The Elephant Room Round 2: Initial thoughts

Nice logo design by the way.

I was at Grace Church of Eden Prairie for the majority of the day today, watching a live simulcast of The Elephant Room Round 2. I'm so glad I took the day off from work and went, because it was so edifying. I was surprised, convicted, encouraged. I jotted down so many amazing quotes from all the speakers, but especially T.D. Jakes. I actually went because I listen to Mark Driscoll's sermons regularly, but T.D. Jakes is the one who really made me think today. Man, does that guy have a lot of insight and wisdom! He throws out these one liners that encapsulate what would take another preacher paragraphs. I really hadn't heard him speak before, beyond seeing him briefly on TBN when channel flipping. He just blew my mind with the truth he spoke. It's not like it was anything new to me, but just the way he worded it made me see things in a new light.

Bishop T.D. Jakes pwned it today.

One of his quotes that stuck out to me the most was when he was discussing race and segregation in the church: "You can't integrate the church until you've integrated your heart." I mean, just think about that. It gets right to the crux of the issue--it's not about out there, what we need to do as a church or culture...it starts with one person: me and the state of my heart. Convicting and encouraging: I can't point fingers, I have to work on myself, but at the same time, all I have to worry about is one person and not what everybody else is thinking and doing.

And that's just from ONE sentence from one of the seven pastors that participated! There's so much that I took in today, I'm going to have to let it marinate for a few days and process it all. I'm going to break my thoughts into multiple blogs, because there was so much I gleaned from this conference. I jotted down a lot of great quotes, which I will use as a spring board to further the discussion I got to listen to today. And I'm sure they'll be posting video clips again this year, so I'll try to find those to share with you as well.

The biggest thing I took away from The Elephant Room, beyond all the different issues and questions, is that as Christians we need to be able to sit down together and discuss issues that we disagree on and still love each other at the end of it. If Mark Driscoll and T.D. Jakes can debate and learn from each other, the rest of us can too.