Resolved 2008 Recap

So it's been a week since I was at the Resolved Conference, and I'm just now getting to write about it. It could be that my church had our very first service in our new building in the Valencia Industrial Center, and there was about 1,ooo,ooo,oo1 things to do to make that happen. It was a great morning, and I may write about it separately, or on my church worship blog, but for now, here's what went down at Resolved:

Jess and I arrived in Palm Springs on Thursday, and ended up hanging out with my parents most of the afternoon and evening. They had been there the previous week for vacation, so it was nice to spend a little time with them. We ate at a great seafood restaurant, and walked around the street fair downtown.

John Martin (worship leader) gathered us all in his room and gave us the coolest thank-you gifts, including a copy of the new CD they had recorded for the conference under the name Enfield: "O For That Day," a totally custom-made leather-bound music notation/sheet music folder, and an extremely generous honorarium.

The next day we got all set up and rehearsed for the better part of the day. Stage setup had gotten put on hold due to some "fire safety issues" and so we were a little behind schedule with a lot to do before the first session that night.

Basically the following days looked a lot like this:
-7:30 am call time for sound check/ rehearsal
-9:00 session 1
-11:00 session 2
-1:30 lunch
-2:30-4:30 relax by the pool, try to catch a quick nap
-4:45 call time followed by quick dinner
-6:00 session 3
-8:00 session 4
-10:00 unwind and hit the bed

Jess got a little more well-deserved relaxation time, and she spent a lot of it by the pool with a book. She did start a new online grad. course that she had to work on, but all in all, we both were able to rest a little.

The sessions were focused on "Heaven and Hell" and the speakers included:
-John MacArthur
-Rick Holland
-Randy Alcorn (who quite literally wrote THE book on heaven)
-Steve Lawson
-C.J. Mahaney
-John Piper

Five speakers who each delivered two sermons made for a LOT of sermons, and it took some discipline to make it through them towards the end, but all of those guys are tremendous teachers, and they really challenged me in how I think about heaven, and what means for me as I live life presently.

The worship sets went really well, lots of great music, lots of new songs, lots of congregational participation; it was so great to look out from the stage and see 3,000 people singing together!

Here are some videos from the worship times:
"Eternal Praise"


"Here Am I"


"O For That Day"


"Finally Home"


"Anchored"


So yeah, that's the gist of what went on last weekend; check out Lukas Van Dyke's photos from the weekend HERE.