Memorial Day weekend found us heading south to the Kansas City area for the Vessels of Honor conference. Sara and I went two years ago and this year Abigail was able to come as well. Vessels of Honor is a young people’s conference where there are challenging messages and much fellowship.

This year Randy Amos, Scott Degroff, and Mike Attwood were the main speakers, and the theme of the conference was “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth.”

Randy Amos speaking

I really can’t begin to share everything we learned from the Word of God this weekend! It was such a rich time. But here’s a few things anyways.

Randy Amos spoke on the church–what God’s plan is for us and the fact that we are the bride of Christ. As His bride we need to keep ourselves pure for Him and have a single heart for Him.

Scott Degroff challenged us from Romans 13:11-14 to wake up–to rise from a lying position; to cast off the works of darkness, at once and once for all; to put on the armor of light; and to make no provision for the flesh. He emphasized that many of us who are saved eternally need to be saved now–from sin, from a lethargic, non-aggressive, lazy Christian life. We don’t know how much time we have on earth, so we need to wake up and redeem the time.

Mike Attwood shared from Song of Solomon. He showed many parallels between the relationship portrayed in that book and our relationship with Jesus, our heavenly Bridegroom. The more we are captivated with our Savior, the things that used to thrill us won’t be so captivating. Satisfaction comes in a love relationship with our heavenly Bridegroom. Mr. Attwood challenged us: in order to be effective for Jesus, fall in love with Him.

In between main sessions there were a variety of breakout sessions we could choose from to attend. Probably the most challenging to me was Josh Lindamood speaking about what it means to follow Jesus. The spoken words of Jesus recorded in the gospels somehow are not always emphasized as much as the epistles are, yet as His followers we are to do everything He commands us. Sometimes we place more importance on things that make us feel spiritual rather than on trying to obey Jesus. Mr. Lindamood cautioned us to beware lest our zeal go towards the wrong target. Jesus commands us to love God and to love our neighbor. What would our lives look like if we really obeyed Jesus’ commands?

Josh Lindamood’s session

There was a lot of sitting time…which was a good thing, because that was when we heard God’s Word. So since there was a lot of sitting, it was also a good thing we had to climb these……multiple times a day (including to get to the cafeteria).

Some other highlights of the weekend were times of prayer, seeing and making new friends, singing with our brothers and sisters, and being able to participate in an outreach.

singing in the main sessions

a hymn sing in the old church building

friends…

…friends…

…and more friends!

praying before the outreach

There were a few rather healthy-looking cats running around the campus during the weekend. We happened to discover an afternoon napping location of theirs one day while we were out walking.

and this is not where the cats were…but it was a beautiful building

It rained a fair amount during the weekend, but by the last day the sun had come out and probably helped to re-energize us a bit. It was a wonderful weekend of fellowship and teaching…we are looking forward to next year!

rain-washed roses

But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.

2 Timothy 2:20-21