ICOM, or How a Two-Day Conference Might Have Changed the Course of My Life

I just returned from a trip to Indianapolis to the International Conference on Missions.  It was a short two-day trip, and we only caught a couple main sessions and a few workshops, but my two days in Indy made a deeper impact than I imagined they could.  I went there expecting to get a lot of information thrown at me, to take a lot of notes, and to have intellectual fodder for the next week or two.  I came back with plenty of notes, but few of them were of the outline type.  Instead, my notebook (and whatever scraps of paper I had with me at the time) is filled with notes to myself, what if statements, questions and challenges that struck me deeply, evidences of my heart being really truly moved.  God opened my eyes to things and put me in conversations that I didn't expect and that may have a greater influence than I realize now.  And, to be honest, I didn't really expect that kind of an impact from a two-day foray into the world of the missionary.

My expectations were low enough that I almost didn't go.  I had friends coming to WMU from the east side of the state, there were real, home-cooked dinners and football games planned for the whole of the weekend, there was a race at the University (and after my first 5K a month ago, I've been looking forward to the next one); and if I hadn't signed up for the Conference before I'd heard about all of that, I probably wouldn't have gone.  A week ago I almost decided that the measly $10 investment wasn't worth keeping myself from old friends and a weekend without stress or obligation and that I would skip it entirely.  Thank God I didn't let that thinking keep me away.

I honestly think that the spiritual forces of darkness that Paul talks about wanted to keep us away from Indy. Our GPS went haywire on our way down, putting us on pseudo-highways the whole way, and the coolant in the van got so hot that we had to stop and get it checked out.  There was talk of turning around before Mechanic Tim said the car would be fine as long as we kept an eye on the temperature, and all the while I secretly hoped that we would.  We eventually moved on, only after stopping at Chick-Fil-A.  (My first Chick-Fil-A sandwich in over a year was a truly beautiful thing, and I splurged more than I should have.  But if a past employee who had a meal every time he went in to work still likes the food, the splurge must have been worth it.)  We prayed, and we made it safely, but I have a hunch that all of our setbacks weren't entirely coincidental.

The conference wasn't simply some spiritual high, either.  It's been a while since I've had that kind of experience, anyway, but I remember how it feels.  The lightness of being and the Spirit-led (or, perhaps, emotionally-driven-but-more-or-less-unsubstantiated) worship wasn't what characterized the weekend for me.  There was no real mountaintop here.  There was a weight, a gravity, a realization of the darker parts of humanity and of the need for change, for a passionate pursuit of justice and love for all people; there was a new, heavy understanding of what it might mean to follow Jesus in my own life, that I cannot waste my time in the frills of life when there are more real things to deal with; there was a feeling that my life might actually be of use in a deeper purpose, that I might be especially suited for something that I had hardly put thought into before and that a commitment to such a purpose would require sacrifice but lead to more good than I could ever have otherwise.  It was not a weekend to make me look past my own shortcomings and to understand God's love for me, though these are good and admirable things.  And, though maybe I'm speaking too soon, I don't think it was one to be experienced and then soon left to fade into distant memory. If I don't wrestle with this weekend for some time, I will be doing it a terrible injustice.

Nor was it a Conference at which I enjoyed every moment.  To be honest--and my apologies to anyone that might have been involved and to anyone who ever has been, is, or will be involved in something like it--I couldn't stand the worship.  Not because they were bad songs (they were probably more solid lyrically than any that would have been sung at a similar conference elsewhere) or because the leaders were terrible musicians (they had obviously put a lot of effort, practice, and polish into the songs they played), but because it all seemed so terribly manufactured.  And because the whole thing sounded as if it had come from a quarter-century ago.  Between the plastered-on smiles, the extremely white choir, clapping and swaying in unison, and the instrumentation that sounded as if it was taken directly from a bad church choir accompaniment track, I was lost from the first chorus.  The whole first night I couldn't hardly make myself sing along (let alone clap at the end of a song), and I struggled through much of the next morning.  When the music brings to mind big hair-dos, sequins, and Sandi Patti cassettes, I think it's time to ditch the trumpets and six of the lead vocalists and stop being so distracting.  But perhaps this is just me trying to recover from too many listens of "We Shall Behold Him" in the car as a child.

But the corporate worship (well, really the whole of Friday evening's main session) was by far the least helpful for me of the weekend.  And by that, I mean that everything else was really far more valuable than I imagined it would be.  I was truly encouraged to hear a speaker say that our primary responsibility as Christians and as leaders is not to know everything there is to know or to put on the best programs, but to be close to God and to have character and passion.  I was heartbroken and convicted when I realized that I did nothing to help the cause of the less fortunate, and that millions of children are sold into slavery and prostitution every year; disturbed that the words of Isaiah echoed by Jesus and James about God's people being about justice for the oppressed and care for the weak were so ignored by American Christians and, more immediately, by me.  I was reminded over and over again to remember what the important things are: that God has redeemed his people, that we have the pleasure and responsibility to live as salt and light for him, that it is his job to convict and to judge and ours to love, that our work should be selfless and should always point to him and the saving work he did by sacrificing his Son, that sin and bondage has no hold over those that are called the sons and daughters of God.  I was reminded of the gospel in all of its elegant simplicity, and that our response to it ought to be simple and radical and beautiful.

There were a few times that I wasn't being talked at, though, and in a moment of unexpected boldness in between sessions as I walked through the many information booths, I talked to a student at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics.  I think it was probably a God-ordained appointment, and though I don't know what might come of it, I know that I'm now in contact with both GIAL and Pioneer Bible Translators.  Whether or not I'll spend the rest of my life translating Bibles to unreached people groups, I can't yet say, but I know that few opportunities, perhaps none, have ever seemed such a natural fit for me as a position with Pioneer or some other translator.  Could I really use linguistics not only for a career, but as a mission?  Is there actually a way to combine a love for language with a love for people and culture and a love for God?  These are questions that I'm going to be preoccupied with for some time.  And maybe graduate school is not such an impossibility after all.

Almost everything about the weekend was fantastic.  I heard incredible talks, I traveled with some of the best people on the planet, we were hosted by one of the most wonderfully and genuinely hospitable couples I have ever met, I had one of the best Chinese meals I've ever had; but I'm coming away with more than just good memories and some thoughts to mull over.  God had a reason for getting me to Indianapolis in spite of all the obstacles, and he may just have shown me the direction of the rest of my life this weekend.  I have never been as excited about a "career" as I am right now, and whatever that means, I know that God is stirring something inside of my heart.  There are people that need to know Jesus.  There are people that need freedom from bondage and the joy and peace of Love.  And there are people here in America that need to get over themselves and their aspirations for comfort and reach for something that is greater than the dream of retiring in Florida.  Why would I not want to be a part of something bigger than khaki golf shorts and iced tea?

The recruiter for Pioneer said that by 2050, if we work tirelessly, it is possible for almost every people group in the world to have the word of God, the gospel, the hope of salvation, available in print in their own language.  How wonderful would it be to be a part of that?