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Gary Haugen spoke to us last Tuesday afternoon at the pastor’s conference at Moody. Gary is the president of the International Justice Mission, a Christian organization dedicated to providing “investigation strategies, legal expertise, and cutting-edge technology to rescue individual victims of injustice and abuse around the world.” His topic: God’s priority for justice, and how his organization is working in that area.

A little background on Gary first; the guy is a pit bull. He’s rather a small man, but his physique and flat-top haircut would lead you to believe he’s done a stint in the Marines. (That’s purely conjecture on my part, but you get the image.) He grew up in a Christian family, graduated from Harvard Law, went to work for the Department of Justice, and was the head of the UN task force that went to Rwanda to investigate the genocide back in the 90’s. He’s obviously seen a lot in his time.

Gary described his work in Rwanda briefly; harder than sifting through the dead bodies, he said, was having to interview the ones who survived. He then told us about people who have been subjects of persecution and injustice in various places: an african man who was randomly shot by the police and then jailed so he couldn’t talk about it; a 9-year-old girl sold into slavery, forced to roll cigarettes 12 hours a day; young girls sold into prostitution rings; our stomachs were turning after just the first description or two. I think we often choose to forget or ignore these brutalities, here in the USA. And in a sense, I can understand it. (More on that later.)

Gary then walked us through several scriptures that point out God’s concern for justice, for protecting the innocent and “defending the orphan and the widow”. Key among his texts was Micah 6:8: “He has shown you, o man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Justice is mentioned first. So why do we ignore it so often? I need to examine this in my own life.

I’ve always had sort of a built-in repulsion to “bleeding heart” presentations or pleas. Partly, I suppose, this is due to my engineering nature; I want the bare facts, not all the emotional things that can cloud the issue. But I think there’s another side to it; it’s not that I don’t care about the people; it’s more that I feel overwhelmed. What can I do? And so, if I can’t do anything, I’d much rather forget about it than be nagged by the reminders of a hopeless problem.

What Gary did on Tuesday was remind us that it isn’t hopeless. There are people who are doing good work. His mission is one. I may have to think about supporting it in the future. And prayer is our number one tool. Too often I forget to pray; I just get caught up in the helplessness of it all. Thanks to God for being the Helper of the helpless. There are no helpless situations with Him.

I got home early this morning… 1:45 AM. It’s sure good to be home. Everything’s pretty much the same as when I left, but the grass needs mowed again… oh joy. :-) But today starts a 4-day weekend for me, so, no complaints.

It’s Thursday afternoon and the conference is winding down. There’s only one general session left, and while there is anticipation to hear the speaker (Tony Evans), there is still the sadness, weariness, and relief that accompanies the end of a conference. How to describe it? It might be akin to the feeling at the end of a week at bible camp, at the end of a retreat, or even at the end of a college school year. Sadness because these past few days of enjoyment, learning, and fellowship with brothers will soon be over. Weariness because none of us have gotten enough sleep over the past few days. At 6:30 AM on Tuesday, the dining hall was full of breakfasters. By this morning, it was only half full at 7:00. Relief because I know within the next 12 hours I will be back at home, sleeping in my bed, with my wife at my side, and my daughter in the crib in the next room. Relief in getting back to a routine that is more “normal”, even if it means that I will again become the feeder instead of the one being fed. I think similar feelings accompany all endings; we look back with fondness and lingering regret even as we look forward, knowing that we won’t really be happy if things stay the same; life is made up not of stasis but of change. Memory provides the anchors that give us a mental, emotional, and spiritual stasis even in the midst of life’s perpetual motion.

Even for Thursday afternoon, the student center is still noisy with activity. Only the tenor of the noise has changed, from the buzz of Monday’s anticipation and the rumble of Tuesday’s discussion and rumination, to Thursday’s dull roar of completion and the rattle of luggage wheels crossing the tile floor on their way to the cars in the parking garage across the street. Still the people are here. Students reading. That software vendor finishing up a late lunch before taking down his display and heading home. Two young mothers sharing a table with three three small children and a double stroller. There are two men in a booth behind me who have been criticizing the worship band that’s been playing at sessions this week. “You can’t even hear yourself sing when they play.” “You don’t know whether you’re singing off or on.” “It’s only really good when you’re singing with the pipe organ.” It appears that some things never change.

There have been so many good teaching moments over the past several days, and so many ideas for writing, that I’m going to have to just write some short drafts of them right now, and then flesh them out as I have time over the next few weeks. It’s hard even to know where to start. We have heard from a huge cross-section of evangelical teaching. Ravi Zacharias, the Indian philosopher and logician. D. A. Carson, the intellectual professor par excellence. Gary Haugen, one-time leader of the United Nations team that investigated the Rwandan genocide. James MacDonald, the pastor of Harvest Church here in Chicago who at first glance would have you think that Tony Soprano, or better yet, Michael Chiklis’s character from The Shield had taken to preaching. Direct. Hard-nosed. Bang-on. Colin Smith, his Scottish brogue beginning to be tempered by 15 years in the States. Sam Solomon (I suspect somehow this was a pseudonym), an Afghani who warned us of the evils of the system of Islam. Joe Stowell, the long-time president of Moody, passing the torch to his recent successor. Each of these deserves an essay in their own right, and then separate essays for the things I learned from them.

I hope that, months from now, I can point back to this week as a defining point in my life this year. That sounds very dramatic, and I don’t mean it to be. But this conference has challenged me to a renewed passion for Christ, a renewed desire to lead in my family, a renewed desire to make a priority of the Word and prayer. I have been too dry for too long; when Erwin Lutzer warned this morning of the pitfall of losing clear focus, and neglecting the disciplines, I felt at the same time the prick of conviction that I have done so, and some small (though I keep thinking misplaced) comfort that I am not alone in that struggle. I get so caught up in the things of ministry that the time in prayer and the Word get neglected. I think of it this way: how many hours have I spent in the last month working on church stuff? I’ve worked on two websites, set up a blog, installed a new projector, led worship for an outdoor Sunday service, led a worship team practice or two, and that’s just what I can think of from the top of my head. I have spent hours and hours on good stuff like that. But how many hours have I spent in the Word and prayer? Honestly? An hour? Two? Certainly not more. I say this to my shame, and in the sadness that an active, busy life of ministry can be the mask for an inner man that too often is missing meals and not getting rest. I need to change some priorities. God help me as I try to get things balanced better.

This post is meandering more than the well-formed post would; I wander from observation to insight to self-examination and back again. Hopefully I didn’t lose you halfway through it; I guess I should remember that if you’ve gotten this far, you’ve read it. If you’re my friend and you read this, get back to me in a couple weeks and see how I’m doing. My only trouble with being consistent is being so on a regular basis.

Amber liked my attempt at a descriptive writing post yesterday so I thought I’d give it another go. Just more observations from the Moody conference.

The stupid wifi still doesn’t work. All I want to do is just sit here and write directly to my blog, but it doesn’t work. Arrgh. I’m back in the student center at Moody, at another one of those square tables that host mid-day meals, conversations between old friends, and students with backpacks full of homework. At the table behind me is an Army chaplain with oak leaves on his lapels, that makes him what, a captain? It warms my heart to know that he’s taking the time to minister to our servicemen.

Across the room to my left is the Moody sales table. Either they stocked up on Conference polo shirts this year, or grey isn’t a popular color - Richard assured me the shirts are usually sold out by Monday afternoon; it’s Tuesday afternoon and they still have quite a pile left. Maybe their color choices aren’t always the greatest; they have t-shirts for sale left over from last year that are a not-quite-so-nice shade of brown… but they’re only $3 so I might just pick one up anyway. You can also buy coffee mugs, baseball caps, and some various books and literature. Sadly, for their sales prospects, I don’t drink coffee and it’ll take something more special than a pastor’s conference to supplant the Cubs on my baseball cap brim. Maybe the t-shirt is the right call.

Display booths on my right advertise products attractive to those in ministry: graduate school, online bible courses, bible study software, a publishing house. The representatives at these sales booths are worth a closer study. I don’t think I’d find it a fun assignment to have to man a booth like that. There are two across the room from me. Both are men in their late thirties or early forties; both are somewhat overweight and dressed in their best professional oxford shirts and sweater vests. Both are browsing on their laptops, eating lunch. Maybe I should see if either of them have gotten wifi to work… When a customer approaches, you can see them go into this “Christian sales” mode. It’s somewhat weird to me, because I typically think of salesmen as pushy, annoying, caring little about you and what you want, and more about how they can manipulate you into buying their product. But with these guys, they’re restrained, trying to be helpful, obviously in sales mode with their product, but at the same time remaining mindful that the men they’re selling to are their brothers in Christ who need enhanced ministries, not just a cool (expensive) software program. I wish there were more salesmen like them. I’d love to buy a car from a guy who had my best interests in mind rather than his own… but that’s a totally different subject. :-)

It’s quieting down now that the next general session has started. There’s a round table with five guys around it and the remnants of their lunch still on it; apparently they’re skipping the session to continue the discussion - a good idea if you ask me. There are several guys sitting around singly, like me, taking time to read, write, think. There are still some t-shirts for sale… I think I’ll go buy one. At $3, they’re a steal, even if they are brown.

It’s 1:10 PM and I’m skipping a general session to sit and write. Richard described this conference as “trying to get a drink of water from a firehose”, and he’s not much wrong. So far today we’ve had general sessions with D.A. Carson and Gene Getz, and I went to a workshop also with Dr. Getz. And that was all before lunch! This afternoon there’s another general session and then a workshop before dinner. As I already said, I’m skipping the general session to do some writing, mostly because if I don’t take the time to write things down, I’ll start forgetting… and I don’t want to forget. It’ll be much more valuable for me to cement some things in my mind rather than just go soak up some more things that I won’t have time to remember.

Last night was Ravi Zacharias. He is brilliant. In the areas of metaphysics and logic, few are his equal. His topic was “Questionable Questions: Four questions skeptics ask that point to Christ”. I’ll write a separate post just on his message. Very impressive. Had a snack, decided to skip out on the late movie (National Treasure) since I’d just seen it last weekend, and went to bed.

One other thing I don’t want to forget from last night: we had a pianist providing special music. His name is Anthony Burger, and he usually plays with the Gaithers. His style is very showy, which means I don’t like it much. He plays with an instrumental track, it makes me think that Liberace got saved and started playing Christian music. But the last song of his set was Handel’s glorious Hallelujah Chorus. The power of that music drove away my discontent with the style of the presentation. Within the first few measures of the song, all 2000+ men in the auditorium stood to honor God in that great tradition of the Chorus. All the guys that knew parts were singing along. Words to not do it justice. Being in a room with 2000 men who want to worship God and having such a majestic chorus to do it with? Amazing. Fantastic. Superb. I’ll shut up now. :-)

This morning we had our first general session with Dr. D. A. Carson. He is probably the most “intellectual” speaker of the week. He apologized at one point early in the presentation for ending a sentence with a preposition! Just that kind of guy. He is a research professor at Trinity Evangelical School of Divinity, which means they basically retain him just to do research and write books. That being said, he’s a very good speaker as well. His ten-dollar words and presentation had John’s eyes permanently glazed over, but Richard and I loved it. I’m really looking forward to hearing Dr. Carson again tomorrow.

As Dr. Carson’s session dismissed, I headed off at a trot to get to the workshop with Dr. Gene Getz on Elders and Leadership in the church. It was a very good session… he reminded us that we need to stop assuming that the “form” that we’ve practiced with in our culture for all these years can substitute for the “supracultural” principles of leadership. There are the principles, which are universal. They transcend culture. Then there are the practices. They have to be customized depending on the culture and circumstance the church is in. I will have to take some time to digest it some more, but I think we can gain some things that we can implement at Noelridge. Dr. Getz then had the second morning session, where he taught on the importance of godly leadership in the church. Nothing super profound, but still encouraging and challenging.

The music times here have been pretty decent so far. Don’t get me wrong, the band is quite good. I always have a little trouble not being critical with bands, I guess they stick out to me more because I’m the musician. They’ve had a good balance of both old and new music; at the second morning session we sang Matt Redmond’s Blessed Be Your Name and followed it up with It Is Well With My Soul. Nice. I wish the worship leader were a little less showy and a little more of a musician, but I get the feeling that it’s just style, not heart attitude, so I can look past it.

Richard and I are going to be slackers tonight; we’re going to a Cubs game. The Astros are in town and Roger Clemens is pitching. Now, that probably means that the Cubbies will lose, but then, what else is new? It will be a little chilly tonight, but should be a great time. I love Wrigley Field. It will be a good break from the fire hose.

Monday, May 23rd 3:30 PM

Richard picked me up at the house at 8:20 or so this morning. Said goodbye to Becky, Laura, and Becky’s parents and headed out to Chicago. We picked up Sam and John on the way and then traversed I-88 in a purple Chevy Blazer to get to Chicago.

It’s my first time at Moody and it’s an interesting campus. Land is obviously at a premium in downtown Chicago, so the campus feels a bit cramped. I’m sitting in the student center writing this, where I can view the registration area and various folks milling around, waiting for dinner and the start of the conference’s activites tonight. If only they had wi-fi access… I asked before I came and they said there was wi-fi in here, but I guess they were wrong. Or maybe they have it turned off… who knows? So, I guess I’ll have to resort to dial-up back in my room.

You can see the whole cross-section of evangelical church leadership just here in the student center. At the table next to me is a guy in jeans, a t-shirt, and a University of Wisconsin baseball cap. He looks typically midwestern. Across the room is a group of several black guys dressed to the nines - suits, ties, very slick. One of them is probably 5-9, 325, wearing a lime green pinstriped suit with the lapels turned up. Stylin’, I guess. Basic attire seems to be jeans and t-shirts, which is nicely relaxed for a pastor’s conference. I had a fleeting image of guys whose idea of “casual” dress was an open collar and loafers with their slacks and jacket… I am happy in that regard to have been (at least for now) proved wrong. Here next to me a few minutes ago was one Institute staff member talking with a few friends from out of town. They were discussing the latest Star Wars movie, so I tried to ignore them since I haven’t seen it, and won’t see it until our break on Wednesday. If I wasn’t going to the movie Wednesday, and if I’d brought my basketball shoes along, they’re having an organized 3-on-3 basketball tournament on Wednesday afternoon… that could be fun. Oh well, maybe next time I come.

We had a late lunch this afternoon at a goofy diner called Ed Debevic’s. The highlight of this place is the waitstaff that is intentionally rude to the diners. Our waitress was sullen, cynical, and had us nicknamed. Grey-haired Sam was “Pops”. John, the youth pastor was “Sparky”. I’m not sure she had a nickname for me - I guess I was beyond description. Our waitress was actually pretty tame compared to the other guy who was serving. There was a booth with two younger-ish women across and down from us a bit. At one point, they must have complained or something about their rootbeer float. So, the waiter grabs it off the table, carries it three booths away, sets it down, and yells at the top of his lungs, “Well how’s this, will you enjoy your rootbeer float better when it’s over here?” They weren’t quite sure how to respond. Once the waiter had left, a guy from a neighboring booth went over and returned the float to them - they were a bit too cowed to retrieve it themselves. Later, they made the mistake of asking for extra napkins. He walked away, shaking his head. Then, in a loud voice from behind the counter, he was laughing at top volume, and holding his head in his hands. “More napkins?!? For the love! More napkins?” Then they got their napkins.

Well it’s almost 4:00 now and the stream of men coming into the student center has continued uninterrupted. Across the way, Gene Getz, who is one of our general session speakers, is greeting some friends and mingling with the crowd. The Wisconsin fan is still sitting there, hasn’t moved or spoken since I sat down. Two guys behind me are discussing the future of Moody Broadcasting. Just another day in the big city. Dinner is in two shifts, and ours starts in half an hour. Like I need it after the cheese burger from Ed’s.

Wow, the day is getting long and it’s not even 1030 yet. I’m in a wrap-up mode at work; I’m taking vacation next week, and when I get back I’m transitioning to a new project, so I don’t really want to start on anything new. I had some prototype stuff to work on, but whenever I try to code-generate for it, the program blows up. (The code generator, not my program…) So, that’s going nowhere fast. I am sooooo not motivated to get stuff done. If I wasn’t burning a week of vacation next week, I’d take this afternoon off. But I can’t just keep burning vacation willy-nilly or I won’t have any left…

After work this afternoon I’m going to install the projector that you’ve heard so much about over the past weeks. Hopefully the long-throw lens will come today so I can actually test the whole thing out. But even if it doesn’t I’ll at least get the wiring and mounting done, and adding the lens will be trivial. I can’t wait to get it working…

Seeing as this is a very random post I’ll also note here that on our afternoon off from the pastor’s conference next week I have tickets to go see Star Wars Ep 3 on a digital projection screen. The picture quality for digital projection is supposed to be awesome… the two guys I’m going with saw Ep 2 there a few years ago and are still raving about it. I had thought about going to Wrigley and trying to pick up a ticket to see the Cubs, but I probably can’t afford that… so I’ll stick with Star Wars.

Well I guess I’ll have to find some more quasi-work to justify my time here until I can leave at 1500. Who knows, I may even post here again.