C3 Day One... Finally

Well, as promised, I am finally getting around to telling you all about the wonderful C3. So, I think that the easiest way for me to explain everything is to split it up into the days that we were there. That means this is the first of three installments. It is very tricky to explain everything that we experienced because the things that were the most influential are the hardest things to recreate into words. The worship was amazing and it is easier to explain than the many wonderful speeches we heard. They were so influential that it is impossible to recapture and share it. But I'm going to try my best.

Before I get to that though, let me tell you a bit about the trip to Texas. Due to some scheduling conflicts, what was going to be a two-day trip ended up being a one-day, straight drive. Waffle (my brother-in-law) and I left my apartment at midnight on Tuesday night and drove 17 hours arriving in Grapevine, TX, just outside of Dallas, at about 4 o'clock (TX time). We got to our campsite and decided it would be best to set up camp before the evening C3 session so we proceeded to put up our tent. Now, I can't speak for all of Texas but the two hemispheres of it that I have visited (Dallas and Midland) are stinking windy. I swear we put up our tent in 30 mph winds. It took one of us to hold the tent at all times while the other worked at setting it up. To make our lives more difficult, it turned out that we were staying on a concrete slab surrounded by rocks... have you tried to spike a tent down into a rock bed? When all was said and done, half of our tent was nailed down while the other half was tied to various trees. It was sketchy.

Praying that we would have a home to return to that evening, Waffle and I drove the painfully long 3 miles to get to Fellowship Church, the host of the event. When we turned down the road to the church we were met by an army of people directing us where to park. As we got out of the car and were about to walk in, Waffle realized that he had left his keys in the ignition and the car was still running. Thankfully he hadn't locked the doors so we were able to get in but we shared a moment of panic as we didn't want to be stuck in Texas, locked out of our car which, upon getting into, would have run out of gas.

On our way up to check-in we were very warmly welcomed by a slew of greeters. It didn't feel like we could walk 100 feet without being given a handshake or high-five. It sounds like it would be obnoxious and if the greeters were not sincere it would have been, but as they were genuine it was really nice. When we got to front door we had to go through registration. They simply asked for the name of our organization (because I am a student I got a discount and I payed for Waffle so we were listed under "Liberty") As the girl flipped to that page I gasped as I noticed that we were right above Lifechurch.tv on the list. For those of you who don't know, Craig Groeschel is one of my biggest pastor/ man crushes. I have the greatest respect for him and the fact that he was speaking at the conference was part of my motivation for going (his church is in Oklahoma).

We were both given little cloth backpacks that have some cool booklets, a pencil, and a puzzle game in them. It was wonderful having those because I didn't have anything to carry all of my stuff in that wasn't already packed with other, well, stuff. We approach the doors and wander around looking for a seat. The night sessions at C3 are open to the public but the front section of seats are reserved for attendees. We make our down the right side and find a seat right next to the mini-stage. It was really cool because while people were filing in there was a band playing some really awesome music right next to us.

So, when the night started, I got chills and had to fight back tears. The lights turned down low and a video popped up on the 3 screens. It was a video of a guy in military drab standing in a field of wheat. “The world is dying and will one more song, one more skit, one more small group, concert or conference change anything? That’s up to you.”

BOOM!

The lights blazed on and from just about everywhere an army of singers descended on the crowd. From the back doors came the choir, all dressed up in military-esque drab, being led by two big marching band drums. Along the left and right balcony appeared people dressed all in white, singing like a band of angels. The band and praise team came down from the front of the stage… as if all of that wasn’t crazy enough, on the front corners of the stage were two big blue barrel drums that had glitter on the top. Have you seen the Blue Man Group? There were people dressed in white from head to toe that pounded on the tops of those barrels so glitter was flying everywhere. From waiting in the seats looking around and being blown away at the size of things to 1 minute into C3 starting, our excitement level leapt from 7 to about 9,000. Talk about sensory overload. It was awesome.

After a decent worship session the host, Ed Young Jr. and his wife came up and welcome the first speaker to the stage, Jentezen Franklin. I had never heard of him but he is the pastor of Free Chapel in GA and CA. He was so nervous because it was his first time speaking at C3 but he did a great job. He talked about how we need to restore mercy into our churches. He used the Ark of the Covenant as an example, how the angels on the top are touching wings but that they aren’t looking each other in the eye but are instead looking down at the mercy seat. As the universal church we need bring mercy back into focus… God is merciful; we have no right not to be.

The second person to speak that night was Christine Caine from Hillsong in Australia. She is a phenomenal speaker (which makes sense since she spends almost all of her time on the road speaking) so even though I didn’t know her beforehand I am glad she was there. I wish that I had my notebook that night (I left it in the car) but there were two things she said that night that really hit me. She talked about how as Christians we like to see ourselves as being in the world but set apart from it, which is Biblical, but we take it to the extreme. We have done such a good job of being apart from the world that we’re no longer in it. Many of us even see the “world” as something discusting that we must shy away from… not true! If we are to be effective at acting out Christ’s cause (notice, it’s His cause, not ours) then we can’t do it without getting dirty! We can’t be afraid to surround ourselves with the filth of the world because if we don’t, they will never see light. The other thing she said that if the estimated 2 billion Christians in the world put forth their full effort to evangelizing, we could have the job done in three days. How amazing would that be? If we all put forth our lives and efforts to reaching people for Christ, we could do it and Christ could come back because it would be finished.

All-in-all, first impressions were great. (Since I’m writing this so late I can tell you that the whole thing was great). I am dedicating myself to write more often now, so hopefully the new update will be here in a day or two. I hope everyone is doing well and I want to say hello to my two new faithful readers, Anna and Erika. Hey guys, good luck on your midterm.