Passing on the Faith

Have you ever come away from a movie where you laughed, cried, “met” new people, learned new things, were challenged to rethink some ideas, and—most importantly—didn’t sleep? Envision such a movie…that was what you would call an “amazing movie,” right? This past weekend Papa, Mama, Lauren, Melanie, and I volunteered at the 4th annual Christian Heritage Family Discipleship and Homeschooling Conference of Washington state. And let me tell you, we laughed, we cried, we met new people, we learned new things, we were challenged to rethink some ideas, and we definitely didn’t sleep. ;-) This was certainly a magnificent conference. Unfortunately, with Mama helping out at registration all weekend, Dad serving as “room host” (keeping his room session-ready and introducing the speaker), Mel working in the Vendor Hall, and Lauren and I running the Bradrick family’s booth, none of us really thought about taking pictures to document the event, so you will have to rely on my ability to paint pictures with words (we hope).
This conference I speak of (see here for more information) is held in Redmond, WA; this year’s speakers were Voddie Baucham as the keynote speaker, the Scott Brown family and Mike Riddle as featured speakers, and many other top-notch Christians teaching workshops as well. Praise God with me for the continued success of this conference (many hundreds more people attended this year than last), and if you live in the area, please consider coming next year (April 22-24, 2010); Lord willing, I’ll be there!
Although I wasn’t able to attend all of the sessions due to my volunteering responsibilities, Dr. Baucham’s were definitely my favorites. I thoroughly enjoyed all of Dr. Baucham’s sessions as well as catching up with him since the last time I saw him, when my family and I met him for dinner in Portland last summer. In one masterful sermon, “The Culture War: Passing on Faith in a Faithless World,” he first presented the elements of a worldview, and then expounded on the two warring worldviews (Christian Theism and Secular Humanism).
Singing in the chorale with over 100 other young people was amazing (without fail, every year someone comes up to me and tells me that we made him or her cry ;-). We somehow mastered and confidently sang arrangements of “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”; “Our Hope for Years to Come”; “Hallelujah” (by Beethoven); and “Keep Your Lamps” (a spiritual) after only four short practice sessions. This was only possible because of our inimitable director, Mr. Neil Craig who somehow manages to teach the advanced singers something new while teaching the beginning singers how to sing while keeping everyone focused while regaling us with his zany humor!
There’s so much more I want to tell you about (family night…special music performances…) that I can’t possibly fit into a sensibly-sized post. Thus I am forced to conclude that the only possible way for you to truly understand the magnificence and inspiration of this event is to charge you firmly and sternly to attend if at all possible next year. Until then!

All pictures taken from christianheritageonline.org except for the chart (made by me) and the last two pictures, which were taken by my sister, Melanie.