Engaged 08

Last weekend I went on Engage 08 with about 9 others from my church and about two and a half thousand other people. It was a great weekend to hang out with friends and catch up with old buddies. In total there were six talks, four from Driscoll and two from Carson.

Mark Driscoll talked from the book of John. He would go through a passage and then for the last twenty minutes he would then go on to talk about a theme that was touched on in the passage. Over all it was a good overview about Mark's main ideas about christian living, how religion sucks and that regeneration is good (John 3); worship (John 4); the church and Jesus on the cross (John 10). Mark also gave a Q&A session where he gave us a piece of his mind. Driscoll may of strayed more than Carson on the passage but he was passionate and has a gift of explaining complex things clearly.

Don Carson flew into the country the same Saturday that he was talking. He was great. If you ever get a chance to listen to him you should. He spoke on Matthew 11:1-19 and drilled into the meaning of verse 11 and what it means for Christians to be better than the prophets. His other talk on Psalm 40 (which I think was read out by Karen) dealt with the issue of suffering and God's glory. Instead of drawing abstract analogies to make his point, Carson would go to other bits in the bible to re-enforce the main passage as well as pulling out examples form his own life.

I'm already looking forward to Engage 09 as Matt Chandler (sermons here) will be speaking next year.

You can buy the talks here - $2 each (Driscoll's talk 3 is the Q&A Session and not really on the book of John)