different feel with there being more families and old people.

Morning Celebration at Venue 1

The teaching was, for the most part, excellent (and even when it wasn't excellent it was still good). I really liked hearing from Kenny Borthwick, who spoke at the morning celebrations in Venue 1. He looked at John 17 and what Jesus' prayer taught us about community and mission.

I managed to make it to one of Simon Ponsonby's Rise sessions (at 7:15am!), as well as his Gospel Wins seminar. When Simon Ponsonby was speaking at Venue 2 it was ridiculously packed out and I had to sit outside in the rain. Gospel Wins seminar was really helpful, as it reminded us the importance of the Gospel within the church. It's not just an export good, it's to be used to strengthen, inspire and unite believers within the church.

Pete Hughes also spoke at the evening celebration in Venue 2. Again, it was really good. I also went to his Leadership Crisis seminar, which was about the lack of 20 and 30 somethings in our church. This is something I've blogged about before, but it was really inspiring and confirmed my passions and reasons in being both a youth leader and member of Mosaic.

There were lots of other good talks and speakers. However, I left with the feeling I'd done the Christian conference thing, and would only go if I was on team or I would leave it a couple of years at the very least.

I'll finish with this anecdote.

I was wanting to go to a seminar on running one-to-one sessions with teens. As we had been sharing programmes I wrote down all the seminar times and venues on my phone. Half an hour before going to my seminar I had a quick look at my phone and found the location of the venue on a map. I walked into the venue and sat down. Then a lady comes up to me, presumably the speaker and said, "You're very welcome here, but you may feel a bit uncomfortable. This is the Agony Aunt women's seminar."

Quick Questions

1. Have you ever been to a Christian conference? What did you think?
2. Have you had embarrassing church or conference moments?