deeper still conference

I have a lot to write about, so I think I’ll break it up into parts. I’ll start with a general run down of everything and maybe a few opinions here and there. I’d like to write about a few personal things a little later though.

Thursday through Sunday I flew to Atlanta, Georgia. I met a group of ladies that I’ve known online for a long time. We’re a part of a slightly larger group of women who fellowship together, so this was awesome getting to meet them in real life. We stayed at the home of one of the ladies because she lives in Atlanta– we’ll call her N. The other girls, M and A, are from North and South Carolina, and of course, I am from Missouri. We all went to the Deeper Still conference– a conference with 19,000 women. Insane! On Thursday, I also went to the Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta with N to see Much Ado About Nothing.

The ladies were absolutely wonderful and the I wish that I got a bit more time for just chatting and visiting.

Yesterday, I met another online friend of mine and his wife from Pennsylvania. We tried to meet once before, but it never panned out. He was traveling and going through our area. We did lunch and chatted and it was really great. They were very down to earth, nice, normal people– actually quite refreshing. I enjoyed it. Husband enjoyed it as well, because the guy is geeky like him!

So, like I said, I came down a day earlier than the other two girls and N and I and two of her real life friends went to the Shakespeare Tavern. This play is a comedy and the whole experience was truly amazing and hysterical and if you ever get the chance, I recommend going. It is a British style pub and in true Shakespeare fashion, with the lights not dimmed (well, they didn’t have lights then, but ya know) and interaction with the audience. So, imagine the audience laughing a bit longer than usual and an actor trying to come on stage and then starting to do the whole tapping-the-foot-impatient-thing. I think I need to go read the play again– it would definitely be from a new perspective. I’m actually surprised I remember anything, well, and stayed awake, because I was a mess from being so exhausted.

Now, the conference… It was three speakers– Priscilla Shirer, Kay Arthur, and Beth Moore– a praise band that travels around with Beth Moore, and Mandisa, who used to sing in that praise band and was on season 5 of American Idol. (I had no idea who she was before Friday though, because I don’t watch American Idol — oops!)

Ok, so, I’m still thinking over it all. I have so many mixed emotions, but here are my first impressions and thoughts at the moment. I definitely did get good out of it and I definitely enjoyed Priscilla the best– it wasn’t just the humor, though her humor and laugh are contagious and she can captivate an audience, but it was her style. She definitely had more meat, more depth, and peppered it with a contagious laugh and sense of humor. She is an expository preacher, which means she takes a particular passage and interprets/expands upon it, as opposed to picking a particular topic and finding Scripture to match it. Kay and Beth are more topical. At the best I don’t care for topical preaching, personally, and at the worst, I don’t find it particularly Biblical.

With that said, I admire Kay Arthur’s ability to just know Scripture and use it so readily, and I admire Beth Moore’s sense of passion and genuine faith.

Even though I heard a lot of people say wonderful things about Kay’s message, I was not impressed. She even “warned” us that she would be giving a “hard” message. However, I didn’t care for the way she used her platform for politics, nor did I much care about the same old topics of homosexuality and abortion. Nor did she say anything I haven’t heard before. I would be interested to find a copy of her speech again to see some of the facts and figures she quoted– she wasn’t particularly enlightening, but her facts would be good to find and repeat.

Beth is more practical oriented– daily life, daily emotions. She is more typical of what I am used to hearing from most women speakers, so I don’t think I was blown away, but she did say things here and there that were pretty darn good. It was the first time I’ve ever really had an experience with Beth Moore and I was pleasantly surprised, because the little experience I had with her in the past, I didn’t agree with her; I thought she was superificial in terms of how far she got into Scripture. And, I’m a bit of a snot and tend to go into this style of preaching with a bad attitude. However, I didn’t get that impression this weekend. I apparently own two books of hers, ha! so I think I’m going to take a look at them. (And, I just ordered one from Priscilla too.)

There was a panel discussion with all three ladies and they answered questions given to them previously (I guess) by some people in the audience. I have to be honest and say that I was severely disappointed in this section of the event. They have a neat chemistry between them and I laughed a lot but, it had the potential to be so much more. The very few God-oriented questions were weak and shallow and rest of the discussion was about clothing, tanning and hair products. Ugh! Not only do I NOT care about how Beth gets her hair the way she does, but I do not think it matters at all, period, nada.

The worship and Mandisa… The praise band was okay. I don’t if it was because I didn’t know most of the songs or what, but I was a bit bored. Mandisa, though, I loved her. She is very genuine and beautiful. She sang a few songs and gave a mini-testimony of sorts. She told a really good story about forgiveness regarding being on American Idol and Simon (ha). Perhaps I’ll expand upon this later, because I enjoyed it.

So, there’s my mini-critique, lol. I intend on writing a few more personal things about some of the actual things that were said, though I still need to put them together in my mind.

I’m thoroughly exhausted. I slept an insane amount last night, but I still am tired. So, I think I’m going to end this for now, but I’ll continue later.