Thursday, September 16, 2010

Ten Questions for Benefitting from a Conference

As Christians, we tend to like conferences. In fact, it would seem that to many of us, a conference is something you attend in order to rekindle or strengthen devotion to Christ. Sometimes when I've talked to people about conferences (and I have probably said similar things myself) they often put more stock in conferences than they do their weekly meeting at their local church. Almost as if Christ and His truth is more exciting and impactful when we are going to an annual event rather than at our run of the mill Sunday meeting. In my opinion, this is unfortunate, but I think that conferences do serve a very helpful role for both the universal church and our local churches and we shouldn't neglect participating in them when we are able.

This leads me to the core of this post which is basically a copy of Thabiti Anyabwile's blog post with the same name. Here is his post:
Don Whitney is the master of asking probing questions of our spiritual lives. In the conference program at the Ocean City Bible Conference there is a short article from Don listing 10 questions to ask to benefit from a conference. I’ll be thinking on these over the next couple days:

1. What’s the single most important truth I have learned at this conference?

2. What’s the most important thing in my life that will be different or I will attempt to change as a result of attending this conference?

3. What’s the next step I should take to incorporate this change into my life?

4. What’s the single most important resource I should acquire at or after this conference?

5. When will I begin to read/listen to/utilize this resource?

6. Who is one person at this conference with whom I should discuss this conference?

7. Who is one person after this conference with whom I should discuss something from the conference?

8. Who is the one person at this conference I most need to encourage?

9. Who is someone who has helped to organize or serve at this conference who deserves a word of gratitude and would be encouraged to know of the impact of this conference in my life?

10. What’s one thing I should pray about for myself and for others as a result of this conference?
For those of us in my home church in Greeley, this would be a good list to print out and tuck in your Bible. With Faithwalkers coming up in a few months as well as various other conferences that are both in and outside of our group of churches, this list could prove invaluable. In fact, these questions would be great to ask (with slight modification) after each Sunday morning meeting either by yourself or with friends or family.

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