C3 Day Two, Part 1

Day two of C3 continued to blow away our expectations. It was a little bit rougher than that first night because after been up for two days in a row, a few hours of sleep wasn’t nearly enough to feel refreshed. We were beat. So getting up that morning and going to the camp shower (where there was only one room so the other had to wait in the car) was not the most fun we had all weekend. Oh, did I mention that the mornings in Texas were freezing and windy like a hurricane? Yeah, they were.

*I forgot something from the first night so let’s time warp for a moment back to then. The only other time I have been to Texas was for my friend Tex’s graduation. While visiting he took me to a fast food chain that I fell in love with, “Whataburger.” They are open 24 hours, dining room included, and at the time they had a burger that was made with A1 sauce… what more could I hope for? So the entire trip I had been telling Waffle about how we needed to go to Whataburger and have an A1 burger… I was jonesing for it real bad. While we were on the road, the last 5 or so hours of our drive we started seeing them everywhere. Every time I saw one I would point it out; I couldn’t wait to taste that delicious A1-edness.

As get into Grapevine and approach our campsite, we notice that there is a Whataburger literally within 1 mile from where we are staying. Since putting up the tent was such an ordeal and since we had spent all day in the car we decided to splurge and grab a bite down the street before going to C3. What a mistake. So, we must have been staying on the street that divides the Grapevine economic classes because the Whataburger was one of the most ghetto places I have even been in my life. This was crazy to me because it is 2 blocks down the road from a Great Wolf Lodge which is 1 block away from a super ritzy spa, which is another block away from a huge mall area… how we stepped into poverty in one block I don’t know but we did… perhaps it was a worm hole. We go in (remember, I was super excited) and the first thing we notice is that the décor was a bit messy and the place was fairly empty. Ok, this one does look like one of their older stores so that’s forgivable, plus we were a little early for the dinner rush.

When we step up to the counter, the second thing we notice is that nobody is speaking English. Well, not real English anyway. The cashier is Pakistani, the lady at the drive-through is African, there was a Hispanic working in the back and a Texas redneck who seemed to speak English just as well as everyone else. When I step up to the register to order, I ask about the A1 burger because I don’t see it up on the screen. Apparently it was a special they had, not a regular item. At that point I should have left. Needless to say, it took far too long, there were too many communication problems to count, the whole experience was uber-sketchy, my fries were cold, and we got a good (but also depressing) laugh out of the whole ordeal.*

Now back to day two. We made our way over to the church and were greeted by the exact same energetic people in the morning as we were the night before. One of the things that was discussed at the conference is how a church should want volunteers that are fully committed to the cause of the church and those greeters certainly were that. We walked in and were looking at seats over in the side area where we sat the night before but an usher found us and said that if we wanted to do things right we needed to sit in the middle. He managed to find us two seats which were indeed a huge improvement to where we were the night before.

When the lights went down and the music came up one of the singers was on the front of the stage holding signs that had the words of the song. As he would get to the end of a line he would throw the sign on top across the stage. They had strobe lights on and the whole experience was super cool. The rest of the group came out and we sang a few praise songs before Ed young got on stage. It was a great way to wake up in the morning.

Ed ran two sessions that morning, the first of which was titled “Crazy Pills.” They passed prescription pads out to all of us as we came in which was a really nifty tie-in I thought. He talked about how there are crazy people and there are good crazy people, the kind you want to be spending time with. Satan, though, manages to surround us with crazy people that take up most of our time and don’t ever change. If we want to meet the good crazy people we have to push through the actual crazy people. Pastors spend the majority of their time dealing with crazy people that won’t ever change.

In that session he said “one thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.” He talked about Daniel 5 and how Belshazzar didn’t learn from Nebuchadnezzar. His pride got in the way and he didn’t listen to God or to Daniel and unlike Nebuchadnezzar who had years to change, Belshazzar was given one day because he should know better because of the history. He doesn’t learn and Darius comes in and doesn’t listen to God and doesn’t talk to Daniel… the pattern continues.

Then he came to something that hit me pretty hard. He pointed out that in Daniel 6:11 the administrators went to Darius as a group. The majority, he said, is usually wrong. In fact, every time that people voted in the Bible they were outside of God’s will. Read that again because it’s important. In verse 6:13 it says that “Then they said to the king…” Who are they? What do they matter? Eventually though, those that tried to throw Daniel to the lions became lion bate… remember that our God is all-powerful and is faithful when we follow Him, even in the face of opposition.

The second session by Ed Young was geared even more specifically toward pastors but I’ll give just a brief overview. He was talking about depression and pastoral ministry, how pastors do and will become depressed at some point in their ministry. He used Elijah as an example when, after “fighting” with the other priests and God lighting his alter, and then after outrunning a chariot, Elijah went into a deep depression. Ed referred to this as the “Holy Hangover.” Many pastors experience this every week; some call it the Monday Morning Hangover but they experience it none-the-less. Ed gave a great example of what it feels like. He said that preparing your sermon and doing all of the study and work each week is like being pregnant but on Sunday you get to give birth. Sunday is usually great; you’re on a Holy High. But when you wake up on Monday, it’s like finding out you’re pregnant again.

He gave some scary statistics, especially for someone who is just on the forefront of ministry. 80% of pastors believe that pastoral ministry has a negative effect on their family. 75% have had a personal crisis. The clergy has the 2nd highest divorce rate among professions. And 70% of pastors don’t have anyone they would consider a close friend. These statistics frighten me. I can only pray that I don’t become one of them.

His overall point was that we need to be aware that the holy hangover will come and that we need to be prepared to deal with it. He drew a graph that illustrated his energy level over time and while it may start at 100%, after the first hangover it drops to 50% to then jump back up as he gets excited for the next week. But it doesn’t get all the back up to 100, this time it only goes to 95%. When it drops it might drop to 45 and so on until you have to take a mental health vacation to bring it back up. It all makes a lot of sense to me because camp is the same way. He also encouraged the audience not to make decisions when suffering from a holy hangover because it’s then that we make really bad decisions or lash out in frustration, anger, etc.

I am going to stop here because I have already written much more than I intended. I am writing just about as much as I can remember both for those of you who want to hear it but also for my future self to look back and check it out. I will hopefully post part 2 of day 2 very shortly. I hope that you are having an incredible, God-filled and God-inspired day. Let Him lead you and you will never fail.