My experience at Hear the Watchmen was incredible. I can liken it to water from a fire hose. If you have to opportunity to go, or even live stream next time it comes up (I believe the next is in August)
I would attend.
I feared that nothing would change after. I even asked someone there "When you get back home...what is going to change for you" He replied "I honestly don't know"
It was a sentiment shared by the few people I did ask. The church has rallies, camps, revivals, and we're almost desensitized to the emotional highs these gatherings produce.
Me personally, I didn't trust myself with all this information. I saw myself a week later back in my old slumps habits
and lethargy, and the thought of that was worse than not even knowing in the first place!
I'm happy to report that it actually was life changing. Something shifted, a threshhold was pushed through. That is why I'm writing this now. No more excuses about my computer, or that I don't have Word (Notepad isn't so bad!), or anything interesting to say. Just show up.
I take no credit it's all Holy Spirit and a submission of sorts, a submission of that distrust and dislike of my own self. I want to encourage people that threshold can be broken.
You just wont believe it till you are on the other side. The current is still there, wanting to pull you in the opposite
direction, it always will be unfortunately, but on the other side you get some grip that wasn't there before.
Be encouraged saints.
Topics that I was able to attend included;
Weaponized AI and block chain
The state of what most call "the church" and why,
Benefits of tribalism,
Apologetic for atheist
Overseas reporting,
Demonic oppression "how to free your mind"
and my favorite.. crypto-currency!
Even through all this though I must note the underlying and most important aspect of all this... Jesus. As complicated and nuanced, all this information is, our individual role in all of this starts with Jesus. The bible, reading it. It is the foundation of our faith. Not as a book or ancient text, but the preserved Word from God to creation.
I thought I might start a podcast, or engage in some mission immediately after to "not lose it" but He reassured me, it all
starts in the quiet, in those micro decisions, in disipline and study. That threshold I mentioned earlier is directed related to just this.
I'm positive you've met a zealous young Christian before, but that fuel eventually runs out (or loses touch) without that
next step which is based in something not seen as exciting or radical. In my case, sitting in my closet reading my Bible.
Talking through pain, forgiving others, not taking the many adult pacifiers meant to entertain us to death. In the Word is life, abundantly and everlasting.
I know this is going to change me, I'm excited. I'm still in the writing process of the individual talks. I plan on doing
a little more research on each.
Special thanks to Mike and Jeanie Kerr along with all the volunteers who made this confrence possible. Let me know if you went!!